Unholy Ground imm-2

by John Brady

  He let his gaze drift over the crowded intersection. He couldn't see any blue Nissan now. When Moore caught sight of the man looking into a shop window some hundred feet down from the booth, a tremor burst abruptly in his chest and parachuted slowly into his belly. He felt the air leaving his lungs. One car for sure, a voice said within. He gripped the phone tighter, while his thoughts raced uncontrolled for several moments.

  He watched the traffic-lights and began counting. If the timing was right, he could do it handily enough. Thirty-seven seconds on full green, no right-turn lights either. It was cut-and-dried; all he had to do was time himself. Each time the lights for the city-bound traffic changed to red, the heavy traffic bottle-necked almost immediately. Count five, say, into their red light and any back-up car on the other side of the junction would be blocked for a count of thirty.

  He searched for the name of the road which led uphill to his left. Taney Road. Moore thumbed the index and fingered open the page. He could not stop his whole hand from shaking. He followed through the map on the next page, tracing a route from Goatstown through to the university and toward Ballsbridge, close by the embassy. If they lost him, they might wait for him to try an entry there, though, Moore reflected.

  His heart was hammering now. He swallowed and looked out over the traffic again. The streets on the map didn't allow parallel pursuits, so he could take the first turnoff on the city side and just boot it, running laterally from the pursuit. But for now, stay to the speed limit, move promptly. If the traffic stayed thick, he had a better than even chance of losing them. He put down the phone and checked the map again. The window-shopper was now interested in electrical appliances, closer to the phone-booth. Moore was startled to realise then that he wasn't frightened now. He was excited.

  Again he considered a drop for the envelope. Textbook, but he'd have to pick one on the hoof while he was driving and hope to find something secure enough until Murray sent out someone to get it. Under a hedge somewhere, wrapped in plastic in a ditch? Messy. An embassy man groping about in some laneway, trying to find them. Moore bit his lip. He could try losing them long enough to destroy the material. Give an oral report on it. He'd have to read it again, though, go through it for essential details, and hope to hell his short-term memory held up long enough to get it all. Either that or read it out over the damned phone?

  Moore searched his pocket for more change. He would have to contact Murray anyway, no matter what he decided he had to do with the envelope. Slip the surveillance and he'd have options, time-and so would Murray. Murray could take it off his hands. Kenyon might piss and moan, but it wasn't Kenyon who had to make decisions here and now. Moore pocketed the map, open on the page he had chosen for his route.

  CHAPTER 14

  Corrigan turned to Minogue.

  "Smart enough not to touch the phone back at the house."

  Minogue managed a smile. Corrigan had the face of a man whose horse had unexpectedly gained ground toward the end of the race. His eyes glittered.

  "Well, he'll find us when we want him to, the little shite," Corrigan whispered with a weak smile starting below his nostrils.

  "— Talking into the phone… looking around," said the Kerry accent.

  Dunne piloted the car around a curve in the road. Minogue saw the Shopping Centre ahead.

  "— Get clear for to take up any slack, Car Two," Corrigan barked.

  "— Will do, Control. Just need a minute to…"

  "Pull over here," Corrigan muttered. "Yeah, here. I'm not entirely sure I like the look of this."

  The warning torie in Corrigan's voice registered on Minogue. He, too, began straining to see across the junction ahead. A double-decker bus slowed to a stop in the traffic-lane next to the car.

  "Fuck sakes, get us out of this!" Corrigan hissed.

  Minogue returned the gaze of schoolchildren looking down from the bus. They were laughing. Minogue felt like a zoo animal. The bus edged by the three policemen. Dunne was sweating heavily, turning the wheel uselessly. Corrigan sat paralysed, concentrating on the voice from the radio.

  "— Reading something. He's opened it up. Some book…"

  Dunne began swearing now, quiet, sincere, rural obscenities.

  "— He's off. He's turning around. Over."

  "— Who's on him?" Corrigan said into the mike.

  "— Repeat, Chestnut One," Corrigan's shout erupted through Minogue's trance, "who's clear on pursuit?"

