Stephen Leather - The Long shot

“I’m sorry, Ted, what did you say? I was miles away.”

Clayton looked irritated. “I asked if you were all right for Sunday night.”

“Sunday night?”

“You and Lisa are coming round for dinner.”

Howard’s heart fell. He hated going to his in-laws’ house, and he figured that his wife had been waiting for the right time to tell him. “Sure,” he said, “we’re looking forward to it.”

Clayton stood up, leaving the cassette on the desk. “Good, good,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll have some news for you then.”

Howard frowned. Sunday was five days away. He stood up. “Is there any way of getting the results faster?” he asked. “We don’t know when the real thing is set to happen.”

“I’ll speed them up,” agreed Clayton. He patted Howard on the back as they walked to the door. “I’ll call you as soon as I have anything. By the way, haven’t you forgotten something?”

“Oh, yes. I’m really grateful, Ted. Really grateful.”

Clayton laughed. “No, I meant your briefcase. You’ve left it on the floor.”

Howard felt his cheeks flush. “Thanks,” he said through gritted teeth.

The Colonel handed Joker a bulky manila envelope and leaned back in his chair. Joker opened the package and slid the contents onto the Colonel’s desk. On top of the pile was a British passport. He picked it up and flicked through it. The passport was three years old and featured a photograph that must have come from the SAS’s files, the face thinner and the hair almost shoulder length. The name in the passport was Damien O’Brien and the date of birth was Joker’s own. He looked at the visa pages: they were blank except for a multiple re-entry visa to the United States.

“I haven’t travelled much,” he said with a smile. He picked up three sheets of typed paper which had been stapled together and read through them quickly. “Ah, I see why,” he said. “A labourer, some part-time bar work, and two convictions for drunk and disorderly conduct and one for assault. I’m not a particularly nice character, am I?”

“It’s only cover, Joker. Nothing personal.” The Colonel wrinkled his nose. The man sitting in front of him didn’t appear to have shaved for a couple of days and he stank to high heaven. His clothes looked as if they’d been slept in and there were grass stalks all over his coat.

If Joker was aware of the Colonel’s disdain for his dishevelled appearance, he didn’t show it. According to the fake CV Joker had been born thirty-six years earlier in Belfast, had lived for his first twelve years in Londonderry and attended a Catholic primary school. The house, and the school, had both been demolished years earlier — the house as part of a development project, the school following an arson attack in which the records had been destroyed. Joker had used the road and the school in previous identities when going undercover in Northern Ireland and was familiar with both.

“We’ve kept most of the background close to your own between the ages of twelve and eighteen, so that you won’t have too much trouble remembering it,” said the Colonel. “From eighteen years on we have you travelling around, never staying much in one place. That’s pretty much up to you — you can say you’ve been to Ireland, bring up your time in Scotland, use any background you feel comfortable with. There’s a number there they can use if they want to speak to someone you’ve worked with. If anyone calls they’ll be told it’s a bar in London and they’ll give you a glowing reference. The two bottom sheets are a summary of Manyon’s last report.”

Joker nodded and put the typewritten sheets back into the envelope. There were half a dozen large photographs on the desk and Joker picked them up. His eyes hardened as he looked at a woman in her mid-forties, dark brown hair lightly curled in a pageboy cut and her eyes moist. Another of the photographs was a full-length shot, clearly taken at a funeral because she was wearing black and had a handkerchief in her right hand. In the background he saw men in black berets and sunglasses and a coffin covered with the Republican tricolour flag.

“They’re the latest pictures we have of Mary Hennessy, taken at her husband’s funeral five years ago,” said the Colonel. “You’ve seen her since, of course.”

“She hadn’t changed,” said Joker, his eyes fixed on the picture. He could see a big automatic in the hands of one of the men standing by the coffin.

“She’s certain to have altered her appearance by now. She could be blonde, a red-head, brunette, we’ve no way of knowing. Her hair could be longer, or permed, and she could be wearing coloured contact lenses. And she could have put on weight.”

“No,” said Joker quietly, looking at the woman’s slim figure and shapely legs. “She was too vain about her looks. The hair, yeah, she might change that, but she won’t change her figure and she won’t risk plastic surgery. And even if she did, I’d always recognise her.”

There was a photograph of her getting into a car, and another of her outside a large red-brick house. Joker recognised several of the men with her, all of them leading IRA and Sinn Fein figures. The rest of the photographs were of Matthew Bailey. He was below average height with an unruly mop of red hair and piercing green eyes. He had a snub nose dotted with freckles and a deep dimple in his chin, as if someone had poked him with a finger and left an impression in the flesh, and a mole under his left eye. “Bailey is now twenty-six years old, and is responsible for the deaths of at least four members of the RUC,” continued the Colonel. “The IRA sent him to the States about six months ago when Northern Ireland had become too hot for him. One of the FBI’s anti-terrorist units almost caught him in Los Angeles four months ago trying to purchase a ground-to-air missile system but he was tipped off and disappeared for a while. Last month we received reports that he’d surfaced in New York and we sent Manyon in.”

Joker looked up sharply. “Tipped off, you said? Who could’ve tipped him off?”

“You know as well as me that the US is full of Irish Americans who sympathise with the IRA, Joker. They don’t see them as terrorists but as freedom fighters. And the law enforcement organisations have more than their fair share of Irish Americans. Every second cop in New York has an Irish name, just about, and they all wear the shamrock on St Paddy’s Day.”

“Are you saying we can’t trust the American cops?”

“Cops, FBI, Attorney-General’s Office, you’re to steer clear of them all. There’s to be no contact with the Americans at all. We can’t afford to blow this, we’ll only get one chance.”

Joker held up a picture of Bailey and one of Hennessy. They could have been mother and son. “What makes you think they’re together?” he asked the Colonel. “Did Manyon see them?”

“No. We had no idea she was there. It was only when Manyon’s body turned up that we recognised her signature. The Americans don’t even know — they’re treating it as a straightforward murder investigation.”

“They don’t know Manyon was with the regiment?”

The Colonel shook his head. “No. His sister arranged to have the body brought back, and his cover held.”

Joker put the photographs on top of the passport. He smiled when he saw there was a UK driving licence in the name of Damien O’Brien. He thought of his own revoked driving licence, suspended for a further two and a half years. His smile widened when he saw a thick wad of banknotes. He ran his thumbnail along one edge of the stack of cash and images of Benjamin Franklin flicked past. They were almost all one hundred dollar bills. “There’s five thousand dollars there,” said the Colonel. “We’re also giving you two credit cards, one Visa and one Mastercard, in the name of Damien O’Brien. You can use those for purchases or for withdrawing cash, up to $300 a day on each one. You should use the cards wherever possible, they’re keyed into a bank account which we’ll be monitoring. Each time you use the cards we’ll know within minutes where you are. I suggest you use them once a day; just make a small withdrawal so that we can keep track of you.”