'I'll deny it. I'll deny everything. How do you know this?'
'I've told you before. Anything that comes into the White House, I know.'
'Who are you? God, I wish I'd never gotten involved.'
'Well, you did, and as to who I am, that'll have to remain one of life's great mysteries. I could be using a voice distorter. I could be your best friend, I could be a woman. In fact, they think it was a woman who killed Ryan in London.'
'Damn you!'
'Taken care of. Now, listen carefully. The President has authorized Blake Johnson to speak to you, tell you something about what's going on, advise you to take to the hills.'
'What shall I do? I'm due in London in three days.'
'Yes, I know. In my opinion, I think you should go. I don't think it'll be any more dangerous for you there than here, and while you're away, I'll see what I can do about our problem.'
'You're sure?'
'Of course. When Johnson sees you, just play dumb. You ate together once in a while and you have no idea what's going on.'
'But who's doing all this? Is it the fucking Protestants?'
'More likely British Intelligence. That means you'll be safe in London.'
'How do you make that out?'
'Because you're an American Senator, and whatever else, they won't want you to buy it in London.'
'I'll try and believe that.'
'Good. I'll be in touch. I'll handle it.'
Henry Thornton put the phone down.
Panicky, and when a man panicked, he could do anything. A liability now, Cohan. With any luck, that mysterious killer out there would take care of him. If not... maybe he'd have to have help. As for Barry, he'd leave that for a while. See what happened to Cohan.
He went to the sideboard and poured a whiskey, Irish, of course. He'd told the President the truth. His sainted mother had been born in County Clare. What he hadn't mentioned was that she had had an illegitimate half-brother by her father, a
volunteer with Michael Collins in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. He'd been executed by the Brits, and Thornton had grown up with the man's name in his ears.
But there was much more than that. Doing postgraduate work at Harvard in 1970, Thornton had met a lovely Irish Catholic girl from Queen's University, Belfast, named Rosaleen Fitzgerald. She'd been the absolute love of his life. They'd spent one idyllic year, true love way beyond sexuality, and then it had happened. She'd gone home for the summer vacation, and had been in the wrong Belfast street at the wrong time, a firefight between Brit paratroopers and the IRA that had left her dead on the sidewalk.
His hatred of all things British had become absolute. Growing up, even with all the success, all the money, it had meant nothing, and then had come the chance to strike back.
He sipped the whiskey. 'Fuck you,' he said softly. 'I'll have my day.'
At his office in Manhattan the following day, Cohan received Blake with enthusiasm, heard him out with appropriate sounds of horror and disbelief, and walked him to the door with grave shakes of his head. He promised to be careful in London, but no, he had to go. It was for a very important cause, and he'd promised.
'Please keep me up to date,' he said to Johnson, shaking his hand and staring sincerely into his eyes.
Blake promised that he would.
Afterwards, Blake spoke briefly to the President, and then phoned Ferguson in London. 'What will you do?' he asked.
'I'll see the Prime Minister. Place all the new facts before him, and wait to hear the outcome of his chat with the President.'
'And Cohan?'
'You tell me the President won't forbid him to come, so he will come. I'll have the job of protecting him.'
'And what do you think will happen?'
'As I told you, I'm an old dog, long in this business. I go by instinct, and every instinct tells me he will die in London.' Ferguson hung up.
LONDON
SEVEN
At Compton Place, it was raining. Lady Helen Lang was out riding, heavily protected by storm coat and rain hat. The wind blew in across the North Sea all the way from Holland, churning the waves into surf that pounded on the shingle beaches. She cantered through pine woods down to the sand dunes of the estuary, reined in her mare and let the rain bring her to life.
'Come on, Dolly.' She patted the mare's neck. 'Let's go home.'
She didn't need to dig her heels in. Dolly took off like a rocket and galloped through the pine woods, swerving at a touch of the rein and taking a two-bar gate as if she were in the Grand National. Helen cantered into the stable yard at the house and found Wood there. The chief groom at a racing stable close by, he looked in by arrangement, not so much for the money, but mainly because, like everyone else, he felt protective of Lady Helen.
He held Dolly as she dismounted. 'A good run, milady?'
'Excellent.'
'I'll give her a rub down and some oats, then.'
'I'm very grateful.'
She moved to the kitchen door and Hedley opened it. 'You've been galloping again.'
'What do you want me to do, roll over and die?' She smiled. 'Don't be an old fuddy-duddy. I'll go and shower and then you can take me to the village for a pub lunch.'
After she'd gone, Hedley made himself a cup of coffee. He heard Wood drive off, went and opened the kitchen door and stood looking out at the rain. It was like a dream, everything that had happened since that night in Wapping, since she had killed Ryan. And then New York. Brady, Kelly, Cassidy.
He shuddered. What could he do? As she had once said: go to Scotland Yard? And what would he say? My mistress has murdered four men who had some sort of responsibility for the butchery of her son and the assassination of four others in Ulster? On top of that, she shot two lowlifes trying to rape a girl in Manhattan? No, even thinking along those lines was a waste of time.
There was no way he could ever do anything to harm her. She simply meant too much to him. And there was another thing, too. He had killed many people in Vietnam, some for good reasons, some for bad, and he knew one thing beyond dispute. If he ever had the mysterious Connection in his sights, he would kill the man himself without compunction.
Showered and changed, Helen Lang went into her study and sat before the computer. She really was very expert now, and soon had Senator Cohan's travel arrangements on her screen, including his date of arrival, and, even, in a bit of luck, the number of his suite at the Dorchester Hotel. Apparently, he reserved the same one every time he was there. She considered all the facts, then went down to the kitchen, where she found Hedley.
