“Yes, very special,” she said aloud. “I flushed them down the goddamned john.”
She sat there for several minutes carrying on her imaginary conversation with him. She realized how much she missed him and how she wanted to hear his voice again. She was both excited and frightened by the knowledge that he was close and that he would find her.
The phone next to her rang. She let it ring for a long time before she picked it up.
“Maureen? Is everything all right?” It was Margaret Singer, “Shall I come up and get you? We’re expected at the Irish Pavilion—”
“I’ll be right down.” She hung up and rose slowly from the chair. The Irish Pavilion for a reception, then the steps of St. Patrick’s, the parade, and the reviewing stands at the end of the day. Then the Irish Cultural Society Benefit Dinner for Ireland’s Children. Then Kennedy Airport. What a lot of merrymaking in the name of helping soothe the ravages of war. Only in America. The Americans would turn the Apocalypse into a dinner dance.
She walked across the sitting room and into the bedroom. On the floor she saw a single green carnation, and she knelt to pick it up.
CHAPTER 9
Patrick Burke looked out of the telephone booth into the dim interior of the Blarney Stone on Third Avenue. Cardboard shamrocks were pasted on the bar mirror, and a plastic leprechaun hat hung from the ceiling. Burke dialed a direct number in Police Plaza. “Langley?”
Inspector Philip Langley, head of the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division, sipped his coffee. “I got your report on Ferguson.” Langley looked down from his thirteenth-story window toward the Brooklyn Bridge. The sea fog was burning off. “It’s like this, Pat. We’re getting some pieces to a puzzle here, and the picture that’s taking shape doesn’t look good. The FBI has received information from IRA informers that a renegade group from Ireland has been poking around the New York and Boston IRA—testing the waters to see if they can have a free hand in something that they’re planning in this country.”
Burke wiped his neck with a handkerchief. “In the words of the old cavalry scout, I see many hoofprints going in and none coming out.”
Langley said, “Of course, nothing points directly to New York on Saint Patrick’s Day—”
“There is a law that says that if you imagine the worst possible thing happening at the worst possible moment, it will usually happen, and Saint Patrick’s Day is a nightmare under the best of circumstances. It’s Mardi Gras, Bastille Day, Carnivale, all in one. So if I were the head of a renegade Irish group and I wanted to make a big splash in America, I would do it in New York City on March seventeenth.”
“I hear you. How do you want to approach this?”
“I’ll start by digging up my contacts. Barhop. Listen to the barroom patriots talk. Buy drinks. Buy people.”
“Be careful.”
Burke hung up, then walked over to the bar.
“What’ll you be having?”
“Cutty.” Burke placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He recognized the bartender, a giant of a man named Mike. Burke took his drink and left the change on the bar. “Buy you one?”
“It’s a little early yet.” The bartender waited. He knew a man who wanted something.
Burke slipped into a light brogue. “I’m looking for friends.”
“Go to church.”
“I won’t be finding them there. The brothers Flannnagan. Eddie and Bob. Also John Hickey.”
“You’re a friend?”
“Meet them every March seventeenth.”
“Then you should know that John Hickey is dead—may his soul rest in peace. The Flannagans are gone back to the old country. A year it’s been. Drink up now and move along. You’ll not be finding any friends here.”
“Is this the bar where they throw a drunk through the window every Saint Patrick’s Day?”
“It will be if you don’t move along.” He stared at Burke.
A medium-built man in an expensive topcoat suddenly emerged from a booth and stood beside Burke. The man spoke softly, in a British accent. “Could I have a word with you?”
Burke stared at the man, who inclined his head toward the door. Both men walked out of the bar. The man led Burke across the street, stopping on the far corner. “My name is Major Bartholomew Martin of British Military Intelligence.” Martin produced his diplomatic passport and military I.D. card.
Burke hardly glanced at them. “Means nothing.”
Martin motioned to a skyscraper in the center of the block. “Then perhaps we’d better go in there.”
