Patriot Games Read online

  “I fail to see why you feel the urge to protect him and his group.” He knew the reason, but why not prod the man when he had the chance?

  “And if we turn ‘grass,’ what becomes of the Organization?” Murphy asked.

  “Not my problem, Mr. Murphy, but I do see your point. Still and all, if you want us to believe you—”

  “Mr. Ashley, you demonstrate the basis of the entire problem we have, don’t you? Had your country ever dealt with Ireland in mutual good faith, surely we would not be here now, would we?”

  The intelligence officer reflected on that. It took no more than a couple of seconds, so many times had he examined the historical basis of the Troubles. Some deliberate policy acts, mixed with historical accidents—who could have known that the onset of the crisis that erupted into World War I would prevent a solution to the issue of “Home [or ”Rome“] Rule,” that the Conservative Party of the time would use this issue as a hammer that would eventually crush the Liberal Party—and who was there to blame now? They were all dead and forgotten, except by hard-core academics who knew that their studies mattered for nothing. It was far too late for that. Is there a way out of this bloody quagmire? he wondered. Ashley shook his head. That was not his brief. That was something for politicians. The same sort, he reminded himself, who’d built the Troubles, one small brick at a time.

  “I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Ashley—” The waiter showed up with dinner. It was amazing how quick the service was here. The waiter uncorked the wine with a flourish, allowing Ashley to smell the cork and sample a splash in his glass. The Englishman was surprised at the quality of the restaurant’s cellar.

  “This much you will tell me ...” Ashley said after the waiter left.

  “They get very good information. So good, you would not believe it. And their information comes from your side of the Irish Sea, Mr. Ashley. We don’t know who, and we don’t know how. The lad who found out died, four years ago, you see.” Murphy sampled the broccoli. “There, I told you the vegetables were fresh. ”

  “Four years?”

  Murphy looked up. “You don’t know the story, then? That is a surprise, Mr. Ashley. Yes. His name was Mickey Baird. He worked closely with Kevin. He’s the lad who—well, you can guess. He was talking with me over a jar in Derry and said that Kevin had a bloody good new intelligence source. Next day he was dead. The day after, Kevin managed to escape us by an hour. We haven’t seen him since. If we find Kevin again, Mr. Ashley, we’ll do your work for you, and leave the body for your SAS assassins to collect. Would that be fair enough, now? We cannot exactly tout to the enemy, but he’s on our list, too, and if you manage to find the lad, and you don’t wish to bring him in yourselves, we’ll handle the job for you—assuming, of course, that you don’t interfere with the lads who do the work. Can we agree on that?”

  “I’ll pass that along,” Ashley said. “If I could approve it myself, I would. Mr. Murphy, I think we can believe you on this.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ashley. That wasn’t so painful, was it?” Dinner was excellent.

  4

  Players

  Ryan tried to blink away the blue dots that swirled around his eyes as the television crews set up their own lights. Why the newspaper photographers couldn’t wait for the powerful TV lights, he didn’t know, and didn’t bother asking. Everyone was kind enough to ask how he felt—but nothing short of respiratory arrest would have gotten them out of the room.

  It could have been worse, of course. Dr. Scott had told the newspeople rather forcefully that his patient needed rest to recover speedily, and Nurse Kittiwake was there to glower at the intruders. So press access to Ryan was being limited to no more than the number of people who would fit into his room. This included the TV crew. It was the best sort of bargain Jack could get. The cameramen and sound technicians took up space that would otherwise be occupied by more inquisitorial reporters.

  The morning papers—Ryan had been through the Times and the Daily Telegraph—had carried reports that Ryan was a former (or current) employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, something that was technically not true, and that Jack had not expected to become public in any case. He found himself remembering what the people at Langley said about leaks, and how pleased they’d been with his offhand invention of the Canary Trap. A pity they couldn’t use it in my case, Ryan told himself wryly. I really need this complication to my life, don’t I? For crying out loud, I turned their offer down. Sort of.

