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Cready handled it personally. There was no question of bringing Rowse to the environs of Century House, let alone to Curzon Street. McCready borrowed one of the three quiet country houses not an hour’s drive from London that the SIS keeps for such purposes, and he had the briefing materials sent from Century House.
There was written material and movie film, much of the latter rather indistinct, having been shot from great distance or through a hole in the side of a van, or from between the branches of a bush at long range. But the faces were clear enough.
Rowse saw the film and heard the tape from the graveyard scene at Ballycrane a week earlier. He studied the face of the Irish priest who had acted as messenger, and that of the Army Council man beside him. But when the still photographs were laid side by side, his gaze always came back to the cold, handsome features of Kevin Mahoney.
Four years earlier, Rowse had almost killed the IRA gunman. Mahoney was on the run, and the operation to track him down had taken weeks of patient undercover work. Finally, he had been suckered by a deception operation into venturing into Northern Ireland from his hideout near Dundalk in the South. He was being driven by another IRA man, and they stopped for petrol at a filling station near Moira. Rowse had been driving behind him, well back, receiving radio briefings from the watchers along the route and in the sky. When he heard that Mahoney had stopped for fuel, he decided to close in.
By the time he reached the forecourt of the filling station, the IRA driver had filled his tank and was back in the car. No one was with him yet. For a moment Rowse thought he had lost the quarry. He told his partner to cover the IRA driver and got out. It was while he was busying himself with the petrol pump that the door of the men’s room opened and Mahoney came out.
Rowse was carrying his SAS-issue Browning 13-shot in his waistband at the back, under his blue duffle jacket. A scruffy woolen cap covered most of his head, and several days of stubble obscured his face. He looked like an Irish workman, which was his cover.
As Mahoney emerged, Rowse dropped into a crouch beside the petrol pump, pulled his gun, took up the double-handed aim position, and yelled, “Mahoney—freeze!”
Mahoney was fast. Even as Rowse was drawing, he was reaching for his own gun. By law, Rowse could have finished him there and then. Later, he wished he had. But he shouted again, “Drop it, or you’re dead!”
Mahoney had his gun out, but it was still by his side. He looked at the man half-hidden by the pump, saw the Browning, and knew he could not win. He dropped his Colt.
At that moment, two old ladies in a Volkswagen pulled onto the concrete apron of the filling station. They had no idea what was going on, but they drove straight between Rowse by the petrol pump and Mahoney by the wall. That was enough for the IRA man. He dropped like a stone and retrieved his gun. His partner tried to drive to his rescue, but Rowse’s backup man was beside him, a gun stuck straight through the car window into the man’s temple.
Rowse could not fire because of the two women, who had now stalled their engine and were sitting in their Volkswagen screaming. Mahoney came out from behind the Volkswagen, dodged around the back of a parked lorry, and ran out into the road. By the time Rowse cleared the lorry, Mahoney was in the middle of the highway.
At that moment, a Morris Minor drove by. The elderly driver of the Morris jammed on his brakes to avoid hitting the running man. Mahoney kept the Morris between himself and Rowse, hauled the old man out by the jacket, clubbed him to the ground with the Colt, jumped into the driving seat, and was off.
There was a passenger in the car. The old man had been taking his granddaughter to the circus in the Morris. Rowse, in the road, watched as the passenger door flew open and the child was thrown out. He heard her thin scream from down the road, saw her small body hit the road, then saw her body struck by an oncoming van.
“Yes,” said McCready softly, “we know it was him. Despite the eighteen witnesses who said he was at a bar in Dundalk at that hour.”
“I still write to her mother,” said Rowse.
“The Army Council wrote, too,” said McCready. “They expressed regret. Said she fell accidentally.”
“She was thrown,” said Rowse. “I saw his arm. He’s really going to be in charge of this?”
“We think so. We don’t know whether the transshipment will be by land, sea, or air, or where he’ll show up. But we think he’ll command the operation. You heard the tape.”
McCready briefed Rowse on his cover stories. He would have two, not one. The first would be reasonably transparent. With luck, those investigating it would penetrate the lie and discover the second story. With luck (again), they would be satisfied with the second cover.
“Where do I start?” asked Rowse as the week neared its end.
“Where would you like to start?” asked McCready.
“Anyone researching international arms traffic for his next novel would soon find out that the two European bases for that traffic are Antwerp and Hamburg,” said Rowse.
“True,” said McCready. “Do you have any contacts in either city?”
“There’s a man I know in Hamburg,” said Rowse. “He’s dangerous, crazy, but he may have contacts in the international underworld.”
“His name?”
“Kleist. Ulrich Kleist.”
“Jesus, you know some strange bastards, Tom.”
“I saved his butt once,” said Rowse. “At Mogadishu. He wasn’t crazy then. That came later, when someone turned his son into a druggie. The boy died.”
“Ah, yes,” said McCready, “that can have an effect. Right, Hamburg it is. I’ll be with you all the time. You won’t see me, and neither will the bad guys. But I’ll be there, somewhere nearby. If things turn sour, I’ll be close, with two of your former colleagues from the SAS Regiment. You’ll be okay— we’ll come for you if things get rough. I’ll need to contact you now and again for regular updates on progress.”
Rowse nodded. He knew it was a lie, but it was a nice one. McCready would need his regular updates so that if Rowse abruptly departed this planet, the SIS would know how far he had got. For Rowse possessed that quality so beloved of spymasters: He was quite dispensable.