Belfast Morning

By Robert Snow

When North Irish separatist, Sean Dunnigan, accidentally wounds a bystander during an attack on a sensitive military project, he is torn with guilt. After visiting her in the hospital, ostensibly to assure himself that the victim, Judith Fenley, will survive, he becomes obsessed.

When Judith is released from the hospital, Sean approaches her again. Their relationship is cautious at first, but they are soon deeply in love. There are barriers to face. She is a Protestant of English parents. He is Catholic. Little by little, they face their differences: religion, politics, the whole issue of Ulster Independence, his role as a freedom fighter, and how best to end it. Just as it seems that their problems are resolved and a new life lies ahead, however, tragedy strikes.

The story ends with a twist from a totally unanticipated anglea hint that there may be hope for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496929440

Robert Snow

Robert Snow has spent a lifetime in aviation and is the author of numerous magazine articles on the subject. His interest in Irish current events stems from a visit to the republic in 1988. The Troubles, as the conflict in Northern Ireland is known there, appeared fairly frequently in the news throughout the eighties and became the inspiration for Belfast Morning. Robert is retired but still flies small airplanes. He lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife, Maria.

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© 1993 Robert Snow. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/03/2016

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2945-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-2944-0 (e)

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Contents

Belfast Morning

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

About the Author

Belfast Morning

The soldier looked young; barely old enough to be shaving. Certainly not old enough to be carrying a rifle at four o'clock in the morning when by all other rights he should be safely asleep anywhere but here.

September mornings are chilly in the northern latitudes but three hours into a four-hour watch, the soldier looked as if he could have fallen asleep on his feet. His eyes were glazed. He yawned periodically. His steps were slow and rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Anything but alert. All these things had been noted. They were exactly why this night had been chosen.

As the soldier turned the corner of the building he was supposed to be guarding he was unaware of the figure hidden in the woods beyond the back fence. He would have been surprised to know that there had been someone there throughout the early hours several times in the past three weeks. Doubtless he would also have been surprised to find that to the watchers he was known as Hal, and that each of the eight other soldiers in his squad who had drawn guard duty this month had also been given code names. Hal was the youngest of them. After hours of observation, he was judged to be the least alert during the pre-dawn hours.

The street the building faced connected the city with a small village. The building itself was located in the extreme suburbs of Belfast on a hill that overlooked the predominantly Protestant southeast part of the city. There were few other houses within half a kilometer either side of it. By six o'clock there would be some vehicle traffic along the road as people began to make their way toward the city for work, but at four, except for the pacing of the guard, all was quiet.

The building was a large, single-storied structure. A chain-link fence extended from one of the building's rear corners away from the street. The fence ran twenty meters before turning ninety degrees to parallel the back wall. Near the limit of the property the fence turned again to join the building two meters from the other rear corner, this length broken in one place by a five-meter wide gate. The compound thus created contained a truck and two government cars. Beside the cars were several piles of equipment, covered by tarpaulins, the exact nature of which was not possible to determine from a distance.

Although there were few outside the government who knew it, the official name of the building was the Anti-Crime Communications and Control Center, or ACCCC. Its radio call sign was Dispatch One. To the military and law enforcement specialists who were familiar with it, the building was known as Four-C from the last four letters of the acronym. Four-C's concept was an evolution of the 9-1-1 emergency system used in the United States. By constantly tracking police cars and military patrols, Four-C would always know who was in the best position to respond to trouble and could direct units as needed. Of course each law enforcement entity had always had its own methods of dispatch. There had never before been any attempt been made to link the constabulary, militia, and regular army together into one hub. Ostensibly the goal was to provide Belfast with a first-rate crime-fighting network and that was certainly a big part of the picture. In reality, its main targets were the various Irish liberation organizations.

Like the 9-1-1 system from which it had drawn its inspiration, Four-C would be accessible by private citizens who wished to report trouble through a single, easily memorized phone number. The various law enforcement headquarters with which the ACCCC needed to communicate would be reached using dedicated hot lines. Plans existed for the use of scramblers for all radio communications although for the immediate future, existing equipment would have to suffice.

