by Duncan James
***
Sir Robin Algar was just leaving for lunch when Major Clayton arrived, with his brief case padlocked to his wrist.
“At last we meet,” said Algar. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said, shaking hands.
“Sorry to barge in like this, un-announced,” said Clayton, “but you will be needing these dossiers I’ve put together for you, and I thought the sooner you had them the better. They combine all the evidence we have about certain people over the water, and their alleged criminal activity.”
“I’ve already got an envelope full of material from you,” said Algar, “but this all looks much more official.”
“It is,” acknowledged Clayton. “It’s a combination of facts from all our sources - the sort of paper work the Crown Prosecution Service would need before reaching a decision. I gather you need it for much the same purpose.”
The Cabinet Secretary paled slightly. “I’m afraid I do,” he agreed.
“I shall need to know your verdict,” said Clayton. “It might be easier if I assume you are content for us to proceed unless I hear to the contrary.”
“The evidence is that good, is it?” asked Sir Robin.
“We think so, in almost every case.”
“Let’s do it that way, then,” agreed Algar. “How soon do you need to know?”
“How long will it take you to get through them all, do you think? There’s three-dozen or so in there. The sooner we set the deadline, the sooner we can get started.”
The Cabinet Secretary thought for a moment, and looked at the diary on his desk. “The trouble is, I can’t take any of this home,” he said, almost to himself. “Let’s agree that if you haven’t heard about any of them by Monday, then I am content. By then, the new secure communications should be in place, too.”
“Good,” agreed Bill Clayton. “That gives me time for some planning as well. There’s one dossier in that lot, though, where I think the Americans could do a better job than us, but they will need to act on Friday. If you agree, could you persuade the PM to have a word with President Minton, to see if he can set it up for us?”
For the next ten minutes, they discussed Martin McFosters.
Sir Robin Algar suddenly looked at his watch.
“Look here,” he said, “I’m going to be late for lunch. Is there anything else?”
“I need your signature for the dossiers,” said Clayton. “They’re classified.” He handed over an official receipt from his jacket pocket, and pointed to where the signature was required. “And this,” he added, fishing for a scrap of paper in another pocket. “It’s McFosters’ flight number,” he said, handing it over.
“You think of everything,” said Algar, signing. “How about joining me for lunch? I’m meeting a friend of yours, Alistair Vaughan.”
“I know you are. He told me when I spoke to him this morning. It would be nice to see him again, so thank you, if you’re sure I shan’t be in the way, I’d very much like to join you.”
Sir Robin Algar grinned. “Come on then. The car’s waiting at the Whitehall entrance.”
He paused, to hand over the files to John Williams.
“For the safe, please John. I shall want this lot again later. Get on the phone and tell Mr Vaughan we shall be a bit late, and that Major Clayton is joining us.”
“He guessed I would be,” said Clayton as they set off down the corridor.
“Did he, now!” exclaimed Algar. “And I suppose you know where we're going, too.”
“Rules.” replied Clayton. “It’s your turn and you like steak and kidney pud!”
The two men laughed as they stepped out into Whitehall. This was going to be better than a pint in the Red Lion across the road, thought Clayton.
“As a matter of interest, Major, why did you ring him?” said Sir Robin as they settled into the car.
“Only to try to put a bit of steel in his spine,” replied Clayton. “I gather he wasn’t entirely co-operative on your first meeting.”
“Oh dear,” said Algar. “What you say is certainly true, but poor Alistair will also have been encouraged to help this morning by Paul Bridges, who you also know I think, and by the Governor of the Bank of England himself, following a call to him by the Prime Minister. He may just not be in a very good mood when we meet after all that.”
Bill Clayton grinned. “The steak and kidney will cheer him up,” he said. “Although personally I shall have something lighter, I think, since I had kippers for breakfast. And please call me Bill, if you like.”
“Thanks, Bill. Do you think Alistair and his convict friend are going to be able to pull this off, as a matter of interest?” asked Sir Robin.
“Oh, I’m quite sure they will.” Bill Clayton lowered his voice and turned towards the Cabinet Secretary.