  Corrigan sprang forward in the seat, his cheek jammed against the head-rest. Dunne licked the in-sides of his lips and flicked glances at the wing mirror. The bus stopped finally beside them. They were blocked. It was perfect timing for Moore, Minogue realised.

  "— Chestnut Two to Control. We're jammed-"

  "— He's gone. Gone up Taney Road," cawed the Kerry accent.

  Corrigan's mouth hung open. For a moment he became completely still. Then he hammered the seat-back with the edge of his fist. He leaped from the seat and began waving his photocard at motorists to clear a way. Dunne began edging the car into a space being cleared ahead. The lights changed. Dunne had the car moving as Corrigan fell heavily back into the seat, grasping at the doorhandle.

  "— Chestnut One to Control. Signal's converging, there's some fade…"

  Other cars turned up Taney Road ahead of them. Moore had plenty of padding if he wanted to lose them. Dunne bullied the car across the junction. From the far side of the junction, Minogue caught a glimpse of the other radio-car, a blue Nissan, with full headlamps on, stuck half-way up on the curb. Tires howled somewhere.

  Corrigan was livid. He tried to smother his breathing, but it came out of his nostrils in harsh, wheezy whistles. Dunne leaned over the wheel as if to spur the car on through the unengineered limits of second gear. Then Corrigan took a deep breath and let it out of his mouth, all the while glaring at Minogue.

  "I might have guessed we shouldn't have been diddling around with a small unit for this. That kind of stunt he just pulled doesn't happen by accident, Matt. He's a pro. Here we are, flopping around. If we don't spot him ahead of the junction up ahead, what do you call it?"

  "Goatstown."

  "Right. He can go any of three ways he likes. And we'll be sitting there, holding our mickeys."

  Corrigan's anger faded into a bitter inflexion. The car lurched back over the white line, greeted by a horn behind. Minogue was flung onto an elbow in the back seat. The car dived and rose as Dunne stamped at the brake, then clutched into second and pulled out to pass. Minogue fell back against the seat. He decided to stay put.

  "— Control to Chestnuts One and Two. Give me a situation in order."

  There was no hesitation this time.

  "— We're through onto Taney Road," the Kerry accent replied reluctantly.

  "Meaning ye're well behind us, ye morons," Corrigan hissed off-air.

  "— In sight of Chestnut One, sir. Coming through the junction now. Two over."

  "— Well we're ahead of ye both on Taney," Corrigan spat into the mike. "So get a move-on for the love of…"

  Both radio-cars confirmed.

  "— What's the signal look like? Over."

  "— Intermittent… fading in spots."

  Corrigan rolled his eyes.

  "— Same with Two."

  Corrigan thumbed savagely to transmit.

  "— Central this is Control for Operation Melody. I want in on the South Dublin frequency. Confirm you'll link me. Over."

  "— Confirming your request, Inspector," came the cautious reply. "But you'll have to wait a minute or two, sir. There's a lag now that we're trying to sort out the new equipment…"

  "Maybe a squad-car'll pick him up, sir," said Dunne.

  "Squad-car my Aunt Fanny's fat agricultural arse," Corrigan retorted. "Moore will go to ground for a while at least. But at least we can keep him away from the embassy, if he has ideas in that line."

  Minogue believed that the snap was meant for him, not Dunne. Neither Minogue nor Dunne dared to
speak. They listened while Corrigan directed one of the radio-cars toward the British Embassy on Merrion Road. Still waiting for the link, Corrigan swore with impatience and glared out the back window at the grille of a labouring lorry. Somewhere in the line of traffic struggling behind the lorry was the other radio-car.

  " Dum spiro, spero," Minogue soothed. Neither man asked for an explanation.

  Minogue wanted to lie down, empty his head. He'd mucked it up. He had second prints of Combs' stuff, but they might never get to the accessory, Ball's accomplice-his boss. Moore had turned out not to be a pin-striped dope after all. And now, Pat Corrigan unravelling there in the front seat, too, giving himself a heart attack. He had read Moore wrong. The same Moore could be laughing up his sleeve now.

