Harry's Game by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page A

sharing his RAF plane back to Belfast, left the room.

    The Prime Minister waited for the door to close, and the angry footsteps to hasten down the corridor.

    25

    'They're free enough with advice when they want us to play round with political initiatives, but the moment we come up with a suggestion ... That's the way it's always been. I've had four generals in my time at Downing Street telling me it's all about over, that the Provisionals are beaten, that they're finished. They reel off the statistics. How many sticks of gelignite they've found, how many rifles, how many houses have been searched, how the back of the opposition is broken. I've heard it too often‐‐too often to be satisfied with it.'

    His eyes ranged up the shining mahogany table, along the line of embarrassed faces till they locked on to the Minister of Defence.

    'Your people have the wherewithal for this sort of thing. Get it set up please, and controlled from this end. If our friend the General doesn't like it, then he won't have to worry himself.'

    That afternoon in an upper room above a newsagent's shop near the main square in Clones, just over the border in County Monaghan, half of the twelve‐man Army Council of the Provisional IRA met to consider the operation mounted two days earlier in London. Initially there was some anger that the killing had not been discussed by all members in committee, as was normal. But the Chief of Staff, a distant, intense man with deep eyes and a reputation for success in pulling the movement together, glossed over the troubles. He emphasized that now the shooting had taken place, the priority in the movement was to keep the man safe.
    Unknowingly he echoed the British Prime Minister five hundred miles away in Whitehall when he said, "Every day we keep the man free is a victory. Right? They wanted to pull two battalions out next month; how can they when they can't find one man? We have to keep him moving and keep him close. He's a good man, he won't give himself away. But at all costs we have to keep their hands off him. He's better dead than in Long Kesh.'

    It was getting dark when the RAF Comet took off from Temple hof airport, Berlin, with its three passengers. Half‐way back and sitting in an aisle seat Harry still felt bewildered. Two hours earlier he had been called to the Brigade commander's office at HQ under the shadow of the old Nazi Olympic stadium, and instructed he was going to London on urgent military business. He was told he wouldn't need to go home to get his bag, that was being done, and no, it would not be suitable for him to phone home at this moment, but it would be explained to his wife that he had been called away in a hurry.

    Three and a half hours later the plane landed at Northolt and then taxied two hundred yards beyond the main reception area to an unmarked square of tarmac where a solitary set of steps and a civilian Morris 1800 were waiting.

    For a captain in transport it was a very remarkable set of circumstances.

    THREE
    26

    Harry was awake at first light.

    He was in a large room, painted soft pastel yellow with fine hard moulding round the ceiling. A study of a Victorian matron with a basket of apples and pears faced him from across the room.
    An empty bookcase against the same wall, a basin, a small Ministry issue thin towel hanging underneath it. There was a chair and table, both with his uniform draped over them. At the foot of the bed he could see the suitcase they said they'd packed for him, with no baggage labels attached to it.

    They'd avoided all checks at Northolt, and Harry hadn't been asked to produce his passport or any travel documents. As soon as he was inside the car the two military policemen who had travelled with him had peeled away from his side and moved back into the shadows. He'd heard the boot bang shut to notify that his suitcase was aboard. Then the car had moved off.

    'My name's Davidson." The man in the front passenger seat was talking. "Hope you