The South Lawn Plot

by Ray O'Hanlon

  “And I mean really entertain. Lunch at the best places in town, receptions at the ambassador's place up on Massachusetts Avenue and, the pièce de resistance, garden parties. You ought to see some of the Yanks go weak at the knees at one of those things, especially if the embassy hauls in some royal to conduct a tour of the flower gardens and drop the possibility of some honor from the old dear at the palace.

  “The British don't have to threaten anybody with gunboats anymore. They just have to mention an honorary knighthood and the revolution's over before the first musket ball is fired. Ever been up at the British place?” Manning nodded his head slightly to one side.

  “No,” Voles responded.

  “Well, it's quite a scene. The ambassador's residence was designed by the same guy who built New Delhi. Someone at the Indian embassy told me that. I can't remember his name.”

  Voles smiled. “The envoy or the architect?”

  “Neither.”

  “Well,” said Voles, “I can't quite rattle off the entire Indian embassy staff, but Edwin Lutyens was the man behind governmental Delhi. I know because I did some work for the bureau in south Asia a few years back. The British ambassador's place must be impressive indeed.”

  “Yeah, fit for an empire. And a bloody good party. Are you an expert on architecture? Oh, I forgot, you are, in a way.”

  “I suppose I am. I'm also a little curious. Isn't it all peaceful now in Northern Ireland? Why the cocktail wars?”

  “Old habits,” said Manning. “While there's a lot of cooperation now there's still the big question over the future of Ireland, a border or no border. In the meantime, the present heavily depends on economics. The Brits are not going to leave Northern Ireland completely hostage to ourselves in the South. It's a delicate thing, a little war of sorts, only no bombs, bullets.”

  “You remember those things, don't you?” said Voles.

  Manning, startled, looked directly at his interrogator, but the American was gazing away from him, to his right.

  “I should tell you,” Voles continued, now turning to face Manning, “your security and intelligence people could easily conduct a sweep for bugs and wires but that's not the entire story. Let me paint a portrait of your country as the world intelligence community might view it.”

  Manning let out a sigh, feigning impatience. But he was curious.

  “Briefly then, Eamonn, your intelligence community is not lacking in literal intelligence but it is yet to be clearly delineated. In the past couple of years the political department at your Department of Foreign Affairs has been given a new set of guidelines and instructions on intelligence gathering. This sort of reinvigorated intelligence gathering, we won't quite call it spying, has been happening the world over, as you know, since September 2001 and all the nasty stuff that followed.

  “The political department is your polite Irish version of MI6. It's moderately effective at certain levels but is still lacking a clear definition of your nation's national interest, or a clear picture of who in the world might be either harmful, or helpful, to those interests. You are at least ten years away from having a fully functional, non-military, intelligence-gathering arm. With a little help that can be cut back to five or six. But the budget is currently too small. The entire operation is gloriously amateur. Occasionally you strike pay dirt, such as Nigeria last year.”

  Manning stared at Voles. “Nigeria?”

  “Oh, yes. There was coup in the works but one of your people picked up word of it from some local woman he was having an affair with. Her sister was shacked up with one of the army officers heading up this little operation. Your man in Lagos rang Dublin with the news, or at least part of it. He was deliberately vague because, well, he was married.

  “Anyway, the British, aware that your guys sometimes do pick up nuggets these days, were listening in on the lines even though your people probably would have passed it on to them anyway. The British have habits they will never relinquish. No doubt you understand that. Anyway, they looked into it even as they filed away a note on your man's playing around. You never know when a little dirt might come in handy. The end of it all came rather quickly after that. The British tipped off the Nigerians, the plotters were rounded up and the few lucky ones ended up with border postings with front door views of the Sahara.”

  “And the unlucky ones?”

  Voles shrugged. “But back to your intelligence people. Your police have two main units but both are confined largely to operations on your own island. Your police security and intelligence section isn't bad, and we, I mean primarily the CIA, have had some success with them in tracking down itinerant Middle Eastern terrorist types who see Ireland as a bit of a backwater where they can work undisturbed, mainly on money laundering.

  “Your military intelligence is again mostly a domestic operation and is understandably reluctant to involve itself with anything civil or political. On top of that, there is the matter of jealously. Give the job to the army and the cops will be jealous and vice versa. And where there is jealously, there are wagging tongues.”

  “I get the picture,” Manning said, cutting Voles short. “So this is where you come in. Small, recently wealthy country on edge of Europe, militarily neutral on paper but increasingly being drawn into NATO's orbit. Intrigued at the thought of playing with the big boys but nervous about them, too. And considerable opposition to the idea of such big boys games on the domestic political front. That means a government concerned about keeping a lid on things. We don't spy on people so they don't have to spy on us. We're nice people, the funny, quaint and quirky Irish, so just bugger off and leave us alone.”

  “Precisely, Eamonn. But how do you know you're being left alone?”

  Before Manning could reply their talk was cut short by a piercing scream. Both men made for the gate, and as they reached it, they spotted the source.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Manning, “it's bloody Evans. What is she doing on the ground?”

