Controlled Explosions Read Online Free PDF Page A

would not go away.
    ‘That it? The white one?’
    ‘Aye.’ It had to be, there was nothing else for miles. Bob had a bad feeling, itching in the middle of his shoulder blades. It was too quiet out here. Only the fields, stretching on either side of the narrow country road. There was grass down the middle of it and a stink of silage in the air, rotting and sweet. Sometimes you’d hear a bellow from a cow, that was it. The car bumped over the potholes, drawing slowly up to the farmhouse, rattling over the cattle grid and up the long concrete driveway. Plenty of time for whoever was there to see them coming.
    PJ was shifting uneasily in his car seat, his hand clasped on his gun. He was certain the local IRA had taken his wife away, probably killed her, and here they were at the farm of one of the worst of them, their former chief bomb maker. Red Hugh. Bob was trying not to think about the man’s mad eyes. He was locked up in the Maze, he wasn’t here. If Bob was honest with himself, deep down inside he was glad to have PJ at his side again, the only person he ever really thought of as his partner. They’d worked well together, despite all their differences. Until what happened.
    ‘Everyone ready?’ They hadn’t taken the riot squad – every officer with extreme situation training was out on the streets, trying to stop the town from burning to the ground. This was just one farmhouse, white paint peeling from its walls, no curtains in the windows, a collection of muddy outbuildings. There was no sign of any livestock. So it was just Bob, PJ, and a uniformed officer, no more than twenty-five. Bob didn’t know all their names any more. He hadn’t even the heart to ask. Everything was changing. ‘As far as we know it’s just Red Hugh’s missus and two weans here. So go easy. Might be nothing to find.’ He’d seen PJ’s hand twitch to his gun. The air felt heavy and charged. Bob had been in the RUC long enough to know that this was the kind of day when things went wrong.
    They parked in the front yard. The stink of silage was stronger here; it seemed to lie low and pressing over the house. Bob shielded his eyes. The light was dazzling. He motioned to the officer to get in position on the other side of the door and moved in front of PJ, who was at his shoulder, itching to get in. Bob was the sergeant; it was his job to lead. He knocked at the peeling door. ‘Open up! RUC.’
    Not for much longer. The RUC wouldn’t be anything. A footnote in a bloody history.
    No answer. A gate swung in some unfelt breeze, creaking.
    ‘We should—’ PJ was speaking when there was a commotion from the back of the house. A door slammed. Then the officer was running, and Bob and PJ followed, drawing their weapons. Bob wondered if that would change too. If, like other police forces in the UK, they’d have to fight criminals and murderers with only rubber truncheons as defence. His gun in his hand felt cool despite the heat, its weight keeping him anchored.
    At the back of the farm a steep hill sloped down to a shed. Someone was running away from them, a figure disappearing in a blur of heat haze. ‘Stop!’ PJ was shouting. ‘You there! Come back here! Stop!’ It should have been Bob shouting. He was the one in charge. But he couldn’t seem to move.
    The young officer had separated off already, going down the side of the hill towards the farm buildings there. ‘Sir!’ He shouted up from the open door of the nearest shed – its paint was red, peeling off in spots like the skin of a burn victim. Like a woman Bob had helped after a fire bomb once. When was that? 1973? The IRA again.
    ‘Sir? Sir!’
    Bob was rooted to the spot. There was the constable at the shed door, going inside, seeing what was there. There was the person running away – it looked like a man. There was PJ following, running towards him as he ran away. The three of them and Bob standing on the hill, still not moving.
    ‘Sir! You need to see this!’ The