The important thing was to make Matthew believe every word. Henry delivered the words very low and slowly and without any threat, just recitation of dull facts of life.
He saw that Matthew believed.
“Then I’m through with you. Once it’s done?”
“Once it’s done,” Henry said. “I got tickets here. Another airline, not EAA. We don’t want them spooked or looking for you. Another airline and you’ll travel first class. You’ll like it fine. Seven, eight hours and you get a good night’s rest and then a simple delivery of a package. It’s easy work, Matthew.”
“Yes,” Matthew said, seeing it from Henry’s point of view.
And then he saw Maureen in his mind’s eye lying dead somewhere, rotting.
He wiped his lips. He stared at the murderous man. “You take a share of pleasure in killin’, I can see that.”
“Good,” Henry McGee said. “If you can see that, then you’ll do the right thing for sure.”
40
Dwyer drove Trevor Armstrong home. Jameson and Dennison were back at Oxford Circus not because Trevor needed them to work late but because he needed to be alone with Dwyer. Dwyer was his man, especially in this.
Night smothered London and the sky was orange with the reflected lights from the city. The River Thames was black but, here and there, sprinkled with gems of light from the buildings along the Embankment. The new buildings beyond Tower Bridge loomed up hideously in the night sky. The modern architecture did not even try to blend into the graceful Georgian landscape that had preserved an idea of the city for two centuries. Trevor stared out the side window and began to speak in a clear, distant voice to Dwyer, as though Dwyer might be a disembodied spirit sent to converse with a disembodied Trevor.
“Where did he go?”
“To a public house in Paddington. I waited for him and even went into the public bar to spot who he was meeting. Looked like an Irish fellow, you know how they look. Wore a tweed coat and I caught the accent when he went to the bar for a whiskey. He drank Paddy.”
“I know who it must be,” Trevor said.
“Then he gave me the slip. Not that I think he spotted me but I think he was just doing something out of habit. The man I was following went back to the washrooms and never came out. After a while, the Irishman went back to his hotel. It’s one of the little hotels down the street from Paddington Station.”
“I want to get away from the police on Friday. I have to meet this same man at Heathrow. We’ll be making an exchange.”
“This isn’t about Allison. Or the kid.”
“No. This is about our survival, Dwyer.”
The little man thought about it. The car swept along and everything about the night was crowded. London had a sense of cars, lorries, buses, and streets filled with people. It was a rare, warm November night and there was a gay spirit to the city that infected every stone and street.
“Dennison and Jameson aren’t in on it.”
“You and me, Dwyer.”
“Like from the beginning, boss.”
“Exactly.”
“But what’s it about?”
“I’ve been blackmailed.”
Dwyer said nothing for a long time. Then: “I figured that.”
“When did you figure it?”
“When I saw that book that was in the mail on the sideboard. It was the movie that was showing on One forty-seven when it went down. And when the cops came, you had thrown the envelope in the toilet and flushed it and the book was on the shelf in the library. I just figured two and two.”
“And you were smart enough to say nothing.”
“That’s right, boss.”
“All right. A man wants me to give him a lot of money to leave EAA alone. I don’t know if he had anything to do with the first bombing. But he certainly killed my household. I’m… in a bind, a financial bind. I owe a lot of money for a lot of stock purchases I’ve made. I can’t afford to see EAA go through… any period of doubt. In six months, Dwyer, we’ll be out of London and out of the airline business. And we’ll be very, very rich.”
“You’ll be rich.”
“I told you to buy EAA at forty-four.”
“I put everything in it.”
“Believe me, before this is over, it’ll be bid at a hundred.”
“I believe you, boss,” Dwyer said.
“What I have to do is, I have to give him the money. On Friday. At Heathrow. A lot of money in a suitcase.”
“All right,” Dwyer said.
“Then I want you to get the money back for me,” Trevor said. He did not look at the other man. “Do you think you can do that?”
“I can do that,” Dwyer said.
“I mean, you can’t terrorize him or threaten him or anything. That isn’t what I mean,” Trevor said.
“Don’t worry, boss. I know just what you mean.”
Trevor sighed. For the first time that day, for the first time since it began, he felt at ease. Dwyer was loyal. Dwyer knew exactly what he meant for him to do.
41
Hanley told Mrs. Neumann about it. When he was finished, she did not say anything for a long time. She went to the window in the corner office on the sixth floor of the Department of Agriculture Building where R Section was quartered, and looked down on Fourteenth Street all the way to the bridge. Night was coming to the capital. She had been chief of R Section for four years and they had taken a toll on her. The concerns of the world of intelligence had rounded her shoulders a little, and her eyes, while as sharp as ever, were etched with lines that had not been there before. Even her beloved husband, Leo, had noticed all the changes in her and accepted them with sadness.
“Devereaux was the last man to send after him,” she said at last. “He was discharged from hospital a week ago. He’s a sick man.”
“There’s no time. If we can’t get Henry back, he’ll fall into the wrong hands.”
“We’ve had our hands on him before.” She turned from the window to look at him. “Miss Macklin will do all the things she threatened.”
Hanley said, “Yes.”
“You haven’t really told me everything.”
“I’ve told you everything.”
“But not the part where Devereaux is going to kill Henry McGee.” Her voice was gruff as always, a smoker’s voice from one who had never smoked. “He’s going to kill Henry, isn’t he?”
“We do not sanction people.”
“I know. I know your games, Hanley.”
“I did not authorize any sanction.”
“This is a wet contract and you’ve put him up to it because he wants to do it. He said he had been hit by Henry and we didn’t believe him at first. And now we’re afraid he was right and he gets our authority to… do what? Make an arrest? Call the British in, let them arrest him and turn him over to us.”
“No,” Hanley said. “It can’t be handled that way.”
“It’s the right way to do this,” she said.
“Mrs. Neumann, it is not the right way but I give you your choices. I will resign immediately from Operations. If your character cannot see the right thing to do, even if it’s the wrong thing in some ways, then I won’t be a part of the destruction of Section. I was here from the beginning. Henry knows too much now, about the deal in Europe last year in the case of that translator. We let Henry go a second time and we hoped the Russians would finish him off for us. You know that and you knew it then. But the Russians have other fish to fry for the time being and they won’t do our wet work for us and we’re stuck with the fact of Henry McGee. Yes, I think Devereaux will kill him and that will end the matter for us. Except for the complication now of Miss Macklin. In the event he does not kill Henry. What do we do about Miss Macklin?”