  Minogue yawned long, the tears gathering at the outer edges of his eyelids. He opened his eyes into a bleary world and listened while Corrigan issued instructions brusquely into the car radio for the uniformed Gardai on the network. Corrigan dissembled fluently to the Gardai in the squad-cars, telling what he knew would be attentive policemen that it was a Special Branch matter and that the driver was to be detained on the spot.

  Then Corrigan's face appeared between the seats as he looked down at Minogue. The soft grey eyes stared, eyelashes sweeping twice, and he looked back over the dash.

  "Nice work, Pat," Minogue risked.

  "In case you didn't overhear me, I'm going to grab this Moore any way I can. That's my way and that's the way we should have attacked this bloody operation in the first place."

  "But we had to be sure the photos were worth something, Pat. Now we know; we have the bit between our teeth, don't we?" Minogue said, as sincerely as he could.

  Dunne worked at seizing the gearbox again. Corrigan gave Minogue a searching look. Minogue saw Corrigan's fretful tongue run around inside his lips, upper and lower in turn. He now felt reasonably sure that Pat had very good dentures indeed.

  Moore stepped out of the car and drew in the heavy, languid sea air. He had parked next to a lorry, which concealed his Mini from the coast road, a good couple of hundred yards back up the lane from the railway station. Bootstown? No, Booterstown. He found the public phone attached to the stone wall which made up the back of the station-house. So far Moore had seen nobody moving around the building. Mid-day, slack.

  Moore dialled and waited. He heard the switchboard clicks before the phone began ringing.

  "Yes?"

  Had Kenyon given him the right number?

  "Mr Murray please."

  "Hold, please."

  They didn't even ask, Moore reflected.

  "Please phone at the alternate number."

  Irritated by the security, Moore struggled to remember the six digits. He took out a fifty-penny piece, all the change he had left, and dialled again. He heard two rings before the receiver was lifted abruptly.

  "Murray here."

  "I'm calling about some material I've located."

  There was a long pause before Murray spoke.

  "Mr Moore? You can be specific on this line," he heard Murray say slowly. "The line is continuously encoded, incoming and outgoing."

  Moore hesitated, distracted by the hissy quiet from Murray's end.

  "I have some extremely sensitive material here," Moore said. Still silence from Murray's end. Moore felt that obscure agitation again. It had lain buried beneath the tension which had gripped him when he had first spotted the blue car. Even now, confident that he had lost any pursuit car, the burrowing doubt gnawed at him again. Stupid, he thought, the damn place had him on edge: looks like Britain, but completely alien.

  "Are you still there?" Murray said.

  "What?" asked Moore.

  "You had a look at the material, did you?" Murray said again.

  "Yes, yes. But look, I don't want to go into detail here now-" he began.

  "I told you, the line's clean," Murray broke in angrily. Moore held his breath again, feeling the pounding begin at the base of his skull. Tell Murray?

  "Are you still there, Moore? How did you locate the material?"

  "Self-addressed envelope," Moore managed to say. "Thirty-five mil negatives, black-and-white, and photographic prints. The numbers match, but I can't read the negatives…"

  "Prints of what?"

  "Seems like the original was handwritten notes. Twenty-eight pages, I estimate."

  "And you read the prints?"

  "Yes. But — "

  "Anything or anybody local in jeopardy?" Murray cut in.

  Moore hesitated. He'd have to tell Murray about the pursuit.

  "There are allegations about an embassy man."

  "Who?"

  "Mervyn Ball, the one who was assass-"

  "Only party identified?"

  "There's mention of another person, somebody working with Ball. Unnamed."

  "Have you made contact with your firm about this yet?" Murray asked.

  "No. That's partly why I'm calling you. I'm in a phone-booth here in the south suburbs… I think I had some company."

  "Had? Repeat that," Murray said.

  "At least one car. There may have been more on foot." r

  "The local law?"

  "Something special, I think," said Moore. "Plain clothes."

  "But you shook them for certain?"

  Moore thought again of Minogue's grave clown's face.

  "I'm pretty sure. But I don't like my chances for too long. I'm still out in the open here. There's no way I'm going back to the hotel-"

  "Don't even consider it, no," Murray interrupted.