Due to the sensitive nature of the project the building had been guarded since installation of equipment had begun some weeks before. Two soldiers were assigned to the building at all times. Since the building was not yet operational and there had never been any sign of outside interest, it had quickly become standard practice for the soldiers to take naps at night after all the technicians had left. One guard would sleep several hours and then relieve the other for the balance of the eight-hour shift, always careful that both were awake before their relief arrived. It is unclear whether their officers were aware of this practice but if they were, nothing was ever said. That the building might one day be a target of an attack had been considered during the planning stages. For the time being, though, it was felt that since it was located in a quiet section of the city, few knew of the building's purpose, and there were two guards present, there was no immediate danger. That from a different point of view, English uniforms around a mysterious building equipped with no less than eight antennas on its roof and located in a neighborhood that had never seen much military activity might arouse some curiosity was not considered. In any case Four-C was not yet operational. There would be plenty of time to review risk-management factors once the equipment-testing phase, currently in progress during daylight hours, was complete.

Along the back wall of the building at each corner were two doors. By the placement of the fence one door opened within the compound, the other opened to the outside. There were two other doors as well; a main entrance in front and a large loading area along one of the side walls. But it was the back door, the one that opened to the outside of the compound that interested the watcher in the woods.

Hal was in the habit of making his outside rounds in a clockwise direction. Since the rear outside door was on the left side of the building when facing from the street, this meant that as Hal came toward the back, the door remained effectively hidden from him until he passed the rear corner. Any professional soldier stationed in a combat zone would have done his rounds in a counter-clockwise direction thus eliminating the blind spot. Hal, like most of the world's recruits, was no professional.

Sean Dunnigan was born in Ballyronan, Northern Ireland, a village of eight hundred, barely sixty kilometers from Belfast. He was the son of John Dunnigan, a bank manager, and Sandra Lockehart, whose family had lived in Northern Ireland for more generations than anyone knew. Sean's father was an ineffectual man with no strong political leanings and few strengths other than a pronounced dedication to his work. He was raised in Belfast and worked at a bank there for several years. He came to fear the violence that had been slowly escalating since the fifties. When his bank opened a small branch in Ballyronan he seized the chance to get away. Ballyronan had proved suitable; far enough from the city to be safe, but close enough to be convenient. He got along well enough with the villagers, was reasonably well liked, though not widely respected; a fact that Sean had sensed and resented from an early age. When Sean thought of his father, as he seldom did since leaving home, no strong ties were invoked. His father had not been cruel to him, but neither had he been much else. To the son it was almost as if the father had never existed.

Sandra had been twenty when Sean's father came to Ballyronan. She could not have been termed a beautiful girl, but she was vivacious and popular and had been sought after by several of the village's young men. All were rejected. Perhaps she had grown tired of the people she already knew everything about and was looking for something different. Maybe the newcomer represented mystery, and perhaps a window to the outside world that was otherwise lacking. For whatever reason, it had been John she had chosen and they had been married within six months of his coming there. If she ever regretted her decision, she never confided her disappointment to anyone. Perhaps it was her strong Catholic upbringing that didn't let her consider divorce. Or maybe she still saw something in her husband that no one else appreciated. In any case she worked hard to make the most of her marriage and to a considerable degree made up for her husband's shortcomings. And, although in public she was always the dutiful wife, those who knew the family realized that it was she who ultimately held reign.

There is one more figure in young Sean's life that would have a great deal of influence on the man he would become. Janus Lockehart was Sean's maternal grandfather and in the way of a male role model Janus was everything that John was not. At the age of twenty Janus had fought the British. A bullet wound and two years in jail had cooled his fervor to the point that when he was released he never raised a rifle against them again. But his hatred had not abated. He never turned from an opportunity to rail against all things English and all things Protestant and on several occasions had contributed money to the Irish Republican Army. Sean grew up very close to his grandfather. It is clear that his political indoctrination had not come from his father.

To any outside observer Sean had received a normal, Irish upbringing. He had done well in school, consistently bringing home good marks. He had been an active and healthy boy and was strong in sports; especially soccer. He worked hard at his chores and later as an adolescent, at the various summer jobs that he took on. He had done his share of mischief, but overall, most of the adults who had ever had anything to do with him felt that he was a reasonably well-behaved and mannered young man.