Burke knew the building without looking at it. He saw two big Tactical Policemen standing a few yards from the entrance with their hands behind their backs. Martin walked past the policemen and held open the door. Burke entered the big marble lobby and picked out four Special Services men standing at strategic locations. Martin moved swiftly to the rear of the lobby, behind a stone façade that camouflaged the building’s elevators. The elevator doors opened, and both men moved inside. Burke reached out and pushed floor nine.
Martin smiled. “Thank you.”
Burke looked at the man standing in a classical elevator pose, feet separated, hands behind his back, head tilted upward, engrossed in the progression of illuminated numbers. Despite his rank there was nothing military about Bartholomew Martin, thought Burke. If anything he looked like an actor who was trying to get into character for a difficult role. He hadn’t mastered control of the mouth, however, which was hard and unyielding, despite the smile. A glimpse of the real man, perhaps.
The elevator stopped, and Burke followed the major into the corridor. Martin nodded to a man who stood to the left, dressed in a blue blazer with polished brass buttons.
On the wall of the corridor, opposite Burke, was the royal coat of arms and a highly polished bronze plaque that read: BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES. There was no sign to indicate that this was where the spies usually hung out, but as far as Burke knew, nobody’s consulate or embassy information office made that too clear.
Burke followed Martin through a door into a large room. A blond receptionist, dressed in a blue tweed suit that matched the Concorde poster above her desk, stood as they approached and said in a crisp British accent, “Good morning, Major.”
Martin led Burke through a door just beyond the desk, through a microfilm reading room, and into a small sitting room furnished in a more traditional style than the rest of the place. The only detail that suggested a government office was a large travel poster that showed a black and white cow standing in a sunny meadow, captioned: “Find peace and tranquility in an English village.”
Martin drew the door shut, locked it, and hung his topcoat on a clothes tree. “Have a seat, Lieutenant.”
Burke left his coat on, walked to the sideboard and took the stopper out of a decanter, smelled it, then poured a drink. He looked around the well-furnished room. The last time he’d been in the consulate was a week before last St. Patrick’s Day. A Colonel Hayes that time. Burke leaned back against the sideboard. “Well, what can you do for me?”
Major Martin smiled. “A great deal, I think.”
“Good.”
“I’ve already given Inspector Langley a report on a group of Irish terrorists called the Fenians, led by a Finn MacCumail. You’ve seen the report?”
“I’ve been apprised of the details.”
“Fine. Then you know something may happen here today.” Major Martin leaned forward. “I’m working closely with the FBI and CIA, but I’d like to work more closely with your people—pool our information. The FBI and CIA tell us things they don’t tell you, but I’d keep you informed of their progress as well as ours. I’ve already helped your military intelligence branches set up files on the IRA, and I’ve briefed your State Department intelligence service on the problem.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Yes. You see, I’m a sort of clearinghouse in this affair. British Intelligence knows more about the Irish revolutionaries than any
one, of course, and now you seem to need that information, and we have a chance to do you a good turn.”
“What’s the price?”
Major Martin played with a lighter on the coffee table. “Yes, price. Well better information from you in future on the transatlantic IRA types in New York. Gunrunning. Fund raising. IRA people here on R and R. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds fair.”
“It is fair.”
“So what do you want of me particularly?”
Major Martin looked at Burke. “Just wanted to tell you directly about all of this. To meet you.” Martin stood. “Look here, if you want to get a bit of information to me directly, call here and ask for Mr. James. Someone will take the message and pass it on to me. And I’ll leave messages for you here as well. Perhaps a little something you can give to Langley as your own. You’ll make a few points that way. Makes everyone look good.”
Burke moved toward the door, then turned. “They’re probably going after the Malone woman. Maybe even after the consul general.”
