make notes. “And why were you invited to the meeting?” he asked.
“Because I used to be the Provisionals’ liaison officer with outside terrorist organizations. I was the guy who fetched them their goodies. I was their money-man.”
Gillespie’s head came up from his notebook and for a second or two I thought he was actually going to whistle with astonishment, but he managed to suppress the urge. Nevertheless my words, if I could back them up with chapter and verse, meant that the CIA’s Stringless Program could chalk up one stunning success. “You liaised with all outside terrorist organizations?” he asked.
“So far as I know, yes, although in effect that was mainly the Palestinians and the Libyans. We did some business with the Basques as well, but they were never as important as the Middle Eastern guys.”
“Red Army Faction? The Baader-Meinhof people?” Gillespie asked.
“Never saw them.”
“The South Americans?” he asked hopefully.
I shook my head. “The IRA used to receive fraternal greetings from Cuba and Nicaragua, but no material support. We didn’t need it. We were getting enough weapons from the Libyans and enough money from America, so why should we bother with a bunch of half-crazy Nicaraguans?”
“Even so!” Gillespie was impressed by the Middle-Eastern connections, though I rather deflated the good impression by telling him how the IRA had ceased to trust me four years before which meant that much of my information was out of date.
“Why did they stop trusting you?”
“That’s kind of a long story.”
“We’ll get to it, I promise.” He tapped his notebook with the eraser end of his pencil. “If you’ve been inactive for four years, why did you stay? Why didn’t you come home?”
“Because I always hoped they’d reactivate me. They never cut me off entirely.”
“We’re fortunate they didn’t.” We were sitting in the lavish library, either side of the massive oak table. It was a comfortable room, supplied with a fire and a drinks cabinet and enough oak mouldings to have hidden a thousand microphones. Despite Gillespie’s notebook I knew the surveillance devices existed, not just in this room but in my bedroom as well, for the Agency would want to analyze my answers for the slightest indication of stress. Gillespie was chasing a commodity as rare as rainbow’s gold, the truth, and he wanted to make sure I was not bringing him fool’s gold. Maybe my return at this critical time had happened because the enemy had turned me? Maybe I was telling lies to make them look in one direction while il Hayaween attacked from another? I might be a hero of the Stringless Program come back from the world’s darkness, but that did not mean they would trust me.
Nor did I intend to trust them. I had my secrets, chief of which was the existence of five million dollars in a renamed yacht. The five million dollars were my pension, my security, and I had no intention of ever letting the government know that such a sum had even been discussed. The money was not important. What was important were the Stingers, and il Hayaween, and Saddam Hussein’s plans to spread terror world-wide.
“You say il Hayaween talked about bringing down an airliner at Heathrow with a Red Star?” Gillespie asked.
I nodded. “It’s much easier than trying to smuggle a bomb aboard.”
“But why a Russian missile? Why not the Stingers?”
“Because the Stingers are in America. I’m guessing that they never did mean to send all the Stingers to Ireland, but to deploy them in the States.”
“You mean…” Gillespie stared at me.
“I mean that if we attack Saddam Hussein’s forces in Kuwait then he’ll bring down planes in Washington and Miami and New York and anywhere else he can.”
Gillespie blanched at the thought of guarding the vicinity of every major civilian airport in North America. “And do you believe the Provisional IRA would cooperate with such an action?”
“No,” I said firmly, “because the IRA wants American support. Part of their income and a lot of their respectability depends on Americans thinking of the Irish as harmless little leprechauns inhabiting an idyllic little island which is being unjustly treated by the nasty English, and blowing up American civilians with IRA weapons tends to sour that fairy-tale image. So I suspect the IRA are being used by il Hayaween. The Palestinians aren’t in a position to travel to Miami to buy the missiles, but the Irish are. However, once the missiles are paid for, then God knows what il Hayaween has in mind.”
“How were the Stingers paid for?”
“The usual method,” I said, “is electronic transfer. I never handled the money itself, just the request, but I know the Libyans liked to use a bank called BCCI…”
“We know about those bastards,” Gillespie said meaningfully, then shrugged an apology for interrupting me. “Go on, please.”
“There isn’t much more to tell. I requested the payment from Shafiq, he told me it was all OKed, and then I telephoned a number in Ireland to say that everything was on line and their money would be coming. They’d already paid a half-million deposit, so I only asked Shafiq for the one million.”
“You have the telephone number in Ireland?”
I gave him the number that had been in Gerry’s suit pocket, but warned him that it would almost certainly belong to a message-taker who would have no inkling of what the messages were about.
Stuart Callaghan, whose bodyguard duties seemed exhausted now that we had arrived at the safe mansion, had lit a fire in the library’s big hearth. Now, at Gillespie’s bidding, he took away the new details of the Stinger trade, doubtless to telephone them through to Langley so that the search for the missiles could be intensified. Gillespie still worried at my story. “What about the two Cubans. Were they Cuban-Americans? Or Cuban- Cubans?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Gillespie tapped the pencil softly on the table. “Comrade Fidel must be itching to do his bit for Brother Saddam, mustn’t he?”
“I guess so. I don’t know.”
“BCCI.” He drew a pencil round the bank’s initials. “You say the Libyans usually transferred money by wire?”
“Almost always. It’s heavy stuff to carry around in a suitcase.”
He half smiled at my half-jest. “So there should be a record of the transaction?”
“Bound to be.”
“And of the half-million dollar deposit. Where would that have come from?”
“Boston, I guess, but I don’t know. Herlihy must use a dozen banks.”
“Look for the money,” Gillespie said softly, “it’s always the same. Look for the money.” He looked up at me. “One last question before we break. Why did you use a false passport to enter the country?”
“How do you know I did?”
“Because we had an all-ports watch alerted for you.”
“Maybe I walked across the Canadian border?”
“The Canadians cooperate with our all-ports watch alerts,” Gillespie said softly. “And what about your hire- car? You used a French name and credit card? But it seems the card really belongs to a prisoner?”
“Habit,” I said, “just old habit. I guess I wanted to use false papers one last time. A whim.”
“You still have the passport and credit card?”
“I tossed them. I told you, it was my last time. I won’t need false papers again, will I?”
“No, you won’t.” Gillespie pretended to believe me. He closed his notebook and carefully snapped a rubber band around its leather covers. “I guess that’s the immediate business taken care of. What I’d like you to do now, Paul, is take a rest. You look bushed. Maybe we’ll pick up this afternoon? There’ll be someone with me by then.”
“Van Stryker?” Simon van Stryker had recruited me into the Stringless Program and I had liked him. I had spent years looking forward to meeting him again, hearing his congratulations.
“Van Stryker’s rather exalted these days. But you will meet him in due course. He takes an interest in you.” Gillespie paused and had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. “We’ve asked one of the Agency’s psychiatrists to sit in on future sessions. It’s normal practice.”