  “All ready here,” the lighting technician said. A moment later he proved this was true by turning on the three klieg lights that brought tears to Jack’s squinted eyes.

  “They are awfully bright, aren’t they?” a reporter sympathized, while the still photographers continued to snap-and-whir away with their strobe-equipped Nikons.

  “You might say that,” Jack replied. A two-headed mike was clipped to his robe.

  “Say something, will you?” the sound man asked.

  “And how are you enjoying your first trip to London, Doctor Ryan?”

  “Well, I better not hear any complaints about how American tourists are staying away due to panic over the terrorism problem!” Ryan grinned. You jerk.

  “Indeed,” the reporter laughed. “Okay?”

  The cameraman and sound man pronounced themselves ready.

  Ryan sipped at his tea and made certain that the ashtray was out of sight. One print journalist shared a joke with a colleague. A TV correspondent from NBC was there, along with the London correspondent of the Washington Post, but all the others were British. Everything would be pooled with the rest of the media, it had been agreed. There just wasn’t room here for a proper press conference. The camera started rolling tape.

  They ran through the usual questions. The camera turned to linger on his arm, hanging from its overhead rack. They’d run that shot with the voice-over of Jack’s story on when he was shot, he was sure. Nothing like a little drama, as he’d already been told. He wiggled his fingers for the camera.

  “Doctor Ryan, there are reports in the American and British press that you are an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  “I read that this morning. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else.” Ryan smiled. “Somebody made a mistake. I’m not good-looking enough to be a spy.”

  “So you deny that report?” asked the Daily Mirror.

  “Correct. It’s just not true. I teach history at the Naval Academy, in Annapolis. That ought to be easy enough to check out. I just gave an exam last week. You can ask my students.” Jack waved his left hand at the camera again.

  “The report comes from some highly placed sources,” observed the Post.

  “If you read a little history, you’ll see that highly placed folks have been known to make mistakes. I think that’s what happened here. I teach. I write books. I lecture—okay, I did give a lecture at CIA once, but that was just a repeat of one I delivered at the Naval War College and one other symposium. It wasn’t even classified. Maybe that’s where the report comes from. Like I said, check it out. My office is in Leahy Hall, at the Naval Academy. I think somebody just goofed.” Somebody goofed, all right. “I can get you guys a copy of the lecture. It’s no big deal.”

  “How do you like being a public figure, now?” one of the Brit TV people asked.

  Thanks for changing the subject. “I think I can live without it. I’m not a movie star, either—again, not good-looking enough.”

  “You’re far too modest, Doctor Ryan,” a female reporter observed.

  “Please be careful how you say that. My wife will probably see this.” There was general laughter. “I suppose I’m good-looking enough for her. That’s enough. With all due respect, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be perfectly glad to descend back into obscurity.”

  “Do you think that likely?”

  “That depends on how lucky I am, ma’am. And on whether you folks will let me.”

  “What do you think we should do with the terrorist, Sea
n Miller?” the Times asked.

  “That’s for a judge and jury to decide. You don’t need me for that. ”

  “Do you think we should have capital punishment?”

  “We have it where I live. For your country, that is a question for your elected representatives. We both live in democracies, don’t we? The people you elect are supposed to do what the voters ask them to do.” Not that it always works that way, but that’s the theory....

  “So you support the idea?” the Times persisted.

  “In appropriate cases, subject to strict judicial review, yes. Now you’re going to ask me about this case, right? It’s a moot point. Anyway, I’m no expert on criminal justice. My dad was a cop but I’m just a historian.”

  “And what of your perspective, as an Irish-American, on the Troubles?” the Telegraph wanted to know.

  “We have enough problems of our own in America without having to borrow yours.”

  “So you say we should solve it, then?”

  “What do you think? Isn’t that what problems are for?”

  “Surely you have a suggestion. Most Americans do.”

  “I think I teach history. I’ll let other people make it. It’s like being a reporter.” Ryan smiled. “I get to criticize people long after they make their decisions. That doesn’t mean I know what to do today.”

