'Almost immediately,' replied Bryant. 'We know roughly where the boy is. You, Jarvis, will be leaving tonight, the other two tomorrow afternoon.'
Jarvis asked where he would be going.
'The United States,’ said Bryant.
'How do I make contact with the team?' asked Jarvis.
'I will brief you when we are alone,’ replied Bryant. He turned to the others and said, The operation will be conducted on a need-to-know basis. No member will be told anything that he or she does not absolutely need to know. It's safer that way. You can't be betrayed by someone who doesn't even know who you are or what you're doing,’
'But…’ began Avedissian.
'When the time comes you will be contacted,’ said Bryant, discouraging any more questions about procedure.
'And if something goes wrong?' insisted Kathleen.
'You will be given a telephone number to call. Now you really must excuse me.’
Avedissian and Kathleen said goodbye to Paul Jarvis just after nine and came indoors to eat on their own. By mutual agreement they moved the table closer to the window where they could see the garden in the twilight of what had been a long summer's day. Avedissian found himself taking continual sidelong glances at Kathleen and was caught doing so on one occasion. 'Is anything wrong?' she asked.
'I was just thinking how well you had recovered from your injuries,’ replied Avedissian settling for the half-truth.
'Thanks to you,’ said Kathleen. 'I'm grateful.’
'I did very little,’ said Avedissian.
Kathleen walked across the room and Avedissian noticed that the stiffness had left her limbs. She exuded the kind of exciting sensuality that seemed to him to be peculiar to certain women in their early thirties when experience, personality and an understanding of men combine to endow them with an attractiveness that captivates men of their own age and can prove almost irresistible to boys on the verge of manhood. The Indian summer of Kathleen O'Neill, thought Avedissian.
'What are you thinking about?' asked Kathleen, returning to the table with wine glasses.
'I was wondering when you were last truly happy,’ replied Avedissian.
Kathleen looked surprised but did not fend off the question. 'I suppose it must be ten, maybe twelve years. I've had the occasional day, of course, but for a period of sustained happiness or contentment, which I assume you meant?'
Avedissian nodded.
'It is certainly all of that. Why do you ask?'
'I wanted to know.'
'Trying to find out if I have a conscience?'
'Maybe, I don't know. I just wanted to ask you.’
'I suppose, being a doctor, you sleep the sleep of the just every night with a conscience whiter than arctic snow?'
'I am a struck-off doctor. They say I murdered a child. My wife committed suicide in the aftermath.’
'My God,’ said Kathleen. 'I had no idea. How awful.’
'Perhaps I shouldn't have said that all at once. Your jibe about my conscience got through.'
'Will you tell me?'
Avedissian told Kathleen O'Neill of the past three years.
'So happiness is not a prominent feature in either of our lives,’ said Kathleen when he had finished.
Avedissian smiled and refilled their glasses. ‘To the future,’ he said, holding up his glass.
'To the future,’ replied Kathleen.
They had finished their meal and were drinking coffee when Bryant came into the room with some papers in his hand. 'Dr and Mrs George Farmer,’ he announced. 'Going on holiday to the States with their son David.’
'But who…?'
'David is the son of one of our people. You will meet him at the airport. He will fly out with you and enter the States on your passport then someone will take him from you and bring him back across the Atlantic. But, to all intents and purposes, Dr and Mrs Farmer will have entered the States with their son David. No one will be surprised when they leave with him.’
'Only it will be a different boy,’ said Kathleen.
Bryant nodded and said, 'Is there anything you would like before I say good-night?'
Avedissian, who had always replied no to this question before, said, 'Yes, yes there is. I'd like a bottle of Gordon's gin, a supply of Schweppes' tonic and one…’ He paused to look at Kathleen who nodded. 'No, two crystal glasses.’
'I'll see what I can do,’ said Bryant. 'Anything else?'
Kathleen shook her head. Avedissian said that there wasn't.
'How did you find out that the boy was in the United States?' Kathleen asked Bryant.
Bryant touched the side of his nose and said, 'Need to know… remember?' He left the room.
Five minutes later one of the staff entered with a tray carrying all that Avedissian had requested. Kathleen accepted her drink and said, 'What shall we drink to this time?'
'Let's just drink,’ said Avedissian.
In an hotel suite, less than five miles from where Avedissian and Kathleen sat with their drinks, Finbarr Kell raised a tumbler to his lips and took an angry gulp. 'Where is he, damn it?' he hissed, looking at his watch for the third time in as many minutes.
'He should be here by now,’ said Nelligan unhelpfully. It only annoyed Kell more.
'I know he should be here by now!' he snapped. 'The plane landed two hours ago.’
Kell was approaching his irritable worst and it was at times like this that his disability rankled most. He wanted to pace up and down and vent his frustration through physical action, but instead, he had to wait in nail-biting inertia, trapped inside a legless torso.
The response to his insert in The Times had been a directive to send an agent to Amsterdam to receive further instructions and, to this end, he had activated a man with no previous record or history of sympathy with the Republican movement. He had activated the Tally Man.
To the world at large Malcolm Innes was a respectably dull accountant in his late thirties whose thinning hair and anonymous features had made him ideal for the purpose. Malcolm Innes was the man who lived up the street from everyone. Malcolm Innes was also the man who had left his brief-case in a public place on three separate occasions with devastating consequences. Malcolm Innes was the invisible man who, in the past, had come up behind five known traitors in the crowd and left them with an ice pick in the kidneys. Malcolm Innes was the Tally Man.
To Kell, at the moment, Innes was a link in a chain that was currently under strain for he was more than an hour late. His plans had allowed for a margin of ninety minutes at the most, for the Americans were due at eleven and he had to digest the information that Innes was bringing before they arrived.
As Kell could have predicted, the Americans had gagged on hearing the sum involved. They always preferred to deal in small sums at intervals rather than entrust control of large sums to the organisation itself, a constant bone of contention but one the IRA could do little about. If the Americans, who had insisted on crossing the Atlantic to discuss the present operation before making any commitment, arrived to find Kell without the facts at his fingertips it would give them the excuse they would be looking for to pull out. He would look like a bungling amateur and the Americans would take the first plane back. Kell threw back his glass and handed the empty to Nelligan. 'More,' he said.
As Nelligan refilled the glass a knock came at the door. Kell held up his hand and they both waited. A further three taps followed by another pause then two more.
‘Thank Christ,’ said Kell and Nelligan opened the door to admit Malcolm Innes.
Innes entered the room clutching his brief-case and wearing a harassed expression. He took off his glasses to wipe some drops of rain from them.
'Something's wrong?' said Kell anxiously.
Innes shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'I just got stopped at Customs. I've never been stopped before but tonight of all nights I get the full treatment. They even took the lining out of my case.'