by Elaine Nolan
She emerged from her tiny room hours later, stiff, tired and frustrated. Not from the lack of information or evidence, but the opposite. Nathan’s hard drive overflowed with such a wealth of information that she faced the danger of distraction and being led away on tangents. But she had to admire his balls and initiative in grabbing the old man’s files, and it went beyond mere land grabs.
Armed with printouts, both texts and maps, and a copy of the relevant stuff on her own department-issued thumb drive, she descended to Donal’s office, having checked he was there. Without saying a word, she handed the file to him and sat, slumping in the seat and remained quiet as he scanned through everything first, then took his time on various parts that required deeper attention.
“Is this for real?” he asked, worried and appalled at the depth and scope of corruption it uncovered.
“That’s just the highlights,” she told him, and if possible, he paled even more.
“But this thing expands…”
“Continents, decades… generations,” she answered, tiredness and the weight of it hitting her.
“And this?” he held up the thumb drive.
“Even more of it,” she answered and he sighed.
“Your brother has only just finished with Tom, so I need to coordinate his report with this. Get some sleep Leigh, I’ve a feeling I’ll need you later.”
The packet landing on her torso woke her up with a start, and she found she was disliking Adam’s smug grin at being her personal wake-up call.
“That arrived in the diplomatic pouch this morning for you,” he said, catching it as it slipped off the camp-bed when she sat up. She held her hand out and took it from him.
“Couldn’t just call my name, no?”
“Maybe I did, but you didn’t waken.” She gave him a disbelieving look, but tore the packaging and took out the contents, catching the handwritten note, written on notepaper from the Irish embassy in London, and her expression turned to a frown. She set the note aside but Adam took it instead while she glanced through the enclosed files.
“Holy shit,” she exclaimed. She spread everything on her desk.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Walters came through. These are original files from Huntington.”
“Are they connected to our latest adventures?”
She delved into one file, the papers within discoloured with age, scanned and turned pages so as not to damage them.
“Holy fuck,” she muttered. Adam waited impatiently for an explanation.
“And…?”
“They’re connected,” she told him, “but… holy fuck…” she continued muttering to herself.
“I’ll let Donal know to expect an update, and Tom’s report and your brother’s statement are up on the server, just in case you want to tie all this together in a neat little package,” he said.
“There’s nothing neat or little about this,” she told him.
“So what have we stumbled into the middle of, or rather, what have you dragged us into the middle of?”
“I don’t think I’m to blame,” she tried defending herself, but he remained unconvinced. She checked the dates on the files. “These go back to before the foundation of the Irish State.” She scanned more pages. “These are plans to infiltrate Irish sedition groups, and plans to arm both pro and anti-Irish Home Rule groups.”
“They were arming both sides? Why would they do that?”
“Something McGregor said when I rescued Nate, about being behind the scenes and pulling strings, supplying weapons. I think this is the origin of the Red Hand.”
“Holy shit,” he echoed her words.
“These are too old and delicate to hand around, I’ll scan them and make them accessible on the server.”
CHAPTER 63
Donal scanned through the new data. He was grateful to have someone of her calibre, her efficiency and, considering who he was talking about, her patience working with him on it. How odd her capacity for such tolerance didn’t, or wouldn’t extend to people. In saying that, she was as impatient with herself as she was with other humans, something he found reassuring. And this level of collaboration and cooperation from her surprised him.
He and Leigh stood in front of the large interactive screen in the conference room and pulled the pieces of this puzzle together. He’d not watched her in tech-mode action before, but liked her ability to quickly assess and categorise information, and accept his input. Little wonder DFHQ assigned her to a data processing and analysis post before the British and Huntington interfered with those plans.
In hindsight Donal mused, given her recent exploits, she’d be wasted stuck behind a desk as a data analyst, and his most recent report and update on her to the G2 military intelligence unit in DFHQ at Newbridge reflected his view of her as a valuable field intelligence officer.
It remained to be seen if his assessment carried any weight on the matter of her future career within the department, her personal deviant behaviours aside. Now working alongside her, he concluded her gracious patience extended to anyone who could keep up with her, and he felt smug satisfaction at achieving such a lofty standard.
While Tom hovered in the background, he grew tired of the indecipherable and almost silent communication between the two as they worked. Their individual styles and skills complemented and interacted with each other on a level that required no words.
Watching them gave Tom a deeper appreciation of Donal’s role in the Embassy, but it also gave him an idea of the potential future that lay ahead for Leigh, if she could keep herself from trouble, and not fall afoul of some dominatrix sex scandal that could otherwise ruin a service career.
He left them alone. Not because they ignored him, rather the opposite. He was fast becoming her coffee go-for, that magical bean juice she seemed to survive on. He made that decision on his fourth run for her, intercepting Adam along the way.
“How’s it going in there?” Adam inquired.
“Jesus, that shit would put the Rothschild-Goldman Sachs conspiracies to shame,” Tom answered.
