Jack Higgins: The White House Connection

'You heard?'

'I'm afraid so. Are you okay?'

'I've been better. Tea, Hedley, hot and strong.'

She went back into the sitting room and sat down. 'What happened? Why was nothing done?'

'They decided to keep it black, which was why you weren't told the truth. We had operatives check Republican circles in New York and Washington. We discovered there was indeed a New York dining club called the Sons of Erin. The names of the members are all in the file, along with their photos. They're prominent businessmen, one's even a US Senator. It all fits. There had already been examples of privileged information from London to Washington ending up in IRA hands.'

'But why was nothing done?'

Emsworth shrugged. 'Politics. The President, the Prime Minister – no one wanted to rock the boat. Let me tell you something about intelligence work. You think the CIA and the FBI keep the President informed about everything? Hell, no.'

'So?'

'It's just the same in the UK. MI5 and MI6 have their own dark secrets and they not only hate each other, but also Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Unit and Military Intelligence. For proof of that, you'll find two interesting entries in the file, one American, the other Brit.'

'And what do they refer to?'

'There's a man called Blake Johnson at the White House, around fifty, a Vietnam veteran, lawyer, ex-FBI. He's Director of the General Affairs Department at the White House. Because it's downstairs, it's known as the Basement. It's one of the most closely guarded secrets of the administration, passed from one President to another. It's totally separate from the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service. Answers only to the President. The whispers are so faint people don't believe it exists.'

'But it does?'

'Oh, yes, and the British Prime Minister has his own version. It's there in the file. Brigadier Charles Ferguson runs it.'

'Charles Ferguson? But I've known him for yean.'

'Well, I don't know what you thought he was, but his outfit is known in the trade as the Prime Minister's private army. It's given the IRA a bad time for years. Ferguson has a sizeable setup at the Ministry of Defence and is responsible only to the PM, which is why the other intelligence outfits loathe him. His nght hand is an ex-IRA enforcer named Sean Dillon; his left, a Detective Chief Inspector named Hannah Bernstein, granddaughter of a rabbi, if you can believe it. Quite a bunch, huh?'

'But what has this to do with anything?'

'Simply, that the Secret Intelligence Service didn't want Ferguson and company involved, because Ferguson might have told the Prime Minister, and Ferguson has a private contact with Blake Johnson, which meant the President would have been informed and SIS couldn't have that.'

'So what happened?'

'SIS started to send the White House mild and useless information and disinformation. There was no way of implicating the members of the Sons of Erin. And then the file was lost.' He reached for the folder and held it up. 'Except for my copy. I don't know why I took it at the time. Self-disgust, I suppose. Now, I think you should have it.'

He started to cough; she passed him a napkin. He spat into it and she saw blood. 'Should I get the doctor?'

'He's calling in later. Not that it'll make any difference.' He gave her a ghastly smile. 'That's it then, now you know. I'd better lie down.'

He rose, picked up the stick and walked slowly into the hall. 'I'm sorry, Helen, desperately sorry.'

'It's not your fault, Tony.'

He heaved himself up the stairs and she watched him go. Hedley appeared behind her, holding the file. 'I figured you'd want this.'

'I surely do.' She took it from him. 'Let's move on, Hedley. There's only death here.'

Back in the Mercedes, as they drove through the narrow lanes, she read through the file, every detail, every photo. Strangely enough, she dwelt on Sean Dillon longer than anyone: the fair hair, the self-containment, the look of a man who had found life a bad joke. She closed the file and leaned back.

'You okay, Lady Helen?' Hedley asked.

'Oh, fine. You can read the file yourself when we're back at South Audley Street.'

She felt a flutter in her chest, opened her purse, shook two pills into her hand, and swallowed them. 'Whiskey, please, Hedley,' she said.

He passed back the silver flask. 'What's going on? Are you okay?'

'Just some pills the doctor gave me.' She leaned back and closed her eyes. 'No big deal. Just get me to South Audley Street.'

But Hedley didn't believe her for a moment and drove on, his face troubled.

At South Audley Street, she sat in the study and worked her way through the file again, studying the text, the photos.

The composition of the Sons of Erin was interesting. There was Senator Michael Cohan, aged fifty, a family fortune behind him derived from supermarkets and shopping malls; Martin Brady, fifty-two, an important official in the Teamsters' Union; Patrick Kelly, forty-eight, a construction millionaire; and Thomas Cassidy, forty-five, who had made a fortune from Irish theme pubs. All Irish-Americans, but there was one surprise, a well-known London gangster named Tim Pat Ryan.

She passed the file to Hedley in the kitchen, got a pot of tea, returned to the study and started on her computer, a recent acquisition and something with which she'd become surprisingly expert, thanks to help from an unexpected source.

She'd asked for advice from the London office of her corporation, and their computer department had jumped to attention and recommended the best. She'd mastered the basics quickly, but soon wanted more and had consulted the corporation again. The result was the arrival in South Audley Street of a strange young man in a very high-tech electric wheelchair. She'd seen him from the drawing-room window, but when she went into the hall, Hedley already had the door open.

The young man on the sidewalk had hair to his shoulders, bright blue eyes and hollow cheeks. He also had scar tissue all over his face, the kind you got from bad burns.

'Lady Helen?' he said cheerfully as she appeared behind Hedley. 'My name's Roper. I'm told you'd like your computer to sit up and do a few tricks.' He gave Hedley a twisted smile. 'Turn me around, there's a good chap, and pull me up the two steps. That's the one thing these gadgets can't manage.'

In the hall, Hedley turned him and she said, 'The study.'

When they reached it, he looked at her computer setup and nodded. 'Ah, PK800. Excellent.' He glanced up at Hedley. 'I'm not allowed to eat lunch, but I'd love a pot of tea to wash my pills down, Sergeant Major.'

Hedley smiled slowly. 'Do I say "sir"?'

'Well, I did make captain in the Royal Engineers. Bomb disposal.' He held up his hands. They saw more scar tissue.

Hedley nodded and went out. Helen said, 'IRA?'

Roper nodded. 'I handled all those bombs so slickly, and then a small one caught me by surprise in a car in Belfast.' He shook his head. 'Very careless. Still, it did lead me to a further career, fatherhood being out.' He eased his wheelchair to the computer bank. 'I do love these things. They can do anything, if you know what to ask them.' He turned and looked up at her. 'Is that what you want, Lady Helen, for them to do anything?'

'Oh, I think so.'

'Good. Well, give me a cigarette and let's see what you know, then we'll see what I can teach you.'

Which he did. Every dirty trick in the computer book. By the time he'd finished, she was capable of hacking into the Ministry of Defence itself. And she continued to be an apt pupil until the morning she got yet another phone call – that was three, she thought; these things always seemed to travel in threes – the phone call that said Roper was in the hospital with kidney failure.