'And you're still late. I thought there was an emergency of some sort?'
'There is. But I'm not James Hunt - and if I was it wouldn't have made any difference.
I've come all the way from Yorkshire this morning, non-stop except for the times the Police flagged me down for breaking the speed limit on the motorway - they should have sent a chopper for you, but all they had to spare was me. So get moving, Frances dear - ' Paul picked up her cup and finished off its contents ' - Ugh! Because there are leagues to be covered 'ere 14.30 hours.'
He held the door open for her. The lorry-driver frowned and the Kawasaki youth gave her a jeering look.
'Where are we going?'
Paul pointed to the yellow Rover directly ahead of them. 'Back to Yorkshire again double-quick, if Jack Butler's new car holds together so long. I would have preferred mine, but like you say - it's an emergency.'
She waited until he had settled down into the traffic. 'What's the emergency in Yorkshire?'
'Ah ... now there you've got me, sweetie. So far as I was concerned, everything was going according to plan. By now there's probably total confusion, without Mitchell to put things right. But when I left everything was A-Okay.'
Frances thought for a moment. 'You know they pulled me off a job?'
Mitchell shook his head and put his foot down.
'Nope. Or, at least, I didn't know you were working until I saw you just now ... and from our past acquaintance I'm assuming that you don't normally spend your free time dressed like a two-bit dolly-bird. Not that it doesn't suit you - '
'Don't be offensive.'
'I wasn't being offensive. I was just admiring the skilful way you have thrown yourself into your cover, whatever it may be, respectable Mrs Fitzgibbon. In fact, if I hadn't known you, I wouldn't have known you, if you see what I mean - even apart from the smell, that is.'
Frances took hold of her temper, recalling Paul's technique of old. Once upon a time he had fancied his chances, and this was his juvenile response to being brushed off; but she must not let it blind her to the knowledge that he was clever and efficient, and ambitious with it.
The effort of exercising will-power was steadying and soothing. They hadn't pulled her out of British-American because anything had gone wrong there, but because something more important had come up elsewhere. And, by the same logic, they wouldn't have wasted Paul on a chauffeur's job without good reason when he was involved in that same more important something.
'Are you supposed to be briefing me - is that the idea, Paul?'
He grinned at her. 'Good on you, Frances! That's Jack Butler's idea exactly.'
'Colonel Butler?'
'Colonel Butler as ever is, yes. Fighting Jack, no less - the Thin Red Line in person.'
'He asked for me?' Frances frowned at the road ahead. She knew Colonel Butler by sight, and a little by reputation, but had never worked under him.
'No-o-o. Fighting Jack did not ask for you.' This time he grinned privately. 'Not for this little lark, he wouldn't.'
'What lark?'
'What lark...' Paul tailed off as he waited to leave the slip-road for the motorway proper. The Rover coasted for a moment, then surged forward across the slow and fast lanes straight into the overtaking one. Frances watched the needle build up far beyond the speed limit.
'What lark.' Paul settled back comfortably. 'I take it you've heard of O'Leary, Frances?'
'Michael O'Leary?'
'The one and only. Ireland's answer to Carlos the Jackal.'
'The Irish Freedom Fighters, you mean?'
'Sure and begorrah, I do. De Oirish Fraydom Foighfers - yes.'
Frances swallowed. 'But I'm not cleared for Irish assignments, even in England.'
Paul nodded. 'So I gather. But apparently there's a Papal dispensation in the case of Michael O'Leary and his boyos. And on the very best of grounds, too, I'm telling you, to be sure.'
'On what grounds?'
There was a Jaguar ahead hogging the overtaking lane - far ahead a moment ago, but not far ahead now. Paul flashed his lights fiercely.
'Get over, you bastard! Make way for Her Majesty's Servants, by God!' Paul murmured. 'You're breaking the bloody law, that's what you're doing.'
The Jaguar moved over, and flashed back angrily as they swept past him.
