The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (27 page)

He heard Kate's soft gasp when he opened it, and then for a while, nothing else. As his brain raced toward comprehension his only thought was that he wanted it to stop, but more quickly than he could bear he'd absorbed enough of the truth to feel his heart breaking at the exposure of a betrayal so grotesque.

Kate was beautiful in the picture, but on the whole Conor thought her more beautiful now. A winsome gaiety played about the face looking out at him across the space of years. The bright smile and laughing eyes held an innocent joy with an expectation of more to come, but something essential was missing: the aura of maturity, of hard-won wisdom from battles fought, of suffering encountered and transcended.

He preferred Kate as she was now, but still, he could look at the photograph and wish he could have been there that day. That it could have been him she leaned into with casual affection, resting a hand on his arm. He wished he'd been there to save her from the pain she would endure later, and Jesus, he so deeply wanted to protect her from it now. His vision blurred. The photograph swam out of focus.

"Conor," Frank called gently.

"I know." Conor wiped his eyes. "I know. Just give me a minute."

Kate had been watching silently, and he wondered how much of the truth she'd already guessed. He placed the two photos side by side on the table, pointing to the first one. "This man introduced himself to you as Phillip Ryan, but that was a lie. This is my brother, Thomas." Conor picked up the second photograph—Kate's wedding picture—and handed it to her. "This man—your husband—used that alias as well. This the man I knew as Philip Ryan. He was my best friend. He lied to both of us. His name wasn't really Michael Fitzpatrick or Phillip Ryan. This is Robert Durgan, and he's . . . at least I assume—"

"He's alive." Kate's voice was flat, expressionless. "You're telling me my husband is alive."

Conor looked at Frank, who nodded a confirmation.

"I see." The shock was transparent in Kate's face, but her voice remained steady. "I have a framed print of this picture on the nightstand in my bedroom. Where did you get this one, Frank?"

"From a moving line's shipping container, hidden amongst others in a warehouse on the outskirts of Dingle. I brought several boxes of personal items along with me. They're in my car. I can arrange for the container's remaining contents to be shipped back to you."

"So, that was him. He robbed me." Kate's face began to crumple, but she bit down on her lip and steadied her composure. "He booked the company in advance. For moving up here. I spent two months trying to track that moving truck. Finally, I just took the insurance money. I lost everything. Family antiques, some original oil paintings from the Hudson River School, photographs. I got the wedding album back, though. My sister called the photographer and had it reproduced for me. I also lost almost all of my own canvases. It was as though everything I'd ever done was a mirage." She rose from the couch. "Is your car unlocked?"

Frank pulled the key from his pocket and Conor got to his feet. "Do you want me to help?"

She turned to him, her gaze opaque, as though looking at a stranger. "No. I want you to—" She caught herself, and walked from the room without another word.

After watching her leave, Conor picked up his scotch, drained it, and then—like an elderly invalid—slowly lowered himself onto the couch. His face was still in his hands when he heard Frank open the bottle and refill his own glass.

"Shall we get drunk, my friend?"

Conor dropped his hands, and without looking up, pushed his glass forward.

F
UELED
BY
BOOZE
, the operational debriefing continued until midnight. Despite Frank's many sleepless nights in pursuit, Robert Durgan had not been found, but a file which had remained thin was thickening rapidly. The name he'd been born with turned out to be a hybrid of his working aliases. Robert Ryan Fitzpatrick grew up at Twinbrook, a republican-leaning housing estate in West Belfast. Fitzpatrick was a known commodity, a wanted man who'd been missing for years. He'd been a key figure in a paramilitary group called the Irish People's Liberation Organization, infamous for violence and criminal activity of all varieties. Many of its recruits came from the ranks of those fallen from favor in the IRA. On October 31, 1992, the Provisional IRA wiped out the IPLO, killing its leader and several members in a series of raids around Belfast. Fitzpatrick was not among the killed or injured.

"He simply dropped off the face of the earth," Frank said. "The strong suspicion within IPLO circles is that he informed on his colleagues to the IRA—who might be found at what time, in what pub—in exchange for an altered identity and safe passage to the United States. No UK authority or intelligence service chased it up. Christ, British intelligence might have helped the business along. At any rate, why should we care? A distasteful element had been sorted, and everyone was making nice in support of the flowering peace process."

