by James Green
‘Didn’t he ask why you wanted him to do it?’
‘Of course. I told him to mind his own business.’
‘That’s it? You just told him to mind his own business?’
‘More or less. I told him that if he wanted to know he should enquire from the minister direct. Naturally he chose to leave it alone.’ She allowed herself a smile as she went on. ‘I see now, of course, that I should have told the secretary that Anna needed a station wagon or something like that. But you can’t think of everything, can you, and we were so close to the end.’
‘Who told you the bomb was coming?’
‘The Chinese.’
‘The Chinese!’
‘Chinese Intelligence. I’m afraid I don’t know what their official name is. Two years ago a government scientist was approached to sell a small amount of weapons-grade plutonium. He was probably approached because he had already sold bits and pieces of know-how. Chinese Intelligence were on to him and had him under surveillance so when he was approached they quietly picked him up and told him they wanted the sale to go through.’
‘Go through?’
‘Yes. If an organisation was looking to build a bomb they assumed it had to be terrorist-related. With the way things are today if they didn’t get what they wanted in China they might very well get it elsewhere. A decision was made to sell the plutonium and then track what happened to it, where it went, who was involved, and what was the probable target. It was not an ideal situation but the alternative was to arrest their man which would make the organisation who wanted the material look elsewhere and perhaps succeed. A small nuclear device set off in a major Western city has been a prime aim of terrorist groups for some time. One day it would happen: the materials and expertise were becoming increasingly available. This way the Chinese stood a fair chance of preventing such an attack and if they failed, well, the target wouldn’t be a Chinese city, would it?’
‘It’s still a big risk. Why take it?’
‘The Chinese economy was booming, they were about make it into the very top grade of economic nations, they didn’t want all the economic tables to be kicked over at the moment of their greatest opportunity.’ She could see Jimmy wasn’t convinced. ‘Let me put it this way, Mr Costello, that we are having this conversation and not dead should be confirmation enough that they made the right choice.’ When she put it like that, thought Jimmy, you could see she had a point. ‘Once they’d decided on their course of action they needed to alert someone in Europe to deal with this end of things.’
‘This end?’
‘They were sure the target city was going to be European.’
‘Why certain?’
‘They were certain, that’s all.’
‘All you know or all you’ll tell?’
‘It works out the same for you either way.’
Jimmy decided not to press the point. He had his own ideas about it anyway.
‘OK, so who did they contact?’
‘People here within the Catholic Church.’
‘The Church? Why the Church?’
‘They were enabling someone to build a nuclear device aimed at a European target. They were prepared to take the risk but how many European governments do you think would have agreed with them?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘They needed someone who would have a significant presence already on the ground wherever the bomb turned up. Someone who could support their agents, who would be already there in sufficient numbers to get information and move freely. They needed to be absolutely sure that once the bomb arrived they could keep close to it and get hold of it before it was delivered to whoever was going to set it off. The Catholic Church is the only organisation which fits the bill. We have personnel, a great many personnel, in every European country that would be on the bombers’ list. We have the communication infrastructure. We could provide transport and all the non-specialist resources they would need. They would have the specialists, the people who knew how to handle the bomb when they got it, and the intelligence resources to make sure they could track it while it was on the move from wherever it was made. They needed our resources so they came to us.’
‘How? How did they come to you?’ She was about to answer when it dawned on Jimmy. ‘Wait, I know. They sent Cheng. He was their messenger.’
‘He was being rehabilitated, he was available. They were prepared to trust him and they knew we would trust him. He was ideal. Also, who would notice another archbishop coming to Rome, even a Chinese one. He delivered his message but then died.’
‘From natural causes?’
‘Quite natural. Fortunately contact had been made and an agreement was eventually reached ‘
‘Did he get his red hat?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘And the funeral?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘That was just something to keep us going.’
‘As you say, something to keep you going.’
‘And the cardinals, the dead ones.’
‘That was a nuisance. I didn’t expect such an odd request so I did what I thought best and gave you what you wanted.’
‘Another story.’
‘Not quite. The three cardinals named all died unexpectedly though not suspiciously.’
‘And the conclave.’
‘All cardinals influence a conclave so not really a story, just selective truth. You asked for a connection so I gave you one. I needed to keep you involved until I was ready to move you.’
‘What did they ask for, the Chinese?’
‘That as soon as they knew the destination we should help in making sure the bomb could be intercepted without involving the local police until it was absolutely necessary. We agreed, the necessary communications were set up, then we waited. They tracked the plutonium to Pakistan where the bomb was to be assembled by a government nuclear scientist who was willing to sell his services. From Pakistan it was sent by lorry to Lebanon in a packing case marked as machine parts. In Beirut it was delivered to a man who had been recruited to arrange for the shipment of the case by sea.’
‘A terrorist?’