Because of his grades Sean had been encouraged to go on to University after graduating. He'd had enough school, though, and after promising his family that he would reconsider after a few years of working, had gone looking for a full-time job. He quickly found one at a brewery in Belfast where, as with almost everything else in his life he set his mind to, he did well. He applied himself to any task he was given, no matter how menial, had been noticed, and in less than two years had been promoted to foreman.

Socially, Sean had always been a serious boy and this did not change as he grew into adulthood. He was certainly not antisocial; he got along with other boys in school and fit in well with the young men at the brewery. It is just that he tended to see the world as a serious place where a man had to stay alert and the motives of others were never above suspicion.

Some who knew him might, if asked, have admitted to being just a bit afraid of him. Although no one at the brewery could remember him ever laying a hand on anyone, even the roughest of them sensed instinctively that he was not the kind to try to push around.

Girls had always liked Sean and in school he had left a trail of broken hearts. He had discovered sex during his last year in high school and rarely had difficulty finding willing partners since. He liked several of the girls with whom he had been involved, but no relationship had ever gone on for longer than a few months. He would have been genuinely surprised had anyone accused him of never having fallen in love. He'd had his share of crushes and many of his involvements had not been without passion. But in fact, he had never experienced the all-consuming fire that people generally associate with the word.

Most who met Sean considered him to be a hard-working, likable, if somewhat severe, young man. But there was one subject that all who knew him avoided. The legacy of his grandfather had been passed to Sean in full; he hated the British.

In Northern Ireland there are people who take note of citizens who are outspoken in their criticism of the English. Some work for the police and when they encounter such a citizen and deem him potentially dangerous, files are started and records kept. Others have nothing to do with the police and they too start files. So it was that Sean was not quite twenty-two when he was first contacted by a member of the Irish Liberation Front, a splinter group of the IRA. It hadn't taken too much persuasion to recruit him. Without ever having consciously thought about it he had been ripe for a long time.

The ILF was very careful about just who it took in and after his initial indoctrination it was a long time before Sean was trusted with much knowledge of the inner working of the organization or with the names of any of its members. He had only one contact whose real name he would not know for many months and his first duties were mainly courier runs; passing word-of-mouth information and moving supplies. Over a period of time, however, his superiors began to realize that in Sean they had not only a very capable young man, but one who was driven with intense nationalistic passion. He was invited into the inner circle of the ILF. Months later, after obtaining a leave of absence from the brewery, he was sent to a training camp in North Africa. There he applied himself with characteristic vigor and within a short time his instructors knew that this man was something special. He was no fanatic; he would have never considered suicide missions or bombing airliners. But he was cool under pressure, and methodical. During his training exercises he was almost invariably successful, often solving logistical problems in novel ways. He returned to Ulster skilled in the art of covert warfare.

By the time Sean had been operational for fifteen months he had earned a reputation as the best that the ILF had. In that time he had been in three shows as the organization called its operations. Unlike some of his fellows, he did not take a cavalier attitude toward killing, but he could kill when it was necessary and once, when a random patrol had come upon his team, had done so.

Four-C had come to the attention of the Irish Republican Army, or IRA, through an informant. Although they didn't know exactly what the purpose of the building was, they quickly deduced, quite correctly, that the building was a threat to them. A decision was made and, as sometimes happened, the work was contracted out to one of the other nationalist organizations; in this case the ILF.

Sean had been in the woods behind Four-C for over two hours. Although he had taken a turn observing the building before and had helped plan the operation, he was in no hurry. Within limits, time played into his hands. The long hours had taken their toll on Hal's mental alertness and it was not yet close enough to the end of his shift for the thought of going home to begin to invigorate him. As Hal disappeared around the far corner of the building Sean rose to his feet. It was time.

Sean paused for a few seconds to assure proper circulation in his legs. After crouching for so long he didn't want to risk stumbling. When he felt ready he moved to the very edge of the woods. After scanning the street and building windows for several seconds, he sprinted across the thirty meters that lay between him and the back corner door. When he reached it he melted into the shadow of the shrouded doorway and waited. Hal, if he followed his pattern, would be entering the building and starting another round in about twenty minutes. Although Hal had not been known to deviate from this pattern, there was no guarantee that he would not do so tonight. Carefully Sean withdrew his automatic from its holster and flicked the safety off. This done, he slid the gun back. Guns were too loud for tonight's purposes and his was for emergencies only. Silencers were available, of course, but in the darkness of early morning the unmistakable muzzle flash was an unacceptable risk. Silently, he removed a knife from its sheath. The knife was curiously shaped; its blade rather thick, but not long. The edges were not sharpened, but the tip was very pointed. Sean was ready.

