Confessional. Part 16

The old Russian shook his head. 'Tell me, Brigadier, did the war to end all wars finish in nineteen forty-five or am I mistaken?'

'You and a great many other people, my friend.' Ferguson

got up and went to the door. 'I'd get some sleep if I were you. You'll need to be up at six to catch the early morning flight from Heathrow. I'll have Kim serve you breakfast in bed.'

He closed the door. Levin sat there for a while, an expression of sadness on his face, then he sighed, closed the book, turned out the light and went to sleep.

At Kilrea Cottage, Fox put down the phone and turned to Devlin. 'All fixed. He'll come in on the breakfast plane. Unfortunately, my flight leaves just before. He'll report to the information desk in the main concourse. You can pick him up there.'

'No need,' Devlin said. 'This minder of yours, young White. He'll be dropping you so he can pick Levin up at the same time and bring him straight here. It's best we do it that way. McGuiness might be in touch early about where I'm supposed to take him.'

'Fine,' Fox said. 'I'd better get moving.'

'Good lad.'

Devlin got his coat for him and took him out to the car where Billy White waited patiently.

'Back to the Westbourne, Billy,' Fox said.

Devlin leaned down at the window. 'Book yourself in there for the night, son, and in the morning, do exactly what the Captain tells you to. Let him down by a single inch and I'll have your b.a.l.l.s and Martin McGuiness will probably walk all over the rest of you.'

Billy White grinned affably. 'Sure and on a good day, they tell me I can almost shoot as well as you, Mr Devlin.'

'Go on, be off with you.'

The car moved away. Devlin watched it go, then turned and went inside. There was a stirring in the shrubbery, a footfall, the faintest of sounds only as someone moved away.

The eavesdropping equipment which the KGB had supplied to Cuchulain was the most advanced in the world, developed

originally by a j.a.panese company, the details, as a result of industrial espionage, having reached Moscow four years previously. The directional microphone trained on Kilrea Cottage could pick up every word uttered inside at several hundred yards. Its ultra-frequency secondary function was to catch even the faintest telephone conversation. All this was allied to a sophisticated recording apparatus.

The whole was situated in a small attic concealed behind the loft watertanks just beneath the pantile roof of the house. Cuchulain had listened in on Liam Devlin in this way for a long time now, although it had been some time since anything so interesting had come up. He sat in the attic, smoking a cigarette, running the tape at top speed through the blank spots and the unimportant bits, paying careful attention to the phone conversation with Ferguson.

Afterwards, he sat there thinking about it for a while, then he reset the tape, went downstairs and let himself out. He went into the phone box at the end of the village street by the pub and dialled a Dublin number.The phone was picked up almost immediately. He could hear voices, a sudden laugh, Mozart playing softly.

'Cherny here.'

'It's me. You're not alone?'

Cherny laughed lightly. 'Dinner party for a few faculty friends.'

'I must see you.'

'All right,' Cherny said. 'Usual time and place tomorrow afternoon.'

Cuchulain replaced the receiver, left the booth and went back up the village street, whistling softly, an old Connemara folk song that had all the despair, all the sadness of life in it.

Fox HAD a thoroughly bad night and slept little so that he was restless and ill-at-ease as Billy White took the car expertly through the early morning traffic towards the airport. The young Irishman was cheerful enough as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music from the radio.

'Will you be back, Captain?'

'I don't know. Perhaps.'

'Ah, well, I don't expect you to be over fond of the ould country.' White nodded towards Fox's gloved hand. 'Not after what it's cost you.'

'Is that so?' Fox said.

Billy lit a cigarette. 'The trouble with you Brits is that you never face up to the fact that Ireland's a foreign country. Just because we speak English...'

'As a matter of interest, my mother's name was Fitzgerald and she came from County Mayo,' Fox told him. 'She worked for the Gaelic League, was a lifelong friend of de Valera and spoke excellent Irish, a rather difficult language I found when she insisted on teaching it to me when I was a boy. Do you speak Irish, Billy?'

'G.o.d save us, but I don't, Captain,' White said in astonishment.

'Well, then I suggest you kindly stop prattling on about the English being unable to understand the Irish.'

He glanced out at the traffic morosely. A police motorcyclist took up station on the left of them, a sinister figure in goggles and crash helmet with a heavy caped raincoat against the early morning downpour. He glanced sideways at Fox once, anonymous in the dark goggles, and dropped back as they turned into the slip road leading to the airport.

Billy left the car in the short stay park. As they entered the concourse, they were already calling Fox's plane. Cuchulain, who had been with them all the way from the hotel, stood at the door by which they had entered and watched Fox book in.

Fox and Billy walked towards the departure gate and Fox said, 'An hour till the British Airways flight lands.'

Time for a big breakfast,' Billy grinned. 'The fine time we had, Captain.'

Til be seeing you, Billy.'

Fox put out his good hand and Billy White took it with a certain reluctance. Try to make sure it isn't at the wrong end of some street in Belfast. I'd hate to have you in my sights, Captain.'

Fox went through the gate and Billy made his way across the concourse to stairs leading up to the cafe terrace. Cuchulain watched him go, then went out, back across the road to the carpark and waited.

An hour later, he was back inside, consulting the nearest arrival screen. The British Airways shuttle from London was just landing and he saw White approach the central information desk and speak to one of the attendants. There was a pause and then an announcement over the tannoy system.

'Will Mr Viktor Levin, a pa.s.senger on the London shuttle, please report to the information desk.'

A few moments later, the squat figure of the Russian appeared from the crowd. He carried a small case and wore a rather large brown raincoat and black trilby hat. Cuchulain sensed that it was his quarry even before he spoke to one of the attendants who indicated White. They shook hands. Cuchulain watched them for a moment longer as White started to speak, then turned and left.

'So this is Ireland?' Levin said as they drove down towards the city.

'Your first visit?' White asked.

'Oh, yes. I am from Russia. I have not travelled abroad very much.'

'Russia?' Billy said. 'Jesus, but you'll find it different here.' 'And this is Dublin?' Levin enquired as they followed the traffic down into the city.

'Yes. Kilrea, where we're going, is on the other side.' 'A city of significant history, I think,' Levin observed. 'And that's the understatement of the age,' White told him. 'I'll take you through Parnell Square, it's on our way. A great patriot in spite of being a Prod. And then O'Connell Street and the General Post Office where the boys held out against the whole b.l.o.o.d.y British Army back in 1916.'

'Good. This I would like very much.' Levin leaned back in his seat and looked out on the pa.s.sing scene with interest.

At Kilrea, Liam Devlin walked across the back lawn of his cottage, let himself through the gate in the wall and ran for the rear entrance of the hospice as the rain increased into a sudden downpour. Sister Anne-Marie was crossing the hall, accompanied by two young white-coated interns on loan from University College, Dublin.