Emerald Decision

disappeared, and each man but himself seemed to have a task that precluded all other activity or sensation.

'HE at Green Nine-Oh, increasing, sir,' the asdic operator called.

'Starboard 30, steer Three-Two-Oh — full ahead together.'

'Three-Two-Oh, full ahead together, sir,' the coxswain answered. Then there was a sudden strained silence, punctuated only by the pinging of the asdic as the S-boat closed on their position. McBride was suddenly entirely apart from the men in the control room — the cause of their danger. McBride glanced from face to face — the captain alert beside him near the periscope column, the first officer at the diving panel, the two men at the hydroplane controls, and the coxswain at the wheel.

McBride heard the throb of the S-boat's screws, beating on the thin hull of the submarine like someone forcing entry. Eyes sought the hull above them, and the silence intensified as the screws faded.

'HE fading, sir, and now bearing Green One-One-Oh.'

Something scraped on the hull, as if sliding past it.

'Christ—' someone breathed.

'Not yet, I hope,' the captain murmured. 'Hold tight, Commander,' he added, as if aware of McBride for the first time. McBride clutched himself to the periscope housing, feeling slightly ridiculous, very weak, and dizzy with tension. He was shivering with cold. Then the muffled explosion beneath them and behind, the lurch through the length of the submarine, the flicker-douse-flicker back of the lights, water running from a slight leak, and the sense of people picking themselves out of a ruin and shaking themselves like wet hounds. Everyone grinning as the second depth-charge roared like a breath some distance away.

'Take her down, number one — to the bottom.'

The first officer looked away from the diving panel. 'It's risky, sir.'

The young-faced Lt Commander replied: 'We'll sit this one out. Jerry will be buzzing around up there like a blue-arsed fly. He's only got small depth-charges, but even they could make a hole in our nice submarine—' He grinned. 'If we sit still, he'll get cheesed off.'

'Sir.'

McBride felt the submarine settle gently on the bottom a moment later. A slight list to port. Silence. The pinging from the asdic seemed a long way away. The water had dribbled almost to a stop from the strain-leak.

'Silent routine.'

The captain looked into McBride's face, as if assessing some prize he had won. When he nodded, McBride felt he had passed some test successfully. And was able to smile.

'Thanks.'

'Your pal's in my cabin, wants to talk to you — if you're ready. Better change first, mm?'

McBride nodded. The asdic increased its tempo once more, but McBride felt calmed by the confidence, the almost alien superiority these submariners exuded like a gas. He was out, and on his way home.

The next brace of depth-charges shook the submarine, and the lights merely flickered. Someone cheered quietly.

'Silly cunt—'

'Bloody awful shot.'

He followed the Lt Commander out of the control room.

October 198-

'Why won't you tell me now, Goessler? Why do I have to play this elaborate bloody game which amuses you so much?' Goessler's companion was young, dark and broad-faced. The expression of the face was angry, creased into lines such as a bad-tempered child might display when denied some treat. It was a face that could have been pleasant, open, vivid with pleasure. But perhaps something of its secret life had grown on it like a patina, rusting the intensity of its emotions, restricting its expressiveness. Moynihan, sitting in Klaus Goessler's office in HVA HQ in East Berlin — a grey Trade Ministry building on the

Wilhelm-Pieckstrasse — was being made to feel younger than his twenty-eight years, and distinctly inferior in mind and position to the academic who was Deputy Director of the East German Intelligence Service's Western Europe Section.

The Operations Commandant for the Belfast Battalion of the Provisional IRA writhed in silence under the unctuous yet steel voice of the balding German. Now, in answer to his blurted, sulky question, Goessler smoothed the wings of hair flat against his head, and smiled, leaning back in his leather chair. He looked over Moynihan's head at an oil painting of the pre-war Unter den Linden that hung on his office wall. Only after almost a half-minute did he speak.

'My dear Sean—' Moynihan's face winced at the pretended equality, its superiority sticking through like a broken bone. 'I have explained to you. We must not be seen to be involved in this — the scandal must emerge naturally.' His hands imitated a growth, an explosion, on the top of his desk. 'Naturally, also, you have the impatience of all youth—' A slight shake of the head. 'As impatient as Professor McBride in his more academic way. If I told you what, you would want to take the how into your own hands. Like a mad dog — which is what I sometimes think you are.' A glint of contempt in Goessler's eyes. 'You would go for the throat. You would lose, like a poor actor, your sense of timing completely.'

'God, do you think you're running our show, or something, Goessler?' Moynihan was holding one hand with the other on his lap, afraid to make them into protesting fists. But he could not control his tongue. 'You've got the bloody bomb we need, you bastard! Give us the bloody thing and we'll blow Guthrie and his fucking meetings sky- high!'

Goessler banged his hand flat on his desk, once. Leaned forward, and said, levelly, each word weighted: 'That is exactly why you will not be told, but will do as you are told. You are bomb-happy — real or metaphorical. You could not be trusted to exploit the situation to its maximum advantage. Your strategy may not work. Indeed, it is the view of experts here that it will not. The mainland bombing campaign has not discredited Guthrie, nor his initiative to hold the Anglo-Irish Agreement together… no, don't make childish faces or spit on my carpet, Sean! It is true. Guthrie may well have persuaded Dublin to honour the Agreement, even to extend it. If that should happen, your organization would, slowly but certainly, bleed to death.'

'Then give us the means of blowing Guthrie out of sight, damn you!' Moynihan's fist banged Goessler's desk. His frame twitched and stirred with frustrated, humiliated rage.

'Not yet. When the moment is right, and natural, you will have it. Not before. If Guthrie is discredited — utterly — in the particular way we intend, then Dublin will certainly withdraw from all cooperation with London. There might be no new agreement between them for five, perhaps as many as ten years. America will be outraged—'

'Then, damn you, tell me what it is!'

Goessler shook his head. He brushed smooth the wings of grey hair, his features amusedly superior. A slim, clever mind was reflected in his bright gaze.

'The British have managed to install an extradition treaty with the Americans — block off your funds from there. That has dried up other sources of revenue. All of that will alter when Guthrie is discredited.'

'Time's running short—'

'Which is why you are here simply to see McBride. When he goes to England, you will go with him. When he finally reaches Ireland — as we intend he shall — you will continue to watch him. When the moment is right, you shall have him. He will provide you with your grand explosion, and without help from you. Just let him do so. In a couple of days, at most, he will find what he needs here and be on his way. A man has written to him from England — we will point him in that direction.'

'It's all too bloody coincidental!'

'No it is not!' Goessler saw Moynihan blench. 'Just wait.

It will work. And when it does, you will have enough time to make certain that this time you win your armed struggle.' There was a mocking light in Goessler's eyes, and the gleam of assessment. When he seemed satisfied, he added: 'Very well, Sean — you may go.'