I was awoken by the noise of engines in reverse and wheels on the tarmac. It was just after 6 a.m. I had been asleep for three hours. It was still dark; the rain had eased quite a bit. I leaned over to the back.
'Kelly, Kelly, time to wake up.' As I shook her there was a gentle moan. She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
With the cuff of my coat I started to tidy her up. I didn't want her walking into the airport looking wrecked. I wanted us as spruce and happy as Donny and Marie Osmond on Prozac.
We got out of the car with the bag and I locked up, after checking inside to make sure that there wasn't anything attractive to see. The last thing I needed now was a parking lot attendant taking an interest in my lock- picking kit. We walked over to the bus stop and waited for the shuttle to take us to departures.
The terminal looked just like any airport at that time of the morning. The check-in desks were already quite busy with business fliers. A handful of people, mostly student types, looked as though they were waiting for flights that they'd gotten there much too early for. Cleaners with floor waxers trudged across the tiled floors like zombies.
I picked up a free airport magazine from the rack at the top of the escalator. Looking at the flight guide, I saw that the first possible departure to the UK. was at just after five o'clock in the afternoon. It was going to be a long wait.
I looked at Kelly; we both could do with a decent wash. We went down the escalator to the international arrivals area on the lower level. I put some money in a machine and got a couple of travel kits to supplement our washing kit and went into one of the handicap-accessible toilets.
I shaved as Kelly washed her face. I scraped the dirt off her boots with toilet paper and generally cleaned her up, combed her hair, and put it in an elastic band at the back so it didn't look so greasy. After half an hour we were looking fairly respectable The scabs on my face were healing. No Prozac, but we'd pass muster.
I picked up the bag.
'You ready?'
'Are we going to England now?'
'Just one thing left to do. Follow me.' I pulled at the stubby ponytail that made her look like a four-foot-tall cheerleader.
She acted annoyed, but I could tell she liked the attention.
We went back up the escalator and walked around the edge of the terminal. I pretended to be studying the aircraft out on the tarmac. In fact, there were two quite different things I was looking for.
'I need to mail something,' I said, spotting the FedEx box.
I used the credit card details on the car rental agreement to fill out the mailing label. Fuck it--Big Al could pay for a few things now that he was rich.
Kelly was watching every movement.
'Who are you writing?'
'I'm sending something to England in case we are stopped.' I showed her the floppy disk and backup disk.
'Who are you sending it to?' She got more like her dad every day.
'Don't be so nosy.'
I put them in the envelope, sealed it, and entered the delivery details. In the past we'd used the FedEx system to send the Firm photos from abroad that we'd taken of a target and developed in a hotel room, or other highly sensitive material.
It saved getting caught with them in our possession. Nowadays, however, the system was obsolete; with digital cameras you can take pictures, plug in your cellular mobile, dial up the UK, and transmit.
We continued walking around the edge of the terminal. I found the power outlet I was looking for at the end of a row of black plastic seats where two students were snoring. I pointed to the last two spaces.
'Let's sit down here. I want to look at the laptop.'
I got it plugged in. Kelly decided she wanted something to eat.
'Give me five minutes,' I said.
From what I'd read earlier, I understood Gibraltar was a setup, but it still didn't explain what Kev had to do with it. It soon became clearer.
In the late 1980s the Bush administration had been under pressure from Thatcher to do something about Noraid fundraising for PIRA. With so many millions of Irish American votes on the line, however, it was a tricky call. A deal was struck: if the Brits could expose the fact that Noraid money was being used to buy drugs, it would help discredit PIRA in the USA and Bush could then take action. After all, who would complain about a US administration fighting the spread of dangerous narcotics?
When the British intelligence service started to gather data about PIRA's drug connections with Gibraltar, it seemed to present a window of opportunity. After the events of March 6, however, the window was slammed shut. Those votes were too important.
By the early 1990s the US had a new administration and the UK a new prime minister. In Northern Ireland, the peace process began. The US was told and the message was delivered at the highest level that unless it put pressure on PIRA to come to the peace table, the UK would ex pose what was happening to Noraid funds raised in America.
The failure to fight the drug war in its own backyard, by a power that preached so readily to others, would be a serious embarrassment.
Another deal was sorted out. Clinton allowed Gerry Adams into the USA in 1995, a move that was not only good for the Irish American vote but which made Clinton look like the prince of peacemakers. He also appeared to be snubbing John Major's stand against PIRA, but the British didn't mind; they knew the agenda. Behind closed doors, Gerry Adams was told that if PIRA didn't let the peace process happen, the US would come down on them like a ton of steaming shit.
A cease fire was indeed declared. It seemed that the years of covert talks that had gone nowhere were finally at an end; it was now time to talk for real. Clinton and the British government would be seen as peace brokers, and PIRA would have a say in the way the deal was shaped.
On February 12, 1996, however, a massive bomb exploded at London's newest business center, Canary Wharf, killing two and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage.
The cease fire was broken. It was back to business as usual.
But it didn't end there. Kev had also discovered that PIRA had been trying to blackmail certain Gibraltarian officials, with some success. It seemed Gibraltar was still the key to Europe. Spain was far too much of a risk. They had also targeted some important personalities in the US so they could continue to operate their drug business with impunity. One of the victims was high up in the DEA. Kev's problem was, he didn't know who.
I did; I had the photograph of his boss.
And now I knew why McGear, Fernahan, and Macauley had been in Gibraltar. Whoever the official was, they'd been there to give him a final warning and to try to blackmail him with the shipment documents and photographs to get the routes open again.
I had to get back to the UK. I had to see Simmonds.
At ten o'clock we went back down the escalator to international arrivals. I needed passports--British or American, I didn't care. I scanned the international flights on the monitor.
Chances were we were going to end up with American documents rather than British, purely because of the number of families streaming back from spring vacation.
Just like before, there were people on both sides of the railings, waiting with their cameras and flowers. Kelly and I sat on the PVC seats near the domestic carousels on the other side of the international gates. I had my arm around her as if I were cuddling her and chatting away. In fact, I was talking her through some of the finer points of theft.
'Do you think you can do it?'
We sat and watched the first wave of domestic arrivals come, stand around, then leave when they collected their luggage.
I spotted a potential family.
'That's the sort of thing we're looking for, but they're two boys.' I smiled.
'You want to be a boy for the day?'
'No way--boys stink!'