‘Perhaps. He was a shady character, part gangster, part fighter, part middle-man. A man who was paid by many groups to do anything from arms smuggling to car bombing. He had the experience to handle a job like shipping the goods and not get caught. The crate was held in Beirut for some months, obviously they were waiting for something, but finally it was loaded onto a ship bound for Italy. Then man then flew to Italy where he thought he would take delivery of the packing case and get it to the handover.’
‘Thought he would?’
‘The Chinese knew which port and the arrival date, so they waited until the boat was due to dock. They let him pick up the crate and then moved in and took it off him. They interrogated him, got the details of where the bomb was to go and how the handover would be made and what the final target was.’
‘He just volunteered that information, I suppose?’
‘We never asked. It was something we were prepared to leave to the Chinese. Whatever methods they used they were able to give us all the information we needed. With their information we knew how to finish what they had started. We told the Chinese how we thought it could be dealt with. They agreed, so we put our plan into action. We arranged for everything to be in place.’
‘And everything included me and Ricci?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Anna’s stuff? That was all part of it?’
‘Yes. We had you and Inspector Ricci ready to move when we needed you by arranging for you to be looking into Cardinal Cheng’s death. That meant we could feed you information as and when we wanted. When we were ready we arranged for it to appear as if a known terrorist was in Rome which brought in the police. After that I was going to provide you with the information about the high radioactive traces. It was to have been a piece of last-minute information that had suddenly come from an intelligence source. You, however, beat me to it. You put t
he last pieces together and alerted the police to the fact that there might be high levels of radioactivity which of course there were. Once you had done that the police could take over and arrest the men who thought they were carrying the bomb. All very simple, very straightforward. It was just a matter of bringing everything together at the right time.’
‘It was all your plan?’
‘The matter was entrusted to me. I had help of course but basically, yes, it was my plan.’
‘Did the Chinese know who the bombers would be?’
‘No. The Lebanese go-between had been given an airport and flight number and was told to wait at Arrivals holding a card with a name on it.’
‘What name?’
‘Does it matter? It would certainly have been false. It was merely to allow the bombers to make the correct contact. Our job was to provide a replacement for the Lebanese who would use his papers to make the handover at Florence airport. We had the police already mobilised looking for Anna, you and Inspector Ricci were our trigger to move them in. It was a pity the car chosen by the secretary was too small to have carried the bomb but its only purpose was to provide the evidence of a nuclear device, which it did, so no real harm was done. I doubt the police will spot the mistake in a hurry. They’ll be too busy congratulating themselves on the arrest. When they find out that the radioactive traces are the wrong sort it won’t matter, everything will be over.’
‘So it was all a set-up from beginning to end?’ McBride had the good grace to give an apologetic smile. It was an excellent plan and she was right to be proud of it. ‘Even getting me here so I could supposedly train for the priesthood?’
The smile went.
‘No, as I have already told you, your application was processed by the selection panel in the normal way. My interest was, shall we say, parallel to theirs.’
‘So why me?’
‘We needed a detective but not one on active service. My attention was drawn to Inspector Ricci. He had just been put on sick leave. However, we needed someone else, another trained mind to help him. He wasn’t a well man and he might not have stayed the course. I looked around and found you.’
‘And the state of my mind? What brought on that little episode?’
‘Having met with you several times I was worried that you might see through the whole thing. You struck me as rather astute in a plodding sort of way. You must have been a good detective. I decided to try and divert your attention somewhat, not hamper you mind too much, but sow enough doubt to slow you down. As a matter of interest all I told you I believed could be true but, as I said at the time, I have no formal training in that field. I tried never to lie to you, to always base what I said on the truth.’
‘Are you telling me you tried to be honest with me?’
‘Oh no, not honest, but to stay as close to the truth as possible so that you could never be sure what was true and what was false. I must say I was pleased with the way things went, except for that business of you being put in hospital. I hadn’t anticipated that.’
‘Ricci got caught looking into my record.’
‘Yes, I was told.’
‘So you arranged for his mate to get invited to America?’
‘Yes. It wasn’t difficult; art crime is an interesting subject. I understand his talks were very well received and he will probably be invited back. Just as a matter of interest what was the attack on you about? I presume it was related in some way to what you were doing?’
‘You weren’t the only one who got told Ricci had been looking. Some old acquaintances of mine got some hooligans to throw a petrol bomb into his uncle’s factory in Glasgow to warn him off. He asked me to go and check it out.’
‘But if your friends in London were protecting you why the attack when you returned?’
‘Putting me in hospital was someone else’s way of warning me off, saying I shouldn’t think about coming back to Scotland, ever.’
‘Well, thank goodness no lasting harm was done.’
Jimmy had been listening but as he listened his brain had been working and he was finally beginning to understand. There were no outright lies, that was the key. She was telling him facts, but she was still at her old game, she was muddying his mind so he wouldn’t see the joins in her story where she’d left the truth and slipped into storyland.
