Nothing But Trouble

by Michael McGarrity

“Very good, Major,” Sara said, “then you can wait in the hall while I pack.”

  “We have orders to stay with you until your departure, ma’am,” Stedman said, pushing his way into the room. Withers followed, closed the door, and stood in front of it with his arms crossed.

  So much for not being in custody, Sara thought grimly. She kept her composure in front of the two men and started packing. She passed by the window, hoping to spy Fitzmaurice on the quay waiting for her, but he wasn’t there. She wondered if some senior foreign service officer from the U.S. embassy was sitting in the Garda commissioner’s office at that very moment, arranging to have the Spalding investigation disappear completely.

  While Stedman and Withers watched, she pulled clothes off hangers and stuffed them into her bag, emptied her toiletries from the bathroom into her kit, and dumped papers into her briefcase, her mind racing. The orders from DEPSEC had apparently left General Clarke out of the loop. She was to report directly upon her return to Thatcher’s boss, the provost marshal general, who also commanded army CID. That meant Clarke hadn’t shut down the operation and quite possibly didn’t even know it had been canceled.

  How had the mission been compromised? Had she made a mistake by telling Fitzmaurice about Carrier? Outside of General Clarke he alone knew that Thomas Loring Carrier was a target.

  Sara took another quick look out the window. There was still no sign of Fitzmaurice. She decided to trust her instincts; there was absolutely nothing duplicitous about the man. That left General Thatcher, her petty, childish tyrant of a boss, who was Carrier’s good friend and second cousin of a powerful senator.

  She stood at the desk, blocking Stedman’s line of sight as she packed up her laptop. She knew that as soon as she walked out the door, the room would be searched and cleaned by experts, who would leave nothing behind. When Withers glanced away, she slipped the disk containing Spalding’s file under the waistband of her slacks. Somehow she had to get it to Fitzmaurice and hope that the Garda bosses would let him do his job in spite of any pressure from Washington.

  “It’s time to go, Colonel,” Stedman said.

  “I’m ready,” Sara said as she put the laptop in her soft leather briefcase and picked up her room key.

  “You can leave the key here,” Withers said as he opened the door. “We’ve already checked you out of the hotel.”

  “How very thoughtful,” Sara said. No doubt Stedman’s cleaners would return the key to reception after removing any trace of her from the room.

  As she stepped outside the hotel with Stedman in the lead and Withers following behind, Sara spotted Fitzmaurice rolling to a stop at the curb. Perhaps he hadn’t been ordered to stand down by his superiors after all. She caught his eye and nodded slightly at a black, right-hand-drive Jeep Grand Cherokee with Diplomatic Corps plates. He glanced at the vehicle and gave Sara a quick nod in return.

  Stedman and Withers hustled Sara into the car and drove her away. To avoid telegraphing the tail she didn’t dare look back to see if Fitzmaurice was following. Instead she spent the time during the short drive to the airport trying to figure out a way to pass Fitzmaurice the Spalding disk without arousing attention.

  At the airport Stedman parked in a restricted zone next to the terminal, and the two men walked her to a check-in area on the upper level, where Withers gave her a ticket. Their diplomatic passports allowed them to bypass security, and they entered a long, wide corridor filled with shops, eateries, and stores that led to the departure gates.

  Sara stopped in her tracks and looked at the flight information on the ticket. She had an hour before boarding time. Stedman touched her elbow as she glanced around, hoping to spot Fitzmaurice.

  “We’ll take you through U.S. Customs now,” he said.

  “What’s the hurry, Major?” Sara replied. U.S. Customs ran a pre-clearance operation at the airport, and once she stepped across the line, she would technically be on American soil, which meant Fitzmaurice would be unable to easily follow.

  “No hurry, ma’am,” Stedman replied.

  “Would you mind if I bought a book to read on the flight?” Stedman glanced at Withers, who shrugged in reply. “Go right ahead, Colonel.”

