“What if he is CIA? What if we’ve been infiltrated and he was there –”
“Don’t be a bloody fool,” O’Donnell snapped. “If they’d been tipped, every peeler in London would have been there in plain clothes waiting for us.” And I would have known beforehand, he didn’t say. Only one other member of the Organization knew of his source, and he was in London. “It was luck, good for them, bad for us. Just luck. We were lucky in your case, weren’t we, Michael?” Like any Irishman he still believed in luck. Ideology would never change that.
The younger man thought of his eighteen months in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh prison, and was silent. O’Donnell shrugged at the television as the news program changed to another story. Luck. That was all. Some monied Yank with too long a nose who’d gotten very lucky. Any random event, like a punctured tire, a defective radio battery, or a sudden rainstorm, could have made the operation fail, too. And his advantage over the other side was that they had to be lucky all the time. O’Donnell only had to be lucky once. He considered what he had just seen on the television and decided that Ryan wasn’t worth the effort.
Mustn’t offend the Americans, he thought to himself again, this time with surprise. Why? Aren’t they the enemy, too? Patrick, me boy, now you’re thinking like those idiots in the PIRA. Patience is the most important quality in the true revolutionary. One must wait for the proper moment — and then strike decisively.
He waited for his next intelligence report.
The rare book shop was in the Burlington Arcade, a century-old promenade of shops off the most fashionable part of Piccadilly. It was sandwiched between one of London’s custom tailors — this one catered mainly to the tourists who used the arcade to shelter from the elements — and a jeweler. It had the sort of smell that draws bibliophiles as surely as the scent of nectar draws a bee, the musty, dusty odor of dried-out paper and leather binding. The shop’s owner-operator was contrastingly young, dressed in a suit whose shoulders were sprinkled with dust. He started every day by running a feather duster over the shelves, and the books were ever exuding new quantities of it. He had grown to like it. The store had an ambience that he dearly loved. The store did a small but lucrative volume of business, depending less on tourists than on a discreet number of regular customers from the upper reaches of London society. The owner, a Mr. Dennis Cooley, traveled a great deal, often flying out on short notice to participate in an auction of some deceased gentleman’s library, leaving the shop to the custody of a young lady who would have been quite pretty if she’d worked at it a little harder. Beatrix was off today.
Mr. Cooley had an ancient teak desk in keeping with the rest of the shop’s motif, and even a cushionless swivel chair to prove to the customers that nothing in the shop was modern. Even the bookkeeping was done by hand. No electronic calculators here, A battered ledger book dating back to the 1930s listed thousands of sales, and the shop’s book catalog was made of simple filing cards in small wooden boxes, one set listing books by title, and another by author. All writing was done with a gold-nibbed fountain pen. A no-smoking sign was the only modern touch. The smell of tobacco might have ruined the shop’s unique aroma. The store’s stationery bore the “by appointment to” crests of four Royal Family members. The arcade was but a ten-minute uphill walk from Buckingham Palace. The glass door had a hundred-year-old silver bell hanging on the top of the frame. It rang.
“Good morning, Mr. Cooley.”
“And to you, sir,” Dennis answered one of his regulars as he stood. He had an accent so neutral that his customers had him pegged as a native of three different regions. “I have the first-edition Defoe. The one you called about earlier this week. Just came in yesterday.”
“Is this the one from that collection in Cork you spoke about?”
“No, sir. I believe it’s originally from the estate of Sir John Claggett, near Swaffham Prior. I found it at Hawstead’s in Cambridge.”
“A first edition?”
“Most certainly, sir.” The book dealer did not react noticeably. The code phrase was both constant and changing. Cooley made frequent trips to Ireland, both north and south, to purchase books from the estates of deceased collectors or from dealers in the country. When the customer mentioned any county in the Irish Republic, he indicated the destination for his information. When he questioned the edition of the book, he also indicated its importance. Cooley pulled the book off the shelf and set it on his desk. The customer opened it with care, running his finger down the title page.
“In an age of paperbacks and half-bound books . . . ”
“Indeed.” Cooley nodded. Both men’s love for the art of bookbinding was genuine. Any good cover becomes more real than its builders expect. “The leather is in remarkable shape.” His visitor grunted agreement.
“I must have it. How much?”
The dealer didn’t answer. Instead Cooley removed the card from the box and handed it to his customer. He gave the card only a cursory look.
“Done.” The customer sat down in the store’s only other chair and opened his briefcase. “I have another job for you. This is an early copy of ‘The Vicar of Wakefield.’ I found it last month at a little shop in Cornwall.” He handed the book over. Cooley needed only a single look at its condition.
“Scandalous.”
“Can your chap restore it?”
“I don’t know . . .” The leather was cracked, some of the pages had been dog-eared, and the binding was frayed almost to nonexistence.
“I’m afraid the attic in which they found it had a leaky roof,” the customer said casually.
“Oh?” Is the information that important? Cooley looked up. “A tragic waste.”
“How else can you explain it?” The man shrugged.
“I’ll see what I can do. He’s not a miracle worker, you know.” Is it that important?
“I understand. Still, the best you can arrange.” Yes, it’s that important.
“Of course, sir.” Cooley opened his desk drawer and withdrew the cashbox.
This customer always paid cash. Of course. He removed the wallet from his suitcoat and counted out the fifty-pound notes. Cooley checked the amount, then placed the book in a stout cardboard box, which he tied with string. No plastic bags for this shop. Seller and buyer shook hands. The transfer was complete. The customer walked south toward Piccadilly, then turned right, heading west toward Green Park and downhill to the Palace.
Cooley took the envelope that had been hidden in the book and tucked it away in a drawer. He finished making his ledger entry, then called his travel agent to book a flight to Cork, where he would meet a fellow dealer in rare books and have lunch at the Old Bridge restaurant before catching a flight home. Beatrix would have to manage the shop tomorrow. It did not occur to him to open the envelope. That was not his job. The less he knew, the less was vulnerable if he were caught. Cooley had been trained by professionals, and the first rule pounded into his head had been need-to-know. He ran the intelligence operation, and he needed to know how to do that. He didn’t always need to know what specific information he gathered.
“Hello, Doctor Ryan.” It was an American voice, with a South Bay Boston accent that Jack remembered from his college days. It sounded good. The man was in his forties, a wiry, athletic frame, with thinning black hair. He had a flower box tucked under his arm. Whoever he was, the cop outside had opened the door for him.
“Howdy. Who might you be?”
“Dan Murray. I’m the Legal Attache at the embassy. FBI,” he explained. “Sorry I couldn’t get down sooner, but things have been a little busy.” Murray showed his ID to the cop sitting in with Ryan — Tony Wilson was off duty. The cop excused himself. Murray took his seat.
“Lookin’ good, ace.”
“You could have left the flowers at the main desk.” Ryan gestured around the room. Despite all his efforts to spread the flowers about, he could barely see the walls for all the roses.
“Yeah, I figured that. How’s the grub?”
“Hospital food is hospital food.”
“Figured that, too.” Murray removed the red ribbon and opened the box. “How does a Whopper and fries grab you? You have a choice of vanilla or chocolate shakes.”
Jack laughed — and grabbed.
“I’ve been over here three years,” Murray said. “Every so often I have to hit the fast-food joints to remind myself where I come from. You can get tired of lamb. The local beer’s pretty good, though. I’d have brought a few of those but — well, you know.”