The agent flipped open one of the manila folders and referred to a sheet of paper. "Had we been looking, we might have easily found the record of an arrival from Shannon at the New York port of entry on October 28, 1992. IPLO member Robert Ryan Fitzpatrick had become American citizen Michael Fitzpatrick, complete with a valid US passport and a bright new legend—birthplace Newfoundland in 1968, matriculated at New York University in 1989, US citizenship in the same year. Digging a little deeper, we'd have turned up a 1996 marriage license for himself and one Katherine Chatham, and perhaps even the Coast Guard's report from August 22, 1998, detailing the boating accident and presumed death of Michael Fitzpatrick in Long Island Sound."

He paused to let the information sink in and then asked, "Do you remember when Phillip Ryan turned up in Dingle?"

"About two months later. Middle of October is when I met him, anyway. In a pub." Conor poured another measure of scotch into his glass.

"The wedding photograph in Kate's bedroom. You never—" Meeting Conor's stony gaze, Frank cleared his throat. "Obviously, she never showed it to you."

"No."

Frank nodded, tapping a finger against the manila folder. "I didn't make the connection immediately, but I realized the farm manager was the key as soon as Kate identified your brother in this photograph as a man named Phillip Ryan. For some reason Thomas had pretended to be her husband's cousin, which meant her husband had lied to her. At some point whilst keeping watch at your bedside the significance of her married surname dawned upon me, and the penny finally dropped. Her husband and your farm manager were the same man—the infamous, long-lost Robert Ryan Fitzpatrick. I puzzled over this a bit during my drive to Nashua to sit in on Ciaran Wilson's interrogation. Wilson and his associate Desmond Moore had been loyal members of the Armagh branch of the IPLO, and Fitzpatrick had betrayed them. Why would they be working for him?"

"So, why were they?" Conor asked.

"Wilson and Moore never met the man in person. He recruited them by phone two years after the elimination of the IPLO, and they knew him only as a Canadian-born American named Robert Durgan. A stroke of genius, the Newfoundland cover. He apparently affected a convincing American accent, but would attribute any slips to his 'Newfie' origins." The agent gave a thin smile. "Imagine Wilson's consternation at discovering who he'd been working for all these years. He was quite eager to cooperate, once he knew. He said he'd never been keen on the kidnapping assignment. Their main project with Durgan had been grant fraud and money laundering. Wilson and Moore recruited accomplices willing to sign their name to EU grant applications in return for a cut of the money. The cash would get flushed through a select group of New York restaurants and bars—clients whose money Durgan already laundered under the alias of Michael Fitzpatrick, purveyor of restaurant cash management systems."

"Thomas wasn't a willing accomplice," Conor objected.
 

"No," Frank agreed. "Wilson conceded Thomas was an anomaly. They simply deceived him. The strategy from the start was for Thomas to get caught, and for them to 'rescue' him. Durgan had indicated he wanted someone in New York for a special job."

"Why did Wilson and Moore target Thomas in particular?"

"I don't think they did, Conor," Frank said sadly. "An accident of fate. They were passing through Dingle, simply looking for the nearest farmer. Had he stayed away from town that night or left the pub a bit earlier, they would have picked someone else, and Thomas might never have run into two strangers who stood him six shots of Jamesons before convincing him to give them a job."

"Sure, he was an easy mark for Durgan, or Fitzpatrick. Ryan. Whoever. Ah, Christ." Conor got up to pace the room with his hands on his head, trying to loosen the stiffened muscles in his side. "A poor culchie from the heart of the Gaeltacht who wouldn't recognize an IPLO traitor if one bit him in the arse."

"Precisely." Frank took a sip from his glass, squinting and frowning at the wall as he swallowed. "I'd prefer to stick with 'Durgan' if you don't mind. I've been using the bloody name for years and haven't the time or staffing resources to re-label everything."

