no one else knew?’
‘Of course not. I mean, why would this Silsev geezer approach anyone else? Frank was the number one man in the East End for years.’ He poured a little more Scotch, hand shaking.
Dillon said, ‘You just sat in the car, waiting for him?’
‘Like I told the cops and I didn’t hear a thing. The gun must have been silenced. I sat there reading the paper until I got worried and went looking.’
‘And you saw nobody?’
‘Like I told the police, nobody.’
‘Think hard,’ Dillon said, ‘It’s raining heavily and getting dark and you’re sitting there at the wheel with the newspaper and no one came out.’
‘I’ve told you.’ Gordon paused, frowning. ‘Here, just a minute. Yes, that’s right.’ It was as if he was looking back and recreating the scene. ‘Yes, this big bike came out through the gates. The guy in the saddle wore black leathers and one of those black helmets you can’t see through.’
‘Bingo,’ Dillon said. ‘Give the man the star prize.’
‘God, you were a bastard in there, Dillon,’ she told him as they drove away. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again.’
‘It got a result,’ he said. ‘Exact description of our mystery rider from Belfast and you now know what Silsev and Sharp were up to.’
‘My God,’ she said. ‘Heroin at a street value of a hundred million pounds. It doesn’t bear thinking of.’
‘Well, don’t,’ he said. ‘Let’s call in at Mulligans in Cork Street. Smoked salmon and champagne.’
‘I’m driving, Dillon.’
‘I know, girl dear. I’ll drink the champagne for you. You can content yourself with the smoked salmon.’
He sat back, grinning, and lit a cigarette.
WASHINGTON LONDON WASHINGTON 1994
It was raining in Washington, driving in from the river through the late afternoon as the large sedan moved along Constitution Avenue towards the White House. In spite of the weather, there was a sizeable crowd in Pennsylvania Avenue, not only tourists but a fair smattering of journalists and TV cameras.
The chauffeur lowered the glass screen that separated him from the rear. ‘It’s going to be difficult getting at the front without them recognizing you, Senator.’
Patrick Keogh leaned forward. ‘Let’s try the East Entrance.’
The sedan turned up East Executive Avenue, pulled up at the gate, where the guard, recognizing Keogh at once, waved them through. The East Entrance was used frequently by White House staff and by diplomatic visitors who wanted to avoid the attention of the media.
Keogh got out and said to the chauffeur, ‘Don’t know how long I’ll be, on this one,’ and went up the steps.
When he got inside he found a Secret Service agent on duty, talking to a young Marine lieutenant in razor-sharp uniform. The lieutenant snapped to attention. ‘Good evening, Senator.’
‘How did you know I’d use this entrance?’
‘I didn’t, Senator, I have a colleague at the front entrance as well.’
Keogh smiled amiably. ‘Now that’s what I call sound strategic thinking.’
The young man smiled back at him. ‘If you’ll follow me, Senator, the President’s waiting.’
When they entered the Oval Office the room was in half-darkness, curtains drawn, most of the light coming from a table lamp on the massive desk and a standard lamp in one corner. It was a room entirely familiar to Keogh, with its array of service flags, a room he had visited many times to speak to more than one President. This time it was Bill Clinton behind the desk, but it was the other occupant of the room, at ease in a wing-back chair that surprised Keogh. John Major.
‘Ah, there you are, Patrick, I appreciate you coming at such short notice,’ Clinton said. ‘I believe you two know each other?’
‘Mr Prime Minister.’ Keogh held out his hand as John Major stood up. ‘A real pleasure.’
‘Senator,’ John Major said.
‘Please be seated, Patrick, and we’ll get to it,’ Clinton told him. ‘By the way, there’s coffee over there if you’d like?’
‘I think I would, I’ll help myself.’ Keogh finally returned to the desk area and took a spare chair. ‘Yours to command, Mr President.’
‘I’d like to believe that’s true, and in a way it makes what I’m going to ask you especially difficult.’
Patrick Keogh paused, the cup to his mouth, and then he smiled, that slightly lopsided grin that had always been a personal trademark, and his face was suddenly suffused with immense charm.
‘Can’t wait, Mr President. I can tell this is going to be real special.’
‘It is, Patrick. In fact it’s probably more important than anything you’ve been involved in in your entire political life.’
‘And what would it be concerned with?’
‘Ireland and the peace process.’
Keogh paused, his face serious, and then he quite deliberately emptied his cup and put it on the small table beside him.
‘Please go on, Mr President.’
‘We know how hard you’ve worked behind the scenes with other committed Irish-Americans towards achieving peace in Ireland,’ John Major said. ‘And the visits to Ireland of former Congressman Bruce Morrison and his friends have proved a real help in the necessary consultations.’
‘It’s nice of you to say so, Prime Minister,’ Keogh said. ‘But it’s no burden. The killing has gone on too long. This thing in Ireland must come to an end. Now, what is it you want me to do?’
‘We’d like you to go to Ireland for us,’ the President said.
‘Good God!’ Keogh’s head went back and he laughed. ‘Me go to Ireland? But why?’
‘Because, to use that old Irish phrase, you’re one of their own. You’re as Irish as the Kennedy family. Hell, I’ve read about what happened when President Kennedy went there in nineteen sixty-three and visited the old Kennedy farm.’ Clinton looked at a paper in front of him. ‘Dunganstown. You were with him.’
Patrick Keogh nodded. ‘His great-grandfather left there back in the nineteenth century at the same time mine did to become a cooper in Boston.’
