Remote Control Read Online Free PDF Page B

friends were part of that.
    Apart from that, I was still none the wiser about the job. I had no information on the players’ cover stories, or where they might be going, within or outside Washington. All I knew was who they were and what they looked like. I read that Michael Kerr had been a member of the South Armagh ASU. He’d taken part in four mortar attacks on SF bases and tens of shoots against the security forces and Prods. He’d even got wounded once, but escaped to the South. A hard boy.
    The same could be said for Morgan McGear. After a career as a shooter in the border area of South Armagh, the thirty-one-year-old jobbing builder had been promoted to PIRA’s security team. His job there was to find and question informers. His favoured method of interrogation was a Black & Decker power drill.

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    The helicopter was operated by a civilian front company, so the arrivals procedure at Shannon was no different than if I’d been a horse breeder coming to check the assets at his stud farm in Tipperary, or a businessman flying in from London to fill his briefcase with EU subsidies. I walked across the tarmac into the arrivals terminal, went through Customs and followed the exit signs, heading for the taxi rank. At the last minute I doubled back into departures.
    At the Aer Lingus ticket desk I picked up my ticket for Heathrow, which had been booked in the name of Nick Stamford. When choosing a cover name it’s always best to keep your own Christian name – that way you react naturally to it. It also helps if the surname begins with your real initial because the signature flows better. I’d picked Stamford after the battle of Stamford Bridge. I loved medieval history.
    I headed straight to the shop to buy myself a bag. Everybody has hand luggage; I’d stick out like the balls on a bulldog if I boarded the aircraft with nothing but a can of Coke. I never travelled with luggage that had to be checked in, because then you’re in the hands of whoever it is that decides to take bags marked Tokyo and send them to Buenos Aires instead. Even if your baggage does arrive safely, if it then reaches the carousel five minutes after the target’s you’re fucked.
    I bought some toothpaste and other odds and ends, all the time keeping an eye out for Euan. I knew that he’d be glued to Kerr and McGear, unless they’d already gone airside.
    The departure lounge seemed full of Irish families who were going to find the Easter sun, and newly retired Americans who’d come to find their roots, wandering around with their brand-new Guinness sweatshirts, umbrellas and baseball caps, and leprechauns in tins and little pots of grow-your-own shamrock.
    It was busy and the bars were doing good business. I spotted Euan at the far end of the terminal, sitting at a table in a café, having a large frothy coffee and reading a paper. I’d always found ‘Euan’ a strange name for him. It made me think of a bloke with a skirt on, running up and down a glen somewhere, swinging a claymore. In fact he was born in Bedford and his parents came from Eastbourne. They must have watched some Jock film and liked the name.
    To the left was a bar. Judging by where Euan was sitting I guessed that was where the players were. I didn’t bother looking; I knew Euan would point them out. There was no rush.
    As I came out of the chemist’s I looked towards the coffee shop and got eye-to-eye. I started walking towards him, big grin all over my face, as if I’d just spotted a long-lost pal, but didn’t say anything yet. If somebody was watching him, knowing he was on his own, it wouldn’t look natural for me just to come up and sit next to him and start talking. It had to look like a chance meeting, yet not such a noisy one that people noticed it. They wouldn’t think, Oh, look, there’s two spies meeting, but it registers. It might not mean anything at the time, but it could cost you later.
    Euan half got to his feet and reciprocated my smile. ‘Hello,