to greet him. One said, “General, please take your wife inside immediately. We will take care of everything.”
Ravi and Shakira ran inside, while one Syrian grabbed their bags from the trunk and the other slipped behind the wheel and drove the Audi around the square and into the underground Motcombe Street garage, where the embassy had many reserved spaces. The two runaway terrorists had spent exactly seven seconds on the sidewalk.
The ambassador was there to meet the Hamas C-in-C, with his wife and the military attache. One of the cultural attaches was also there, but he knew roughly as much about culture as Genghis Khan. Ahmed was a terrorist and a spy, fresh from slamming a bomb at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.
Dinner was set for the six of them, and the ambassador requested that Ravi and Shakira not take time to change, which both of them thought was very thoughtful since neither had much to change into, their bags containing mostly a pile of laundry.
His Excellency understood entirely and poured everyone a glass of Chateau-bottled French Bordeaux, 2002, never mind Muslim disapproval of alcohol, and led them to their allotted places for dinner. The ambassador sat at the head, with Ravi and Shakira on either side. Lannie, his wife, sat next to Shakira, and Ahmed was next to the general, with the military attache at the foot.
As dinner-table place settings go, with four men and two ladies, it was thus all over the place, but this was a military strategy meeting, not a social gathering. Lannie was only there as a politeness to Shakira.
The conversation was grim and extremely serious. The Syrians understood entirely the purpose of the visit. For they too had little reason to thank the USA for its attitude to them. And they were frankly furious at the recent bombing of the street near Bab Touma in Damascus.
Everyone at the table knew that Admiral Arnold Morgan was behind all of the carnage, and they were honored indeed to have been selected by the Hamas High Command to provide a headquarters for the legendary Palestinian terrorist general, who planned, finally, to dispose of the American Prince of Darkness.
“You have accurate dates and times?” asked the ambassador, who was a very smooth-looking Arabian diplomat, medium height, slim, perfectly dressed in a light suit cut for him by Prince Charles’s tailor, Huntsman, on Savile Row.
“Thanks to Shakira, I do,” replied Ravi. “I must visit the gunsmith tomorrow; we have only two weeks to plan everything and organize my exit, first from Piccadilly, then from England.”
“We’ve done the documents and arranged the transportation,” replied the ambassador. “In the end, timing will be everything.”
“It usually is,” said Ravi.
The ambassador smiled. “Don’t miss,” he whispered theatrically.
“I never miss,” replied the Hamas general sternly.
Detective Superintendent Ray McDwyer was combing through the evidence that had been gathered from the bus and train companies. Despite all of Ravi’s shenanigans, jumping on and off various buses and changing railroad carriages, the Irish police had traced his route all the way to Dublin. Ray had thus made his new headquarters in the city, where they now believed the killer was.
So far as the investigation was concerned, there were only two people who had come face-to-face with the murderer. There were others who claimed to have seen him, bus and train staff who might have seen him. But only two who had both seen and spoken to him.
One was the ticket clerk at Waterford Station, who could not swear it was the right man because he could not remember the facial makeup of the passenger on the bench who had left behind his change from a fifty-euro bill.
The other was Mick Barton from the Shamrock Cafe, who had served the stranger, recalled what he was wearing, and directed him to the bus stop outside the Eldon Hotel. Officer Joe Carey had called in and asked if he would be prepared to come to Dublin and spend a day looking through closed-circuit television footage, to try to identify the man to whom he had served two large glasses of orange juice.
“Forget it,” said Mick. “I’m too busy trying to earn a living, not pouncing around all day on wild-goose chases like yourself.”
Joe put him in a cheerful headlock, and told him this was a serious matter. Mick said his neck was probably broken and he’d be suing for a million.
Joe asked how he’d feel about a private helicopter ride up to Dublin, and they would award him two days’ full pay for his time.
“Done,” said Mick. “What time?”
“Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock. Right here in the square.”
“Where’s the helicopter gonna be?”
“Right over here in that field.”
“Oh, jaysus, Joe. I can’t. I forgot. I have a dentist’s appointment.”
Joe sighed the sigh of the profoundly suspicious.
“Of course you have,” he said. “All right, three days.”
“Done,” said Mick. “Final offer?”
“Final offer.”
“I’ll be there.”
Mick Barton arrived at the Garda Station in style, in the back of an unmarked police car. He was led into a private room, where Ray McDwyer met him with a cheerful “Morning to you, Michael.”
At the back of the room were a projector and an operator. At the front was a large white screen.
“Okay, lad, you know what you’re doing. We are going to show you a steady line of people going through security at Dublin airport getting onto international flights only. We just want you to stop us and identify the man you served the orange juice to on Monday morning.”
“Do I get a bonus if I find him?”
“Absolutely not,” said Ray. “You might make something up, just to get the bonus!”
“Who, me?”
“I’ve only known you since you were three years old. Yes, you.”
Mick laughed, half flattered. He saw himself, after all, as a hard-driving businessman. But suddenly he was dead serious. “Roll ’em,” he said. “If he’s there, I’ll find him. Black T-shirt, right?”
And slowly the projectionist began to run the film, and Mick sat quietly, sometimes leaning forward asking for a pause or a rewind. He worked solidly for three and a half hours, drinking just one cup of coffee, which obliged him to ask, formally, whether it had been percolated in Dachau. Everyone laughed, which Mick expected, being Skibbereen’s established breakfast-bar wit and everything.
He had looked carefully at hundreds of air travelers, and found a couple of marginal candidates, but in the end he always said the same thing, “No, that’s not him.”
They gave him a ham sandwich and an ice cream for lunch, and then settled down to show him the much shorter lines of people disembarking the Irish Sea ferries in England. As expected, they were mostly backpackers and hitchhikers. “Bloody rabble,” observed Mick, but he kept going, checking every person who had sailed from Dun Laoghaire or the Dublin Port Terminal over a two-day period.
He found nothing, not until three o’clock in the afternoon. They were rolling the seventh tape from Holyhead, when Mick asked first for a rewind. Then for a pause. Then he stood up and stepped closer.
And he shoved out his finger, pointing directly at a passenger wearing a jacket and a T-shirt, accompanied by a very good-looking lady who was standing slightly aside.
“You want me to zoom in, Mick?” asked the projectionist.
“Good idea,” he replied. “On the guy in the jacket.”
The image came up bigger. Mick pointed again at the man in the jacket, which was now obviously made of suede or some other kind of soft leather.
“That’s him,” said Mick. “That’s definitely him.”
“One thing, Mick,” interjected Ray McDwyer. “That T-shirt he’s wearing is white, not black.”
“Personally,” replied the kid from the Shamrock Cafe, “I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s pink. That’s still him, the thirsty bastard who couldn’t find his own way to Cork City.”
