by Bill Granger
The ship would sit on the concrete apron about seventy-five feet from the river.
The first-class passengers—there were a hundred and thirteen tickets issued for the initial voyage—would be seated in a special section to the right of the vessel. A wooden stand for the politicians and dignitaries was to be erected at the prow. Workmen were building it now. Joining Lord Slough and his daughter on the platform would be the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, the Secretary for Northern Ireland, the Duke of Kensington (cousin of the Queen and first cousin to Lord Slough), and Mr. Peter Tomkins, secretary of the Trades Union Council.
The ceremonial guard, including Parnell, would be around the platform and would form a line leading to the hovercraft.
At precisely ten A.M., Parnell explained, the Liverpool police band would commence with the national songs of Great Britain and the Irish Republic.
At 10:08 A.M., Lord Slough was expected to introduce the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who would speak for approximately five minutes. Then Slough would introduce the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, who would speak for approximately the same time.
Finally, Lord Slough would speak briefly and then introduce his daughter, Brianna Devon.
She would be handed a magnum of champagne with which she would christen the ship.
Immediately thereafter, while the police band played various martial tunes, the first-class passengers would quietly board the ship.
At 10:45 A.M., Lord Slough and the Prime Ministers and the Duke of Kensington would also enter the vessel.
At 10:47 A.M., the hovercraft Brianna would begin its slow waddle across the concrete apron the seventy-five feet to the river Mersey.
At 10:48 A.M., she would be in the water.
At 10:53 A.M., she would be beyond the breakwaters of the Irish Sea, heading for Dublin.
Parnell showed them a drawing of the actual launching apron.
“And we,” said Faolin. “How do we board her?” He said it to jog Parnell, for he had gone over the plan a thousand times in his head.
Parnell said, “Donovan, of course, is already aboard with the crew during these preliminaries. You, Faolin, will have this uniform and be part of the crowd-control contingent—here, to the right of the platform. Now, the press is here, between you and the platform. When the dignitaries start to go aboard, the press will move this way—here, on the side of the platform—and follow them with their cameras and whatnot right aboard ship. We have issued credentials to nineteen Dublin journalists and twenty-four from London and six from Liverpool. Nineteen of that total will ride in the ship to Dublin.”
Parnell smiled.
Faolin said, “Yes. And then what? Continue.”
Parnell let the smile fade. “Well, you accompany the press aboard, in uniform. Tatty here goes aboard with the first-class crowd as a passenger, and Donovan makes a rendezvous with the pair of you aboard ship.”
“What about security for the politicians?”
“To me knowledge,” said Parnell, “there’s three special CID men detached from Scotland Yard to guard the P.M. The Taoiseach will doubtless have a couple of Irish coppers. But there’s good news about Lord Slough.”
“Indeed.”
“No special men for him. But the crowd’ll be laced with men in civilian clothes of course. They’re looking for someone to take another shot at his Lordship, not to take over the Brianna.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure. We got a cable this mornin’ before I was off duty. From CID Special Branch in Scotland Yard. To the superintendent it was. Of course, I had a look. They’ve requested a detachment from us for duty Tuesday afternoon.”
“Where?”
Parnell grinned. “In bleedin’ Glasgow is where. Fer the Celtics–Rangers match-up.”
“I don’t understand,” said Faolin. He got up from his chair again and began to pace.
“CID wants the specials to help guard Lord Slough when he appears at the game Tuesday. Mix in the crowd. It seems they got a tip from Dublin that our lot intends to assassinate his Lordship during the game. Lads’ll be happy to see the match.”
“Indeed,” said Faolin.
Tatty laughed. “Ah, God, the coppers are outsmartin’ themselves.” Parnell laughed with him.
“And no special bunch sent down here Wednesday for the Brianna launch?”
Parnell managed to stop laughing. “No, that’s the best part of it. They’re convinced the Boys intend t’take him out in Glasgow. And there’s no changing an official mind once it’s made up.”
“So we let her be launched down the spit of the Mersey inter the Irish Sea,” said Tatty. “And then we come up and announce ourselves.”
Finally, Faolin smiled. It would be the moment. “To Lord Slough and t’the journalists.”
Parnell said, “Now, make no mistake. I’m sure they’ll have a guard on Slough—”
“It don’t matter,” said Faolin. “Once we get control of the pilot house, we have the ship, same as the bloody Arabs when they grab a plane. We’ll have our own weapons. And we’ll have the transmitter t’set off the jelly in the hold.”
As though it were a signal, Parnell rose and went into the second room of the flat. When he came back, he carried two black weapons—two M11 “grease guns” of the type used in Vietnam by American forces. They were small and deadly and capable of incredible rates of fire.
He held one in each beefy hand.
Faolin took one of the weapons and lined his eye along the sight. Then he hefted it and spun around in the room, as though spraying the apartment with deadly fire. “Give these t’the lads in Belfast and we’d see a war.”
Parnell nodded. “But they’re dear, very dear.”
Tatty said, “But not too dear.” He held the gun, hefted it, and suddenly looked young; his wiry body came alive. “Ah, t’have been there when me Old One was makin’ the Black and Tans dance.”