‘The Anna thing was clever, I liked that. She was never here, was she?’
‘No.’
‘But you did it neatly. It was real enough to get your police team up and running. Where is she?’
‘Does she have to be somewhere?’
‘Oh, yes. You may be good but not even you could just reach out and lay your hands on her fingerprints and DNA.’
‘At this moment she is about to take her initial vows in an enclosed convent. She is, and has been for some time, in Bavaria.’
‘So what was the story there?’
‘There is no story. No story for you, that is.’
Jimmy paused for a second. He wanted to stand up and shout out. He had her. She had finally made her mistake. She had told him a fact she couldn’t spin. Now he knew he could get it all, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.
‘So, Anna Bruck, real name Anna Schwarz, a known terrorist wanted by several governments, is in a convent in Bavaria. That’s interesting.’ A look of concern flitted across Professor McBride’s face. ‘I would guess there are plenty of people who would think it worth the time and effort to check which convent.’
‘There are plenty of convents, Mr Costello. I don’t think anyone would find anything.’
‘But if someone tells the intelligence community she’s there somewhere they’ll start looking. I don’t say they’ll find her. I’m sure your nuns will be as good as the monks were when they moved Nazis around after the war. But she’ll have to give up any idea of a settled religious life. Is that what you want for her?’
She wasn’t so pleased with herself any more.
‘No.’
‘Then tell me about her, where she fits in.’
‘She’s not part of this; she wasn’t ever in Rome.’
‘You made her part of this, not me, and if you made her a part of it I want to know what that part was.’
‘Why, Mr Costello? Why is it so important for you to know? It’s all over now.’
‘I need to know where I stand in all of this. If what you’ve told me is true then there’s been some very powerful people involved and my guess is they wouldn’t think twice about what happened to one individual they thought had information they didn’t want shared with anyone else. You got me involved so I want you to tell me what I was involved in, which means you tell me about Anna.’
It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for her to decide.
‘Eva and Anna were chalk and cheese. Eva was wild from being a teenager, Anna was always quiet. Eva’s parents hoped her going to university would help her settle down, as we know it did the reverse. Anna was pious, wanted to be a nun. She was waiting until she was old enough and was sure she had a vocation. She used to go and stay at a convent and talk to the other nuns and the mother superior. She was pretty close to being admitted when Eva and her friends did what they did and went on the run. Eva turned up one day and got Anna on her own. She demanded her help and gave Anna no choice. Help or I’ll kill Mummy and Daddy and then I’ll kill you. What could she do? She helped. She got the men places to stay and got herself and Eva into a retreat house. It was perfect. The men didn’t know where the sisters were, and who would look for a murderer in a Catholic retreat house? Then that idiot Geisller tried the bank business. Eva realised at once that if he tried again without her, they’d be taken. They met up and she planned the supermarket robbery. Once that was over they had enough money to travel so they set off to find the real strong men, the ones who were organised and ruthless. Anna went home and her parents arranged for her to go into a convent. They realised they’d effectively lost one daughter, they didn�
��t want to lose the other to a long prison sentence so they pretended she was on the run with her sister. In the convent she was safe and they could visit her if they were very careful.’
‘And the mother superior agreed to take her?’
‘Of course; Anna had done nothing wrong.’
‘Nothing wrong! She acted as transport officer for a gang of murdering thugs.’
‘I mean she had committed no sin. No doubt under criminal law she could have been charged with complicity after the fact in a murder and for actual complicity in armed robbery. But she had been given a choice between two evils: help her sister or see her parents murdered and be murdered herself. She chose the lesser of two evils. To do that is not a sin. She may have been guilty according to the law but to the Catholic Church she had not sinned.’ Jimmy the policeman would have laughed at such reasoning, but Jimmy the Catholic could see how it worked, if only for a truly Catholic mind. ‘The Geisller Group dropped out of sight and Anna settled down to a life in the convent but she never felt safe. At any time Eva might have turned up and demanded her help again. Then Eva was shot outside a railway station and the threat was gone. For Anna and her parents the nightmare was over.’
‘Do you know who did it, the shooting?’
‘No, but given who she was running with it could have been anyone.’
‘But with Eva dead Anna could pick up the threads?’
‘That’s right and when the mother superior felt that emotionally and spiritually she was ready she agreed to let her begin her training.’
‘And she was to hand when you needed a known terrorist for your piece of drama.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s all of it?’ She didn’t answer. Jimmy waited, but she still didn’t answer. ‘Only the thing is, I got a phone call as I was coming here from Inspector Ricci. He’s been following up on things. The two men, it turns out, were British Asians, one from Manchester and one from Luton. Both were students at Birmingham University and both sang like canaries as soon as they were questioned. Yes, they were would-be suicide bombers and yes, they had tried to detonate the bomb when they were stopped by the police. But the bomb didn’t go off.’
