and Boston. So much so that the Northern Ireland Office had established a Terrorist Finance Unit as a countermeasure in 1988, staffed by specialists in accounting, law, taxes, and computing. Euan and I had done a lot of work with them.
Big Al now opened and viewed a series of shots of Macauley and Femahan shaking hands with two other men, then walking down the steps and getting into a Mercedes.
One of them was the late Mr. Morgan McGear, looking very smart in a suit I was familiar with. The fourth man I had no idea about.
The photography was covert: I could see the darkness around the edge of the frames where they hadn't gotten the aperture right, but it was good enough for me to tell, by the cars parked in the background, that they were on the Continent.
I said, 'Let's see the next one.'
De Sabatino could tell that I recognized something or someone; he was looking at me, dying to know what, wanting to get in on the act. He'd had five years on the back burner, and now was his chance for a comeback.
I wasn't going to tell him jack shit.
'Let's push on.'
There was another group of pictures that he opened and viewed, but these meant nothing at all to me.
Big Al looked at them. The big half watermelon was back on his face.
'Now I know what all those spreadsheets refer to.'
'What's that?'
'fEstd es la coca, senorl Hey, I know this guy. He works for the cartels.'
I was looking at a really smart-looking Latino in his early forties getting out of a car. I could tell by the surroundings that it was in the United States.
'That's Raoul Martinez,' he said.
'He's part of the Colombian trade delegation.'
This was getting more interesting by the minute. PIRA al ways claimed no association with drug trafficking, but the profits were too great for it to ignore. What I had in front of me now was close to admissible evidence of its direct involvement with the cartels. But that still didn't help me with my problem.
He looked through the pictures.
'You'll see Raoul with somebody else in a minute, I guarantee it.' He flicked through a couple more.
'There you are: big bad Sal.'
This other character was about the same age but much taller; he'd probably been a weight lifter at some stage, then ballooned out to maybe three hundred pounds. Sal was a big old boy, and very bald.
De Sabatino said, 'Martinez is never without him. We used to do a lot of business with them in the old days. A nice man, a family man. We used to run cocaine up the East Coast, all the way to the Canadian border. We needed things evened out to ease the route--these guys did the necessary, and everybody was making money. Yeah, these fellas, they're all right. As we went through more picture files, I saw both men eating in a restaurant with another bloke, a Caucasian.
Big Al said, 'I haven't got a clue who he is.'
I was looking over de Sabatino's shoulder, concentrating hard on the screen.
Kelly perked up.
'Nick?'
'In a minute.' I turned my head to Big Al.
'Absolutely no idea?'
'Not a clue.'
'Nick?'
I cut in.
'Not now, Kelly.'
Kelly butted in again.
'Nick, Nick!'
'Go back to the--' 'Nick, Nick! I know who that man is.'
I looked at her.
'Which man?'
'The one that was in the picture.' She grinned.
'You don't know who he is--but I do.'
'This one?' I pointed at Martinez.
'No, the one before.'
Big Al scrolled back.
'Him! That one there!'
It was the white guy who was sitting with Raoul and big bad Sal.
I said, 'You're sure?'
'I'm totally sure.'
'Who is he?' After our experience with the video I expected her to nominate anyone from Clint Eastwood to Brad Pitt.
'It's Daddy's boss.'
There was a long, palpable silence as I let it sink in. Big Al was sucking air through his teeth.
'What do you mean, Daddy's boss?' I said.
'He came to our house once for dinner.'
'Do you remember his name?'
'No. I just came down for some water and he and a lady were eating with Mommy and Daddy in the dining room.
Daddy let me say hello and he said, 'Big smile, Kelly, this is my boss!'
' It was a good imitation ofKev, and I saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes.
Big Al joined the conversation in nerd mode.
'Whoa!
There you go! So who's your daddy?'
I swung around.
'Shut up!' And so she couldn't hear it, I muttered angrily, 'I turned up at her parents' house a week ago. Everybody was dead. He was in the DEA, killed by people he knew.'
I pushed him off his seat and sat down with Kelly on my knee so she had a better view of the screen.
'Are you definitely sure he's Daddy's boss?'
'I'm sure Daddy told me. The next day Mommy and me made jokes about his mustache because he looked like a cowboy.'
He did; he looked like a Marlboro man. As she pointed, her finger touched the screen, and Daddy's boss was distorted.
Having Kelly in my arms and seeing someone who might have been responsible for her father's death made me want to do the same to him in person.
I looked at Big Al.
'Let's go back through all the photos.'
Big Al sat down and scrolled back through the files to the pictures of Macauley and Femahan with McGear.
'Do you know these people?' Kelly answered with a no, but I wasn't really listening to her now. I was in my own world. I'd noticed two other cars parked on the other side of the road. I looked hard at the license plates, and then I knew where the pictures had been taken.
'Gibraltar.' I couldn't help mouthing it aloud.
Big Al pointed to Macauley and his mates.
'Are these terrorists from Ireland?'
'Sort of.'
There was a gap while I tried to work this one out.
Big Al spoke up.