“Aye,” said Parnell, in a faraway voice.
But Faolin did not speak; he lowered the weapon and let the muzzle sweep the room; he saw the bodies fall, saw the blood.
“We’ll give them a message from Belfast then? Eh, Faolin,” said Tatty.
And then the ship would be blown up—just that moment of heat and light and then it would be gone.
“Eh, Faolin?”
Death, sweet death. To them all.
He stood in the middle of the room and did not speak but saw his future and welcomed it.
Elizabeth left the hotel shortly after nine on Monday morning after a miserable “English” breakfast of hard rolls and black tea. The graciousness had gone out of the hotel as she remembered it; like others in the city, the hotelkeepers had been hit hard by the recessions of the middle 1970s and had cut back on amenities that guests had long expected.
Elizabeth noticed it but didn’t care terribly; she retrieved her passport, but when she demanded partial repayment on her advance, they wouldn’t give it to her. She left the hotel frustrated and angry.
Gloomy London Monday. The rain had ceased, but it was cold and damp and windy.
A block from the hotel, she ducked into a clothing store. With little hesitation, she selected a black sweater and dark slacks and a raincoat. She asked to try the garments on.
In a dirty, dim-lit fitting room in the back of the shop, she pulled the new clothes on and bundled up the others in the oversize raincoat. She reappeared, better dressed; the shopkeeper, an old woman with ratty gray hair, looked surprised.
“Yer gonna wear them, dearie?”
In answer, Elizabeth removed a fistful of pound notes from her purse and paid.
“Put these in a bag,” she said, indicating the bundles. If the woman thought to say anything, Elizabeth’s cold voice stopped her. She was a queer one, the old woman thought; the whole area is full of them now, queer ones like her.
Elizabeth left the shop and walked quickly to Paddington Station, where she dumped the bundle of old c
lothes in a trash bin near the station entrance. She felt better now; she had torn a sheet in the hotel and bandaged the wound on her arm. The arm did not hurt as much this morning, and did not appear to be infected.
In a way, she felt freer than she had yesterday afternoon, after she realized Devereaux betrayed her. It was better like this, clean, to get away from them all, not to trust another for your safety.
Going into the buffet in the station, she ordered tea laced with milk. She sat down at a table with a copy of the Guardian.
The story was on page two, not conspicuous, under the Home News section. About a woman named Nettie Perce found murdered on the Dover train. Police were currently seeking a brown-haired female with an American accent for help in their inquiries.
The cup shook in her hand; the sense of freedom vanished.
Someone had spotted her. The conductor? Or the man with the newspaper who had really warned her by the look on his face when the woman rose to attack her?
She had to get out of London this morning. North, away from Dover.
Suddenly, she put the tea down and stared through the window of the buffet. There was the same man—from the platform at Victoria Station. The same bulky figure in the same old, soiled raincoat.
Elizabeth grabbed her purse and fled out the door, onto the concourse, without looking back. Rushing into Eastbourne Street, she hailed a cab.
Her confidence was gone.
“Where to, miss?”
Where to? Away.
“Oh.” She seemed to fumble in her purse for an address. But there was no place. “Piccadilly Circus,” she said at last. It was a place at least.
Fifteen minutes later, the cab deposited her on a corner of Piccadilly Circus, in the congestion of pigeons, cars, noise, and flashing signs. She paid again and stood for a moment on the sidewalk. How could she tell if she had been followed?
She started down the block, her shoes clapping loudly on the pavement. People stopped and turned to stare at the distraught figure with pale face and wild eyes.
Elizabeth turned into Haymarket and began to hurry along towards Trafalgar Square.
She had to leave London. She didn’t know the trains—but she had been in Paddington Station long enough to see there were trains for Wales. Wales would be safe.
If they had followed her, they would not expect her to double back on herself.
Ten minutes later, she entered Paddington Station again and went to the ticket counter. A train for Cardiff was scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes. She bought a ticket.
Realizing that she might get hungry on the long trip, she went into the buffet and bought two sandwich rounds and stuffed them in the pockets of her tan raincoat.
“Please may I speak to you?”
She turned. It was him again; the man from the platform at Victoria Station, whom she’d spotted a half hour before. He was standing next to her at the end of the checkout line in the buffet, holding a copy of the Daily Mirror.
She wanted to run.
Perhaps he understood that; he took her arm, gently. “Please,” he said again. “Don’t be good enough to run away again.”
“How did you follow me?”
“Ah,” he said. And he laughed. “I cannot. There was no cab. So I waited and hoped you would come again to the station because I did not know where to look for you.”
Suddenly, it all seemed hopeless to her.
“Who are you?”
He still held her arm, but held it gently.
“I am Mr. Dennis,” he said. “I am with British Intelligence. Actually, the name is more formal but it is enough. I want to speak to you. May I buy you a cup of tea?”
“My train—”
“Please,” he said.
“I have to go. I don’t know you.”
“No, Elizabeth. But I know you. Please, let me call you Elizabeth. To make you comfortable. Because Americans want to be called of their Christian names. I am Mr. Dennis.”