“What little I got out of her didn’t sound good,” Adam concluded, and continued on his way. Another troubling sign, Tom mused, no joke, no smart-alecky comment. Adam was as worried as he was.
They were summoned back to the conference room late in the evening.
“We’ve narrowed everything to just the incident surrounding the military exercise,” Donal told them.
“And what about the rest of it?” Tom asked.
“Leigh and I will continue working on that before I send it to DFHQ. The rest of it goes beyond our little rock at the edge of Europe, and together with the new information sent to Leigh… well, let’s just say, some of it is sensitive, and incendiary if it’s true, so we have to tread carefully.” Both Tom and Adam noted Donal’s use of her first name and knew he’d accepted her into the fold.
“How incendiary?” Adam asked.
“It has plans to disrupt the EU, and one place do that is via Ireland and Northern Ireland,” Leigh answered.
“The Good Friday Agreement?” Adam asked.
“It’s potentially damaging. We’re carrying out our own assessment and analysis before we forward it to G2,” Donal said, shutting off that direction of conversation.
“So what can you tell us?” Tom asked.
“This Great American Rebuild Programme, is what Leigh guessed at, but her assessment barely scratches the surface,” Donal started, and accepted the tablet from her as he began his walk-through of the information on the screen. “There are records of arms shipments to areas around the US, in hot zones and where there’s been climatic and ecological upheaval. We also found records and plans for elite private security regiments being deployed, one of which you came under fire from. And the country allocation wasn’t that random after all.” Their expressions said that news didn’t come as any surprise.
“We were targeted then?” Adam asked.
“Not just us,” Leigh took u
p the narrative. “I think because of our neutrality they underestimated our abilities and capabilities as a fighting force. This was a designed, coordinated terror attack on the city, and with the sole aim of causing widespread panic.”
“To what end?” Tom asked, and Leigh pulled several documents and plans up on the main screen.
“With targeting the forces of other countries, they hoped we’d pull out, return home, and leave a crumbling America to its own devices and salvation. Then they were ready to provide Swayne with ‘help’ in the form of a large and elite security service, but it would be McGregor’s people in place in a subtle and controlled takeover.”
“Where does your brother fit into this?” Adam asked, and she put another document up on the screen, an email. The email recipients were unknown, but the message couldn’t be clearer.
“They set him up,” Tom concluded, and she nodded. “Is this email verifiable?” he added, and she nodded again.
“I’ve the originating IP address which I traced back to McGregor, including email and domain registration to be sure it was him. As for the receiving IP addresses, and there were a number of them, they’re all encrypted and I haven’t gotten around to cracking them yet.”
“So that removes any allegation that we, or you, tampered with it to save his ass,” Tom said. “Has he seen that yet?” She shook her head. “Let me be the one to show him,” he added, receiving puzzled looks in return. “Please, please, please,” he added, his wicked grin growing wider.
“Well, you are the Garda overseeing his case,” Donal confirmed, and Tom chuckled in delight. Sometimes it was the little things that gave the greatest pleasure.
“What’s this other thing, this reference to other commodities?” Adam asked, ignoring Tom’s pleasure-seeking antics and studied the documents on the screen instead.
“I’m still trying to crack that, but delving into the attack took priority,” she admitted.
“The next obvious question is what to do with it,” Adam said.
“We have to hand it over,” Tom said, but Donal shook his head, surprising the two men.
“There’s information unrelated to this on that hard drive. I’m not just going to hand it over to the Americans. What I am prepared to do is give them copies of the intel directly connected to them.”
“You know they won’t trust anything we just release to them. They’ll want to verify it for themselves,” she said and Donal nodded.
“That’s why I asked about it being verifiable,” Tom said. “They won’t believe a key piece of evidence we’ve conveniently received, and clears the very person they suspect is behind it, who we’re harbouring and putting this Embassy in danger.”
“Thank you for the CNN recap,” Adam shot back.
“You’re welcome, I know you army boys need a hand to catch up sometimes,” Tom retorted.
“Brave talk from a paper-jockey desk cop who wouldn’t have this information except for the army.”
“We wouldn’t be in this mess except for the army, so it was nice of you to help clean some of it up.”
Donal cleared his throat to stop the snipping.
“As the Garda leading the investigation…,” Donal started, and Tom’s smug grin slipped.
“Uh oh,” he grunted, making the rest.
“Why don’t you reach out to them,” Donal suggested. “It’ll be better coming from you, seeing as Adam and Leigh have already rubbed the Senator up the wrong way.” Adam gave him a haughty glare. “And we now know McGregor’s people have infiltrated her team, and threatened Irish Embassy personnel, we can insist they send someone we can trust.”
“You mean her boyfriend,” Tom accused him, but glanced at Leigh, reassured to find her equally troubled.