  “But you knew what to do on Tuesday,” the Times pointed out. Ryan shrugged.

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” Ryan said on the television screen.

  “You clever bastard,” Kevin Joseph O‘Donnell muttered into a glass of dark Guinness beer. His base of operations was much farther from the border than any might have suspected. Ireland is a small country, and distances are but relative things—particularly to those with all the resources they need. His former colleagues in the PIRA had extensive safehouses along the border, convenient to a quick trip across from either direction. Not for O’Donnell. There were numerous practical reasons. The Brits had their informers and intelligence people there, always creeping about—and the SAS raiders, who were not averse to a quick snatch—or a quiet kill—of persons who had made the mistake of becoming too well known. The border could be a convenience to either side. A more serious threat was the PIRA itself, which also watched the border closely. His face, altered as it was with some minor surgery and a change in hair color, might still be recognizable to a former colleague. But not here. And the border wasn’t all that far a drive in a country barely three hundred miles long.

  He turned away from the Sony television and gazed out the leaded-glass windows to the darkness of the sea. He saw the running lights of a car ferry inbound from Le Havre. The view was always a fine one. Even in the limited visibility of an ocean storm, one could savor the fundamental force of nature as the gray waves battered the rocky cliff. Now, the clear, cold air gave him a view to the star-defined horizon, and he spied another merchant ship heading eastward for an unknown port. It pleased O‘Donnell that this stately house on the headlands had once belonged to a British lord. It pleased him more that he’d been able to purchase it through a dummy corporation; that there were few questions when cash and a reputable solicitor were involved. So vulnerable this society—all societies were when you had the proper resources ... and a competent tailor. So shallow they were. So lacking in political awareness. One must know who one’s enemies are, O’Donnell told himself at least ten times every day. Not a liberal “democratic” society, though. Enemies were people to be dealt with, compromised with, to be civilized, brought into the fold, co-opted.

  Fools, self-destructive, ignorant fools who earned their own destruction.

  Someday they would all disappear, just as one of those ships slid beneath the horizon. History was a science, an inevitable process. O’Donnell was sure of that.

  He turned again to stare into the fire burning under the wide, stone mantel. There had once been stag heads hanging over it, perhaps the lord’s favorite fowling piece—from Purdey‘s, to be sure. And a painting or two. Of horses, O’Donnell was sure—they had to be paintings of horses. The country gentleman who had built this house, he mused, would have been someone who’d been given everything he had. No ideology would have intruded in his empty, useless head. He would have sat in a chair very like this one and sipped his malt whiskey and stared into the fire—his favorite dog at his feet—while he chatted about the day’s hunting with a neighbor and planned the hunting for the morrow. Will it be birds again, or fox, Bertie? Haven’t had a goodfox hunt in weeks, time we did it again, don’t you think? Or something like that, he was sure. O’Donnell wondered if there was a seasonal aspect to it, or had the lord just done whatever suited his mood. The current owner of the country house never hunted animals. What was the point of killing something that could not harm you or your cause, something that had no ideology? Besides, that was something the Brits did, something the local gentry still did. He didn’t hunt the local Irish gentry, they weren’t worth his contempt, much less his action. At least, not yet. You don’t hate trees, he told himself. You ignore the things until you have to cut them down. He turned back to the television.

  That Ryan fellow was still there, he saw, talking amiably with the press idiots. Bloody hero. Why did you stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong? Reflex, sounds like, O’Donnell judged. Bloody meddling fool. Don’t even know what’s going on, do you? None of you do.