She was frightened; her face was chalky; he held her as lightly as a child would hold a bird—and as firmly.
What was the use? “Should I give up?”
“No, no. Never give up. That is surrender,” the man said. His face was broad and smiling, his blue eyes were clear and guileless behind the rimless glasses.
“Please,” she said. “That woman wanted to kill me.”
“I know, Elizabeth. It’s all right. We know all about it. I am going to help you. Please trust to me.” He ordered two teas and paid with his right hand, still holding her with his left. “Please,” he said again. She picked up her tea. She could throw it in his face—
“Please don’t do that,” he said, as though he read her thoughts. “Here, I will release your arm. I merely did not want you to be frightened when I spoke to you, to run away as you did before. I must speak to you. But don’t throw your tea at me—if you must run away, leave my face as it is.”
But she did not run away. They sat down at a plastic table.
Elizabeth sipped her tea for a moment.
“What do you want?” she said at last.
He looked at her shyly and smiled again; one of his large hands reached across the plastic table top and took hers. Her hands were pale and cold. He held her hand and warmed it.
“To help you,” Denisov said.
22
WASHINGTON
The deal had been made Sunday, after Devereaux’s telephone call, after another meeting between Hanley and the Chief of Section.
It appeared to be satisfactory.
Of course, Hanley didn’t know all the details. But the Old Man assured him that Operation Mirror was closed down, that the threat to the Section was over. He had even congratulated Hanley and mentioned something about a citation (a secret citation, of course) for Devereaux.
What about the opening to British Intelligence?
Ah, explained Galloway. That was part of the deal. The CIA remained in place, all was status quo as far as the Limeys were concerned. In exchange, all present and future moves to discredit R Section were abdicated by the CIA. And the CIA promised to turn over a particularly juicy cache of information from Uganda, straight to R Section’s African desk. So that R Section could get the credit for turning the information over to the National Security Council.
Everything, the Old Man said, had turned out well.
Until two A.M. Monday morning, when the housekeeper of Blake House, phoning Hanley from the air terminal in London, explained that Devereaux had come, closed the house, burned all the secret documents, turned her out, and… turned out poor Mr. Green.
He killed him? Hanley asked.
No, the housekeeper said. He had merely chased Green away. And closed Blake House.
It was nearly six before Hanley and the Old Man met again, this time in the latter’s office on the sixth floor of the Department of Agriculture building.
“Bad news, Hanley,” the Old Man said. He was sipping coffee at his uncluttered desk. His face seemed more drawn in the cold fluorescent light. Beyond the window, the rest of Washington was sleeping in the pre-dawn darkness.
“It is, sir,” said Hanley. He sat down in the designated chair. “We’ve been signaled, as you know. By the housekeeper. And now Devereaux and Green have flown. In addition, there was an attempt to eliminate this Elizabeth Campbell person by the competition. And she has flown as well. The three of them are out there. And, given the timing, I suspect that Devereaux now understands the deal we’ve entered into with the Langley firm.”
“He understood your instructions,” frowned the Chief.
“Yes. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about that. He—well, he did seem upset in his telephone report yesterday that we hadn’t moved to safeguard the woman.”
“This Campbell person.”
“Yes.”
“Is this usual? I mean, this disobedience. I wasn’t really aware of it,” said Galloway.
“No, sir. Not usual at all. He hasn’t made contact since last night.”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he contact the competition?”
“No, sir. I’m sure not. I—”
“Why not, Hanley? He’s disobeyed your instructions. He’s jeopardized the mission. He’s let a mole escape.”
“There may be some plan, sir. I told you, he wasn’t satisfied with the information he had about this Lord Slough—”
The Old Man banged his fist down on the desk. The noise was so unexpected that Hanley flinched involuntarily “The hell with Lord Slough. You sent Devereaux to get information. He got it. It was up to us to decide—”
Hanley felt very brave in speaking up. “Sir, I did tell him that we intended to open an information bridge to British Intelligence—”
“I don’t care, his mission is information, not policy. So you think Devereaux is extemporizing and developing his own scenario. Well, Hanley, I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I.”
“Goddammit. Devereaux stumbles on this Operation Mirror thing and for the first time in years, we’ve got the Langley firm boxed in. We can work out an accommodation with them. To hell with British Intelligence—bunch of Limey bastards.”
“Sir. I think that if Devereaux has freed Green or stashed him or whatever, he intends to use him.”
The angry moment had passed. The Old Man sat calmly again, sipping his black coffee. “For what?”
“I don’t know. I suspect he doesn’t trust us.”
“Why not?”
Hanley knew why; he understood that much about Devereaux. “He promised this Campbell woman safety; we permitted her to be the target of another assassination attempt. That’s one. Second, he realizes we have reached an accommodation with Langley because Operation Mirror is suddenly quashed. That must be the reason he didn’t eliminate Green. Someone from the CIA warned Green that Mirror was blown and Green told Devereaux. So he knows that we’re… well, letting the CIA off the hook.”
“And that’s none of his business.”
