“You sent him to London. He’s in London. How close is he to Henry McGee?”
“Days. Hours. I don’t know. I had no idea he had suffered… a mental incapacity—”
“It’s Dr. Krueger, your goddamned Dr. Krueger.”
“We’re not in the medical business, Miss Macklin.” A little ice was added to the voice. “Dr. Krueger was recommended to us. He was discreet and he had security clearance. He’s in a mental ward right now, coming down from an overdose of lysergic acid. Apparently self-induced, but I think he must have had help along the way, don’t you? And what was your part in it?”
Rita Macklin remembered the long scream from a darkened house and gripped her hands together. She looked at her hands and then at Hanley.
“Where was he booked for?”
“I don’t understand—”
“I’m going to London. I’m not kidding you, Mr. Hanley, so don’t think you can stall around. Where did Section book him?”
“We don’t—”
“The fucking travel agency, Mr. Hanley. I don’t have a lot of time, I’ve got to get to Dulles before seven. What hotel?”
Hanley gave in. “Hilton. It’s in—”
“I know where it is. All right. If you can’t help me, just remember I warned you.” She got up. Hanley remained seated. She stared down at him. “Just remember, he better not die.”
“Don’t interfere in this. Let the matter be resolved—”
“And solve both your problems? Is that it? Getting rid of either of them helps you and your goddamned Section. Or getting rid of both of them? You are bastards, all of you, spooks and liars—”
Hanley waited for her to end but she interrupted herself.
A moment of silence passed between them.
“I mean it, Hanley. Just remember that. I really mean it.”
“If you breach security, you can be prosecuted.”
“Yes. And you can go to prison,” she said and buttoned her coat. Her eyes were alive in their gaunt sockets. It was the rage in her. “You can go to hell, in fact, and I’ll push you down the slide.”
39
Henry McGee found Matthew O’Day at the bar in the little pub down the street from Paddington Station. It was just two in the afternoon and there had been so many things to do since meeting Trevor for lunch. He had left his salad but finished his whiskey. And left the bill for Trevor to pay.
“About time,” Matthew said.
“You didn’t enjoy the booze while you were waiting?”
The two men moved down the public room bar to the saloon side and entered. The saloon was carpeted while the public room was not. They ordered whiskeys and took them to a booth where the lights were dim.
“Well, then, what’s it to be?” Matthew O’Day said. “And where the hell is Maureen?”
“Maureen is deader than Kelsey’s nuts,” Henry said.
Matthew froze. His hand covered the whiskey glass but it was absolutely paralyzed. He stared at Henry and waited for another sound but none came for a long time.
“You killed her?”
“She was gonna kill you and I needed you a lot more than I needed her,” Henry said. “She blamed you for the raid on the farm and for bombing the public house in the south and even for killin’ little Brian Parnell. A murderous bitch, she had to be killed or she would have ruined everything. She was gonna off you tonight.”
“I don’t believe a fookin’ word comin’ out of your mouth,” Matthew said.
“Listen to her yourself.”
He had a microcassette Sony in his hand. He pushed the button. There was Maureen’s voice, clear at times and cloudy at other times. “I’ll kill Matthew for what he’s done to us. Poor Brian. He killed Brian as sure as if he was standing in that urinal with him.”
“I never killed Brian Parnell,” Matthew said.
Henry chuckled and turned off the tape. “I know that and you know that but you couldn’t convince her of it.”
“She coulda killed me lots of times the last few days. Why tonight?”
“Because we’re gonna make a move in three days and time was finally rannin’ out,” Henry said.
“Where is she?”
“Someplace safe. Nobody’ll find her for days. Until she stinks too much and someone smells her rotting body.”
“Jesus Christ, man. Ain’t you got no nature to you? How’d you kill her?”
“The same way I killed the people in Mayfair. Nerve gas. Very humane. Attacks the central nervous system and you kind of do a fit. That’s what I’ve been told. Sort of like epilepsy. A grand mal seizure. In any case, she’s dead.”
“And the girl, the girl you sent to meet me in Dublin at the Horseshoe Bar—”
“My little Marie.” Softly. “She’s gone back to Berlin. She wants me to join her but she’s got family there. Got a mother there, I understand; never met her.” Henry grinned.
“What the hell is going on, man? Do you take me for a fool?”
“One hundred thousand pounds. British pounds. Trading at one point sixty-one in dollars. A nice bit of change. You did good on the first mission, now you’ll finish it off and be on your way. I’ve booked you on a flight to Chicago at two P.M. Friday from Heathrow.”
“Why the hell would I want to go to fookin’ Chicago?”
“To get out of here for a while, Matthew, and cool down. And to finish the thing off for me. Mr. Armstrong needs further convincing and so I’m gonna offer it to him. I’ve got an address for you in Chicago and another parcel to deliver when you get there. But this time, it really is a bomb, not a book.”
“What the hell is it that I want to do in Chicago?”
“I want you to blow up the ticket office of EAA. All you got to do is make another Federal Express delivery and walk away. And I know you’re gonna do it, Matthew, because you wouldn’t fail me now.”
“Why not do it yourself?”
“Because when the bomb goes off over there, I’m gonna be standing right next to Mr. Trevor Armstrong with a fucking metaphor pointed at his head and I’m gonna tell him that next time, EAA will have another plane fall out of the sky. An airline gets a bad reputation after a while. A long time ago, there was one of those once-in-a-million things where Air France had two crashes in one day. Well, they were devastated, especially when some television comedian started calling them ‘Air Chance’ and they had some rough years there. EAA had bad luck with terrorists once; they can have bad luck come in bunches if I can’t shake the money tree.”
“So I’ll be in Chicago and you’re thousands of miles away and I trust you to take care of me, is that it? You must think I was born the day before yesterday. Do you take me for a fool?”
“No, sir, Matthew, I surely don’t. I take you for an honest man.” Henry paused, chuckled. “I’ll give you a suitcase at Heathrow on Friday noon. You’ll open it in the privacy of a stall in the men’s room and you’ll see it contains exactly what I said it would contain. Some shirts and shoes and junk like that. And seventy-five thousand pounds sterling Bank of England in God We Trust. Now you’ll put the money in your pockets and you’ll march over to the ticket counter and check your bag through and go into the lounge and wait to board. First class. And when you reach Chicago, get a hotel room, rest up — don’t want you to suffer jet lag — and the next day, pick up a package at a certain address and take it to another address. You think you can follow that?”
“All right, what if I take the money and run? Did you think of that?”
“Did you think of who I am, Matthew? Did you think I could have started half the republic of Eire after your ass? Did you think I couldn’t terrorize even the professionals? I’m the top of the league of terror, Matthew; I thought you’d realize that now. I’m the worst man in the world and if I didn’t hear a bomb go off in Chicago, I’d just have to go after you. I learned to skin hides in Alaska years ago. I’m an Alaska man, did you know that? Can you imagine what it’s gonna feel like when I find you and start peeling your skin off? Can you even imagine the pain of it? And when you pass out from the pain, I’ll just wait till you come to again and we’ll start again.”