  In a nearby bookstore crowded with travelers buying newspapers, magazines, and paperbacks, Sara browsed while her watchers stood at the entrance and kept her in view. At the new release section she picked up a copy of Brendan Coughlan’s latest novel, The Dory Shed, which he’d read from at O’Reilly Hall, and placed the Spalding disk inside it. With the book under her arm she paged through other fiction titles, including a recently reissued edition of The Year of the French, by Thomas Flanagan, the writer Fitzmaurice’s son, Sean, had so highly praised. Mentally, she counted off the minutes, and was about to lose hope that Fitzmaurice would show, when a man jostled past her in the narrow aisle.

  “Excuse me,” Fitzmaurice said, in a normal speaking voice.

  “No harm done,” Sara replied with a smile, as she very deliberately put the Coughlan novel back on the shelf face out.

  Fitzmaurice reached for it. “Is it not a good book then?”

  “Not my cup of tea,” Sara replied. “It’s about some Irishmen living in some dreary place in Nova Scotia.”

  She turned away, went to the counter, and paid for the Flanagan book. Fitzmaurice stepped up behind her with The Dory Shed in his hand.

  “Have a safe flight,” he said with a smile as she was about to leave.

  “Smooth sailing to you,” Sara replied.

  Just west of Dublin, within the confines of an eleven-kilometer wall, is the largest enclosed city park in Europe. Fitzmaurice had played in it as a child and, as an adolescent, had courted comely lasses under its trees and on the greens.

  Seven hundred hectares in size, Phoenix Park, once a hunting preserve of a duke, was a popular destination for Dubliners seeking relief from the crowded streets, the noisy traffic, and the tourists that inundated the city from May to September. Aside from a zoo and flower garden the park also contained the official residence of the Irish president, the residence of the United States ambassador, and Garda Headquarters.

  Called in by Deputy Commissioner Noel Clancy, Hugh Fitzmaurice settled into a chair in front of Clancy’s desk and smiled at his old friend.

  “Am I here to be caned for some misdeed, Commissioner?” he asked.

  “Nothing like that, Hugh,” Clancy replied with a laugh.

  Almost totally bald and with a round, chubby face, Clancy had just celebrated his thirty-ninth year with the Garda. Twenty-five years ago, as a sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Bureau, he’d taken Fitzmaurice, then a new detective with five years in uniform service, under his wing and had shown him the ropes. For the next fifteen years Fitzmaurice, who was perfectly content to remain a detective, had worked for Clancy until he’d been promoted out of criminal investigations into upper management.

  “You won’t be too long with me, then, will you?” Fitzmaurice said, glancing at his watch. He had two hours to get to Dún Laoghaire before George Spalding was due at the villa.

  Clancy shook his head. “An American diplomat paid the commissioner a visit this morning, asking if we’d be so kind, should we happen upon him, to quietly turn over to them this George Spalding fellow you’ve been searching for.”

  “Was any reason given?” Fitzmaurice asked.

  “Supposedly, it’s a matter concerning their national security and thus very hush-hush.”

  “I very much doubt that is the case,” Fitzmaurice replied.

  Clancy lifted his head and stared down his nose at Fitzmaurice. “Explain your reasoning.”

  Fitzmaurice gave Commissioner Clancy a quick summary of the investigation, including the information about Thomas Loring Carrier on the computer disk Sara Brannon had passed to him at the airport bookstore before being whisked away by the two American embassy staff members for a flight to the States.

  “I did my own computer search on Carrier last night,” he added. “He
is a well-connected, staunch supporter of current American foreign policy and a saber rattler for the war on terrorism. Revealing him to be a member of a smuggling ring during his service in Vietnam would be an embarrassment to both the Pentagon and the White House.”

  “International affairs of state do not fall under our purview, Hugh,” Clancy said.

  “No, sir, but arresting criminals does.”

  Clancy leaned back in his chair. “Indeed. But is there sufficient reason to believe that the allegation about Carrier is well founded?”

  “I have no reason to doubt Colonel Brannon,” Fitzmaurice replied. “Am I to do as the Yanks ask, and help them clean up their sticky little mess?”

