“There they are,” Sands pointed out. The black-clad soldiers were standing behind their army trucks, only a few meters from the trucks the Irishmen had driven to the site.
“I only count six, lad,” Grady said. “We’re hoping for ten or so.”
“It is a poor time to become greedy, Sean.”Grady thought about that for a second, then checked his watch. He’d allotted forty-five to sixty minutes for this mission. Any more, he though, would give the other side too much time to get organized. They were within ten minutes of the lower limit. So far, things had gone according to plan. Traffic would be blocked on the roads, but only into the hospital, not away from it. He had his three large trucks, the van, and two private cars, all within fifty meters of where he was standing. The crucial part of the job was yet to begin, but his people all knew what to do. Roddy was right. It was time to wrap everything up and make his dash. Grady nodded at his subordinate, pulled out his cell phone, and hit the speed-dial button for Timothy O’Neil.
But it didn’t work. Lifting the phone to his ear, all he heard was the fast-busy signal that announced that the call hadn’t gone through properly. Annoyed, he thumbed end and redialed . . . and got the same result.
“What’s this?…” he said, trying a third time. “Roddy, give me your phone.”
Sands offered it, and Grady took it. They were all identical in make, and all had been identically programmed. He thumbed the same speed-dial command, and again got only the fast-busy response. More confused than angry, Grady nonetheless had a sudden empty feeling in his stomach. He’d planned for many things, but not for this. For the mission to work, he had to coordinate his three groups. They all knew what they were to do, but not when, not until he told them that it was time.
“Bloody . . .” Grady said quietly, rather to the surprise of Roddy Sands. Next Grady simply tried calling a mobile operator, but the same fast-busy signal resulted. “The bloody phones have stopped working.”
“We haven’t heard from him in a while,” Bellow observed.
“He hasn’t given us a phone number yet.”
“Try this.” Tawney handed over a handwritten list of numbers in the hospital. Bellow selected the main ER number and dialed it on his cell phone, making sure to start with the 777 prefix. It rang for half a minute before it was picked up.
“Yes?” It was an Irish-sounding voice, but a different one.
“I need to talk to Mr. Casey,” the psychiatrist said, putting the call on speaker.”He’s not here right now” was the reply.
“Could you get him, please? I need to tell him something.”
“Wait,” the voice answered.
Bellow killed the microphone on the portable phone. “Different voice. Not the same guy. Where’s Casey?”
“Some other place in the hospital, I imagine,” Stanley offered, but the answer was dissatisfying to him when no voice came back on the phone line for several minutes.
Noonan had to explain who he was to two separate police checkpoints, but now the hospital was in sight. He called ahead on his radio, told Covington that he was five minutes away, and learned that nothing had changed.
Clark and Chavez dismounted their vehicle fifty yards from the green trucks that had brought Team-1 to the site. Team-2 was now on its way, also in another green painted British Army truck, with a police escort to speed their way through the traffic. Chavez was holding a collection of photographs of known PIRA terrorists that he’d snatched off the intelligence desk. The hard part, Ding found, was to keep his hands from shaking whether from fear or rage, he couldn’t tell-and it required all the training he’d ever had to keep his mind on business rather than worrying about his wife and mother-in-law . . . and his unborn son. Only by looking down at the photos instead of up at the country was this possible, for in his hands he had faces to seek and kill, but the green grass around the hospital was merely empty landscape where there was danger. At times like this, the manly thing was to suck it in and pretend that you had it under control, but Chavez was learning now that while being brave for yourself was easy enough, facing danger to someone you loved was a very different situation, one in which courage didn’t matter a damn, and all you could do was . . . nothing. You were a spectator, and nothing more, watching a contest of sorts in which lives dear to you were at grave risk, but in which you could not participate. All he could do was watch, and trust to the professionalism of Covington’s Team-1. One part of his mind told him that Peter and his boys were as good as he and his own people were, and that if a rescue could be done, they would surely do it-but that wasn’t the same as being there yourself, taking charge, and making the right things happen yourself. Sometime later today, Chavez thought, he would again hold his wife in his arms-or she and their unborn child would be taken forever from him. His hands gripped the computer-generated photographs, bending the edges, and his only comfort was in the weight of the pistol that hung in the hip-holster tucked into the waistband of his trousers. It was a familiar feeling, but one, his mind told him, which was useless at the moment, and likely to remain so.
“So, what do I call you?” Bellow asked, when the phone line became active again.
“You can call me Timothy.”
“Okay,” the doctor said agreeably, “I’m Paul.”
“You’re an American,” O’Neil observed.
“That’s right. And so are the hostages you’re holding, Dr. Chavez and Mrs. Clark.”
“So?”
“So, I thought your enemies were the Brits, not us Americans. You know that those two ladies are mother and daughter, don’t you?” He had to know it, Bellow knew, and for that reason he could point it out as though giving away information.
“Yes,” the voice replied. “Did you know that they are both Catholic, just like you?”
“No.”
“Well, they are,” Bellow assured him. “You can ask. Mrs. Clark’s maiden name is O’Toole, as a matter of fact. She is an Irish-Catholic American citizen. What makes her your enemy, Timothy?”
“She’s-her husband is-I mean-”
“He’s also an Irish-Catholic American, and to the best of my knowledge he has never taken action of any kind against you or the people in your organization. That’s why I have trouble understanding why you are threatening their lives.”
“Her husband is the head of this Rainbow mob, and they kill people for the British government.”
“No, actually, they do not. Rainbow is actually a NATO establishment. The last time we went out, we had to rescue thirty children. I was there, too. The people holding them murdered one of the kids, a little Dutch girl named Anna. She was dying, Timothy. She had cancer, but those people weren’t very patient about it. One of them shot her in the back and killed her. You’ve probably seen it on TV. Not the sort of thing a religious person would do-not the sort of thing a Catholic would do, murdering a little girl like that. And Dr. Chavez is pregnant. I’m sure you can see that. If you harm her, what about her child? Not just a murder if you do that, Timothy. You’re also aborting her unborn child. I know what the Catholic Church says about that. So do you. So does the government in the Republic of Ireland. Please, Timothy, will you please think about what you’ve threatened to do? These are real people, not abstractions, and the baby in Dr. Chavez’s womb is also a real person, too. Anyway, I have something to tell Mr. Casey. Have you found him yet?” the psychiatrist asked.
“I-no, no, he can’t come to the phone now.”
“Okay, I have to go now. If I call this number again, will you be there to answer it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll call back when I have some news for you.” Bellow punched the kill switch. “Good news. Different person, younger, not as sure of himself. I have something I can use on this one. He really is Catholic, or at least he thinks of himself that way. That means conscience and rules. I can work on this one,” he concluded soberly but with confidence.
“But where is the other one?” Stanley asked. “Unless . . .”
“Huh?” Tawney asked.
“Unless he’s not in there at all.”
“Huh?” the doctor asked.
“Unless he’s not bloody there. He called us before, but he hasn’t talked to us in quite a while. Shouldn’t he be doing so?”
Bellow nodded. “I would have expected that, yes.”
“But Noonan has chopped the cell phones,” Stanley pointed out. He switched an his tactical radio. “This is Command. Look around for someone trying to use a cellular telephone. We may have two groups of subjects here. Acknowledge.”