Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1

by Ian St. James

  "I know."

  "You know that too?" Realisation dawned slowly. "You arranged it?"

  Reilly let the idea take hold, then added. "Steve was going to make a call first, Mick. This side of the water. Then he was going on like nothing had happened."

  "In one of our lorries?" Mick made it sound blasphemous. He looked back at the fire. "And that was the job?"

  "Nearly. Except in Germany he was to miss the Mercedes plant at Cologne and go on down the road a bit."

  "Mary Mother of Christ! What's the Movement doing with a truckload of batteries in Germany?"

  Reilly shook his head. "That's none of our business. It's a job we're doing for - for some friends," he smiled grimly. "We're being well enough paid for it though and that's a fact."

  Mick eyed the money carefully. "And Steve was getting the five hundred pounds?"

  "No. Steve wasn't coming back. If he got away with it, he was going to the States. It was all arranged."

  "Not coming back. To Ireland? Ever?" Mick's astonishment faded slowly. Cassidy was a single man. His mother had died a year ago and he had no close family left. Not here. Uncles and aunts by the score, but all in America; hadn't he heard tell of enough Cassidy's in New York to drink Guinness dry? That made sense right enough. But the rest was a puzzle.

  How much did it cost to make a man vanish in Germany and fish him up again in America? A packet of money, that's for sure. And for what? He looked steadily at the man in the chair opposite. "Big Reilly, we've been friends as long as we've lived. Are you going to tell me what this is all about or aren't you?"

  Reilly barely hesitated. He would have to tell him. Without Steve Cassidy, Mick was the only man who could make the plan work. "I'll tell you what's in it for us," he said, "or at least part of it - but I'll not pretend to know about Germany."

  They smoked cigarettes while Reilly talked about the one hundred Kalashnikovs and the promised ammunition - and of the people hidden back at Conlaragh. And last of all about Liam and Pat Brady. Mick listened thoughtfully, coughing now and then, but otherwise in silence. When Reilly finished Mick carefully praised Liam and muttered a prayer for his memory, then asked, "And what are you wanting from me Big Reilly?"

  "Another driver. A man we can trust."

  Mick thought about that for a very long time. Ten minutes passed as he smoked another cigarette and stared into the fire, preoccupied with his own thoughts. Then, in a quiet precise voice he listed the other drivers at the yard, telling Reilly a little about each of them before systematically ruling them out, one after the other. But he had made his mind up minutes before. Mick knew who the driver would be, and as the idea grew in his mind he felt an overwhelming sense of relief. For the first time in months he felt at peace with himself.

  "I'm thinking it's a dangerous job we're talking about," he said slyly. "Stands to reason. There's so much involved. And if someone's powerful enough reason to want that lorry a few miles extra then they'll be others wanting to stop it. Wouldn't you think so?"

  Reilly nodded, half guessing what was coming next.

  Mick grinned and straightened his crippled body in the chair. "You know, I've half a mind to take that load over myself. Maybe a breath of German air is what I'm looking for," he gave Reilly another sly look. "That is, if I'm compensated for my troubles."

  It was Reilly's turn to look into the fire. He forced himself to ask, "But are you strong enough, Mick?"

  "You want me to take you out to the yard - to thrash you to prove it?" Mick flushed.

  Reilly's smile disguised his sadness. "What about the factory? Will it be all right with them?"

  "And isn't it my job anyway? Transport supervisor and relief driver."

  "But long distance?"

  Mick looked very determined. "I'll fix it."

  "Got a passport?"

  Mick nodded.

  Reilly scratched the blue scar on his cheek as he thought about it. Then he said, "It's the truth I told you Mick, about not knowing what's happening in Germany. But Steve wasn't going to America just to join relatives - he was going there to hide. Whoever drives that truck will be a wanted man. Whatever the job's about, the police will know he was part of it d'you understand?"

  Mick had already guessed as much. He was completely relaxed when he answered. "I'll not be going to America Big Reilly. And I'll not hide either," he gazed steadily at the man opposite. "And then again, I'll not be taken. Do you understand?"

  Reilly wished that the half size bottle of Jameson's had been full when he started it. Now it was completely empty. He looked away, pretending to search his pockets for another pack of cigarettes.