  “I see no need for that,” Clancy said. “We have to consider the Canadian authorities, after all. They have as great a claim on Spalding as the Americans. Take Spalding into custody, interrogate him, but do not charge him without my authorization.”

  Fitzmaurice smiled as he pulled himself out of the chair.

  “Find a way if you can,” Clancy added, “to make it appear that circumstances beyond our control made us unable to comply with the wishes of the Americans.”

  “I’ll make it so.”

  Fitzmaurice left Garda Headquarters in a hurry and headed down the motorway to Dún Laoghaire. When he arrived at the villa, the officer on station reported the Coast Guard had spotted Spalding’s boat forty-five minutes out. Fitzmaurice took a deep breath and relaxed. It gave him just enough time to put into play the scheme he’d worked up after leaving Clancy’s office. He sent the officer down to the slip along the beachfront to keep watch for Spalding, called the Canadian embassy, and spoke to Ronald Weber, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police liaison officer.

  “Surely you’re acquainted with the George Spalding case,” Fitzmaurice said.

  “I am,” replied Weber. “An American army officer requested our assistance in gathering information regarding one of his known associates.”

  “Well, I’ve a bit of a sticky situation. Apparently, the Yanks now want us to seize up Spalding and surreptitiously turn him over to them.”

  “Do you know where Spalding is?” Weber asked.

  “We not only know where he is, we know where he’s hidden the vast fortune of ill-gotten gains your government would very much like to recover. It occurred to me that if the Americans spirit Spalding away, you may never hear of him again.”

  “That would be unacceptable,” Weber said.

  “However, if you were to participate in the arrest, I think it would be impossible for us to comply with their wishes.”

  “Where are you now?” Weber asked.

  “Close by,” Fitzmaurice replied. “But first, would you be willing to disavow any knowledge of what I’ve just told you?”

  “You’ve told me nothing.”

  “Excellent,” Fitzmaurice said. He gave Weber directions to the villa and said, “Be here in thirty minutes.”

  After he rang off, Fitzmaurice stood on the cliff and scanned the bay with binoculars. The balmy late-summer day had drawn a vast number of boaters to the water, and leisure craft of every imaginable type were cutting through the gentle waves.

  Not at all sure what type of boat he was looking for, he lowered the glasses and thought about Lieutenant Colonel Sara Brannon. He feared that only trouble awaited her upon her return to the States.

  George Spalding cut the engines and swung the wheel to turn the boat. When Sapphire eased against the slip and came to a full stop, he moored the yacht fore and aft. For a long moment he stared up at the pale-blue villa and the steep, terraced gardens that stepped down to the narrow spit of shore. From dockside it was hard to imagine that Dublin was so close at hand. Here he’d have seclusion, quick access to the city, and, as George McGuire, the freedom to roam throughout the European Union as he pleased without fear of discovery.

  He imagined a very good life ahead. When the house was ready, he’d apply for membership at the yacht club, buy a sweet racing dinghy, and, starting next year, spend his summers sailing in the bay. But in the short term, after he qualified for his final sea master’s certificate, he’d be busy with the house.

  The builder had promised it done by the time the gloomy Irish winter set in, and Spalding planned to furnish it with the best that money could buy. He walked up the stone steps to the seaside entrance and unlocked the door. Inside, the musty smell of neglect greeted him. The previous owner had lived in it for fifty years without modernizing the interior. The bare wooden floorboards were scuffed and nicked, the large windows that faced the bay were covered with grime, and faded strips of wallpaper hung loosely below the crown molding that bordered the ceilings.

  Spalding passed through the rooms, making mental notes of what kind of furnishings to look for, thinking it might be wise to hire an interior decorator after he returned from his qualifying cruise around Ireland. He heard footsteps on the staircase and turned to see a friendly-looking, smiling man reach the landing.

  “Mr. McGuire,” the man said, “a moment of your time, if you please.”

  “Who are you?” Spalding demanded, as a second man came up the stairs.

  “Detective Inspector Fitzmaurice. And this is Inspector Weber of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Walk slowly in my direction with your hands in plain view.”

  Spalding didn’t move. He could feel his stomach twist into a knot, his hands get clammy.

