Jack Higgins - The White House Connection

The key looked just the same. Hedley said dubiously, 'Is this kosher?'

'If I were Jewish, I'd say on my life, but I'm just an old trombone player from Harlem. Hedley, I don't know the hotel, I don't want to know, but one thing is certain. This will open any door in the fucking place.'

'What do I owe you?'

'What are friends for? Use it in good health.'

Michael Cohan took the Concorde from New York to London. He preferred it to the Jumbo, but then anyone would. Three and a half hours, a smooth and perfect flight, excellent food and free champagne. The seats were smaller, but the speed made up for that. There was no movie, but that was the last thing he was concerned about, because the thoughts going around in his brain provided his own personal cinema of the mind and it wasn't funny. He'd tried to phone Barry twice on the coded mobile, but got no reply, though that wasn't surprising. The Irishman was constantly on the move, and mobile phones were not something you switched on all the time, especially in Barry's case, when you were on the run.

It was a mess, though, the way things had worked out. So stupid, the whole thing. His Irish-American voters had always been crucial, and Brady had been a first-class fund-raiser for him because of his power in the Teamsters' Union. It was he who had introduced him to Kelly and Cassidy.

There was a natural progression to receiving funds for the IRA. Not just for Noraid, but for other groups with Dublin links. Everybody was doing it. Most of his Irish-American voters felt strongly about the situation in Ireland. The IRA were heroes – romantic heroes.

He remembered the early days at Murphy's, the drinking, the singing of rebel songs. It was exciting, romantic, and then there had been the night Brady had introduced Jack Barry, in New York on business for the organization back there in Dublin. A real live IRA gunman.

Barry had regaled them with his stories of gun battles with British paratroopers, life on the run, and had suggested how they could help. It was Brady with his work on the New York docks for the Teamsters who was of real importance. The possibilities of smuggling arms to Ireland had been obvious. Cohan and Kelly had concentrated on the fund-raising and Cassidy on the purchase of suitable weapons. Cohan remembered their first coup: fifty ArmaLite rifles smuggled in a Portuguese boat to Ireland.

They were already calling themselves the Sons of Erin at Barry's suggestion, had established the dining club at Murphy's with a plaque on their own booth, all out in the open, no reason not to. And then when Barry had come to New York again, he had mentioned his mysterious mentor, a voice on the phone the previous year when Barry had been staying in splendour at the

Mayfair Hotel on IRA business. When Barry had asked who he was, he'd simply said: 'Call me the Connection, because that's what I am.'

Astoundingly, he could provide information from British Intelligence by way of Washington, information crucial to the struggle in Ireland. Again, because of Brady's waterfront connections, arrangements were able to be made to smuggle IRA men on the run out of Ireland to New York. The smuggling of arms had also continued.

The really serious business had started when the Connection had passed details of British Intelligence operations in New York and Boston, including identities of operatives, all part of the shadow war being fought between the British and the IRA in Ireland.

This was where Brady, because of his union work, and Cassidy with his construction business, had come into their own. They both had serious connections with mob interests. Favours were owed. The right kind of accidents took place, the Brits lost people and couldn't make a fuss. After all, they shouldn't have been there in the first place, although a lot of that kind of thing seemed to have tailed off in the past year, and Cohan had always stood well clear of any violence.

He'd always been a link man when needed, had met Tim Pat Ryan twice when on London trips. It had all worked, and then the damn roof had fallen in. Still, he was in the clear, whatever Blake Johnson implied. So he frequented Murphy's Bar, so what did that prove? How in the hell had he been so stupid, and yet there had been an inevitability about it from the beginning. Nothing to be done about it now. The Connection had promised to take care of it and he'd taken care of everything in the past well enough.

So Brady, Kelly, Cassidy and Ryan were dead meat. Cohan shuddered and waved for another glass of champagne and tried to comfort himself with the thought that the other guys had been one thing, but he was a United States Senator. United States Senators didn't get shot, did they?

Ferguson was with the Prime Minister again at Downing Street, on his own this time. The Prime Minister listened carefully to Ferguson 's resume of the whole business.

'Of course, as the President has pointed out to me in our conversation, there isn't a thing anyone can do legally about Senator Cohan. His membership of the Sons of Erin damns him in our eyes, but on the surface he can claim, as he apparently does, that he frequented this Murphy's Bar quite innocently.'

'Agreed, Prime Minister,' Ferguson nodded. 'But he's here now and the thing is, what do we do with him?'

'Try and keep him alive, of course. I'm dropping the whole thing in your lap, Brigadier.'

'And the Deputy Director and the Security Services?' 'You are in charge,' the Prime Minister told him firmly. 'I now realize the Security Services have not been as forthcoming as they could have been in the past, and I don't like that.' He smiled. 'You've been in this job a long time, Brigadier. I think I now know why one of my illustrious predecessors gave it to you in the first place.' 'So I have full authority?'

'Absolutely. Now, do excuse me. I'm due at the House.' As Ferguson stood and the door behind him opened, the Prime Minister added, 'By the way, this function at the Dorchester, the Forum for Irish Peace that Cohan is attending tomorrow night. I'm looking in at ten. You'll be there, of course.'

Ferguson nodded. 'I think you can take that for granted, Prime Minister,' and he followed the aide out.

Hannah Bernstein and Dillon were waiting in the Daimler. Ferguson got in and it drove away. As the security gates opened, he said, 'Just as I thought, it's our baby. Carter is to have no involvement.'

'Which leaves us in the deep you-know-what if the Senator comes to a sticky end,' Dillon pointed out.

'My dear boy, it was ever thus.' Ferguson turned to Hannah Bernstein. 'When is he due in?'

She checked her watch 'Only took off forty minutes ago, sir.' 'Fine. Check his movements, the data at the hotel, his limousine, that sort of stuff. There's not too much we can do, as this is not really official. We can't alert the hotel or pull in extra security guards during his visit.'

'There'll be plenty of security at the Forum for Irish Peace tomorrow night,' Hannah said.

'Of course.' Ferguson frowned. 'But I'm uneasy and why is that?'

'I'm sure you'll tell us,' Dillon said.

'Well, I've never been happy since the Ryan shooting and then discovering the same gun was used in New York. I don't think it's a conspiracy, some execution squad. I have a feeling there's an executioner out there.' 'The Irish woman.'

'Or a woman with an Irish accent,' Dillon said. 'A needle in a haystack in London. Eight million Irish in the UK. A hell of a diaspora.'

'Well, I have infinite faith in you, so you can start with Kilburn,' Ferguson told him.

'And Senator Cohan?' Hannah asked.

'I'll speak to him when I'm ready. Now, as this rogue here is wearing a jacket and tie for once, I'll take you to the Garrick for lunch.'

But already events were happening which would change everything. Earlier that morning, Thornton had considered the situation of Cohan in London, and the longer he did, the more unhappy he became. What guarantee was there that the mysterious killer would strike in London ? None at all, and yet Cohan had become a liability. The man really would have to go. It was four o'clock in the morning, American time, when he phoned Barry. The Irishman was still at the safe house in County Down.