  Americans. The Provo fools still like to talk it up with your kind, telling their lies and pretending that they represent Ireland. What do you Yanks know about anything? Oh, but we can’t afford to offend the Americans, the Provos still said. Bloody Americans, with all their money and all their arrogance, all their ideas on right and wrong, their childish vision of Irish destiny. Like children dressed up for First Communion. So pure. So naive. So useless with their trickle of money—for all that the Brits complained about NORAID, O’Donnell knew that the PIRA had not netted a million dollars from America in the past three years. All the Americans knew of Ireland came from a few movies, some half-remembered songs for St. Paddy’s Day, and the occasional bottle of whiskey. What did they know of life in Ulster, of the imperialist oppression, the way all Ireland was still enslaved to the decaying British Empire, which was, in turn, enslaved to the American one? What did they know about anything? But we can’t offend the Americans. The leader of the ULA finished off his beer and set it on the end table.

  The Cause didn’t require much, not really. A clear ideological objective. A few good men. Friends, the right friends, with access to the right resources. That was all. Why clutter things up with bloody Americans? And a public political wing—Sinn Fein electing people to Parliament, what rubbish! They were waiting, hoping to be co-opted by the Brit imperialists. Valuable political targets declared off-limits. And people wondered why the Provos were getting nowhere. Their ideology was bankrupt, and there were too many people in the Brigade. When the Brits caught some, a few were bound to turn tout and inform on their comrades. The kind of commitment needed for this sort of job demanded an elite few. O‘Donnell had that, all right. And you need to have the right plan, he told himself with a wispy smile. O’Donnell had his plan. This Ryan fellow hadn’t changed that, he reminded himself.

  “Bastard’s bloody pleased with himself, isn’t he?”

  O’Donnell turned to see a fresh bottle of Guinness offered. He took it and refilled his glass. “Sean should have watched his back. Then this bloody hero would be a corpse.” And the mission would have been successful. Damn!

  “We can still do something about that, sir.”

  O’Donnell shook his head. “We do not waste our energy on the insignificant. The Provos have been doing that for ten years and look where it has gotten them.”

  “What if he is CIA? What if we’ve been infiltrated and he was there—”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool,” O’Donnell snapped. “If they’d been tipped, every peeler in London would have been there in plain clothes waiting for us.” And I would have known beforeh
and, he didn’t say. Only one other member of the Organization knew of his source, and he was in London. “It was luck, good for them, bad for us. Just luck. We were lucky in your case, weren’t we, Michael?” Like any Irishman he still believed in luck. Ideology would never change that.

  The younger man thought of his eighteen months in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh prison, and was silent. O‘Donnell shrugged at the television as the news program changed to another story. Luck. That was all. Some monied Yank with too long a nose who’d gotten very lucky. Any random event, like a punctured tire, a defective radio battery, or a sudden rainstorm, could have made the operation fail, too. And his advantage over the other side was that they had to be lucky all the time. O’Donnell only had to be lucky once. He considered what he had just seen on the television and decided that Ryan wasn’t worth the effort.

  Mustn’t offend the Americans, he thought to himself again, this time with surprise. Why? Aren’t they the enemy, too? Patrick, me boy, now you’re thinking like those idiots in the PIRA. Patience is the most important quality in the true revolutionary. One must wait for the proper moment—and then strike decisively.

  He waited for his next intelligence report.

  The rare book shop was in the Burlington Arcade, a century-old promenade of shops off the most fashionable part of Piccadilly. It was sandwiched between one of London’s custom tailors—this one catered mainly to the tourists who used the arcade to shelter from the elements—and a jeweler. It had the sort of smell that draws bibliophiles as surely as the scent of nectar draws a bee, the musty, dusty odor of dried-out paper and leather binding. The shop’s owner-operator was contrastingly young, dressed in a suit whose shoulders were sprinkled with dust. He started every day by running a feather duster over the shelves, and the books were ever exuding new quantities of it. He had grown to like it. The store had an ambience that he dearly loved. The store did a small but lucrative volume of business, depending less on tourists than on a discreet number of regular customers from the upper reaches of London society. The owner, a Mr. Dennis Cooley, traveled a great deal, often flying out on short notice to participate in an auction of some deceased gentleman’s library, leaving the shop to the custody of a young lady who would have been quite pretty if she’d worked at it a little harder. Beatrix was off today.