Chapter 7

BELFAST – 1967

Young Danny Hogan was a lad filled with the zest for life. He was an incurable romantic and had a temper that was inherited from a long line of troublemakers of the worst sort.

To his mother, he was her "darling wee lad" who could do no wrong and was destined one day to wear the vestments of priestly authority. She did her best to keep him away from the scheming females all around them that saw him as an "earner" to pad their nest. His mother was a bit naïve on that score and thought she was always successful but Danny managed to couple with a number of them eager to tutor him on the ways of the world. Even the priest that had recruited him for his duties in the IRA didn't suspect the duplicity of his own protégée. That was understandable considering his propensity to take a "wee nip" more often than not.

Danny never really confessed his true sins to the priest or any of the others in his manor. He was wise enough to take that risk in a place a bit distant from his home. Not that he didn't trust their obligation to God and the church; he was far more concerned with their deep hidden loyalty to the cause.

His training period was simple enough.

Danny was primarily a bomb boy and was tasked with the construction and laying of the explosive device in a way to cause maximum havoc and chaos at specific targets. He was not one of those "random" cowboys interested in making a lot of noise and gaining a reputation as a wild one. He was the real thing with the ultimate goal of eliminating a threat to the cause no matter if it be military or police or even some dedicated civilian of the opposite point of view and blood on their hands.

The bomber that trained him couldn't have been more than twenty and at first he thought that a bit odd. Now, looking back at it, Danny realized that the young man with the shaking left hand was typical for the profession because the bombers didn't last very long in the game. There were just too many variables to stay ahead of the odds. It could be faulty wiring or a bad batch of charge. The detonators might be a bit tricky and one would become careless or exhausted.

Now they were beginning to bring in anti-bombing squads that scoured the countryside looking for suspects and evidence of evil intent.

He had wanted to be assigned a handgun and be a silent gunman stalking his target with Zen-like invisibility but accepted the fact he was far too young and was likely to be classified as a possible threat immediately by trained security personnel.

Danny learned all the details of assembling and placing a device and his "dry" runs were impressive to his masters.

Now, it was time for his first assignment and he studied the map in front of him on the top of the whiskey barrel trying to memorize every important detail. The components of the bomb were in the carryall at his feet and he was unhappy that the thing stuck out being an ugly shade of luminous yellow like some toolkit for a roadside workman. Perhaps that was the reason for it. The simple facet of drawing attention to the thing led most to ignore it as highly unlikely.

The German made detonator was in his shirt pocket.

He saw from the date stamp that it was long past its manufacture period and hoped that the German munitions making skills would keep it effective for the operation. There was to be no timing device other than the fact he would turn it on when he abandoned it under the vehicle belonging to the Chief Constable Francis Connor at exactly 7:50 AM on that fateful Friday morning. The man was reputed to be both prompt and orderly and he was expected to meet his maker at precisely 8:02 AM at the end of his cul-de-sac street and safely away from his watching family in the front yard.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and it was almost a miracle that the purpose of the mission which was the elimination of Constable Connor was a success.

He approached the car cautiously noting that the driver was huddled in the front hallway of the residence drinking a cup of hot liquid to get the chill out of his bones. He was an enormously fat fellow with a nervous habit of constantly pushing his spectacles back on his red-tinged nose.

Danny had observed him a couple of times in the local pub with his irritating stutter and way of finding fault with anything and everything. It wouldn't bother him at all if the man was sitting in the front seat of the Chief Constable's motorcar when it blew to smithereens. The Constable was a figure of intense hatred in the Catholic community because of his known enthusiasm for using dreadful means to break down suspects to drain them of any intelligence about the war of attrition. He seemed to take personal delight in humiliating any female detainee with little acts of disrespect for their feminine dignity whenever possible and had a reputation for "breaking" them with the use of little tricks he had learned in the Far East whilst serving his military duty.

He had talked to an attractive older member of the group who had the misfortune to be under his control for almost a full week the previous summer. Her name was Maude and she was not particularly pretty but still of a shape that she turned heads when she passed on the street. She had confirmed to him that the man was quick to find a woman's weakness and work on it until she blurted out all her secrets just to escape his attention. Her only words to him at the end were,