Emerald Decision

not in control here, Goessler is. Now, we may owe Herr Goessler and the organization he represents—' Moynihan was aware once more of the affection Treacey had for his own voice, his own ideas, ' — and we're grateful to him for his present scheme. But he doesn't seem to want us to get hold of it. Time is getting short, as you well know, and if anything is to be done, then it will have to be done by us. We have to know the details of Goessler's scheme and put it into action ourselves. You understand me?'

Again, Moynihan nodded, despising the dryness he felt at the back of his throat. He did not want to swallow; his prominent Adam's apple would betray him if he did so. He could not even clear his throat without an admission of subordination.

'Yes, I understand.' He was grateful for the ease and volume with which the words emerged. He sat more forward in his chair, matching the hunched posture of Treacey opposite him. 'I agree with you. Goessler thinks we can't handle the operation. He's going to hand us the result like a sweet for a kid!'

'The indications are that the bloody meetings next week will reach an agreement. They'll agree to go on helping the British from Dublin — time's very short. What do you intend to do?'

'Hoskins obviously gave some indication to McBride, to lead him on. McBride's next move should be to act on what he knows or suspects. We have to go on watching him—'

'That might not be enough. What about the girl?' His face twisted in mistrust and contempt. Treacey loathed the Marxism which tinged the girl's attitudes. She was, for him, little different from Goessler and the East Germans and the PLO and the Russians — anyone who helped them for their own ends. The girl was English, anyway, even if she had been born in County Cork. Privilege, education, money enough to make her comfortable. Like Dugdale, an intellectual convert, or perhaps just a fanatical dilettante. He mistrusted her anyway. She should belong to the INLA, not the Provisional, with her ideology. 'What about her? She's getting into bed with McBride. What does she know about his investigations?'

'She didn't see the notebooks before they were stolen.'

'And who stole them?'

'It must have been Goessler — it was Goessler. Like removing Hoskins, to drive McBride along the right path.' Treacey looked doubtful, disbelieving. 'I'm certain it had to be Goessler,' he added hurriedly, angry with himself for showing even that much weakness.

'So you may be, Sean. I hope to God you're right. The girl had better start going everywhere with McBride, instead of spending her time in department stores. Tell her that, from the General Staff.' Treacey suddenly looked as if there were others behind him, physical presences who had impressed, disturbed him. He added: 'If we bomb or shoot Guthrie, then we make a martyr of him, like Neave. He's got to be disgraced. But, they're getting impatient. They've given us — you, a week and no more. Then they're threatening to pick up Goessler themselves and squeeze it out of him.'

'They can't—'

'I know. They shouldn't, but they will unless there's an alternative. Which means, you've created a Frankenstein. You were responsible for the adoption of this plan of Goessler's, and now you've got them so hooked on it they can't think of anything else except running it themselves. If it doesn't work, you'll be to blame, Sean.' Treacey's upper lip was damp. His own standing with the General Staff in Belfast had evidently dropped. He wasn't speaking from strength and the realization of his weakness came as no comfort to Moynihan. They were hungry for a decisive blow against the Agreement, and very afraid of the following week's meetings. They had to have results, even if they invoked the wrath of the East Germans. They evidently saw Goessler's operation as the hammer-blow, the war-winning tactic, the final solution. Moynihan was afraid.

It was evident that Treacey blamed him exactly as he would have blamed the carrier of a disease that had infected him..He said, 'I — they've just got to be patient. Goessler is someone we have to trust—'

'Is he someone we can trust?'

Moynihan nodded, then opened his hands. 'I think so.'

'Belfast is desperate for results. The feedback is worrying them. Guthrie may well carry the day. That's why you only have a week. Get something by then.'

He stood up, as if anxious now to depart. Moynihan, busy with his own thoughts, did not bother to see him out. When Treacey had gone, however, he poured himself a large whiskey, swallowing it greedily, a suppressed tremor running through his body as if he had taken some unpalatable medicine or a poison. The room depressed and diminished him. It was no scene for grand designs, for solutions to problems. He wanted to go out, walk off his mood, but decided against it.

The General Staff- Mulligan, O' Hare, Quinn, Lennon, all of them — had indeed become his Frankenstein. They'd abandoned other plans, even slowed the mainland bombing campaign, in order to adopt Goessler's scheme to ruin Guthrie. They'd taken it on trust, like greedy children a promise of cake. Taken his word, because he was convinced and his was the best tactical mind in Belfast. Now they wanted results.

He had to deliver. Inside a week. Claire Drummond had to come up with something—

He swallowed again at the whiskey, coughing on its harshness as if it did indeed contain some poison.

* * *

McBride was about to tell Claire Drummond what he had discovered at the embassy — she could see his excitement like the halo of a St Elmo's Fire, animating and enveloping his frame with electricity — when the telephone rang in his room. Her face darkened with anger.

It was Goessler.

'Professor Goessler, good to hear from you!' McBride yelled into the telephone. Bad line, he mouthed to Claire, grinning and hardly noticing how pale she had become. 'Yes, I'm well, and back from Ireland safely.' He chuckled at some joke of Goessler's, and Claire Drummond turned in her chair so that her back was to him. She could hardly control the tension nagging her hands and feet into helpless movement. Goessler — why?

McBride listened as Goessler launched into a long, apologetic explanation. Goessler had rung him once in Cork, to report only minimal progress in collating supporting evidence of the documents they had unearthed. No one else like Kohl had appeared. Now, he seemed to be trying to explain, with excessive bonhomie, that he had stopped working. McBride suspected a demand for a greater share of the potential profits, but he wasn't going to agree, bearing in mind what he had unearthed since leaving East Berlin. Goessler was out, except for the agreed percentage. Maybe not even that.

'You see,' Goessler was explaining, 'they do not have to say why, or for what reason, my friend. All they say is, stop doing this, stop helping this man or that man, don't ask those questions. And, we agree with them. We stop.'

'With who, Professor? Who are we talking about?' He had one finger in his ear to shut out all extraneous sound and was trying to hear through the excessive mush on the line. 'What?'

'The police, of course. Oh, they have many names, and ranks and jobs — but, the police. You would call them the secret police.'

McBride was puzzled rather than chilled, not taking Goessler more seriously at first than as another historian prying into his researches; then he went cold, and the missing files and then the pillow shutting out Hoskins' face were omnipresent.

'Why — why would they be interested, Professor?'

'Oh, they're not interested, my friend, not in your researches. It's me they keep an eye on. Too many contacts with Westerners, and they suspect my motives. Don't worry — I am ringing only to apologize for not being able to continue our work. A lengthy pause, into which it seemed McBride was to pour some unobtrusive but satisfying balm.

'Our arrangement stands, Professor,' he said finally. Goessler's relief was almost audible.

'I knew I could rely upon you, my friend. Good luck with your work.'

And then the connection was cut with chilling suddenness. McBride put down the receiver slowly.

'What is it?' Claire asked.

'Mm? Oh, Goessler's backing out — some trouble with the police, or something.'

'Hag-ridden with police, those eastern European countries,' she observed, seemingly indifferent. 'Neurotic about contact with the West. Do you need him?'

'He could have been useful — but, no, I don't need him now.' He smiled. Her answering smile invited confidentiality, and he seemed to see her more seriously. She could help him. He put aside the reluctance that