  The two men hurried to where Evans had fallen. She was a heap on the ground, though a heap that would not go easily unnoticed.

  “These bloody heels. God, Eamonn, I think I've broken my ankle.”

  Manning arrived at the scene of the disaster first. Evans, her hair tossed and falling over her eyes, stared up pitifully at her first secretary.

  “Ambassador, are you okay?” Manning did his best to sound concerned. He wanted to laugh.

  “I'm not sure, really. Remind me to have this place properly paved when we move in. They can't expect me to walk around the grounds in carpet slippers or rubber wellies.”

  “Of course not,” said Manning. The ambassador, who, he concluded, must have been dropped at the gate by a cab, ignored the sarcastic tone. Manning looked around for Voles. He was standing about fifteen feet away. He nodded at Manning as if to say Evans was all his.

  “Well, don't just stand there gawking, Eamonn. For God's, sake help me up.”

  Manning leaned over and hesitated.

  “Yes, go ahead,” Evans said impatiently.

  Manning lifted Evans off the ground, trying not to push her already short skirt any higher above her knees.

  “Strong boy,” Evans said. She almost purred.

  Manning glanced over his shoulder in search of support. Voles, however, had gone back to the front door of the house.

  “Let's get you in the door, Ambassador. Then we can try putting a bit of weight on that ankle. It doesn't appear to be broken, although you might have to inspect the place in your stocking feet,” he said.

  “I've inspected quite a few places in my stocking feet,” Evans replied with a look that could not easily be interpreted.

  Manning did not respond. Despite the fact that Evans was a little heavier than she appeared, he was concentrating on reaching the door.

  “Pity the place isn't furnished yet, Eamonn. If it was, you would quickly see the possibilities and potential of our new home.”

  “I'm sure it's going to look really grand,” he replied
. Evans was flirting with him. She was smiling at him as they reached the door.

  “Carry me across the threshold,” she cooed.

  Manning ignored the instruction. Gently, he placed Evans back on her feet. Her ankle held, though she made a pouting face.

  “Oh well,” she said, “the days of gallantry would appear to be well and truly gone. Sometimes I wish I lived in a time when men knew how to treat a lady. The seventeenth century. That's my time, Eamonn. I would have done well in the palace of the Sun King, don't you think?”

  “I'm sure, Ambassador, you would have dazzled old Louis himself. Mind as you go, the floors look polished enough for Versailles.”

  47

  HOW, PENDER WONDERED, was it possible to compare a mile in the desert of Arabia to one on an English moor? How much energy was expended over the scorched sand as opposed to, say, the trampled grass of Clapham?

  The book was resting on his lap, and he, in turn, was resting in a lazy boy chair in the apartment that was to be his domicile in New York for as long, well, as long as it took.

  It had, he thought, been a campaign defined in great part by distance, the great empty spaces between Mecca and Medina, Jiddah and Aqaba, Abu ash Shahm and Damascus. Spaces spanned on the back of a dromedary.

  Arabia in the Great War had been the very antithesis of the overcrowded butcher's shop, Flanders. It had been an endless place for unbounded heroes like Lawrence of Arabia.

  Pender fixed his eyes on the spackled white space of the ceiling and the light fixture that looked like some instrument of medieval torture.

  “No prisoners,” he said, aiming his right forefinger at the offending device.

  It would be a goner, he thought, if he were staying in the place long. But he wouldn't be. The plan was for a quick tour of beauty spots in the New England area while he awaited news on the White House gathering. Then it would be total attention to the operation, his very last hurrah.

  Pender raised himself a little in the chair and closed the book. He knew all this was pretty typical: target or targets revealed and then days of absolutely nothing. As was usually the case, he resisted asking himself why. But it was hard not to wonder. Were the president and prime minister both targets, or were they merely testing his nerve?

  Perhaps the real target was someone else, or some other persons. No, it was Spencer and Packer. Yet the question that was far bigger than why was how. And where. It could only be in Washington, the White House, the most secure address on the planet. So how was he to accomplish his task undetected?

  It was only after turning the same questions over and over in his mind without being able to come up with anything approaching satisfactory answers that Pender realized that the light outside had faded. Manhattan was edging into its night. He stared out the window at the lighted apartments across the street. It took several seconds for him to realize that the phone that was ringing was his, or at least the one in the apartment.

  “Hello,” he said.

  The voice at the other end was female, English accented and a little hesitant. When he returned the phone to its mount a few moments later, Pender smiled. The consulate, curious as always, was throwing out its welcome mat. And of course he had responded in kind, agreeing to pop in to meet with the press office team, the consul general too, of course. Tomorrow morning would be fine, he had told the woman at the other end of the line.

  Pender's apartment was twenty minutes walk from the British consulate, an anonymous outpost in a Third Avenue office tower. As he covered the blocks the following morning, just before his eleven o'clock appointment, Pender allowed himself a few tourist moments, though he had decided not to take along a camera, not even a pocket digital.

  He was off duty. Nevertheless, his eyes took in buildings, shafts of light and reflection in glass, people and traffic, the mood of the morning. He had slurped down two cups of instant coffee, minus his usual milk, but no food because the apartment was devoid of even a crumb. So now he was feeling hungry. Hopefully, he thought, someone would offer him breakfast at the consulate. If not, he was fully prepared to buck protocol and ask.