'On what grounds? ... Well, for a guess, on the grounds that O'Leary is about as Irish as - say - the Russian ambassador in Dublin. Or if, by any remote chance, there is a drop or two of the old Emerald Isle stuff in his veins ... then because he's not really concerned with foightin' fer Oirish fraydom - at a guess, quite the reverse, if you take my point.'
Frances took his point. It was what her poor romantic Robbie had always maintained, she recalled with a dull ache of memory: to him the Irish had always been more victims than villains, even the psychos whom he hunted, and who had hunted him
- hog-tied by ancient history which was no longer relevant, financed by Irish Americans who had no idea what was really happening to their dollars, but ultimately manipulated by some of the very best trained KGB cover-men in the business. It didn't help the ache to recall that she hadn't believed him, because he found Reds under every bed; though at least she hadn't argued with him, because it helped him to fight more in sorrow than in anger, even after three beastly tours of duty; she'd even been oddly relieved, that last time, to learn that they hadn't been responsible, his victims - at least not directly - for what had happened to him.
'It's not surprising, really,' mused Paul, taking it for granted that she had taken his point. 'Whenever there's trouble in Ireland, someone else has to cash in - you can't blame the buggers. The Spaniards did, and then the French, and the Germans. The KGB's only bowing to history.'
Frances thrust Robbie back into his filing cabinet in the furthest corner of her memory, where he belonged. 'We know that for sure?'
'Not for sure. Nothing Irish is for sure. But it was the IRA that told us.'
Frances waited. Because she wasn't cleared for Ireland she didn't know much about the tangle of Irish security beyond what she had read in the weekly sheets in the department in her secretarial days, when she had had to type them out. But ion those days the IFF had amounted to little more than an abbreviation for Michael O'Leary's expertise with the booby-trap and the high-velocity rifle.
'They don't quite know what to make of O'Leary. They smell sulphur, if not Vodka -
though Vodka doesn't smell, does it! Say caviare, then...' He nodded to himself, watching the road. 'They've been prepared to take the credit for his hits - in Ulster.'
'But now he's come to England?'
'That's right. "To take the war into the enemy country", as he puts it. We think they think he may make the war a bit too hot for them - so they've dropped us the word.
Only they don't know where he is, and nor do we.'
'He's pretty elusive, then.'
'The Scarlet Pimpernel's got nothing on Michael O'Leary. But we do rather think he's using some of the KGB ultra-safe houses in Yorkshire, as a matter of fact. Just a hint we've picked up.'
Back to Yorkshire double-quick.
Frances nodded. 'And just what is his war, exactly?'
'Ah ... well, you see he's got a little list. Of Criminals Sentenced by Military Tribunal for Crimes Against Ireland, as he calls it.'
'But that's old hat.'
'Sure it is. So everything in Ireland is old hat - it's all just a re-run of the same old late-night films we've seen half a dozen times before. Only this time maybe the KGB has bought the natural breaks to advertise their product.'
And that did make a difference, thought Frances grimly. It might even change the end of the film itself.
'I see. And the top name on the list is to be found in Yorkshire, presumably - is that it?'
'Yes ... and no - ' Paul stopped as he glanced in his mirror.
'What does that mean - yes or no?'
'It means ... hold on to your seat-belt, Frances dear. We are about to b
e flagged down by the Police - ' Paul gave her a quick reassuring smile as he decelerated and began to pull across the lanes towards the hard shoulder ' - but nothing to worry about.'
The car crunched on loose gravel. The silence inside it was suddenly unnerving, punctuated as it was by the intermittent roar and shock-wave of passing lorries labouring their way to the industrial north. Frances watched the sleek police car pull in just ahead of them, a Rover identical to their own except that it was white and ornamented with a dashing blue-red-blue stripe along its flank.
A tall young constable got out cautiously and came back to them. Paul wound down his window and fumbled inside his jacket.
The policeman bent down and peered in at them. Frances saw his eyes widen and was instantly aware that Marilyn's split skirt had divided to an indecent level.
'Paul Mitchell,' said Paul, opening his identification folder. 'And I'm in an official hurry. Please check with your superiors as quickly as you can.'
