The White House Connection

'And you'll be wanting food?'

'Shepherd's pie and that bread you bake yourself.' Helen took out a cigarette and Hedley gave her a light. 'Oh, I don't know, Tom. I'm a Yank, remember.'

'Well, that isn't your fault, Lady Helen,' and he cackled.

'You old rogue. Just look at the wall.'

Hanging there was a series of framed black-and-white pictures of aeroplanes. Several were of German Dorniers, and two were of American B 17 bombers, one in the surf off Horseshoe Bay, the other nose down where it had crash-landed, the crew standing beside it in flying gear.

'True enough,' Tom told her. 'A grand bunch of lads, that. We got them in here while they were waiting for trucks from their base. Drunk out of their minds, they were, by the time those trucks came. We've had one or two back over the years. Mind you, a long time ago. Mostly passed on, I reckon.'

Hetty appeared with a tray. 'Over here, Lady Helen. Nice table by the fire.'

She laid everything out. Lady Helen and Hedley sat down and ate. 'Good, Hedley?'

'You know it's good,' he told her. 'Sometimes it's still hard for me to fathom. I was a kid in Harlem, scratching a living, on hard times, then there was 'Nam, and all those years later, I live in one of the most ancient parts of England and sit in a pub like it's out of a Jane Austen novel, eating a thing called shepherd's pie.'

'And you like it.'

'Love it, Lady Helen, and I love these crazy people.'

'Well, they love you,' she said. 'So that's okay.'

They finished the meal and she ordered a pot of English Breakfast tea. 'Much better for you than coffee, Hedley, and I want your brain clear.'

'And why would that be?'

'Senator Cohan arrives at the Dorchester the day after tomorrow.'

He took a deep breath. 'You really mean it, don't you?'

'Of course.' She took a small plastic bag from her pocket, opened it and produced a key. 'Remember when they were fitting the new stove in the kitchen in South Audley Street, and they were making such a racket, and I stayed overnight at the Dorchester?' She smiled. 'I'm just a weak woman who enjoys luxury. Well, that's the key to the suite.'

Hedley took it. 'So?'

'You've often boasted of your wide range of rather dubious friends. When we lost those keys for the old stables, the deadlocks, you produced one that opened all of them. Said you'd got it from a friend in London. I asked you if he was a locksmith. You said not exactly.'

'That's true.'

'Well, we're leaving for South Audley Street tomorrow. One of the joys of the English aristocratic system, as you well know,

Hedley, is that one gets invited to everything, and I'm due at the Dorchester ballroom the day after tomorrow.'

He was resigned to it by now. 'So what do you need?'

'This friend of yours to have a look at that key. I know it's computer-coded, and won't open a thing now, but based on something dear Roper once told me – well, I'm sure if your friend is as good as I think he is, he can produce a passkey.'

Hedley sighed. 'If you say so.'

'Oh, but I do. Don't let me down. Now finish your beer and we'll go.'

It was the following afternoon when Hedley came up from Covent Garden tube station. It was, as always, one of the most crowded parts of London. Hedley worked his way through the crowds until he came to Crown Court, a narrow little alley with four or five shops. One of them said: Jacko – Locksmith. The bell tinkled as Hedley went in.

A curtain at the rear parted and an old white-haired black man came through. 'Damn my eyes, it's you, Hedley.'

'That it is, Jacko.'

'We'll have a drink on it.' Jacko produced a half-bottle of Scotch from under the counter, then two paper cups, and poured. 'Isn't life the damnedest thing? You and my Bobby get posted on Embassy Guard here, so he sends for me to come to live in London. Then they pull him away to that stinking Gulf War and he gets wasted.'

'Here's to you, Jacko.' Hedley drank the whiskey. 'Always thought you'd go home.'

'Where's home? Hell, I still play great trombone, and London 's got better jazz clubs than New York. You got a purpose to this visit?'

Hedley produced the key. 'You familiar with these things?'

Jacko only glanced. 'Yeah, sure. It's a hotel key. What about it?'

'Could you make me a passkey, a general key, out of it? One that would open any door in the hotel?'

'My friend, I never figured you for a guy who worked the hotel racket, but yes, I can do such a thing. The hotel people think these things are foolproof, but not if you know what you're doing. I can do the job in about five minutes.'

'Good. Then do it. And, no, I'm not in any kind of hotel racket, but this is real important.'

'Then consider it done.' Jacko opened the bottle and poured. 'Have another.'

He went back through the curtain while Hedley finished the whiskey and then appeared a few minutes later. 'There you go'

The key looked just the same. Hedley said dubiously, 'Is this kosher?'

'If I were Jewish, I'd say on my life, but I'm just an old trombone player from Harlem. Hedley, I don't know the hotel, I don't want to know, but one thing is certain. This will open any door in the fucking place.'

'What do I owe you?'

'What are friends for? Use it in good health.'

Michael Cohan took the Concorde from New York to London. He preferred it to the Jumbo, but then anyone would. Three and a half hours, a smooth and perfect flight, excellent food and free champagne. The seats were smaller, but the speed made up for that. There was no movie, but that was the last thing he was concerned about, because the thoughts going around in his brain provided his own personal cinema of the mind and it wasn't funny. He'd tried to phone Barry twice on the coded mobile, but got no reply, though that wasn't surprising. The Irishman was constantly on the move, and mobile phones were not something you switched on all the time, especially in Barry's case, when you were on the run.

It was a mess, though, the way things had worked out. So stupid, the whole thing. His Irish-American voters had always been crucial, and Brady had been a first-class fund-raiser for him because of his power in the Teamsters' Union. It was he who had introduced him to Kelly and Cassidy.

There was a natural progression to receiving funds for the IRA. Not just for Noraid, but for other groups with Dublin links. Everybody was doing it. Most of his Irish-American voters felt strongly about the situation in Ireland. The IRA were heroes – romantic heroes.

He remembered the early days at Murphy's, the drinking, the singing of rebel songs. It was exciting, romantic, and then there had been the night Brady had introduced Jack Barry, in New York on business for the organization back there in Dublin. A real live IRA gunman.

Barry had regaled them with his stories of gun battles with British paratroopers, life on the run, and had suggested how they could help. It was Brady with his work on the New York docks for the Teamsters who was of real importance. The possibilities of smuggling arms to Ireland had been obvious. Cohan and Kelly had concentrated on the fund-raising and Cassidy on the purchase of suitable weapons. Cohan remembered their first coup: fifty ArmaLite rifles smuggled in a Portuguese boat to Ireland.

They were already calling themselves the Sons of Erin at Barry's suggestion, had established the dining club at Murphy's with a plaque on their own booth, all out in the open, no reason not to. And then when Barry had come to New York again, he had mentioned his mysterious mentor, a voice on the phone the previous year when Barry had been staying in splendour at the

Mayfair Hotel on IRA business. When Barry had asked who he was, he'd simply said: 'Call me the Connection, because that's what I am.'

Astoundingly, he could provide information from British Intelligence by way of Washington, information crucial to the struggle in Ireland. Again, because of Brady's waterfront connections, arrangements were able to be made to smuggle IRA men on the run out of Ireland to New York. The smuggling of arms had also continued.