She took her sheepskin down from behind the door. 'All right, Hedley, food awaits. Let's be off,' and she opened the door, went out into the courtyard and walked to the Mercedes parked in the open barn.
The pub, as usual at that time of year, was quiet. It was very old England in the saloon bar, great stone flags for a floor, a low, beamed ceiling. There was a log fire burning in the
open hearth and the long bar was made of oak, with beer pumps and a range of bottles behind. There were only four locals at the bar, the usual gnarled old straw dogs. She was greeted with enthusiasm. One man even doffed his cap. Hedley was just as well received.
The barmaid was a middle-aged woman called Hetty Armsby, and the eighty-five-year-old man sitting on the end stool reading the London Times was her father, Tom.
' The Times, is it?' Helen asked.
'I like to keep up to date,' he said. 'Keep my brain active. The Times gives you the facts. For instance, all this Irish business at the moment, though why the Yanks are involved I'll never know.'
'Pint for Hedley and your dad and a gin and tonic for me,' she said to Hetty.
'And you'll be wanting food?'
'Shepherd's pie and that bread you bake yourself.' Helen took out a cigarette and Hedley gave her a light. 'Oh, I don't know, Tom. I'm a Yank, remember.'
'Well, that isn't your fault, Lady Helen,' and he cackled.
'You old rogue. Just look at the wall.'
Hanging there was a series of framed black-and-white pictures of aeroplanes. Several were of German Dorniers, and two were of American B 17 bombers, one in the surf off Horseshoe Bay, the other nose down where it had crash-landed, the crew standing beside it in flying gear.
'True enough,' Tom told her. 'A grand bunch of lads, that. We got them in here while they were waiting for trucks from their base. Drunk out of their minds, they were, by the time those trucks came. We've had one or two back over the years. Mind you, a long time ago. Mostly passed on, I reckon.'
Hetty appeared with a tray. 'Over here, Lady Helen. Nice table by the fire.'
She laid everything out. Lady Helen and Hedley sat down and ate. 'Good, Hedley?'
'You know it's good,' he told her. 'Sometimes it's still hard for me to fathom. I was a kid in Harlem, scratching a living, on hard times, then there was 'Nam, and all those years later, I live in one of the most ancient parts of England and sit in a pub like it's out of a Jane Austen novel, eating a thing called shepherd's pie.'
'And you like it.'
'Love it, Lady Helen, and I love these crazy people.'
'Well, they love you,' she said. 'So that's okay.'
They finished the meal and she ordered a pot of English Breakfast tea. 'Much better for you than coffee, Hedley, and I want your brain clear.'
'And why would that be?'
'Senator Cohan arrives at the Dorchester the day after tomorrow.'
He took a deep breath. 'You really mean it, don't you?'
'Of course.' She took a small plastic bag from her pocket, opened it and produced a key. 'Remember when they were fitting the new stove in the kitchen in South Audley Street, and they were making such a racket, and I stayed overnight at the Dorchester?' She smiled. 'I'm just a weak woman who enjoys luxury. Well, that's the key to the suite.'
Hedley took it. 'So?'
'You've often boasted of your wide range of rather dubious friends. When we lost those keys for the old stables, the deadlocks, you produced one that opened all of them. Said you'd got it from a friend in London. I asked you if he was a locksmith. You said not exactly.'
'That's true.'
'Well, we're leaving for South Audley Street tomorrow. One of the joys of the English aristocratic system, as you well know,
Hedley, is that one gets invited to everything, and I'm due at the Dorchester ballroom the day after tomorrow.'
He was resigned to it by now. 'So what do you need?'
'This friend of yours to have a look at that key. I know it's computer-coded, and won't open a thing now, but based on something dear Roper once told me — well, I'm sure if your friend is as good as I think he is, he can produce a passkey.'
Hedley sighed. 'If you say so.'
'Oh, but I do. Don't let me down. Now finish your beer and we'll go.'
It was the following afternoon when Hedley came up from Covent Garden tube station. It was, as always, one of the most crowded parts of London. Hedley worked his way through the crowds until he came to Crown Court, a narrow little alley with four or five shops. One of them said: Jacko — Locksmith. The bell tinkled as Hedley went in.
A curtain at the rear parted and an old white-haired black man came through. 'Damn my eyes, it's you, Hedley.'
'That it is, Jacko.'
'We'll have a drink on it.' Jacko produced a half-bottle of Scotch from under the counter, then two paper cups, and poured. 'Isn't life the damnedest thing? You and my Bobby get posted on Embassy Guard here, so he sends for me to come to live in London. Then they pull him away to that stinking Gulf War and he gets wasted.'
'Here's to you, Jacko.' Hedley drank the whiskey. 'Always thought you'd go home.'
'Where's home? Hell, I still play great trombone, and London's got better jazz clubs than New York. You got a purpose to this visit?'
Hedley produced the key. 'You familiar with these things?'
Jacko only glanced. 'Yeah, sure. It's a hotel key. What about it?'
'Could you make me a passkey, a general key, out of it? One that would open any door in the hotel?'
'My friend, I never figured you for a guy who worked the hotel racket, but yes, I can do such a thing. The hotel people think these things are foolproof, but not if you know what you're doing. I can do the job in about five minutes.'
'Good. Then do it. And, no, I'm not in any kind of hotel racket, but this is real important.'
'Then consider it done.' Jacko opened the bottle and poured. 'Have another.'