“As a matter of fact,” he confided, “I managed myself, only last weekend, to spirit away a few dollars belonging to the IRA, from the Manhattan State Bank in New York. In fact, I closed the account. I’m told that caused quite a fuss, as I’d hoped it would. I knew they had quite a big bill to pay, and in the end, they had to scratch around to find the money from other accounts.”
The Cabinet Secretary could hardly believe what he was hearing.
“I’m still not quite sure how I managed it, even now,” continued the Major, “but the point is that if I can do it, fiddling around on my computer in the office, then I’m sure the Bank of England can. I was going to tell Alistair, and ask him what I ought to do with the money. I opened a special account for it, to avoid any confusion. But perhaps you might have an idea. It’s been on my conscience, a bit.”
During lunch, at their quiet corner table at the rear of the restaurant, the three men discussed the next moves in the bid to rid the terrorist organisations of the money they needed to operate.
“I’ve never understood why they need so much,” said Vaughan.
“Weapons are expensive,” replied Clayton, “and apart from that, they have quite large full-time organisations, with staff who need paying a wage, and they make handsome regular donations to their so called ‘war widows’, and to the families of their members in prison. All in all, there’s quite a bit of cash flowing through their accounts, especially the bigger organisations’, and shutting off the flow will cause quite a bit of grief.”
“What about the timing of all this?” asked Sir Robin.
“In my view,” replied Bill Clayton, “we need to wait until a few of the major players are out of the way before we start shutting them down. Lower ranking members will make less noise and be able to do less to about it. I would prefer to start with the IRA and other republican organisations, and then move on to the UDA. You'll see that the lists in my envelope are numbered - that’s the order I think we should deal with them, if that’s possible. It would be really neat, though, if your man could get everything prepared, and then shut down several accounts all at once. But however we do it, it’s essential at the same time for the Americans to shut off the flow from their end.”
“That’s all in hand,” said Algar. “We only have to say the word. And what about shutting everything down with a bang, rather than a gentle haemorrhaging, Alistair? Can that be done, do you think?”
“I’m sure we shall be able to close a few accounts on the same day, but not all of them at once. The whole exercise will take a couple of weeks, I should think, depending on how well our friend gets on cracking the various bank ciphers.”
“There is one particularly important piece of timing, which will take a good deal of co-ordination,” said Bill Clayton, leaning forward. “There’s a large and important shipment of arms due in a couple of weeks from Libya. The usual practice is for members of the IRA to oversee the loading of the consignment, and then deposit a post-dated cheque, cashable when the arms are safely delivered. The money will need to be in the bank when the cheque is drawn up, but not when it’s deposited. It must bounce. By then, we shall need to have taken care of their biggest arms dump, so that th
e need for the shipment is even more urgent. And we may need help from the Americans to do that,” he continued, turning to the Cabinet Secretary. “But again, timing will be crucial, because, every four weeks, fairly regularly, the IRA Quartermaster himself, and two of his top people visit the dump to inspect it. If we could blow it with them inside, it would look like an own goal, and I plan to make as much of this operation as possible look like that.”
“That would be very neat indeed if we can pull that off,” agreed Algar.
“There is one problem, though,” said Clayton.
“Only one?” asked an incredulous Alistair Vaughan.
“Well, it’s not really a problem, I suppose,” said Clayton thoughtfully. He turned to Sir Robin Algar again. “It’s just that the dump’s south of the border, in Tipperary. Used to be an old Regional Seat of Government during the cold war, so you can imagine the size of it, and how well reinforced it is. We could take it out without Dublin knowing in advance, but I just thought it might be better if they knew the plot first.”
“You’re right to raise it,” said Algar. “This is one for the politicians, I think. My guess would be that, whether or not we tell them, depends on how well the talks have gone between the two Presidents. I’ll need to discuss it with the PM.”
“I’ll let you know about the timing of that when we’ve done some planning, but we shan’t be able to hang about waiting for politicians to reach agreement. We either tell the South or we get on with it - we don’t ask,” said Bill Clayton firmly. “But it all has to start with your con doing his stuff more or less to order,” said Clayton, turning to Vaughan. “Just how good is he, Alistair?”
“It was quite amazing what he managed to do before, without our help, so if we give him access to our top facilities, he should have no real problems,” replied Vaughan. “But he’ll need watching like a hawk from the minute he starts.”