The young policeman's eyes glazed over with the effort of not looking at what they were looking at, and then switched to Paul's identification.
'Mr Mitchell - yes, sir.' The young policeman swallowed bravely. 'We have been informed about you - '
A derisive hoot cut him off: the Jaguar they had elbowed out of the road flashed by triumphantly.
'If you would be so good as to follow us, we'll clear the way for you, sir. There's a hold-up about six miles ahead ... we'll get you past it.'
'Thank you very much, officer.' Paul's politeness to the Civil Power was impeccably according to the regulations. 'We've a scheduled stop just beyond Wetherby, at the Crossways Motel. We shall be there for fifteen minutes. If you can give us ten miles after that it will be sufficient, thank you.'
'Very good, sir.' The policeman saluted. 'Just follow us.'
Paul turned to Frances. 'Well, at least the system is working now. I was supposed to be cleared all the way down, but I nearly got arrested for reckless driving instead.' He glanced down. 'And if I'd had you with me I probably would have been arrested - the view isn't conducive to careful driving. Not that it isn't enchanting also ... though I thought suspender belts were strictly for the kinky trade.'
'Keep your eyes on the road.'
'Pull your skirt together and I'll try to.'
Frances draped her plastic raincoat across her knees. 'You said "yes and no".'
'Eh?'
'The top name on the list.'
'Oh, yes ... in Yorkshire. Well, it isn't normally,
but it is today.'
'Is where?'
'At the University of North Yorkshire, for the conferring of honorary degrees and the opening of the new English Faculty Library.'
'You mean ... he's receiving a degree?'
'That's right. A Doctorate of Civil Law, to be exact. For trying to make peace in Ireland, a doctorate in England ... and a death sentence in Ireland. He shouldn't have tried so hard.'
'The Minister?'
'Ex-minister ... no, the Minister, that's right. It's the ex-minister who's conferring the degree - he's the Chancellor of the University now. He tried hard too, so he's also on the list. A damned unforgiving lot, the IFF, putting him on the list is purely vindictive if you ask me. And the IRA's not much better - I can't help thinking that they leaked this to us in the first place just to screw us up in knots.' Paul shook his head. 'Which, of course, is what it's doing.'
He shook his head again, and Frances observed him with a mounting sense of disquiet. This wasn't the cool analysis that accompanied proper security, it was more like an acceptance of the inevitable, the sort of fatalism she imagined soldiers in the very front line must have on the eve of an enemy offensive.
But if that was so then the doubling of the targets
didn't make sense.
'But Paul - d'you mean to say we've let two people on the list get together in the same place?'
'Three, actually.'
'Three?' Frances heard her voice rise. 'You're joking!'
'No.' Paul appeared to concentrate on the police car ahead. 'The Lord-Lieutenant will be there, and he was General Officer Commanding in Ulster a few years back. Now he's one of the top advisers to the Minister's opposite number on the shadow cabinet - which puts him right at the head of the list, alongside the Minister himself in fact. Because he's a smart fellow.'
Frances found herself staring in the same direction, at the flashing hazard lights of the police car, as they overtook a clot of traffic which had formed behind two juggernaut lorries racing each other up the motorway. With Michael O'Leary on the loose it was nothing short of insanity to assemble three prime targets on one spot; or, at least, on one spot away from the maximum security zone of Westminster and Whitehall where such assemblies were acceptable.
'I know what you're thinking,' said Paul.
But Frances was by no means sure what she was thinking. There was obviously some sort of emergency, no matter what Paul had said to the contrary. It was difficult not to jump to the conclusion that it was directly related to the insanity - the irresistible bait which some fool had dangled in front of O'Leary. Perhaps they were panicking now because they'd only just realised what they'd done.
'Huh!' She simulated contempt. If Paul thought he knew what she was thinking she had to encourage him to think aloud.
He gave a quick nod. 'That's the way I feel, exactly. But then I thought - North Atlantic, '43-'44 - U-boats versus escorts - same problem, same answer.'