“He’s one person we know, and who’s cooperated with us, but let them come up with it as a suggestion. It’ll look contrived if we ask for him,” Donal said, and Tom nodded, the cogs already in motion.
“I’ll look for background checks on anyone they offer to send over, they’ll get the message pretty quickly,” he answered. Donal handed him a sheet of paper, and found it was a printout of the incriminating email, the one exonerating Nathan.
“I had Rainey brought to the interview room. He’s expecting an update,” Donal said.
Tom entered the other room, only metres away and found Nathan standing, staring out the window, but turned, looking expectant.
“They told me you had an update?” he asked, sounding more confident than he had in days. Without saying a word Tom handed him the printout and watched as that confidence took another knock. Nate let the page fall to the table, and put his hands either side of it, rereading it, glaring at it, but saying nothing as he let the words sink in. When he straightened, he found Tom watching him, arms crossed.
“Blood or not, your grandfather didn’t give a shit about you. A perfect lamb he called you,” he taunted him, a little disappointed by Nate’s non-reaction. Instead Nate jammed his fists into his trouser pockets and took a deep breath to keep calm. Tom wondered at this habit he seemed to have picked up from his sister.
Out of necessity, Tom kept them separated. Again, it came down to removing any claims of collusion between them, of maintaining the integrity of the evidence. It had been easy with Leigh’s work ethos, hiding away in her little loft room until she finished her task, and rarely taking a break. They confined Nathan to his room, with a soldier posted on the door. While he could go to the unsecured areas, he had an escort in case his path should ever cross Leigh’s. The only time it happened, while getting something to eat, Leigh ignored him, lost in her own thoughts, but she was aware enough to return the salute the soldier gave her as she passed them.
“You okay?” Tom asked him, pulling him back, and Nate nodded but Tom saw the muscles in his jaw flex. In that moment he resembled an old file photo Tom had of Lee, and wondered what other Harte traits were likely to manifest themselves, now that Nate was exposed to them. Tom wondered if they ran as dark and devious as Leigh’s.
CHAPTER 64
The summons to the meeting in Swayne’s office surprised Jake, seeing as how she’d excluded him from all other aspects of the investigations, but the reason for his inclusion became obvious as she read out the letter from the Irish embassy.
“This… Garda?” she struggled with the title.
“It’s what they call their cops,” Jake answered.
“Whatever he is, this Tom Lawlor, have you met him?” she asked and he nodded.
“He’s a hardass.”
“In what way?”
“He was the one who stood up to the Marshalls and refused them entry to the embassy when we arrived to get Rainey.”
“That is hardass.”
“His exact words were that his legal dick was bigger than ours.”
Swayne’s expression hardened at that.
“Sounds a perfect complement to your friend,” she retorted, referring to Leigh, and Jake refrained from answering. “And now this claim to have evidence that can help our enquiry. What do you make of it?”
“You were hard on them at the Hearing,” he began, but ignored her growing frown and went headlong into this. What else had he to lose? “You also made an allegation against them…”
“I did no such thing,” she countered.
“Not outright, but a very strong intimation,” he argued back. “Leigh won’t stand by and be accused in the wrong.” The mention of her name only worsened the Senator’s mood.
“How far would they go to vindicate themselves?” she asked.
“You mean, how low would she go to prove you wrong?” It was a bad question to ask, but he wasn’t backing down and waited Swayne out, who eventually nodded. “Whatever you think of her and her alternative lifestyle, Leigh is surprisingly a straight arrow,” he added.
“Why surprisingly?”
“Because I know what you think of her, but she’s had so many opportunities to venture down darker paths, work on the wrong side of the law
and not once has she broken the trust placed in her. I say surprisingly because for such a black-or-white person, she has a very strong moral compass, irrespective of how you define it. And despite her efforts to appear as hard or uncaring, or indifferent, Leigh Harte cares, she’s not indifferent, and with lives on the line, not just hers, she will do everything possible to get to the truth, no matter how bad that truth is.”
Swayne sat back as she digested his words, worried by this level of loyalty he displayed for Leigh.
“They’re looking to have the credentials of our people verified before they’ll allow anyone in,” she said.
“I don’t blame them,” he answered. “They came under fire, not just out on that military exercise, but also from you. They had US Marshalls descend on them to extradite one of their own, without a warrant, and had sniper laser-sights trained on them. And let’s not forget, they are the hub for visa access to Europe. I’d say they have every right to take whatever precautions are necessary.”
“Is that your official assessment?”
“What other assessment would I give?” he challenged. “If the roles were reversed, we’d have no hesitation in doing the same.”
“And this evidence that has, as they put it, come to light in the course of their own investigation?”
“Why are you so suspicious?”
“Why aren’t you?” she demanded.
“Do you think I won’t scrutinise or cross-check whatever information they have just because it’s from her? Of course I’ll verify it, I wouldn’t be doing my job, my proper job, otherwise,” his voice started to rise with his anger and frustration, but he couldn’t help it.