Headwind (2001)

by John J. Nance

  Campbell’s elbow was placed firmly on the arm of his chair, the bulk of his body balancing easily against the leather of the seat back, his hand supporting his chin and his eyes focused on the wall before him.

  “Stuart?” Henri asked tentatively.

  “Yes?” Campbell said slowly without turning.

  “I think you were right. An intermittent radar target was tracked by London Center for about forty miles heading to the northeast, but then it disappeared in a poor radar coverage area.”

  “Very well,” Stuart said passively, his mind deeply occupied with other thoughts. “Anything more?”

  “Yes,” Henri responded, drumming his fingers silently on the table. “I think we know where they’re heading.”

  “Dublin, I should think,” Stuart said, turning suddenly to look at his associate. “I am right?”

  Henri was nodding and smiling. “How’d you know?”

  “It’s what I would do, Henri. Who better to run to if you’re a beleaguered U.S. President than the country that loves Americans best? I would think less of our good Mr. Reinhart if he’d headed anywhere else.”

  “He took a flight to Dublin. That’s how we knew.”

  “I suspected that would be the case, and we’ll follow in the Lear in the next fifteen minutes,” Stuart said, resuming his contemplative posture, his eyes once again staring at a spot on the off-white wall. “Do you know what our esteemed Prime Minister wants to do, Henri?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re aware I talked with him at length a while ago?”

  “I knew he was calling.”

  Stuart shook his head slightly, almost imperceptibly. “I thought I knew his mind. I knew he was disgusted with Tony Blair’s tepid, timid prosecution of the Pinochet debacle. That’s why I alerted him from Sicily, to push him a bit, incite him a bit. I knew he’d help smooth the way in pursuit of John Harris.”

  “I know.”

  “But I had no idea how virulent he is on this subject. He really wants to ship Harris to Lima, Henri. Can you fancy that?”

  “You mean, while the courts . . .”

  “No, no. Nothing illegal. He can’t rip it away from the judicial process, of course, but he had the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State, the police . . . everyone he could control or influence ready to push the timetable for extradition to its absolute minimum.”

  “A moot point now, of course,” Henri offered. “But you’re surprised, Stuart?”

  Campbell leaned back to look at Henri. “In fact, I’m stunned. I honestly did not expect that.”

  “We came very close, then?” Henri asked.

  “To what?” Stuart asked, almost absently.

  “To succeeding. For our clients.”

  “Oh. Miraflores the bloodthirsty,” Stuart said with a snort, turning back to the wall and leaning back even more. “Yes, I suppose we did. We also put John Harris on a fast track to Lima.”

  “And this worries you?”

  There was silence for a few seconds before Stuart Campbell sighed and nodded.

  “Profoundly.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Dublin International Airport, Ireland—Tuesday—8:40 P.M.

  Michael Garrity waited just outside the customs area holding a small sign with “REINHART” in bold letters. Shorter than Jay had anticipated, he wore a full head of silver hair like a Roman emperor, swept forward and partly cropped, his face deeply lined, and a huge mouth that bisected his entire face and turned up at each end in a perpetual smile.

  They shook hands and Garrity pointed to the front drive, where a van was waiting to take them to the flight line.

  “It’s good to meet you,” he said in a deep rumble of a voice.

  “Are they here yet?” Jay asked.

  Garrity pushed open the terminal door and moved toward a passenger van parked by the curb, its flanks carrying the name and logo of Parc Aviation. “No, and as of ten minutes ago, I’d say Dublin Air Traffic Control had just about labeled me a crank for calling three times. They had yet to hear from a EuroAir Ten-Ten.”

  Jay looked alarmed.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Garrity said quickly, climbing into the van.

  The driver introduced himself and pointed toward a distant exit. “I’ll take you out to the ramp to wait for them.”

  “Your company handles the private jets here?” Jay asked.

  “Yes, if they’re not too big. We had to get permission to handle your flight, though, since it’s a 737.”

  Jay pulled out his GSM phone and punched a series of numbers into the keypad.

  He let the line ring until a woman’s voice gently intoned the obvious fact that the party wasn’t answering. He punched it off and sighed as Michael spoke.

  “By the way, Jay, I rousted one of my secretaries out of bed and she’s found the hotel rooms, transportation, and a slightly irritated Immigration inspector who’ll meet the airplane.”

  “Just Immigration?”

  “They won’t need customs since your people are arriving from another European Union country.”

  “Oh. Of course. I forgot about that, and I was so busy trying to get on my flight, I forgot to ask.”

  They passed through several security gates wrapped in their own thoughts before Michael Garrity broke the silence. “You told me on the phone that you had an Irish grandmother, Jay. And you’ve never been to Ireland?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Well, we’ve got a bit of work to do tomorrow to get ready for this thing, and your adversary Stuart Campbell will bear close watching, but you must let me show you our fair city at some point.”