  "There was a tail on me yesterday," Moore added. "They were fishing, general observation. They might even put out an All Points to pick me up… I mean, if they knew I had this material…"

  Then Moore heard the savage undertone which Murray didn't try to suppress.

  "What do you mean, 'if they knew'? Have you been set up, Moore?"

  Moore recalled a moment in Minogue's office when he had looked up from his briefcase to find Minogue staring under his eyebrows at him.

  "I'd be out of commission by now, if I had."

  "We need an RDV," Murray said after several seconds' silence.

  "You don't think I could-" Moore began.

  "Listen for a moment, Moore. You've had your instructions on this. We need that material. Forget your guesswork here. Your job is to get out of the area and to clear anything you have with me."

  "But I haven't even had a chance to let my superiors know… In a matter this serious-"

  "Don't put a foot wrong now. Don't let these people make you jittery. You can't stay out in the open and you know that. We're all on the same side here, remember. I can get your material out, understood? Now, where are you, and how long can you maintain that position securely?"

  "There's a suburban train station. Bootstown-no, wait, Booterstown. South suburbs, on the coast."

  "Booterstown?"

  "Yes. There's a carpark next to some wasteland, right by the sea. It's down off the main road. You can't see me from the road."

  "Wait a minute while I locate…"

  Moore heard pages turning at Murray's end.

  "Okay. I have you. You're out the coast road, Merrion Road. You're quite close."

  "I'm not going to take the chance of getting on a main road again."

  "I'm well aware of contingencies," Murray snapped. "Can you hold there for ten, fifteen minutes? Pass the material to me there. It'll be in London by five this evening."

  Moore hesitated.

  "I'll have a dip. car," Murray continued. "The law won't touch me even if they have a nose for me."

  Moore knew that he couldn't hold onto the envelope and expect to get on the plane with it. He felt a mounting anger at Murray's tone, his insinuations, his rudeness. No wonder Kenyon had been curt on the subject of Murray taking charge. He wondered about trying to place a call to Kenyon, direct.

  "I can get to you inside fifteen minutes," Murray was saying. "Then you're on your way, clean. Understoo
d?"

  He had shaken off the coppers too: the need to do something right away with the dossier had receded. Murray had to see the material anyway. He might as well wait for him here.

  "O.K.," said Moore finally.

  "Fine. Think about afterwards, after I have this material. Head back into the city. Go about your business as if everything's just so."

  "I'll be bumping into the law one way or the other. There's this copper, I don't quite know what to make of him, Minogue-"

  "The worst they can do to you is pick you up and ask you a few questions. They may give you the once-over on some pretext but, just remember, they can't press you on anything. If they get stroppy, I can let them know here. You're covered all ways, just remember that. These are bluffers here, these coppers. Amateurs. Take my word for it."

  Moore thought again of how easily he had jettisoned the surveillance. Textbook simple-with the help of a chaotic and crowded road system.

  "All right," said Moore in a flat tone.

  "A carpark, you say?"

  "A yellow Mini Metro. You'll have to drive right around to the far end of the carpark to see me. Just find a red lorry, I'm tucked in next to it."

  Moore hung up. A train drummed and squealed into the station. He walked back to the car and got in. Two schoolgirls in uniform walked out of the station carrying heavy sports bags. Moore let down the window and checked his watch. The smells of low tide swept in from the strand, displacing some of the stench of stale cigar smoke from the Mini's interior.

  Another train rattled into Booterstown station. More schoolchildren came out and walked up toward the coast road. Moore checked his watch. Murray would be here within minutes.

  He wondered if he should move out from behind the lorry so that Murray could spot him quicker. He abruptly realised that this made no sense. He must be getting rattled. If Murray could spot him easier, so could the law. He felt claustrophobic next to the lorry. If it fell over…? Spooked: no, of course it couldn't move. Moore listened to the hum of traffic from the coast road some two hundred yards beyond where he sat. He looked down at the envelope again, wanting to open it and read more.

  A witch-hunt, he thought, and Kenyon hadn't hinted one iota about what Ball had been running right here in Dublin. Did that mean that Kenyon was in on the scheme? Was Kenyon part and parcel of a joint assassination squad worked by his own Service and MI6? The boss that Combs alluded to?