  "It's Molly and the boy that matter," Mick said. "I've only a few months left in any case. Follow me?" He chuckled as he watched Reilly's face. "Don't look so gloomy. Tell me what the compensation's to be - better than a collection at St. Joe's I hope."

  Reilly thought about the money back at Conlaragh. Fifteen thousand had been earmarked to set Steve up in New York. All that would be saved. He searched his mind desperately for other ways to cut expenses, wanting to give all he could to the man watching him. Maybe it would ease the guilt he felt.

  "Twenty thousand," he said in a hoarse whisper.

  Mick smiled. Twenty thousand pounds! Enough for Molly to buy a small shop perhaps? Hadn't she always wanted one? And enough for the boy to finish the schooling - maybe even enough to get him to the University at Dublin later on? Twenty thousand pounds was a powerful enough sum for any man to leave to his family. Twenty thousand pounds would make up for the years of grinding poverty. A sudden pain reminded him of the Jameson's but he shrugged it off. What was a little pain now and then to a man providing for his family's future.

  "And when do I get the money?" he asked.

  Reilly shook his head. "I'll have to talk to them - the others back at Conlaragh. It'll need some arranging. But I'll try to make it some before you leave if you like?"

  Mick shrugged. "Arrange it how you want - so long as Molly gets it afterwards and never knows where it really comes from."

  "And how would we do that?"

  "Find a way. It'll need to be damn good though. If Molly as much as thinks—"

  "We'll find a way," Reilly said quickly. He frowned, wishing he could see an answer there and then. It would need thinking about, that was for sure.

  "Molly must never know. Never. You understand that, don't you?"

  Reilly nodded thoughtfully. It was beyond the wit of the likes of him. It would be up to the Ay-rab. But he smiled with feigned confidence, "Rest your mind. Molly will never know. I promise you that."

  Mick breathed a sigh of relief: "Is it a deal then?"

  It was a deal. Mick brewed more tea while they discussed the details and at eleven o'clock Reilly slipped quietly out the back way and returned to the multi-story car park five streets away. He climbed the steps to where his driver waited in the old Ford on the second floor, trying all the while to rid himself of the feelings of sadness which clung to him. Liam and Pat gone already. Now Mick. Soon none of the old faces would be left. What had Molly said? Leave it to the younger ones? Sure now, and soon there'd be damn all choice.

  When Molly returned, the kitchen was empty. The money had gone from the table and she wondered which of the men had taken it. Big Reilly she hoped, taking his blood money elsewhere. She hurried upstairs to change before tackling the dishes and preparing the midday meal, beans on toast for the boy and an apple to follow, thin soup as usual for Mick.

  They arrived together, the boy demanding food and relishing the prospect of it, the man welcoming only the warm strength it would lend to his body for a few short hours. She served them both, her anxious eyes searching the man's face for a clue about the visitor earlier. There would be no mention of him in front of the boy, she knew that.

  Mick grinned at her. "I'm going to Germany. For the factory, on Saturday."

  "Germany?" The moon would have meant as much to her.

  He nodded. "It's a rush job.
With a bonus - not the fortunes some get their hands on of course," he winked at her. "But it's a handy sum of money."

  Thank God! She breathed a sigh of relief. Mick had sent him packing. Wasn't that plain enough? And wasn't this an answer from the Blessed Virgin herself on the very same day? She smiled and waited, knowing he would tell her more in his own good time.

  "I'll be gone for a while though," Mick said to the boy, his face serious, almost sad she thought. "And you'll be the man of the house. What will you make of that?"

  The boy squared his shoulders and flashed Molly a shy smile. "We'll be all right, won't we Mum?"

  "We'll manage," she said quickly.

  "Of course you will," Mick seemed suddenly cheerful. "And we've a couple of nights left before I go - and me with an advance against my bonus that's fair burning a hole in my pocket. Enough for the pictures tonight - and supper after with what's left over."

  The boy whooped and rushed to find the programs in the paper while his mother made the tea. An advance? She had never known that before. Not the factory paying out before the work was done. Still, it was short notice. A rush job. Perhaps that was why. Mick was sure to tell her later. She watched them flatten the newspaper over the table, and calmed herself, ignoring the tiny seed of suspicion which had taken root in her mind.

