They reached the security exit and paused. Ryan kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for coming.” “I’ll see you Friday.” She went through security and approached her car.
As she unlocked her door she saw Sollazo walking towards a silver Porsche. He glanced at her casually, then looked away. For some reason it made her feel uncomfortable, and she got in her car quickly and drove off.
Sollazo watched her go and reached for his mobile phone and called his office. When his secretary answered he said, “Rosa, check the files for a report in the New York Times of a robbery in the north of England connected with a ship called the Irish Rose, which apparently went down at sea.” ‘”Vepy well, sir, anything else?” “Yes, get our people in London to check for any newspaper stories there., They’ll probably be more detailed.
I want this like yesterday.” “I’ll get nght on it.” “I’m having dinner early wi.th Don Antonio.” “At the Long Islan house?” “No, the Trump Tower apartment. As soon as you get that stuff from England, fax it to me there.” “I will.” Sollazo drove away thinking about the situation, and particularly the fact that’the way gold prices had climbed; fifty million pounds in bullion in 1985 was now worth double.
IN HER ROOM AT GREEN RAPIDS GENERAL Hospital, Kathleen Ryan undressed and were to the
shower: She was due on the evening shift in an hour, on call for emergency surgery until six in the mom-ing, not that she minded, for she loved her work, was good at it.
It had been her uncle who had insisted that she.find a life for herself after his trial and sentencing and she’d put in five hard years of training. Ossining had been the bad time. She hadn’t been able to see him much while he was at that grim fortress. In a way his heart problem had been a blessing. The less restrictive regime at Green Rapids allowed a great deal of visiting and getting a post at the town hospital had made all the difference.
But it hurt her to see him there, a shadow of the man he had been in those great days back in Ireland whenthey’d taken on the might of the IRA, even on occasion the British Army, and won. At that memory, a thrill passed through her that was almost sexual.
She toweled off, dried her cropped hair, and put on her uniform. She co.md her hair, checking herself in the mirror, strong face, dark eyes, not pretty but striking, this girl who had at the age of fourteen killed two members of the IRA with a hand grenade, who at the age of sixteen had shot dead at close quarters a man named Bert Fox.
It all came back. The Lake District, that lonely road and the taking of the transporter and Martin Keogh and the final, brutal confrontation on the Irish Rose.
And at the memory, the old excitement surged through her.
“There’s got to he more than this,” she said aloud. “He can’t rot.in there for another fifteen years.” Despair flooded over her and she sat down, opened a bottom drawer in her desk, and took out a.briefcase.
Inside was a large envelope containing fifty thousand dollars in cash, money she had painstakingly saved, money against the day they would have to move fast, she and Uncle Michael, for from the time he had been moved from Ossining to the easier regime of Green Rapids she had entertained the wild hope.that he might he able to escape. She had even approached a forger in New York, an old cell mate of her uncle in Ossining, who had provided her with two false Irish passports at a thousand dollars each, a special price as a favor.
She found them now and examined them. Daniel Forbes, that was her uncle,-and she was Nancy Forbes. A waste, the whole thing, for as she soon discovered, in spite of its liberal regime, security at Green Rapids was stringent.
She loo!(ed at the photo.in the false passport and somehow it wa a stranger. “Whatever happened to Kathleen Ryan?” she asked softly.
At that moment the door opened and another nurse lboked in. “Ready, Jean?” .”On my way,” Kathleen told her. “I’ll be right with you.” She closed the briefcase, put it back in the drawer, and went out.