Shadow Dancer Screenplay - Raindance Film Festival

9.
He opens the briefcase again, takes out a tape, fires it
into a machine.
The screen flickers into life with GRAINY footage of a riot
in 1970s Belfast; shouts, rubber bullets, tear gas. The
camera is on two youths trying to light a PETROL BOMB when,
in the corner of frame, an eleven-year-old boy can clearly
be seen emerging from a side street. He glances about,
naive and curious. A SHOT rings out and he falls. For a
moment, no one reacts. There’s a scream. The film shakes as
the cameraman runs and then we are on the boy. He is PALE-
FACED, SHOCKED, DYING.
The camera PANS UP to a girl running down the side-street
towards him. A young COLLETTE. She screams ‘Sean, Sean...’
The cameraman is pushed roughly back by the youths.
RYAN hits the pause button.
EXT. DEEP IN SOUTH ARMAGH COUNTRYSIDE - NIGHT
It’s a filthy, windswept evening. Assistant Chief Constable
TREVOR LONG stands by the door of a pavilion. Some of his
men lurk in the hedgerows. LONG is Northern Ireland’s
intelligence chief and his every battered feature screams
of bitter, hard-fought experience. A car guns down the
lane, lights spinning in the darkness. A little rat of a
man named GINGY HUGHES steps out.
LONG
You’re late.
They step into the pavilion. The wind whistles through the
rafters and worries at the windows.
GINGY
To what do I owe the pleasure?
They sit close on the bench, facing out. There’s plenty of
history between these two men.
LONG
You’ve been getting difficult,
Gingy, and careless.
GINGY
Don’t send me out with amateurs.
LONG
Your handlers are the best. It’s
you that’s the problem.
GINGY
I’ve had enough. You don’t own
me, you know.
A beat. Yes he does.