Major Martin shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sir Harold has no involvement whatsoever in Irish affairs. And the Malone woman—I knew her sister, Sheila, in Belfast, incidentally. She’s in jail. An IRA martyr. They should only know—but that’s another story. Where was I?—Maureen Malone. She’s quite the other thing to the IRA. A Provisional IRA tribunal has condemned her to death in absentia, you know. She’s on borrowed time now. But they won’t shoot her down in the street. They’ll grab her someday in Ireland, north or south, have a trial with her present this time, kneecap her, then a day or so later shoot her in the head and leave her on a street in Belfast. And the Fenians, whoever they are, won’t do anything that would preempt the Provos’ death sentence. And don’t forget, Malone and Sir Harold will be on the steps of Saint Patrick’s most of the day, and the Irish respect the sanctuary of the church no matter what their religious or political beliefs. No, I wouldn’t worry about those two. Look for a more obvious target. British property. The Ulster Trade Delegation. The Irish always perform in a predictable manner.”
“Really? Maybe that’s why my wife left me.”
“Oh, you’re Irish, of course … sorry….”
Burke unbolted the door and walked out of the room.
Major Martin threw back his head and laughed softly, then went to the sideboard and made himself a martini. He evaluated his conversation with Burke and decided that Burke was more clever than he had been led to believe. Not that it would do him any good this late in the game.
Book III
The Parade
Saint Patrick’s Day in New York is the most fantastic affair, and in past years on Fifth Avenue, from Forty-fourth Street to Ninety-sixth Street, the white traffic lines were repainted green for the occasion. All the would-be Irish, has-been Irish and never-been Irish, seem to appear true-blue Irish overnight. Everyone is in on the act, but it is a very jolly occasion and I have never experienced anything like it anywhere else in the world.
Brendan Behan,
Brendan Behan’s New York
CHAPTER 10
In the middle of Fifth Avenue, at Forty-fourth Street, Pat and Mike, the two Irish wolfhounds that were the mascots of the Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, strained at their leashes. Colonel Dennis Logan, Commander of the 69th, tapped his Irish blackthorn swagger stick impatiently against his leg. He glanced at the sky and sniffed the air, then turned to Major Matthew Cole. “What’s the weather for this afternoon, Major?”
Major Cole, like all good adjutants, had the answer to everything. “Cold front moving through later, sir. Snow or freezing rain by nightfall.”
Logan nodded and thrust his prominent jaw out in a gesture of defiance, as though he were going to say, “Damn the weather—full speed ahead.”
The young major struck a similar pose, although his jaw was not so grand. “Parade’ll be finished before then, I suspect, Colonel.” He glanced at Logan to see if he was listening. The colonel’s marvelously angular face had served him well at staff meetings, but the rocklike quality of that visage was softened by misty green eyes like a woman’s. Too bad.
Logan looked at his watch, then at the big iron stanchion clock in front of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Building on Fifth Avenue. The clock was three minutes fast, but they would go when that clock struck noon. Logan would never forget the newspaper picture that showed his unit at parade rest and the clock at three minutes after. The caption had read: THE IRISH START LATE. Never again.
The regiment’s staff, back from their inspection of the unit, was assembled in front of the color guard. The national and regimental colors snapped in a five-mile-an-hour wind that came down the Avenue from the north, and the multicolored battle streamers, some going back to the Civil War and the Indian wars, fluttered nicely. Logan turned to Major Cole. “What’s your feel?”
The major searched his mind for a response, but the question threw him. “Feel … sir?”
“Feel, man. Feel.” He accentuated the words.
“Fine. Fine.”
Logan looked at the battle ribbons on the major’s chest. A splash of purple stood out like the wound it represented. “In ’Nam, did you ever get a feeling that everything was not fine?”
The major nodded thoughtfully.
Logan waited for a response that would reinforce his own feelings of unease, but Cole was too young to have fully developed that other sense to the extent that he could identify what he felt in the jungle and recognize it in the canyons of Manhattan Island. “Keep a sharp eye out today. This is not a parade—it’s an operation. Don’t let your head slide up your ass.”
