'Let's just drink,’ said Avedissian.
In an hotel suite, less than five miles from where Avedissian and Kathleen sat with their drinks, Finbarr Kell raised a tumbler to his lips and took an angry gulp. 'Where is he, damn it?' he hissed, looking at his watch for the third time in as many minutes.
'He should be here by now,’ said Nelligan unhelpfully. It only annoyed Kell more.
'I know he should be here by now!' he snapped. 'The plane landed two hours ago.’
Kell was approaching his irritable worst and it was at times like this that his disability rankled most. He wanted to pace up and down and vent his frustration through physical action, but instead, he had to wait in nail- biting inertia, trapped inside a legless torso.
The response to his insert in The Times had been a directive to send an agent to Amsterdam to receive further instructions and, to this end, he had activated a man with no previous record or history of sympathy with the Republican movement. He had activated the Tally Man.
To the world at large Malcolm Innes was a respectably dull accountant in his late thirties whose thinning hair and anonymous features had made him ideal for the purpose. Malcolm Innes was the man who lived up the street from everyone. Malcolm Innes was also the man who had left his brief-case in a public place on three separate occasions with devastating consequences. Malcolm Innes was the invisible man who, in the past, had come up behind five known traitors in the crowd and left them with an ice pick in the kidneys. Malcolm Innes was the Tally Man.
To Kell, at the moment, Innes was a link in a chain that was currently under strain for he was more than an hour late. His plans had allowed for a margin of ninety minutes at the most, for the Americans were due at eleven and he had to digest the information that Innes was bringing before they arrived.
As Kell could have predicted, the Americans had gagged on hearing the sum involved. They always preferred to deal in small sums at intervals rather than entrust control of large sums to the organisation itself, a constant bone of contention but one the IRA could do little about. If the Americans, who had insisted on crossing the Atlantic to discuss the present operation before making any commitment, arrived to find Kell without the facts at his fingertips it would give them the excuse they would be looking for to pull out. He would look like a bungling amateur and the Americans would take the first plane back. Kell threw back his glass and handed the empty to Nelligan. 'More,' he said.
As Nelligan refilled the glass a knock came at the door. Kell held up his hand and they both waited. A further three taps followed by another pause then two more.
‘Thank Christ,’ said Kell and Nelligan opened the door to admit Malcolm Innes.
Innes entered the room clutching his brief-case and wearing a harassed expression. He took off his glasses to wipe some drops of rain from them.
'Something's wrong?' said Kell anxiously.
Innes shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'I just got stopped at Customs. I've never been stopped before but tonight of all nights I get the full treatment. They even took the lining out of my case.'
'They didn't have a reason to, did they?' asked Kell suspiciously. 'If I thought for one moment…'
'No, no,' Innes assured him. 'Unless you call ten cigars and a bottle of Advocaat a reason.'
Kell relaxed visibly. 'Bols,’ he said.
'It's the absolute truth, Mr Kell… Oh I see,' said Innes, unprepared for Kell's joke and sudden change of mood.
Kell checked his watch and said, 'We've got thirty minutes. Start talking.'
Nelligan handed Innes a drink and the man took a hasty gulp to wash down two indigestion tablets before starting to speak. 'I got into Schiphol on time and heard myself being paged on the public address system. I was directed by telephone to a particular taxi on the rank outside and the driver took me to a rendezvous about five miles from the airport. After about ten minutes
They were waiting to see if you were followed,' interrupted Kell.
'… a green Mercedes drew up alongside and a transceiver was passed in through the window of the cab. We conducted the conversation by phone.'
'Did you see who was in the Mercedes?' asked Kell.
'No, it had tinted windows.'
'But they could see you?'
'Yes.'
Kell smiled distantly and thought for a moment in silence before asking Innes to go on.
‘They want the ransom paid by credit transfer.'
'How?'
'An account is to be opened at this bank,' Innes handed Kell a slip of paper, 'and the money paid into it.'
'An account in whose name?' asked Kell.
'It doesn't matter but a confirmation password has to be agreed with the bank so that a check can be made that the money has been deposited.'
‘Then what?'
'A second password has to be agreed with the bank for the transfer of the money. When we have the child we give them the password and the money can be transferred into whatever account they please.'
'What's to stop us grabbing the brat and not giving them the password?' grinned Nelligan.
'I feel sure they have considered that possibility,’ said Innes coldly. They didn't strike me as being amateurs.'
‘But then neither am I,’ said Kell with a smile.
Innes continued, 'You are to have a man in Chicago within three days. He is to check in to Room 303 at the Stamford Hotel. It's been reserved.’
'Then what?'
'He will be contacted and taken to see the boy. The exchange is to take place within twenty-four hours after that.’
'Where?'
They will decide that.’
'Of course,’ said Kell softly as if something was amusing him.
They are calling the shots,’ said Innes.
'Of course they are,’ said Kell with an even broader smile. His eyes, magnified by the strong lenses of his glasses, blinked with the mesmerising regularity of a lizard as he considered what he had heard.
‘There will, of course, be the problem of getting the boy out of the country after the hand-over,’ said Innes.
Kell looked at him as if he were some kind of mental defective then said, 'Well, I'm sure our American friends can help there, don't you think?'
'If you say so, Mr Kell.’
At eleven precisely the coded knock came to the door again and three men were admitted to the room. There were handshakes all round and the three introduced themselves as Shelby, Bogroless and Roker. Kell, still holding a tumbler of whisky, offered the Americans a drink. Shelby, their leader, a short dark man wearing a grey suit and a yellow silk shirt that threatened to burst under the strain of his stomach, nodded to Kell's glass and said, I’ll have a drop of Irish, too.'
His assumption had been wrong. Kell turned to Nelligan and asked him to ring down for a bottle of Jamieson's. He raised his glass slightly in the direction of the American and said, 'Scotch.'
The American made a joke about Kell's taste in whisky and Kell pretended to share in the amusement for he was sizing up his guests. The request for Irish whiskey had been noted and the man classified by Kell as a Yankee Paddy, Kell's own derogatory term for Americans drawn to the romanticism of the idea of Old Ireland.
But it didn't matter what they were, only the money mattered. It was just a question of how best to deal with them. As the conversation continued it became clear that one of the others, Bogroless, fell into the same mould as Shelby. The third man, Roker, was not so easy to assess. He was not a Y.P. He was too quiet, too withdrawn, a bit like Innes really, a bit like an accountant. Chances were that's what he was. Kell decided that he was the one with the brains.