  1400 Thursday

  The thick white bath towel had a fringe on one end, like tassels. Draped halfway across Nikolai Orlov's ample backside it looked like a lampshade covering a light bulb. Not that it turned me on. But his skin looked a few years younger and shone with the almost fluorescent pink of lightly boiled pork. Not surprising really, considering the hour it had spent in the steam room. Max, the Negro masseur, gentry cuffed the upper regions of Orlov's thighs while the Russian sprawled on the massage table and watched us. He rested his chin on his left hand while his right clutched a Montecristo cigar and hovered over a half full glass of zambuca. To my knowledge he was the first KGB man I had ever met.

  "So, Ross?" he grinned, and two gold teeth winked like hidden transmitters. "Newsboy here," Orlov nodded at me, "Your new assistant. Does he have a 'need to know' classification?"

  Ross wiped the back of his neck and watched a trickle of sweat disappear into the matted hair on his chest. "As far as this Katoul thing's concerned, Brand's classification is unlimited." The trickle emerged at his waist and dispersed into the towel knotted around his buttocks.

  Orlov nodded and turned curious eyes to me as I sat next to Ross on the slatted wooden bench. He looked like Khrushchev, an accident of fate which had no doubt helped him get his job in the first place and hindered promotion ever since.

  "So," he said. "At long last the famous columnist Harry Brand joins the ranks of the spooks."

  "Thank you, I didn't know it was such a cosy club. Do you two go on holiday together?"

  Orlov chuckled. "The Arabs have a saying - the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

  "That explains their disunity," I said.

  Major Nikolai Oriov even chuckled at that. He really was a very jolly Russian.

  He had booked in an hour or so earlier, using a Hungarian passport and wearing an English suit and Italian shoes. Not that he had kept them on long; we had adjourned to the steam room almost immediately. Apparently Ross had phoned him last night in Rome, where he was cultural attaché at the Russian Embassy. Old pal networks work everywhere.

  "Suzy Katoul," Ross reminded him.

  "Oh, yes," Orlov grinned. "If you knew Suzy like I know Suzy."

  "You know her?" I asked in astonishment.

  He shook his head. "American popular song, Mr. Brand. Circa 1930. Oscar Hammerstein I think."

  "Cultural attaches know everything," I conceded.

  "Who's running her Nikki?" Ross asked urgently.

  "Not me. You have my word on that," Orlov smiled.

  Watching the pair of them I was reminded of the two Jewish businessmen who almost trusted each other after thirty years of partnership.

  "The formula was written in Russian," Ross said.

  "So? Solzhenitsyn writes in Russian. Can I help it?" Orlov dismissed it. "The benefit of a good education."

  "Good organisation ," Ross snorted. "A clean hit on the Marisa - the exact container - the complete disappearance of that patrol boat. Christ, it was well planned!"

  "Too well planned?" Orlov raised an eyebrow. "For the Arabs you mean?"

  "Our Arabs or your Arabs?" Ross asked and finished his drink.

  Orlov chuckled. "Remember Berlin in the fifties? When it was our Germans or your Germans? The game hasn't changed has it? Only the venue."

  "And the pawns," I said.

  Orlov seemed surprised. "Pawns only function to protect the more important pieces, Mr. Brand."

  "They're holed up somewhere," Ross said grimly. "That blasted girl and her crew - and the cargo."

  "But they're in Tripoli," I blurted out. "That's been established."

  Orlov gave me a pitying look. "Wherever they are, Mr. Brand," he said with chilling certainty, "they're not in Tripoli."

  "There's not much time left," Ross said bitterly. "That's the problem. Less than twenty-four hours."

  "And what then, my friend?" Orlov sounded unconcerned. "Even if they've got the bomb they've still got to deliver it. How do they do that? With an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile?" he shook his head. "It's a bluff I tell you. A bargaining trick. You'll hear what they want soon enough. Then you can move. Meanwhile, my people are turning the Middle East inside out."

  "If it's in the Middle East," Ross said gloomily.

  Orlov laughed. "It's got to be. We've already searched Washington."

