late for you, General.’
‘Never mind that. Some bugger just tried to blow me up after I’d been to that do at the Garrick.’
Roper turned his wheelchair to the drinks table, poured a large Scotch, and said, ‘Tell me.’
Which Ferguson did, the whole affair, including the death of Pool. ‘I’m at Rosedene now,’ he said, naming the very private hospital he had created for his people in London, a place of absolute total privacy and security, headed by the finest general surgeon in London. ‘Bellamy’s insisting on checking me thoroughly. I was knocked over by the blast.’
‘You’ve been lucky,’ Roper said ruefully. ‘And I’m the expert.’
‘But not Pool.’
‘From what you’ve told me, there’s a story with him that bears investigation.’
‘You could be right. He wasn’t my usual man, and the Cabinet Office uses hire-car companies when it’s under pressure. I’ve told the anti-terrorism people at Scotland Yard to play it down as much as possible. Fault in the car, petrol explosion, that kind of thing. Don’t want the press leaping in and implying Muslim bombs.’
‘Maybe it was.’
‘Well, we don’t want another public panic. Bellamy’s had Pool’s body brought here, and George Langley will do the post-mortem. I’ll stay till he’s done.’
After hanging up, Roper sat there thinking about it, and Tony Doyle, the military police sergeant on night duty, came in. ‘Still at it, Major? What am I going to do with you?’
‘That was General Ferguson. He was going to his car when it blew up. The driver’s dead.’
‘My God,’ Doyle said softly. ‘Takes you back to Ireland in the Troubles. Like someone’s walked over my grave.’ He shivered. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Sustenance, Tony, that’s what I need. Get me a bacon sandwich. I’d better get in touch with Miller and Dillon in New York.’
‘Christ, they’ll go berserk, those two.’
He went out. Roper poured another whisky, then phoned Miller on his Codex.
Miller and Dillon were walking back to their limousine outside the UN, discussing where to go for dinner, when Miller took the call. He listened, his face grim, then said, ‘Tell Dillon.’
He handed his Codex over and Dillon listened, his face darkening. ‘You’re sure the old sod’s OK?’
‘So it would appear. Not the driver, though. Something fishy there, I think.’
‘Then you’d better investigate.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know, Harry’s in charge. I’m just his minder.’
‘As if he needs one.’
‘Certainly not on this trip. He went for a walk in Central Park and some bastard had a go.’
‘Mugged him, you mean?’
‘Not sure. There could have been a bit more to it than that.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Which Dillon did and afterwards Roper said, ‘Very strange, especially the prayer card. You’ve got a point, Sean, I’ll check it online. OK, talk things over and let me know what you decide.’
Dillon handed the Codex back. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Let’s go back to the hotel and talk.’
But just as soon as they got back to the Plaza and reached the suite, the room telephone sounded. It was Clancy Smith. ‘I heard you were in town.’
‘Good to hear from you,’ Dillon said, and put the phone on speaker.
‘Not this time, Sean. I believe you and Major Miller were expecting to see Blake?’
‘We certainly were. He missed quite a speech.’
‘He’s in a hospital on Long Island, suffering from a gunshot wound. I’m with him now, but he’s just had surgery so he’s not exactly in top shape. The police recovered the body of his assailant, a man named Jack Flynn.’
‘An Irish name,’ Dillon said, his voice grim.
‘We’ve recovered his Social Security card and driver’s licence, and an American passport, and they look kosher to me. Place of birth New York. We’ll check to see if he’s got a record, which I expect he has. Something’s odd about all this. Blake rambled a lot to the receiving doctor and said the guy started to fire at him the moment he got on the boat. He seemed intent on killing him from the word go.’
‘I see.’ Dillon frowned. ‘Anything else, anything about this Flynn character that would help with his background?’
‘Not really,’ Clancy said. ‘Except for one thing. He appears to have been of a religious turn of mind. There was a sort of prayer card in his wallet.’
Dillon said, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, we who are ourselves alone?’
‘How in hell do you know that?’ Clancy was truly shocked.
‘The Irish for “ourselves alone” is Sinn Fein, Clancy.’
‘Are you saying this has got something to do with the IRA?’
‘Clancy, this is Miller,’ the major interrupted. ‘Early evening before we left for the UN, I took a walk in Central Park. I was carrying, a Colt .25 in an ankle-holster, and good job I was.’
‘OK,’ Clancy said. ‘Tell me the worst.’
Miller did. ‘I could have killed this Barry guy, but I didn’t. It seemed unlikely he’d want to make a police case out of it. It was only later, when Dillon was looking at the computer photo of me Barry had in his wallet that he discovered the prayer card. It seemed like a curio, but now that we have two of them, it gets more interesting.’
‘It sure does,’ Clancy said. ‘I’ll make careful enquiries with the NYPD and find out where this Barry guy ended up, then move him so we can get some answers. I can assure you that you will be kept out of it, Major.’
‘Well, that eases my mind,’ Miller told him. ‘You seem on top of your game, Clancy.’
‘I’d better get moving. When are you returning to London?’
‘Sooner than we’d expected,’ Miller said. ‘Because we’ve got more news for you. Just after eleven o’clock London time, General Ferguson was leaving a function
