“I take your point.” Keogh stood up. “It’s late. I’d better get back to my hotel.”
“Join us here for breakfast in the morning,” Ryan told him. “We’ll catch the noon plane. I’ll take care of the tickets.”
“I’ll say goodnight, then.”
“The bar is closed. Kathleen will let you out. I’ll keep your Walther here. No way of passing through airport security with that, but it doesn’t matter. Our London connection will provide any weapons we need.” He held out his hand. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
THE GIRL OPENED the door and rain drove in on the wind.
“A dirty old night,” she said.
“You can say that again.” Keogh turned up his collar. “An Ulster fry-up will do me fine for breakfast especially if you cook it yourself. Two eggs and don’t forget the sausage.”
“Go on, get on your way.” She pushed him out and laughed that distinctive harsh laugh of hers and closed the door.
KEOGH HAD DIFFICULTY finding a phone box. Most of them seemed to be vandalized. He finally struck luck when he was quite close to the hotel. He closed the glass door to keep out the rain and rang the Dublin number. Barry was seated at the desk of his small study with his Chief of Intelligence for Ulster, a man named John Cassidy, when he took the call.
“It’s me,” Keogh said. “Worked like a charm. I’m in it up to my neck. Ryan’s taken me on board.”
“Tell me everything.”
Which Keogh did in a few brief sentences. Finally, he said, “What could be in this meat transporter?”
“Gold bullion if it’s the job I’m thinking of. It was put to the Loyalist Army Council about a year ago and thrown out as being too risky.”
“So Ryan has decided to do it on his own initiative.”
“Exactly, but then he always was the wild one. That’s why I wanted you in there when I got the whisper through an informer that he was up to something.”
“Up to something big,” Keogh told him.
“That’s right. Stay in close touch. You’ve got those alternate numbers for the mobile phone, and watch your back.”
BARRY LEANED BACK thoughtfully and lit a cigarette. Cassidy said, “Trouble?”
“Michael Ryan up to his old tricks.” He ran through what Keogh had told him.
Cassidy said, “My God, if it is gold bullion, the bastards would have enough money to arm for a civil war. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t need to do a thing except have a suitable reception committee waiting when that boat delivers the truck somewhere on the Ulster coast. Then we’ll have enough money to start a civil war.”
“And you’re certain of knowing the time and place?”
“Oh, yes. The man on the other end of the phone just now is one of our own. He’s infiltrated under a false identity. He’ll be going along for the ride every step of the way.”
“A good man?”
“The best.”
“Would I be knowing him?”
Barry told him Keogh’s real name.
Cassidy laughed out loud. “God save us, the Devil himself, so God help Michael Ryan.”
THERE WAS NO one at the reception desk when Keogh entered the hotel. He went up the stairs quickly and unlocked the door to his room. It was unbelievably depressing and he looked around with distaste. It certainly wasn’t worth taking off his clothes. He switched off the light, lit a cigarette, lay on the bed, and went over the whole affair.
The astonishing thing was, as had been said, the simplicity of it. He’d have to consider that again once Ryan had taken him fully into his confidence, of course. Not a bad fella, Ryan, a man hard to dislike. And then there was the girl. So much hate there in one so young and all blamed on the bomb which had killed her family. He shook his head. There was more to it than that, had to be, and finally he drifted into sleep.
KATHLEEN RYAN TOOK a cup of tea in to her uncle just before she went to bed. Ryan was sitting by the fire smoking his pipe and brooding.
“You think it will work?” she asked.
“I’ve never been more certain and with Keogh along-” He shrugged. “Fifty million pounds in gold bullion, Kathleen. Just think of that.”
“A strange one,” she said. “Can you trust him?”
“I’ve never trusted anyone in my life,” he said cheerfully. “Not even you. No, don’t you fret over Keogh. I’ll have my eye on him.”
“But can you be sure?”
“Of course I can. I know him like I know myself, Kathleen, my love. We’re cut from the same bolt of cloth. Like me he’s got brains, that’s obvious. He’s also a killer. It’s his nature. He can do no other, just like me.” He reached up to kiss her cheek. “Now off to bed with you.”
She went out and he sat back, sipping his tea and thinking of a lonely road in the Lake District, a road that not even his niece knew he had visited.
LONDON
THE LAKE DISTRICT
1985
TWO
IF THERE IS such a thing as an Irish quarter in London, it’s to be found in Kilburn along with a profusion of pubs to make any Irish Republican happy. But there are also the Protestant variety identical with anything to be found in Belfast. The William amp; Mary was one of those, its landlord, Hugh Bell, an Orange Protestant to the hilt, performing the same function in London for the Loyalist movement as Sinn Fein did for the IRA.
In the early evening of the day they had arrived in London, Ryan, Keogh, and Kathleen sat with him in a backroom, an assortment of handguns on the table. Bell, a large, jovial man with white hair, poured himself a whiskey.
“Anything you like, Michael, and there’s more where that came from.”
Ryan selected a Browning, hefted it, and put it in his pocket. Keogh found a Walther. “Would you have a Carswell for this?” he asked.
“A man of taste and discernment, I see,” Bell observed. He got up, went to a cupboard, rummaged inside, and came back. “There you go. The latest model.”
Keogh screwed it onto the end of the Walther. “Just the ticket.”
“And the young lady?” Bell asked.
“My niece doesn’t carry,” Ryan told him.
The girl bridled instantly. “I’m as good a shot as you, Uncle Michael, and you know it. How am I expected to protect myself? Kick them in the balls?”
Bell laughed. “I might have a solution.” He went back to the cupboard and returned with a small automatic. “Colt.25, quite rare. Slips in a lady’s handbag or stocking quite easily.”