  Jay smiled and shook his head. “I . . . doubt we’ll have time for that, Michael.”

  “Oh, at least a few of the sights the tourists would normally see. You’ve heard of Molly Malone?”

  “Who?”

  He sang a few bars of the song, and Jay raised his hand with a laugh. “Oh, yeah. The pretty female fishmonger who died of a fever . . . or ‘favor,’ as we were taught the song in the States.”

  “ ‘Favor’ ’tis a bastardized Irish pronunciation of fever,” Michael laughed.

  “I figured.”

  “We’ve a lovely statue of her in the town center. We call her ‘The Dish with the Fish.’ ”

  “The Dish . . .”

  “Also known as the ‘Tart with the Cart.’ The statue’s not too far from the Four Courts, our rather historic courthouse, where I toil away on most days, and where this matter will be fought.”

  The van pulled onto the flight line and the driver moved to the edge of a taxiway to wait. Garrity pulled out his cell phone and dialed Dublin Air Traffic Control once again.

  “Yes, it’s me, the pest. Has he now? Excellent. What time would that be?” Garrity nodded. “Fifteen minutes? Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and turned to Jay. “You heard, then?”

  Jay smiled and exhaled. “Yeah. Fifteen minutes. That’s a relief.”

  “Where did you gentlemen come in from?” the driver asked.

  “London,” Jay replied absently, his mind already focused on the next step.

  “Oh. You’re the second group. If you’re looking for the others, by the way, they just left.”

  Jay looked at him more in irritation than curiosity. “What?”

  “The Lear Thirty-five. It came in from London about thirty minutes ago and they mentioned they were expecting some others. I just thought . . . you know, you were part of the same group.”

  “No,” Jay said, shaking his head. “I came in by commercial. From London, you say?”

  “Yes, sir. The big fellow and the pilots left a few minutes ago with the people who came to meet them, and I thought they might have just left you behind or something. Sorry.”

  A ripple of apprehension shot through Jay’s middle and caused him to shudder internally.

  “Big fellow? Do you have his name?”

  The clerk pawed through his shirt pocket for a business car
d. “I didn’t get the man’s name, but here’s the pilot’s information, if that helps. Jean-Paul somebody.”

  He smiled and handed over the card. “I’ll need that back, you know. For our front counter.”

  Jay looked at the card, his shoulders slumping.

  “What is it, Jay?” Michael Garrity asked.

  “How in hell . . .” Jay mumbled to himself.

  “What?” Michael asked, moving to his side and trying to make out the name on the card.

  “William Stuart Campbell,” Jay said. “He’s already here. The man’s either clairvoyant, or he’s a one-man CIA.”

  The Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Ireland

  Stuart Campbell felt the weight of his fatigue as the limo sped through the night from the Dublin Airport to his hotel in the heart of the city, but there was too much to be done to succumb to it, and, as leader, he had to set the pace—and the example—for the entire team.

  He forced himself to keep a running conversation going with each of the three staff members who’d been waiting for him. With so much to do, their full attention would be vital through the night, and their loyalty would have to be rapidly earned.

  Only his firm’s Dublin partner had ever met Stuart Campbell before, and Stuart was acutely aware of the halo over his own head, an aura of respect and assumed infallibility that made it difficult for subordinates to speak up and point out mistakes. He was used to building effective teams, though seldom under such time pressure. Establishing friendly, personal bonds with employees and adversaries alike was a practiced technique—one of the many superior habits that had made him consistently successful in negotiations.

  Especially with his adversaries.

  A familiar building passed the limo’s windows and Stuart diverted his attention outside for a few moments as he aligned his memory with a map of Dublin.

  The advice of a long-dead mentor—one of the best-known barristers in England through the postwar years—rang through his mind again in a voice he periodically heard in his head, and missed in life.

  “Stuart,” Sir Henry Delacorte had told him in the infancy of Stuart’s practice, “it’s hard to say no to a man you really like. Build a bridge to those you deal with, make them like you, and they’ll come to you on every discretionary issue in spite of themselves. But never make the mistake of crossing that bridge yourself!”

  William Stuart Campbell, the senior lawyer, was unequaled in the art of calculated manipulation, knowing how to gain and use the advantage of an opponent’s trust while never letting himself be swayed by such affinities.

  But William Stuart Campbell, the man, had always been in minor turmoil over the technique, and that was good, he thought—especially for a man who genuinely liked people. The quiet, internal discomfort never stayed him from the task of influencing someone to do his bidding, but his inner reservations provided a small saving grace—a continuously renewable personal penance for the cynical use of his fellow man. Maintaining that small level of discomfort with his own methods had become a lifeline tied to the anchor of his humanity.

