Patriot Games

he did the British Army. The revolutionary often had more to fear from friends than enemies.

'Anything new with our colleagues?' O'Donnell asked.

'Yes, as a matter of fact,' McKenney answered brightly. Our colleagues were the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army. 'One of the cells of the Belfast Brigade is going to go after a pub, day after tomorrow. Some UVF chaps have been using it of late—not very smart of them, is it?'

'I think we can let that one pass,' O'Donnell judged. It would be a bomb, of course, and it would kill a number of people, some of whom might be members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, whom he regarded as the reactionary forces of the ruling bourgeoisie—no more than thugs, since they lacked any ideology at all. So much the better that some UVF would be killed, but really any prod would suffice, since then other UVF gunmen would slink into a Catholic neighborhood and kill one or two people on the street. And the detectives of the RUC's Criminal Investigation Division would investigate, as always, and no one would admit to having seen much of anything, as usual, and the Catholic neighborhoods would retain their state of revolutionary instability. Hate was such a useful asset. Even more than fear, hate was what sustained the Cause. 'Anything else?'

'The bombmaker, Dwyer, has dropped out of sight again,' McKenney went on.

'The last time that happened… yes, England, wasn't it? Another campaign?'

'Our man doesn't know. He's working on it, but I have told him to be careful.'

'Very good.' O'Donnell would think about this one. Dwyer was one of the best PIRA bombers, a genius with delayed fuses, someone Scotland Yard's C-13 branch wanted as badly as they wanted anyone. Dwyer's capture would be a serious blow to the PIRA leadership… 'We want our chap to be very careful indeed, but it would be useful to know where Dwyer is.'

McKenney got the message loud and clear. It was too bad about Dwyer, but that colleague had picked the wrong side. 'And the Belfast brigadier?'

'No.' The chief shook his head.

'But he'll slip away again. We needed a month to—'

'No, Michael. Timing—remember the importance of timing. The operation is an integrated whole, not a mere collection of events.' The commander of the PIRA's Belfast Brigade—Brigade, less than two hundred men, O'Donnell thought wryly—was the most wanted man in Ulster. Wanted by more than one side, though for the moment the Commander perforce had to let the Brits have him. Too bad. I will dearly love to make you pay personally for casting me out, Johnny Doyle, for putting a price on my head. But on this I, too, must be patient. After all, I want more than your head. 'You might also keep in mind that our chaps have their own skins to protect. The reason timing is so important is that what we have planned can only work once. That is why we must be patient. We must wait for exactly the right moment.'

What right moment? What plan? McKenney wanted to know. Only weeks before, O'Donnell had announced that 'the moment' was at hand, only to call things off with a last-second telephone call from London. Sean Miller knew, as did one or two others, but McKenney didn't even know who those privileged fellows were. If there was anything the Commander believed in, it was security. The intelligence officer acknowledged its importance, but his youth chafed at the frustration of knowing the importance of what was happening without knowing what it was.

'Difficult, isn't it, Mike?'

'Yes, sir, it is,' McKenney admitted with a smile.

'Just keep in mind where impatience has gotten us,' the leader said.

8 Information

'I guess that about covers it, Jimmy. Thanks from the Bureau for tracking that guy down.'

'I really don't think he's the sort of tourist we need, Dan,' Owens replied. A Floridian who'd embezzled three million dollars from an Orlando bank had made the mistake of stopping off in Britain on his way to another European country, one with slightly different banking laws. 'I think the next time we'll let him do some shopping on Bond Street before we arrest him, though. You can call that a fee—a fee for apprehending him.'

'Ha!' The FBI representative closed the last folder. It was six o'clock local time. Dan Murray leaned back in his chair. Behind him, the brick Georgian buildings across the street paled in the dusk. Men were discreetly patrolling the roofs there, as with all the buildings on Grosvenor Square. The American Embassy was not so much heavily guarded as minorly fortified, so many terrorist threat warnings had come and gone over the past six years. Uniformed police officers stood in front of the building, where North Audley Street was closed off to traffic. The sidewalk was decorated with concrete «flowerpots» that a tank could surmount only with difficulty, and the rest of the building had a sloped concrete glacis to fend off car bombs. Inside, behind bullet-resistant glass, a Marine corporal stood guard beside a wall safe containing a.357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver. A hell of a thing, Murray thought. A hell of a thing. The wonderful world of the international terrorist. Murray hated working in a building that seemed part of the Maginot Line, hated wondering if there might be some Iranian, or Palestinian, or Libyan, or whatever madman of a terrorist, with an RPG-7 rocket launcher in a building across the street from his office. It wasn't fear for his life. Murray had put his life at risk more than once. He hated the injustice, the insult to his profession, that there were people who would kill their fellow men as a part of some form of political expression. But they're not madmen at all, are they? The behavioral specialists say that they're not. They're romantics—believers, people willing to commit themselves to an ideal, and to commit any crime to further it. Romantics!

'Jimmy, remember the good old days when we hunted bank bandits who were just in the business for a fast buck?'

'I've never done any of those. I was mainly concerned with ordinary thievery until they sent me to handling murders. But terrorism does make one nostalgic for the day of the common thug. I can even remember when they were fairly civilized.' Owens refilled his glass with port. A growing problem for the Metropolitan Police was that the criminal use of firearms was no longer so rare as it had once been, this new tool made more popular by the evening news reports on terrorism within the U.K. And while the streets and parks of London were far safer than their American counterparts, they were not as safe as they'd only recently been. The times were changing in London, too, and Owens didn't like it at all.

The phone rang. Murray's secretary had just left for the night, and the agent lifted it.

'Murray. Hi, Bob. Yeah, he's right here. Bob Highland for you, Jimmy.' He handed the phone over.

'Commander Owens here.' The officer sipped at his port, then set the glass down abruptly and waved for a pen and pad. 'Where exactly? And you've already—good, excellent. I'm coming straightaway.'

'What gives?' Murray asked quickly.

'We've just had a tip on a certain Dwyer. Bomb factory in a flat on Tooley Street.'

'Isn't that right across from the river from the Tower?'

'Too bloody right. I'm off.' Owens rose and grabbed for his coat.

'You mind if I tag along?'

'Dan, you must remember—'

'To keep out of the way.' Murray was already on his feet. One hand unconsciously checked his left hip, where his service revolver would be, had the agent not been in a foreign country. Owens had never carried a gun. Murray wondered how you could be a cop and not be armed with something. Together they left Murray's office and trotted up the corridor, turning left for the elevators. Two minutes later they were in the Embassy's basement parking garage. The two officers from Owens' chase car were already in their vehicle, and the Commander's driver followed them out.

Owens was on the radio the instant the car hit the street, with Murray in the back seat.

'You have people rolling?' Murray asked.

'Yes. Bob will have a team there in a few minutes. Dwyer, by God! The description fits perfectly.' As much as he tried to hide it, Owens was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

'Who tipped you?'

'Anonymous. A male voice, claimed to have seen wiring, and something that was wrapped up in small blocks, when he looked in the window.'