"Энди Макнаб. Удаленный контроль (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Kev and Slack Pat were still backing me; the other two boys in our team
were with Euan. They'd all still be satelliting, listening on the net so as
to be out of sight of the targets, but always close enough to back us if we
got in trouble.
Euan closed in on Bravo Two and Echo One. They were coming in our
direction. Everybody knew where they were; everybody would keep out of the
way so they had a clear run in.
I recognized them as soon as they turned the corner.
Bravo Two was Daniel Martin McCann. Unlike Savage, who was well
educated and an expert bomb maker, "Mad Danny" was a butcher by trade and a
butcher by nature. He'd been expelled from the movement by Gerry Adams in
1985 for threatening to initiate a campaign of murder that would have
hampered the new political strategy. It was a bit like being kicked out of
the Gestapo for cruelty. But McCann had supporters and soon got himself
reinstated. Married with two children, he had twenty-six killings linked to
his name. Ulster Loyalists had tried to whack him once, but failed. They
should have tried harder.
Echo One was Mairead Farrell. Middle class and an ex-convent
schoolgirl, she was, at thirty-one, one of the highest-ranking women in the
IRA. See her picture and you'd think, aah, an angel. But she'd served ten
years for planting a bomb in Belfast and reported back for duty as soon as
she was released. Things hadn't gone her way; a few months earlier her lover
had accidentally blown himself up. As Simmonds had said at the briefing,
that made her one very pissed off Echo One.
I knew them both well; Euan and I had been working against them for
years. I got on the net and confirmed the ID.
Everybody was in place. Alpha would be in the control room with the
senior policeman, people from the Foreign Office, people from the Home
Office, you name it, every man and his dog would be there, everybody wanting
to put in their two cents' worth, everybody with their own concerns. We
could only hope that Simmonds would be looking after ours.
I'd met the Secret Intelligence Service desk officer for Northern
Ireland only a couple of days earlier, but he certainly seemed to be running
our side of the show. His voice had the sort of confidence that was shaped
on the playing fields of Eton, and he measured his words slowly, like a
big-time attorney with the meter running.
We wanted the decision made now. But I knew there would be a big debate
going on in the ops room; you'd probably have to cut your way through the
cigarette smoke with a knife. Our liaison officer would be listening to us
on his radio and explaining everything that we were doing, confirming that
the team was in position. At crunch time, it was the police, not us, who'd
decide that we go in. Once it was handed over to the military, K.ev would
control the team.
The frustration was unendurable. I just wanted to get this over.
By now Farrell was leaning against the driver's door, the two men
standing and facing her. If I hadn't known differently I'd have said they
were trying to chat her up. I couldn't hear what they were saying but their
faces showed no sign of stress, and now and then I could hear laughter above
the traffic noise. Savage even got out a packet of mints and passed them
round.