Sean Miller’s mission in America had been fully accomplished by an agency of the United States government.
Miller and his party were already back home. As many people in this line of work had done before. Sean reflected on the value of rapid international air travel. In this case it had been off to Mexico from Washington’s Duties International, from there to the Netherlands Antilles, to Schiphol International Airport on a KLM flight, and then to Ireland. All one needed were correct travel documents and a little money. The travel documents in question were already destroyed, and the money untraceable cash. He sat across from Kevin O’Donnell’s desk, drinking water to compensate for the dehydration normal to flying.
“What about Eamon?” One rule of ULA operations was that no overseas telephone calls ever came to his house.
“Alex’s man says he was picked up.” Miller shrugged. “It was a risk I felt worth taking. I selected Ned for it because he knows very little about us.” He knew that O’Donnell had to agree with that. Clark was one of the new men brought into the Organization, and more of an accident than a recruit. He’d come south because one of his friends from the H-blocks had come. O’Donnell had thought him of possible use, since they had no experienced work-alone assassins. But Clark was stupid. His motivations came from emotion rather than ideology. He was, in fact, a typical PIRA thug, little different from those in the UVF for that matter, useful in the same sense that a trained dog was useful, Kevin told himself. He knew but a few names and faces within the Organization. Most damning of all, he had failed. Clark’s one redeeming characteristic was his doglike loyalty. He hadn’t broken in Long Kesh prison and he probably wouldn’t break now. He lacked the imagination.
“Very well,” Kevin O’Donnell said after a moment’s reflection. Clark would be remembered as a martyr, gaining greater respect in failure than he had managed to earn in success. “The rest?”
“Perfect. I saw the wife and child die, and Alex’s people got us away cleanly.” Miller smiled and poured some whiskey to follow his liter of ice water.
“They’re not dead, Sean,” O’Donnell said.
“What?” Miller had been on an airplane less than three hours after the shooting, and hadn’t seen or heard a snippet of news since. He listened to his boss’s explanation in incredulous silence.
“But it doesn’t matter,” O’Donnell concluded. He explained that, too. The AP story that had originated in the Boston Globe had been picked up by the Irish Times of Dublin. “It was a good plan after all, Sean. Despite everything that went wrong, the mission is accomplished.”
Sean didn’t allow himself to react. Two operations in a row had gone wrong for him. Before the fiasco in London, he’d never failed at all. He’d written that off to random chance, pure luck, nothing more. He didn’t even think of that in this case. Two in a row, that wasn’t luck. He knew that Kevin would not tolerate a third failure. The young operations officer took a deep breath and told himself to be objective. He’d allowed himself to think of Ryan as a personal target, not a political one. That had been his first mistake. Though Kevin hadn’t said it, losing Ned had been a serious mistake. Miller reviewed his plan, rethinking every aspect of the operation. Just going after the wife and child would have been simple thuggery, and he’d never approved of that; it was not professional. Just going after Ryan himself, however, would not have carried the same political impact, which was the whole point of the operation. The rest of the family was — had been necessary. So his objectives had been sound enough, but . . .
“I should have taken more time on this one,” he said finally. “I tried to be too dramatic. Perhaps we should have waited.”
“Yes,” his boss agreed, pleased that Sean saw his errors.
“Any help we can give you,” Owens said, “is yours. You know that, Dan.”
“Yeah, well, this has attracted some high-level interest.” Murray held a cable from Director Emil Jacobs himself. “Well, it was only a matter of time. It had to happen sooner or later.” And if we don’t bag these sons of bitches, he thought, it’ll happen again. The ULA just proved that terrorists could operate in the U.S. The emotional shock of the event had come as a surprise to Murray. As a professional in the field, he knew that it was mere luck that it hadn’t happened already. The inept domestic terrorist groups had set off some bombs and murdered a few people, but the Bureau had experienced considerable success running them to ground. None of them had ever gotten much in the way of foreign support. But that had changed, too. The helicopter pilot had identified one of the escaping terrorists as black, and there weren’t many of them in Ireland.
It was a new ball game, and for all his experience in the FBI, Murray was worried about how well the Bureau would be able to handle it. Director Jacobs was right on one thing: this was a top-priority mission. Bill Shaw would run the case personally, and Murray knew him to be one of the best intellects in the business. The thirty agents initially assigned to the case would treble in the next few days, then treble again. The only way to keep this from happening again was to demonstrate that America was too dangerous a place for terrorists. In his heart, Murray knew that this was impossible. No place was too dangerous, certainly no democracy.
But the Bureau did have formidable resources, and it wouldn’t be the only agency involved.
Chapter 17
Recriminations and Decisions
Ryan awoke to find Robby waving a cup of coffee under his nose. Jack had managed to sleep without dreams this time, and the oblivion of undisturbed slumber had worked wonders on him.
“Sissy was over the hospital earlier. She says Cathy looks all right, considering. It’s all set up so you can get in to see Sally. She’ll be asleep, but you can see her.”
“Where is she?”
“Sissy? She’s out runnin’ some errands.”
“I need a shave.”
“Me, too. She’s getting what we need. First I’m gonna get some food in ya’,” Robby said.
“I owe you, man,” Jack said as he stood.
“Give it a rest, Jack. That’s what the Lord put us here for, like my pappy says. Now, eat!” Robby commanded.
Jack realized that he’d not eaten anything for a long time, and once his stomach reminded itself of this, it cried out for nourishment. Within five minutes he’d disposed of two eggs, bacon, hash-browns, four slices of toast, and two cups of coffee.
“Shame they don’t have grits here,” Robby observed. A knock came to the door. The pilot answered it. Sissy breezed in with a shopping bag in one hand and Jack’s briefcase in the other.
“You better freshen up, Jack,” she said. “Cathy looks better than you do.”
“Nothing unusual about that,” Jack replied — cheerfully, he realized with surprise. Sissy had bailed him into it.
“Robby?”
“Yeah?”
“What the hell are grits?”
“You don’t want to know,” Cecilia Jackson answered.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Jack walked into the bathroom and started the shower. By the time he got out, Robby had shaved, leaving the razor and cream on the sink. Jack scraped his beard away and patched the bloody spots with toilet paper. A new toothbrush was sitting there too, and Ryan emerged from the room looking and feeling like a human being.
“Thanks, guys,” he said.
“I’ll take you home tonight,” Robby said. “I have to teach class tomorrow. You don’t. I fixed it with the department.”
“Okay.”
Sissy left for home. Jack and Robby walked over to the hospital. Visiting hours were under way and they were able to walk right up to Cathy’s room.
“Well, if it isn’t our hero!” Joe Muller was Cathy’s father. He was a short, swarthy man — Cathy’s hair and complexion came from her mother, now dead. A senior VP with Merrill Lynch, he was a product of the Ivy League, and had started in the brokerage business much as Ryan had, though his brief stint in the military had been two years of drafted service in the Army that he’d long since put behind him. He’d once had big plans for Jack and had never forgiven him for leaving the business. Muller was a passionate man who was also well aware of his importance in the financial community. He and Jack hadn’t exchanged a civil word in over three years. It didn’t look to Jack as though that was going to change.
“Daddy,” Cathy said, “we don’t need that.”
“Hi, Joe.” Ryan held out his hand. It hung there for five seconds, all by itself. Robby excused himself out the door, and Jack went to kiss his wife. “Lookin’ better, babe.”