The Chinaman (48 page)

He waited for all the men to nod acceptance.

‘Thank you. This is by way of a briefing for the various security and intelligence services, and for those police authorities which will be affected by what I am about to tell you. You are free to verbally brief your superiors on the nature of this meeting, but there is to be no down-the-line transfer of the information. This, as you will appreciate when I have finished, is on a need-to-know basis. And those with a need to know are a very, very select group.'

He had the undivided attention of every man in the room now. There was no fidgeting, no coughing, no one looked anywhere except at the face of the Co-ordinator.

‘You will all have heard about the horrifying events of yesterday evening. Tragic, absolutely tragic. It did, however, bring about the demise of the active service unit which has been behind the recent atrocities, and for that we are all grateful to Special Branch and to the SAS.' He nodded to representatives of both organisations, including Bromley.

‘As you know, one hundred and thirty-six people died in yesterday's plane crash. That includes twelve children and three nuns, as well as the Members of Parliament and civil servants who were on the flight. The public backlash against the IRA has already started. Not just in the Press, though obviously all the newspapers are clamouring for something to be done, including the normal misguided calls for the return of the death penalty. It goes beyond that. This time there is a groundswell of public opinion against the IRA, a feeling that something should be done, that something must be done.'

He paused again, looking round the table at the men who were hanging on his every word. ‘Gentlemen, we have here a window of opportunity. Our experts tell us that the reaction against the terrorists will be at fever pitch for the next ten days, possibly two weeks. When the IRA hits a soft target, or kills innocent bystanders, they normally follow quickly with a highly visible attack on a legitimate target. It restores their credibility, as it were. Public opinion is notoriously fickle, but this time they have gone too far. Now, we around this table know that it was a rogue IRA active service unit responsible for the bombing campaign, that in fact it had not been sanctioned by Belfast or Dublin. That information has been kept from the Press. So far as the public is concerned it was an official IRA operation.

‘The decision was taken late last night, at the highest level, to take positive action against senior members of the IRA and Sinn Fein. Over the next seven days the top echelons of the organisation will be eliminated, at a time when public opinion will be totally, one hundred per cent, against them. That is the window of opportunity I spoke about. Anything we do now, right now, will have the unqualified backing of the public. This is not, I repeat not, a shoot-to-kill policy. It is a shoot-to-kill operation. A one-off. We have drawn up a list of the twenty-five men, and women, who we see as being the key members of the IRA, without whom we feel the organisation would no longer be a viable terrorist force. A combined, and highly secret, task-force of SAS and SBS operatives will move against them. Wherever possible it will be made to seem like an accident, a car crash, a drugs overdose, a fall downstairs, but if it cannot be done tidily it will be a straight-forward assassination made to look as if it is the work of Protestant extremists. Once the operation is over, the IRA will no longer be an effective threat. Then we can take them on using more legitimate methods, including the formation of a new Anti-Terrorist Task-Force, a single national task-force to counter terrorism. That, however, will be the subject of further meetings later this month. Now, are there any questions?'

Most of the men sitting around the table seemed stunned, though Bromley knew that they would all wholeheartedly support the plan put forward by the Co-ordinator. Most of them had privately been pushing for such a policy for many years, determined that the only way to defeat the IRA was to match their ferocity.

‘I would appreciate it if you would confine your comments to questions,' the Co-ordinator continued. ‘This is not a discussion forum, there is nothing to be voted on, no consensus is needed. The decision has already been taken at a much higher level. The highest level.'

One of the uniformed police officers coughed and raised his hand. ‘When does the operation start?' he asked.

The Co-ordinator looked at a slim gold watch on his wrist. ‘It started ten minutes ago,' he said quietly.

Another hand went up. One of the MI6 representatives. ‘Can we be told who is on the list?' he asked.

‘Officially there is no list,' the Co-ordinator said. ‘Nothing has ever been put down on paper, there will be no written record. However, I am able to tell you the names of the twenty-five IRA members that we feel the organisation can least afford to lose.'

The names were all known to those around the table, so there were no raised eyebrows of surprise, just nods of approval. Bromley put his hand in his pocket and took out his pipe. He tapped the stem against his teeth as the names rolled on. Liam Hennessy came somewhere in the middle. Sean Morrison was the last name to be spoken.