  “Are we ready to dive into this thing?” Campbell asked, when he and the three men and two women on his team had reached the opulent old hotel and pulled up chairs around the conference table in the Presidential Suite, informally known as the Princess Grace Room.

  There were bobbing heads all around.

  “Very well. First, where do we find a district judge?”

  “Probably not possible tonight or tomorrow,” one of the women answered, explaining the traditional holiday disappearance of most jurists. “But we’ll also have to involve the Garda. In fact, they’ll have to formally present the Interpol warrant in court or to whatever judge we can find.”

  “Do we have a list of all the judges?” Stuart asked. “With addresses and telephones and the like?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Then let’s start working those telephones and see if someone stayed behind.”

  “If,” the woman replied, “we could find one, I think he might be persuaded to sign the warrant at home so we can get on with the arrest, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  “We don’t have much time,” Stuart said, leaning back with his hands behind his head and looking at each of them in turn. “Let’s remember at all times that the basic mission here is to arrest President Harris and start the legal process against him. That’s what our client expects, and what he is paying dearly to have happen.”

  Patrick Nolan, the firm’s partner in Dublin, was nodding. “When you put us on standby, Stuart, I didn’t expect this affair would end up here.”

  “Nor did I,” Stuart replied. “I did think it possible that Harris might find a way to wiggle out of the net in Athens, but I did not expect him to get away from Italy.”

  “But, weren’t you going to snatch him away right there in Rome?” Nolan asked.

  “You mean put him on that jet we chartered to Lisbon?” Stuart replied.

  Nolan nodded, watching the senior partner smile and shake his head no.

  “That was never a serious possibility, that jet. It was window dressing for President Miraflores. The Italians weren’t about to let me do it, and I wasn’t about to let it happen, either. Too many damaging consequences in terms of my friendships in official Italy. But then an unexpected opportunity presented itself to more or less herd Harris to London, and I am rather surprised that it didn’t work.”

  “Why didn’t it?” Nolan asked.

  “Because John Harris is a very intelligent man, Paddy. He’s somehow gathered a cadre of dedicated people around him,” he laughed and shook his head, “including a planeload of geriatric American war veterans who were going to fight me personally if necessary, probably hand-to-hand. Their devotion to Harris was quite impressive.”

  There were puzzled expressions around the room, and Stuart waved them away. “When this job is all done and we’re all up in the hills closing down Johnnie Fox’s pub one evening, I’ll tell you the story.” He sat forward and put his large hands on the table. “Okay. Down to business, and I need the clear thinking of each and every one of you. There’s no rank in this room, understood? We’re a team, and we need to think like a team, because John Harris will be on the ground here momentarily and the clock is ticking. You can say anything to me without fear of breaching protocol.” He paused and smiled for effect. “Well, almost anything!”

  Stuart could see them visibly relax as they laughed.

  “Now, Harris has every reason to simply refuel here in Dublin and get back in the air, but he doesn’t have the range on that jet to make it to the States in one jump. That means if they try to fly on, he’s got to stop for fuel in either Iceland or Canada, and we’ve got people in both locales ready to move. Of course, I’d rather not test the Canadians’ resolve, considering they’ve got to sleep with the thirty-thousand-pound gorilla to the south, and the gorilla wants John Harris home free.”

  “Sir William,” one of the women said.

  “Stuart,” he corrected.

  “Yes, sir . . . ah, Stuart. I was going to say, there’s no way we’re going to get a warrant issued in time if they just refuel and go on.”

  “I understand, Orla. But his pilots are tired, and I don’t think they’re going to want to take him anywhere until they’ve had some rest. And, Mr. Reinhart will hire a local solicitor who will tell him the same thing you’ve just told me regarding the impossibility of finding a district judge quickly. Harris will calculate quite correctly that we’re incapable of clapping the cuffs on him until sometime tomorrow, and therefore he has a few hours of grace. So here’s the challenge: how many ways can John Harris leave Ireland other than on that jet, and how do we prevent it without doing something illegal?”

  Patrick Nolan looked at the others and pulled a legal pad closer to him to consult his notes before meeting Stuart’s gaze. “Well, I’m fairly certain he can’t escape by rail.”

  There was more laughter around the ta
ble as Patrick continued. “We know they’ve made reservations at a hotel, which means, Stuart, that you’re right about their wanting rest. But our big worry is the commercial airlines.”

  Stuart nodded knowingly. “I thought of that. He could simply nick a ticket on Aer Lingus and fly to New York direct.”

  “As early as seven in the morning,” one of the men agreed. “But, no one has booked a reservation for him on any airline with direct service to the States, at least as of two hours ago. That doesn’t mean they won’t try.”