Jack Higgins - The White House Connection

'Are we staying over?'

'I'd have thought I might need to leave in a hurry.'

Hedley refused to be drawn. 'Whatever you say, Lady Helen,' and he turned and went out.

Ferguson, at his desk, rang through to Hannah Bernstein and called her into his office. 'How are you getting on with your fresh computer investigation?'

'I'm still looking, sir. The thing I can't understand is that we know a great deal about the Sons of Erin and what they got up to, but we don't have any information on the specific act that would explain a personal vendetta on the part of this woman.'

'So you agree with Johnson and Parker about that.'

'Oh, yes, sir. You spend years on the street, sir, you investigate one rotten crime after another…"

'And you get a nose for it, a copper's nose?'

'Exactly, sir. Unlike in an Agatha Christie novel, when I visit the scene of the crime and take a look at who is involved, in most cases I can pick out who it is almost straightaway.'

Ferguson smiled. 'I'm with you on that, Chief Inspector, so what does it leave us? What does that fine Cambridge-educated mind tell you?'

'That central to all this is Jack Barry, but all the computer tells us is his background of offences. No mention of his connection with the Sons of Erin, or indeed any mention of the Sons of Erin, and that doesn't make sense, sir.'

'And your conclusion?'

'It's not there because somebody didn't want it there.'

'The Secret Intelligence Service?'

'I'm afraid so.'

Ferguson smiled. 'You know, you really are very good, my dear. It's time Special Branch elevated you to Detective Superintendent. I must speak to the Commissioner at Scotland Yard.'

'I'm not too worried about elevation, Brigadier. There's a black hole that needs filling. What do we do?'

'What would you suggest?'

'I think you should see the Deputy Director of the Security Services, sir, and as our American colleagues would say, I think you should kick ass.'

'Oh dear, Simon Carter wouldn't like that, but I think you're absolutely right. Phone him and tell him to meet us at the Grey Fox in St James's in exactly one hour.'

'Us, sir?'

'I wouldn't dream of depriving you of the pleasure of putting one of those Manolo Blahnik high heels in him, Chief Inspector.'

Hannah smiled. 'A pleasure, sir.'

The Grey Fox was one of several upper-class pubs in the vicinity of St James's Palace. It was two-thirty, most of the lunch trade running out, the place almost empty. Ferguson and Hannah took a secluded booth.

'Gin and tonic, Chief Inspector?'

'Mineral water, sir.'

'What a pity. Personally, I'll have a large one.'

The barmaid brought their drinks and almost immediately Simon Carter came in. His raincoat was wet and he shook his umbrella, obviously not in the best of moods.

'Now what in the hell is this, Ferguson? The Chief Inspector here actually threatened me, the Deputy Director of the Security Services.'

'Only when you said you were too busy to come, sir,' Hannah told him.

He took his coat off, called for a whiskey and soda and sat down. 'I mean, threatening me with prime ministerial privilege. Not on, Ferguson.'

'My dear Carter, you don't like me, and if I thought about you at all, I probably wouldn't like you, but we're into serious business here, so listen to the Chief Inspector.'

He drank his gin and tonic, waved for another and sat back.

She went through everything, the Tim Pat Ryan shooting, the extermination of the Sons of Erin, Jack Barry, Jean Wiley's statement. It left Carter stunned.

'I've never heard such nonsense,' he said weakly.

Ferguson shrugged. 'Good, that clears the decks.' He turned to Hannah. 'What time was our appointment with the Prime Minister?'

She lied cheerfully. 'Five o'clock, sir, though he can't give you long. He's due at the House this evening.'

Ferguson started to rise, and Carter said, 'No, just a moment.'

Ferguson subsided. 'What for?'

It was Hannah Bernstein, the copper as always, who said, 'Are you able to assist us in our inquiries, sir?'

'Oh, don't give me all that police procedural nonsense.' He called for another Scotch and turned to Ferguson. 'I haven't said a word about this. I'll always deny it.'

'Naturally.'

'And I want your Chief Inspector's word that this stays with the three of us. If she can't guarantee that, out she goes.'

Ferguson glanced at Hannah, who nodded. 'My word on it, Brigadier.'

'Good, let's get to it,' Ferguson said.

'We've never got on, my organization and yours, Ferguson. Too damned independent.' He shook his head. 'Prime Minister's private army. Never liked that. People should be accountable and you do what you damn well like.'

'And you don't, sir?' Hannah said gently.

Carter sipped his Scotch. 'There are things we never told you, Ferguson, because we didn't trust you, just like there are things you've never told us.'

Ferguson nodded to Hannah, who said, 'You know the facts, sir. I'm a police officer, I'm trained to look for answers, and what I see here is that one individual has taken care of all the victims here, and there has to be a reason for it. Something very bad happened, and I think you know what it was, and I think you had it erased from the computer memory and expunged the records.'

'Damn you!' Carter told her.

'Barry,' Ferguson said. 'It has to be him behind all this. Tell us now.'

Carter took a deep breath. 'All right. When the peace process began, we were told to be nice to our American cousins, pass them any useful information about what was happening in Ireland.'

'I know,' Ferguson said.

'Then we began to realize that stuff we'd passed to the White House was ending up in IRA hands. The culmination was a shocking atrocity which we found later was committed by Jack Barry and his gang. An entire undercover group, some of our best officers, was taken out.'

'Who were they?'

'A team of five, headed by a Major Peter Lang, a former Scots Guard and S A S man. There were three other men and a woman.'

'Yes, I recall the facts of Peter Lang's death,' Ferguson said. 'His parents were great friends of mine. He was in a car bomb of such proportions that no trace of his body was ever found.'

'Not true. We found out through an informer later, that Peter Lang was tortured, murdered, and then put through a cement mixer used in building the local motorway.'

'My God!' Hannah said.

'We also heard via this informer of the Sons of Erin and Jack Barry and this Connection thing.'

'And how did you handle it?'

'The peace process was at a delicate stage, we didn't want to unbalance it.'

'So you didn't tell the Prime Minister?'

'If we had, you'd have known, Ferguson, as well as Blake Johnson and the Basement and the President and God knows who else. We decided there was a better way to handle it.'

'Let me speculate, sir,' Hannah said. 'You went the road of disinformation mixed in with the usual not very important rubbish available in any of the better newspapers.'

'Something like that,' Carter said lamely.

'Well, there you go.' Ferguson stood up. 'Thanks for your help.'

'I haven't given you any.' Carter struggled with his raincoat and picked up his umbrella. 'Is that it then?'

'I think so.'

Carter went out. Hannah said, 'What do you think, sir?'

Ferguson said, 'Let me ask you a question, Chief Inspector. Say you lost a beloved son in Ulster, blown away as if he'd never existed, so that the shock finished offyour husband. And say you then found out the truth, which was that your son had been tortured, murdered and put through a cement mixer.'

'But how would you know that, sir?'

'I haven't the slightest idea. This is all speculation. But the drive, the energy necessary to kill all those men, would need a hugely positive reason, and I think that of the five undercover agents, what happened to Peter Lang was the most terrible.'