For the next twenty minutes there was no sound. For most men the pressure of waiting would have been hard to take. The temptation to shift one's weight, to scratch, to peer around the corner, to do anything, would have been more than they could bear. Sean waited silently and totally immobile in the shadow of the doorframe. Even his two compatriots who watched from the woods and knew exactly where to look could only make him out with effort. The bastard's a bloody machine! one of them thought to himself.

Kevin MacNeil had grown up in a single parent household in the slums of Catholic Belfast. At an early age he had begun to notice the wide gap between the quality of life in his neighborhood and that of the predominantly Protestant sections of town. This realization insulted his young sense of justice to the extent that by the time he entered his teens he was filled with an inner rage that tended to surface at the slightest provocation. He got into fights in school and through early adolescence came to resist authority more and more, both in school and at home. Once, after being disciplined by his mother, he turned in a blinding fury and knocked her to the ground. Although shocked and genuinely ashamed over what he had done, he was incapable of showing the remorse he felt. He never apologized and the incident changed his whole relationship with her. He was deeply hurt by the fear he perceived in his mother's eyes from that day on, but he didn't know how to deal with it. He lacked the maturity to either apologize to his mother, or even sit down and discuss things with her. In time the hurt turned to anger. Six months after the incident he moved out of the house. He was sixteen.

He spent time on the streets, taking odd jobs and finding shelter where he could. Eventually he found steady work and rented a flat. He drank heavily during his off hours and took to picking fights with Protestant youths. He won most of the time, until finally a boy he attacked turned out to be an amateur boxer and he was badly beaten. He swore revenge and when he next saw the boy, he shadowed him until an opportunity presented itself to catch him alone. A knife evened the odds and before Kevin let him go the boy had been marked for life with a three-inch scar across one cheek. The terror he had seen in the boy's eyes and the sense of power it gave him were tonics to the bitter lad from the slums. It was shortly afterward that Kevin finally found an outlet for his anger in the Republican movement.

Kevin had been a member of the ILF for four years when he met and recruited Sean. He was Sean's only contact for the first several months. With Sean's rapid advancement, however, Kevin was no longer his superior. Although he would not have admitted it, he resented the change in his status. This had never gotten in the way of performing his duties. If it had he would not have lasted long with the organization. The ILF had a reputation as being the most professional of the various nationalist fronts and it did not tolerate those who were unable to subordinate their personal feelings to its work.

The third member of the team, Patrick O'Hagan, was new. Patrick was the only one of the three who had a higher education. He had been to the University in Dublin. His interest in joining the ILF had not been inspired by a bitter upbringing. Rather it had been born out of careful study of Irish history and the conviction that some of his professors had fostered that England had no right to any part of Ireland. Unlike the other two men it had been he who had sought the organization instead of the other way around.

Four-C was Patrick's first show. His performance in a combat situation was an unknown quantity. Kevin was responsible for him in much the same way he had been responsible for Sean when Sean was new. In addition to performing his part of the mission Kevin was to keep an eye on Patrick. How the newcomer comported himself on this night would determine how he would be used by the ILF in the future. Kevin glanced at him now. In the faint glow of Four-C's exterior lights Kevin could see that despite the chill, Patrick's forehead was moist. That was the only sign that Kevin could discern of the pressure that Patrick was feeling inside. So far, so good, Kevin thought to himself.

From the front of the building came the sound of a military boot scuffing pavement. A few seconds later Hal came into view from around the front corner. Kevin slowly raised the sights of his AK-47 assault rifle until they were centered on Hal's chest. There was no question in his mind that Sean was perfectly capable of doing the job, but the ILF had not gained its reputation by not providing backup for every foreseeable situation. Kevin glanced again at Patrick. He too had raised his gun. It was trained toward the