'North Atlantic - ?' Frances caught herself just in time. Not so very long before Paul Mitchell had been a budding young military historian, and one hangover from that lost career was his irritating habit of trying to reduce every situation to some obscure military analogy which could then be solved by the application of Clauswitz or Liddell-Heart. But this time, instead of deriding his theories, she could use them to establish what was really going on.
'I don't see how the North Atlantic comes into things, Paul. Enlighten me.'
'It's simple. The Atlantic is very big and a U-boat is very small.'
'And it spends most of its time underwater anyway.'
He looked at her quickly. 'You've got the point?' He sounded a little disappointed.
'No. But I thought that was how submarines behaved. Go on.'
'An ...' He brightened. 'So of course they're awfully difficult to find, unless you're lucky.'
'I thought we had radar for that.'
'Don't complicate matters. That isn't the point.'
'Sorry.' Frances curbed her impatience.
'The point is that you don't have to find a submarine. Because if it's any good it's going to find you - you being a convoy.' Again he glanced at her quickly. 'And don't start telling me it's the convoy's job to avoid the U-boat, I know that. I'm simplifying things, that's all.' He turned back to the road. 'There's no avoiding O'Leary, anyway.'
'I see. So O'Leary's a U-boat, and we're the convoy escorts - and we just sit around and wait for him to turn up?' Frances frowned at the banality of the image. 'That doesn't seem very profound, either as a metaphor or as a piece of naval tactics.'
'Uh-huh? Well, that's where you're wrong ... In fact, it's a typical armchair critic's mistake. Everything's simple when you know how to do it.'
His patronising tone galled Frances. 'Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on naval tactics, Paul.'
'You don't have to be. It's just elementary geometry: double the size of the convoy and you don't double its circumference - it took the admiralty years to discover that allegedly simple fact.'
'So what?'
He gave her a pitying look. 'So you haven't actually doubled the size of the target.
But you have doubled the number of escorts... We've trebled the target on the university campus this afternoon - but as they're in the same place we can concentrate three times as many counter-terrorism experts in the same place. The mathematics are more favourable for guarding human beings than they are for ships, so we can put more than half our peopl
e on the look-out for O'Leary. They're the equivalent of what the Navy used to call "hunter-killer groups" attached to the convoys - so instead of just guarding the bloody targets for once we've actually got the manpower to hunt the bastard as soon as he comes in range.'
'Always supposing that he chooses to oblige you by turning up.
This time it was a half-grin. 'Oh - he' s coming right enough.'
Frances started to add up the facts. If Paul was so sure that an attempt was going to be made then there was inside information, and it would probably have come from the IRA itself ... And it was undeniably true that there was always a chronic shortage of skilled manpower - and womanpower - because so much of it was needed for protection of high-risk targets that there was always too little left over to do the better job of eliminating the risk; that was the penalty which inflation imposed on internal security and law enforcement alike along with the stresses it inflicted on the mortgage repayments and the groceries bill. So there was a certain logic in the analogy of Paul's
'big convoy' theory, she could see that.
But it was also an appallingly cold-blooded logic,
because for all his high-flown naval history in reality they were doing no more than set an old-fashioned domestic mouse-trap, with three human beings as the piece of cheese.
'You're deliberately using them for bait, for God's sake!'
'Oh no we're not, Frances dear.' Paul shook his head decisively. 'The Chancellor wanted to give the Minister his degree, it wasn't our idea. And the Minister wanted to come - and the Lord-Lieutenant wanted to be there to talk to them both about the latest Government initiative in Ulster. We didn't set them up.' He shook his head again. 'The security hazards were pointed out to them too - in writing. I saw the departmental minute myself.'
There was a lump of ice in Frances's stomach: that was the absolute give-away, the written warning which the top security bureaucrats issued to protect themselves when they weren't sure they could protect anyone else. She could protest now until she was blue in the face that the ceremony should have been delayed, if not vetoed altogether, but it wouldn't do any good. What was more, Paul knew it, and had known it from the start.
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