Bundoran. False passports there. You know ‘how careful I am. They’re always in stock.”
“But money, Uncle Michael, what about that?” “Oh, I wasn’t exactly honest with Martin. I still have the second fifty thousand pounds I was to pay
Tully in an envelope in my breast pocket.”
“My God, what a man you are.”
“It should keep us going for a while. When it runs
-OUt I’ll think of something.”
“Such as?”
“I’ve robbed banks in Ulster and got away with it.
No reason I can’t do the same in America.”
“Sometimes I think you’re a raving madman.” “P, nd sometimes I am, but let’s get going.” He took her arm and they started along the road to Drum-donald.
There was. silence, only’ the rain, and then Keogh stepped out of the trees where he had sheltered while listening to the conversation.
“You bloody old foxi” he said softly and there was a kind of admiration there.
He turned and started to walk the opposite way toward Scotstown. IT WAS SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND IN Dublin Jack Barry was half awake, lying in the big bed beside his wife, when the portable phone he’d placed at the side of the bed sounded. He slid out of bed, picked it up, and went into the bathroom.
“Yes.”
“A reverse charge call for you from a Mr. Keogh.
Will you take it?”
“Of course,” Barry said.
A moment later Keogh’s voice sounded in his ear.
“That you, Jack?”
“Where are you?”
“A public telephone box in a village called Scots-
town on the Down coast.”
“What’s going on? I have twenty men from the
County Down Brigade waiting at Kilalla.”
“Send them home, Jack, the Irish Rose won’t be coming.”
“Tell me,” Barry ordered.
Which Keogh did. When he was finished, Barry
said, “Christ, what a ploy and to end like that.”
“I know. Quite a fella, Michael Ryan.”
“I was thinking,” Barry said. “Standing in the
trees l.istening to him talk to his niece you could have
shot the bugger and taken that Master Navigator
We’d have knowne location of the damn
thing.
boat then.”
“A major salvage operation to get that gold up,
Jack.”
“That sounds like an excuse. Have you gone soft
on me?”
“I liked him, Jack, and I liked the wee girl. The ‘bullion didn’t reach its destinotion, the Loyalists
won’t be able to arm for a civil war. Let it end there.”
Barry laughed harshly. “Damn you, right as usual.
Scotstown, you say? There’s a pub there called the Loyalist, but don’t believe it. The landlord, Kevin
Stringer, is one of our own. I’ll phone him now and
tell him to expect you. I’ll send a car for you later.” “Sounds good to me.” “Watch your.baCk.”
Keogh came out of the phone box and’ stood there for a moment in the rain thinking of Michael Ryan and his niece, aware with some surprise that he wished the enemy well, then he lit a cigarette and went down the village street in search of the pub.
NEW YORK STATE IRELAND LONDON WASHINGTON IRELAND
CHAPTER SEVEN
PAOLO SALAMONE WALKED ACROSS THE GRASS with his lawyer, Marco Sollazo. In spite of the Sicilian names, they were both good Americans born and bred. There the similarity ended.
Salamone was off the streets of New:York’s Little Italy and he’d followed the usual Mifia route. First as one of the boys, the piccioti, gaining advancement .and respect. He’d acted as an executioner three times, which had gained him entry into the family of Don Antonio Russo as a sicario, a specialist assassin. He’d been to prison twice on comparatively minor matters including drag dealing. His downfall occurred two years earlier when on taking out one of Den Antonio’s competitors, a street policeman had unexpectedly arrived on the scene. Salamone in a gun baffle had received a bullet in the leg, which had put him down. Unfortunately, his own bullet had killed the police officer, who just happened to be a woman. His sentence of twenty-five years insteadof life reflected the skill of his lawyer, Don Antonio’s nephew, Marco Sollazo.
The only reason Salamone had been transferred to Green Rapids from the Ossining Correctional Facility was because he had taken a full nursing course and was therefore thought of more use in the Green Rapids medical facility.