Honour Bound by Keith Walker Page A

dropped through their
sequence and the van rolled sedately forward, through the yawning stone arch
and on to the centre span of the bridge. Hazard lights flashed as it bounced up
the kerb and onto the footpath.
    O'Connell,
a baby faced 44-year-old Irishman with a dislike for most things British, liked
the idea of earning a lot of money for two hours work. The fat man had paid
well for leaving one of the Transits at Heathrow, and the sum was equally
handsome for this little job.
    God,
he thought, what I would give for such an organization back home. He knew of
many men over the water who would give their right arm to blow a hole in such a
prominent British landmark. But sadly, it was not to be. Before the movement
was disbanded for political gain, it was infiltrated by so many touts, that any
operation was usually doomed before it got off the ground. The security forces
had ambushed the last two attacks he had taken part in, each time he had barely
escaped with his life. He thought about the volunteers from his unit that had
not been so lucky, shot down like dogs by the bastard SAS. Five good republican
lives wasted so a tout could line his filthy pockets with Brit blood money. The
movements own security section had failed to catch the informers, so they had
covered their own failures by blaming the losses on poor intelligence and
planning. Over the years, the movement had lost direction, but now, long after
the Good Friday agreement, it was rudderless. The old guard had taken the
Queen’s shilling and dressed themselves as politicians and no one else seemed
willing or able to take control. He had begun to wonder what the fat cats were
doing in Dublin, apart from shining their arses. He had wondered just how high
the rot had crawled; it was when the roots of doubt took hold he had decided to
quit. You cannot win when you are fighting your own, better to be a live
freelancer than a dead volunteer.
    He
pushed his door open and walked along the side of the van to the trailer,
throwing casual glances at the few cars crossing the bridge, watching for any
police patrols. He caressed the lump in his jacket, formed by a Browning pistol
resting in its shoulder holster and felt the familiar surge of excitement.
    “Let
the bastards come,”' he said to himself , “I can take ' em . My actions will be quicker than their reactions.
Besides, I'd like to stiff another peeler, it makes me
sleep better knowing there's one bastard less.”
    He
laughed aloud as the irony of his situation suddenly struck him. He had been
killing and bombing the security forces across the water and on the mainland
since he was fourteen. Years of loyal devotion to the cause had ended because
of betrayal by one of their own. And now the fat Brit was paying him good money
to do the very things that he had willingly done for free. Fate was a wonderful
thing; it had a bizarre way of making amends.
    Still
smiling, he knelt beside the trailer, ran his hands over the nearside tyre, as
though making an examination, then unscrewed the valve allowing the air to rush
out in a dry, stale cloud. He took a further look around, kicked the now flat
tyre for good measure, unhooked the trailer and lowered it to the ground.
    Returning
to the van, he eased it off the footpath and drove to the Docklands Light
Railway section of Tower Hill station, parking neatly in a deserted taxi rank.
He sellotaped a 'broken down' note on the inside of
the windscreen, turned the hazard lights on and climbed into the back of the
van through the space separating the front seats. Four large identical packing
crates took up the load space. He sat on the nearest one and pulled out two
wires tucked into a hole drilled below the lid. From a bag on the passenger
seat, he took a battery the size of a cigarette packet and connected the wires
to the terminals. A quiet beep sounded from inside the crate confirming the
circuitry linking all of the crates was active, and an electronic timer had
begun its final