“Yes, sir.”
Logan looked at his regiment. They stood at parade rest, their polished helmets with the regimental crest reflecting the overhead sunlight. Slung across their shoulders were M-16 rifles.
The crowd at Forty-fourth Street, swelled by office workers on their lunch hour, was jostling for a better view. People had climbed atop the WALK–DON’T WALK signs, the mailboxes, and the cement pots that held the newly budded trees along the Avenue.
In the intersection around Colonel Logan newsmen mixed with politicians and parade officials. The parade chairman, old Judge Driscoll, was patting everyone on the back as he had done for over forty years. The formation marshals, resplendent in black morning coats, straightened their tricolor sashes and top hats. The Governor was shaking every hand that looked as if it could pull a voting lever, and Mayor Kline was wearing the silliest green derby that Logan had ever seen.
Logan looked up Fifth Avenue. The broad thoroughfare was clear of traffic and people, an odd sight reminiscent of a B-grade science-fiction movie. The pavement stretched unobstructed to the horizon, and Colonel Logan was more impressed with this sight than anything else he had seen that day. He couldn’t see the Cathedral, recessed between Fiftieth and Fifty-first Streets, but he could see the police barriers around it and the guests on the lower steps.
A stillness began to descend on the crossroads as the hands of the clock moved another notch toward the twelve. The army band accompanying the 69th ceased their tuning of instruments, and the bagpipes of the Emerald Society on the side street stopped practicing. The dignitaries, whom the 69th Regiment was charged with escorting to the reviewing stands, began to fall into their designated places as Judge Driscoll looked on approvingly.
Logan felt his heart beat faster as he waited out the final minutes. He was aware of, but did not see, the mass of humanity huddled around him, the hundreds of thousands of spectators along the parade route to his front, the police, the reviewing stands in the park, the cameras and the newspeople. It was to be a day of dedication and celebration, sentimentality and even sorrow. In New York this day had been crowned by the parade, which had gone on uninterrupted by war, depression, or civil strife since 1762. It was, in fact, a mainstay of Irish culture in the New World, and it was not about to change, even if every last man, woman, and child in old Ireland did away with themselves a
nd the British to boot. Logan turned to Major Cole. “Are we ready, Major?”
“The Fighting Irish are always ready, Colonel.”
Logan nodded. The Irish were always ready for anything, he thought, and prepared for nothing.
* * *
Father Murphy looked around him as a thousand guests crowded the steps of the Cathedral. He edged over and stood on the long green carpet that had been unrolled from the main portal between the brass handrail and down into the street. In front of him, between the handrails, stood the Cardinal and the Monsignor, shoulder to shoulder. Flanking them were the British consul, Baxter, next to the Cardinal, and the Malone woman next to the Monsignor. Murphy smiled. The arrangement wasn’t strictly protocol, but they couldn’t get at each other’s throats so easily now.
Standing in loose formation around the Cardinal’s group were priests, nuns, and church benefactors. Murphy noticed at least two men who were probably undercover police. He looked up over the heads of the people in front of him toward the crowd across the Avenue. Boys and girls had climbed to the top of the pedestal of the Atlas and were passing bottles back and forth. His eyes were drawn to a familiar face: Standing in front of the pedestal, with his hands resting on a police barricade, was Patrick Burke. The man towered above the crowd around him and seemed strangely unaffected by the animated throng pressing against him on the sidewalk. Murphy realized that Burke’s presence reassured him, though he didn’t know why he felt he needed that assurance.
The Cardinal turned his head toward Harold Baxter and spoke in a voice that had that neutral tone of diplomacy so like his own. “Will you be staying with us for the entire day, Mr. Baxter?”
Baxter was no longer used to being called mister, but he didn’t think the Cardinal meant anything by it. He turned his head to meet the Cardinal’s eyes. “If I may, Your Eminence.”
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