Conor expelled a bitter laugh. Dropping his hands, he stopped pacing and eased himself back onto the couch. He noted without much interest that the alcohol was having an accelerating effect. He'd had a lot to drink and little to eat, and was dosed with medications carrying instructions to do exactly the opposite. He gazed through the large living room window in front of him as a car glided up the road toward the inn. As he stared at them, the twin beams from its headlights bobbed and merged into a single fuzzy glow. Reservations at eight. Table for two. Candlelight and music. All going on just two floors below him. Two floors and a universe away. He heard the soft clink of glass on glass as Frank placed his drink on the coffee table.

"I mentioned Durgan laundered money for a number of New York clients." He steepled his fingers and sat back in his chair. "The list included a chain of upscale Indian restaurants called Bombay Masala. Care to guess the owner's name?"

Conor pulled his eyes away from the window and rolled them toward the ceiling. "Pawan Kotwal."

"Our favorite Indian mafia boss. Extraordinary how the puzzle comes together so nicely when you understand where the pieces are. I surmise Durgan perceived some opportunity in Kotwal's broader interests in Mumbai and wanted his own reliable 'smurf' placed onsite to handle the cash deposits—Thomas. I haven't worked out where Durgan went after the manufactured boating accident. We know Thomas was in Mumbai a few days later. Perhaps Durgan traveled ahead to help build the pub and get the business running. At any rate, as you already confirmed, two months after the incident he appropriated the Phillip Ryan alias for his own use and presented himself to you for employment. Brilliant in a way, because if Thomas attempted to escape his situation, surely his family would hear from him. Seems an odd cover—self-imposed isolation with an identity as a lowly farming assistant, maintained over a period of years; but he was biding his time, of course. He had a particular goal with a hard deadline: Kate's thirtieth birthday."

"And after all this you still don't know where he is." Conor didn't intend the comment as an accusation and the agent didn't take it as such, but he sensed Frank's helpless frustration.

"I'm afraid not. I'd hoped to use Wilson to trap him, but unfortunately they spoke by phone after he left Bretton Woods, and when Durgan learned the extent of his failure he severed all contact. Until then, he'd remained in his rented house on the outskirts of Dingle, continuing under the 'Phillip Ryan' alias, but by the time we'd mobilized the local authorities he'd gone. The closest neighbors in the vicinity hadn't seen his motorbike in the driveway for several days. Some documents he left behind led us to the shipping container with Kate's possessions, but I imagine everything of value got fenced long ago."

Conor ran a finger over the rim of Kate's glass of scotch. "I understand the Mumbai money-laundering piece, but why did he need Thomas to come to New York and pose as his cousin? Why fake his death at all, when he might have just disappeared? She nearly died, Frank. He left her broken and traumatized. What was the point of such cruelty?"

"A question only he can answer," Frank said. "I'm sure the plan somehow advanced his plans for getting her money, once she reached the age of inheritance. He was her husband, and of course she must have confided her circumstances to him before their marriage."

"Her husband." Conor reached for her glass. "Her husband, my friend, and as surely as the man who put the bullet in—my brother's murderer. And I am a trained MI6 operative who will just as surely see him dead."

26

H
E
WAS
IN
NO
FIT
CONDITION
FOR
ANYTHING
,
NEVER
MIND
milking cows. Less than twenty-four hours removed from a hospital discharge, with a side full of stitches and the metallic taste of a hangover in his mouth, Conor should have remained where he woke—flat on his back and fully dressed on top of his bed. Only pure, masochistic instinct pulled him up and pushed him out the door at five in the morning. He trudged up to the barn without enthusiasm, but when Jared Percy appeared a half-hour later he'd established his customary rhythm.

Determined to finally bury the hatchet with the young man, Conor expressed admiration for his clever bits of work in the barn and offered profuse thanks for all his efforts. He insisted he could take the first shift on his own, but asked Jared to come back in the afternoon. Even if Kate hadn't sent him packing by then, he'd never manage the second milking. With his shy smile Jared offered a handshake before departing, and Conor tried not to worry he'd just made his last friend in Hartsboro Bend. After a short rest he got back to work, letting familiar routine produce the usual, zen-like trance.