  He was still having hysterics about that when the door opened and Elizabeth came in. She wore a lemon-coloured beach robe over a black bikini over a tanned body. Most of what showed was golden brown. She carried a silver tray bearing vodka for Ross, a zambuca for Orlov and a scotch for me.

  "Elizabeth, darling!" Orlov would have passed muster in the Chelsea set.

  Elizabeth darling put the tray down and kissed him. Dropping his cigar into an ashtray, Orlov's right hand wrapped around her bottom until he covered it. Spooks must shake bottoms the way freemasons shake hands, there has to be something special about it.

  "Excuse me not getting up," Orlov jerked his head backwards to indicate the towel across his backside.

  "Why?" Elizabeth purred. "You got something special?"

  "Yes," Orlov yelled delightedly. "My weapon's still on the secret list."

  She put a light to the rim of his glass and we sat like children watching the blue flame lick its way across the surface of the zambuca. After a moment she blew it out and handed the glass to Orlov. Then she kissed his cheek again and made her exit.

  "Decadent," Orlov looked at the door with shining eyes. "Wild and decadent." He shook his head as if to clear his brain. "You know Ross - I've still got the same mistress. The one you met in Prague that time. Forty-eight years old and as fat as a barrel."

  Ross grinned, "I'm told mistresses of that age have compensations."

  Orlov was already laughing. "You mean they don't tell, they don't yell and they don't swell."

  "And they're as grateful as hell!" Ross spluttered, spilling his drink.

  They fell about. A bell rang faintly in another part of the building, as if to signal the end of school break. I half expected my old headmaster to beckon from the door, but instead it was Bill and Ben the dungeon men, LeClerc and the doctor ready for another session.

  "What did Negib Katoul want from you?" the doctor asked.

  "A package delivered to Paris."

  "What was in it?"

  "I don't know. I didn't look."

  "But you took it?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "We made a deal. I took his package and he told me where I could find Haleem's child."

  "And that was important to you?"

  "That's right."

  "Why was that so important Mr. Brand?"
/>
  "I felt I had a duty - an obligation."

  "To the living, or the dead?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Negib Katoul was PLO." The doctor polished his spectacles with a silk handkerchief and watched me with naked eyes. "We know that much. Did you feel obligated to him, or the cause he stood for?"

  I barely hesitated. "Neither, I was just concerned that an eight-year-old child was growing up in conditions which appalled me."

  "Because she was your daughter?"

  They had to get around to it I suppose. Funny, but it didn't make me feel sick anymore, not the way it used to. When Negib first told me I was tormented for days. Had Haleem borne me a child? A child I had walked out on, deserted, ignored. And even if... even if she was not my child, she was still Haleem's. I owed it to Haleem. I had promised Nadi. Yet I didn't want the responsibility of a child. How could I? With the life I led, rushing from one war to the next?

  How could I get involved? But I was involved and I had to do something.

  "I didn't say she was my daughter."

  "Are you saying she wasn't?"

  "I'm saying she was Haleem's child."

  "And you went to see her."

  "Yes, I went to see her."

  "Hello, Suzy," I said. Even as an eight-year-old the child shared some of Haleem's delicate beauty. Dark eyes, oval shaped and bright with curiosity, and a shade too large for her face, lustrous black hair and skin the colour of honey. She snuggled behind Farida and peeped out at me.

  "Say hello, Suzy," Farida encouraged.

  But the child would have none of it, so we were forced into adult talk in the hope that her shyness might pass. The camp was in Lebanon. Ironically I had even visited it before, inspected the registers, searched for the name Katoul, not knowing then that Haleem was dead and her child bore the name of Suzette Muhair. The shack they lived in was clean and tidy, and the luxury of two "rooms" set it apart from the squalor of the one-roomed sheds which housed most of the camp's population. Idris used a section of the main room as a dental surgery, so they even had water piped in - though toilets and the main washing facilities were in the communal ablutions fifty yards away. A curtain in the smaller room screened Suzy's bed from the one shared by Idris and Farida. The thin plasterboard walls and bare light bulbs contrasted sadly with the book-lined studies and carpeted rooms of Katamon - but that was a lifetime away.