Fair Game Read Online Free Page A

for you.’
    ‘We shouldn’t even be in this position,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was blown, Charlie. My cover was blown to smithereens mid-operation. That’s never happened before.’ He sighed and shook his head contemptuously. ‘How the hell could something like that happen, Charlie? How could MI5 and Special Branch be on the same case and not know?’
    ‘Because we were coming at it from different directions,’ said Button. ‘Special Branch had an operative undercover in the cell, you were getting close to the Operations Director. They knew what the target was, but for whatever reason didn’t share that intel.’
    ‘And if the Real IRA hadn’t got that Special Branch inspector’s phone, the operation could have gone ahead and a lot of people could have died. What was going through their minds, Charlie? Don’t they know we’re on the same side?’
    ‘I’m assuming that if the undercover agent hadn’t been blown they’d have ambushed the bomb along the way. The SAS were ready and waiting.’
    ‘Again, if the Sass were there, why weren’t we told?’
    ‘We’ve no direct link with the SAS, Spider. That would go through the Cabinet Office in London.’
    ‘So no one had the big picture, is that what you’re saying? If that’s the case, it’s no wonder that things go wrong.’
    ‘It’s complicated,’ said Button.
    Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘Yeah, that’s what I say to Liam whenever he asks me a difficult question. Complicated or not, what happened yesterday was a major fuck-up, if you’ll pardon my French.’
    ‘I can understand how angry you are.’
    ‘Can you, Charlie? When was the last time you shot two people? I shot them because it was the only option I had, but if it had been handled differently we could have taken them alive.’
    Button nodded but didn’t say anything.
    ‘Answer me this, Charlie. MI5 and the Northern Irish cops are both after the dissidents, right? So why don’t they share intel? Why don’t they talk to each other?’
    ‘It’s a question of trust, or the lack of it,’ said Button. ‘It goes back to the 1998 Omagh bombing. MI5 had pretty good intel that there was a major bomb planned for Omagh or Londonderry but didn’t inform the RUC and twenty-nine people died. And even before then there was the alleged involvement in shoot-to-kill cases.’
    ‘Alleged?’ said Shepherd. ‘Didn’t Sir John Stevens say in his report that they’d helped the UDA in fifteen murders and been involved in fourteen attempted killings and sixty-two murder conspiracies?’
    ‘You and your trick memory,’ said Button. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about water under the bridge. Their murderers are all back on the streets, so it’s no use now bitching about what MI5 might or might not have done back in the day. But trust is a two-way street, Spider. And MI5 have plenty of reasons not to trust the PSNI. Back in 2002 the Provos broke into PSNI headquarters at Castlereagh and stole a stack of files. The Chilcott review looked at the break-in and recommended that MI5’s role in Northern Ireland be expanded. The PSNI weren’t happy, of course, especially when word went around that MI5 itself was behind the break-in.’
    ‘Any truth in that rumour?’
    Button chuckled. ‘You don’t really expect me to answer that,’ she said.
    ‘Dark forces,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘Dark forces or not, the lack of trust means that communication isn’t what it should be. The PSNI has a tendency to hang on to the assets it has because it thinks it gives them an edge over Five. Five regards the PSNI as inherently unreliable so intel sharing isn’t high up its list of priorities.’
    ‘And because of that, two men died. At my hands.’
    ‘You saved their agent’s life, Spider. And I can tell you, he had a wife and two kids.’
    ‘Yeah? Well, one of the guys I shot had five kids, Charlie. And his widow’s going to be bringing them up alone.’
    ‘They knew what they were doing, Spider. Nobody forced them to