  “There are police officers outside,” Fitzmaurice said. “It would be foolish not to do as I say.”

  “How did you find me?” Spalding asked as he stepped toward Fitzmaurice and Weber.

  “Now, that’s quite the tale to tell,” Fitzmaurice replied as he turned Spalding around and cuffed him.

  During the flight from Dublin, Sara prepared herself as best she could for a worst-case scenario. With the stop-loss program in effect, implemented to keep all career active-duty personnel from leaving the service, she knew it was unlikely she would be allowed to resign her commission or apply for early retirement.

  Although the special orders she’d received from General Clarke protected her from any official reprimand, there were many other ways the civilian brass could exact a pound of flesh, including the depressing possibility of being posted to a job normally held by an officer of lower rank. It was a surefire way to signal to the general staff that an officer’s career was over.

  She deplaned at Ronald Reagan Airport, where an army captain in uniform met her outside of customs and drove her directly to the Pentagon.

  “You can leave your luggage in the vehicle, Colonel,” the captain said as he parked in a restricted zone near the entrance, “and I’ll have it delivered to your quarters.”

  “Fine,” Sara said, knowing full well her luggage would be searched, the Garda’s initial surveillance reports would be confiscated, and the Spalding case file on her laptop hard drive would be permanently erased. But she’d deliberately made no case notes while in Ireland, so that would limit what the search revealed. As she followed the captain into the building, she wondered if she would be interrogated before the hammer fell on her. Instead, she was escorted to the office suite of Major General Bernard von Braun, the provost marshal general of the army. Predictably, von Braun kept her waiting in the outer office for twenty minutes.

  Sara did her best to quell her growing anxiety, but when she was ushered into von Braun’s presence and found General Thatcher there, looking smug and self-satisfied, she lost all hope of salvaging her career.

  She snapped to, and von Braun kept her at attention as he stared her down for a long minute. He had a large, protruding lower lip that gave his expression a permanent scowl, and a long, pointed chin. Finally, he gave her the bad news. Her orders to the training branch had been rescinded, her leave was canceled, and she was to report to Fort Belvoir for a five-day orientation course in an intelligence-gathering initiative designed to analyze real-time combat-patrol reports of insurgent activities.

  “From Fort Belvoir you will
be deployed as part of a tactical survey team to Iraq,” von Braun said, “and attached to a brigade. You are to report to Fort Belvoir on Monday morning. Until then I’m granting you immediate leave so you can put your affairs in order.”

  “Permission to speak, sir,” Sara said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Upon deployment, am I to have command of the tactical survey team?”

  “No, you are not, Colonel,” von Braun replied. “You will serve solely as a senior analyst. General Thatcher has arranged to have your personal items packed and ready for you to remove from the premises.”

  “Sir, I request relief from this assignment and permission to either resign my commission or apply for early retirement.”

  “Denied, Colonel,” von Braun snapped, “and for the record, be advised that your investigation of George Spalding has been classified as top secret. Any breach on your part of the National Security Act will be cause for disciplinary action. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sara glanced at Thatcher, who couldn’t control the pleasure that danced in his eyes. The tin soldier had won, and she didn’t have another damn thing to lose except her pride. She snapped her gaze back to von Braun. “Permission to speak, General.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Never mind,” Sara said. “I think I’ve been bullied enough for one day.”

  Von Braun’s face turned beet red. “Dismissed,” he thundered.

  Sara did an about-face and left. At her cubicle she got an ice-cold reception. Officers she’d worked with for three years averted their eyes or looked down at their desks as she walked by. She checked her cubicle to make sure all personal items had been removed and looked through the packed cardboard box to see if anything was missing. All her files had been taken away and the cabinets and desk drawers were empty.

  Carrying the cardboard box, she left without saying a word. At the end of the hallway a civilian employee met her and took her to personnel, where she was officially cleared from the Pentagon and received her new orders. Outside the personnel office General Clarke’s aide caught up with her at the elevators. A congenial man by nature, he seemed morose, almost despondent, when he asked if she had a few minutes to meet with the general.