Field of Blood by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page B

killers
    ... and so damned ordinary.
    His thumb was close to the safety catch of his rifle, and his fingers rested hard against the trigger guard.
    They stood beside the church wall. His legs were tight, stiff muscled, as if the walls across the deserted narrow Regent Street had been a bloody marathon. He
    hadn't seen the dog mess that he'd walked through, smeared. Shit, and he was
    naked. One of the men stood in front of him and was able to see down Clifton Street to the place where the slip road came off the Westlink. The other man was
    behind McAnally, sheltering the loaded launcher against his legs. Five past nine in
    the morning, bloody daylight, out in the open for any shit to see. Out in the open
    and squeezing his bladder back into his bloody stomach. The Court House with all
    its armed peelers was a quarter of a mile up the Crumlin from the roundabout.
    The gaol with all its armed squaddy Brits was a quarter of a mile up the road. The
    North Queen Street R.U.C. station was three hundred yards to the north. It was
    still suicide ...
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    The man in front of him raised his hand, hesitated for •a moment, dropped it smacking against his thigh.
    McAnally's hand snaked behind him. He gripped the launcher. He pressed it against his leg and stomach. He took the pace forward. `Make it fucking count . .
    .'
    `Fuck off behind me.'
    He stood at the corner.
    He saw the black Rover eighty yards from him. He saw the face of the driver, and
    of the front passenger. He saw the pale blur of a head against the back seat. He
    saw the headlights of the back‐up car. His mouth was set, his face was contorted
    as 'if in rage. He thought, just the right bloody weather, peeing rain, and the 'tecs in the back‐up have the windows up . . . can't shoot out ... because the 'tecs would see him, see him as soon as he took the last step forward and heaved the
    launcher onto his shoulder.
    The Rover was up to the roundabout, slewing left. Thirty yards. He saw the red
    flash of the brake lights. He didn't look any more for the back‐up car. He drew air
    down into his lungs. The launcher was on his shoulder. The V of the rear sight and
    the leaf of the forward sight were locked onto the back window of the Rover.
    Twenty yards. His finger found the chill metal of the trigger. He thought he might
    piss himself. He squeezed the trigger.
    Fucking judge, fucking bastard. He saw the bald crown of the target's head silhouetted in the back window.
    He felt the shuddering jolt that tore at his shoulder bones. He felt the hot air blast that flared back from the church wall. He felt the bitter smoke smell at his nose.
    He felt the thunder of the impact of the projectile with its armour‐piercing high
    explosive warhead against the window of the Rover.
    A catastrophe of noise burned in McAnally's ears.
    He turned. He was running for his life along the side of the church wall. An arm
    tugged at his, half‐halted him. The launcher was snatched from his grasp.
    Momentarily he saw the face of a boy he had never seen before. As he reached
    the car he saw the boy and the launcher disappear in a headlong scramble over
    the wall and into the backyards of the Unity flats.
    The car doors were open. The driver was nudging forward. The man who had given the signal dived for the front passenger seat. The man who had held the launcher for McAnally now shoved him hard into the back, across the seat. •
    The car was skidding, spinning, ripping at the waste‐ground earth, before the tyres gripped.
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    They went the wrong way round the circus. McAnally lay face down on the seat.
    They went down Clifton Street and surged hard and screamed right for the slip
    road and the Westlink.
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    37
    **They were half way along Divis Street, past the Library and the Baths when they had heard the explosion. If it had been a closed landrover they might not have heard the distant, thudding report. All ears were cocked. The smoke‐grimed
    pigeons wheeled squawking to the north.
    Àbout