  Rounding a street corner he saw his destination. The giveaway was an oversized union flag with the royal crest moving gently in the light breeze. Moments later, Pender walked into the foyer of the building. After announcing himself and producing his passport, as advised by the previous night's caller, he walked to the bank of elevators and took one to the appropriate floor.

  Stepping out of the elevator, Pender glanced to his left. There was a reception office behind bullet proof glass and a small waiting room to one side of it. He walked up to the glass pane, waited a moment while a man in front of him was directed to an adjacent waiting area and announced himself to the young woman behind the screen. After speaking into a phone, she directed him to a sealed waiting room, a kind of airlock, between the public area and the inner offices. Pender sat and waited. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Jet lag would take a few days to shake.

  He had known diplomats in a number of countries, not all of them Her Majesty's. A few years back, and he remembered this with a split second smile, he had been hired to assassinate one. Not a real diplomat of course, just a thug from an African country that had more or less disintegrated after years of civil war. He had not carried out his instructions, simply because somebody else had done the job before him, thus erasing the man's diplomatic immunity and, according to some accounts, just about every other aspect of his being.

  “Hello. You must be Mr. Pender.”

  Pender, eyes still shut, had not seen the young man with the oversized red tie who had opened the inner door and was now standing just inches away with an inquisitive look on a face that, by the look of it, had yet to meet twenty-five, never mind thirty.

  “That's me,” said Pender, slowly getting up.

  The greeter smiled in return without revealing his teeth.

  “Jonathan Eccles,” he said. “Press section. Very nice to meet you.”

  Eccles offered his hand and Pender returned the gesture. The handshake was firm to the point of being forced.

  “Let's go in, shall we?” Eccles said, turning quickly to the inner door.

  Pender followed Eccles into the consulate's office area, past various glass walled fiefdoms, what appeared to be a storeroom and at a point where the corridor took a sharp turn, a large office with an especially large map of the United States on the wall. The map was peppered with colored pins.

  “Our secret agents, I suppose,” Pender said.

  Eccles did not respond. He was about to collide with a blonde woman with her back turned who was picking up a pile of files outside another office door.

  “Jane, sorry, well, I'd like you to meet Mister Pender the famous photographer. Jane Hurst, this is.”

  “Welcome to New York,” Hurst said before Eccles could finish his sentence. She had turned quickly and was now standing straight. She ignored Eccles but only, it seemed, to insult the visitor.

  Pender made a quick assessment. A little over the hill, almost married but never did; in dire need of a wild night.

  “You're not one of those dreadful paparazzi,” she said.

  “No,” Pender replied. “I just shoot the anonymous, anonymously.”

  It would have been difficult for anyone but an especially sensitive subject of Pender's response to detect the barely noticeable hint of literal seriousness. Eccles certainly did not, but Jane Hurst adopted an odd, questioning look on her face before returning to her files. She had sensed something, but it was evident that she could not follow through on her instinctive reaction to the half smile and narrowed eyes that had accompanied Pender's reply.

  “As long as you weren't chasing Princess Diana. Jonathan, be a dear and help me with these.”

  Eccles winced. “In a minute Jane,” he said. “I have to take our guest to see Mark.”

  Jane Hurst nodded and darted back into her office, closing the door quickly behind her.

  A few pa
ces farther down the hall the two men came to another door that was half way ajar. Pender paused and took a look inside. It was a room larger that any so far and was filled with a long conference table. Behind a glass partition at the near end there was what appeared to be a sound studio.

  “Conferences, monitoring news, recording and that sort of thing. We have just installed a new generation of video phones. An awful bloody nuisance, if you ask me. You have to look happy on the damn things even when you're pissed off,” said Eccles, chattily. “But please, just a little more,” he said, motioning Pender to follow.

  “Ah, here we are,” he said after a few more paces. They had arrived at another large corner office. The door was closed, and Eccles knocked it gently with his knuckles before opening it.

  Sitting behind a desk and backed by yet another map of the United States was a slim, prematurely balding man who, in contrast to Eccles, didn't look too much short of forty.

  “He's here,” said Eccles, nodding for emphasis and stepping into the room so as to allow Pender free passage.

  The man behind the desk jumped to his feet and positively scampered around the desk.

  “Mark Robinson, head of press. Good to meet you. I've long admired your work,” he said, hand outstretched.

  Pender returned the gesture. “Not all of it, I'm sure,” he said. “Some of my work, well, it never sees the light of day, I'm afraid.”

  “Oh well,” said Robinson, “but what does certainly has had the most enormous impact. I can tell you that some of your photos have had a direct effect on government attitude and, dare I say it, policy in one or two instances. Picture worth a thousand words and all of that. By the way, I think we met once before.”

  “Could have,” said Pender. “You do look a little familiar. Middle East perhaps?

  “Ever in Rome?”

  “Yes, a few times.”

  “Ah, and you attended an embassy reception on one of your visits. Do you recall, it was about five years ago?”