The White House Connection. Jack Higgins

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      ‘And?’

      ‘They all came to an untimely end within the same week. Three men and the woman shot.…’

      ‘And Peter blown up?’

      There was a pause as Emsworth swallowed the whisky, then he got up and lurched to the sideboard and poured another with a shaking hand.

      ‘Actually, no. That’s just what you were told.’ He swallowed the whisky, spilling some down his chin.

      She drank the rest of her whisky, took out her silver case, selected a cigarette and lit it. ‘Tell me.’

      Emsworth reached the chair again and sank down. He nodded to the file. ‘It’s all in there. Everything you need to know. I’m breaking the Official Secrets Act, but why should I care? I could be dead tomorrow.’

      ‘Tell me!’ she said, her voice hard. ‘I want to hear it from you.’

      He took a deep breath. ‘If you must. As you know, there are many splinter groups in Irish politics, both Catholic and Protestant. One of the worst is a nationalist outfit called the Sons of Erin. Years ago, it was run by a man called Frank Barry, a very bad article indeed, and almost unique – he was a Protestant Republican. He was eventually killed, but he had a nephew, named Jack Barry, who had an American mother. He’d been born in New York, then gone to Vietnam in 1970, when he was eighteen, on a short-term commission. There was some kind of scandal – apparently he shot a lot of Vietcong prisoners, so they turfed him out quietly.’

      ‘And then he joined the IRA?’

      ‘That’s about it. He took over where his uncle left off. He’s a murdering psychopath who’s been doing his own thing for years now. Oh, and another bizarre thing. Jack’s great-uncle was Lord Barry. He had a place on the Down coast in Ulster called Spanish Head. It’s part of the National Trust now. His father died when he was a child and Frank Barry was killed just before his old uncle died.’

      ‘Which leaves Jack with the title?’

      Emsworth nodded. ‘But he’s never attempted to claim it. He could be proscribed as a traitor to the Crown.’

      ‘I wonder. I think executions on Tower Hill went out some years ago. But Tony, please, get to the point.’

      He closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed and continued. ‘There was a man called Doolin who used to drive for Barry. He ended up in the Maze Prison and we put an informer in his cell. Our man had an ample supply of cocaine and eventually had Doolin telling his life story from birth.’

      ‘My God.’ She was horrified.

      ‘It’s the name of the game, my dear. Doolin had not been with Barry during the time in question, but his story was that Barry was on a high as he drove him north to Stramore, on pills and whisky. He told Doolin he’d just taken out an entire undercover British group thanks to the New York branch of the Sons of Erin, and with a little help from someone he called the Connection. Doolin asked who this Connection was, and Barry said no one knew, but that he was an American, and then he started acting all coy, and talking about the detectives who’d operated out of Dublin Castle for Mick Collins in the old days.’

      ‘So the implication was that this Connection was someone very high up and on the inside? But where? How?’

      ‘For years, British Intelligence has had a link with the White House, especially because of the developing peace process. Information has been passed to what were supposed to be friends on a need-to-know basis.’

      ‘Including information on my son’s group?’

      ‘Yes. I thought that was going too far, but those more important than I, people such as Simon Carter, Deputy Director of the Security Services, ruled against me. And then Doolin was found hanged in his cell.’

      She went and poured another whisky and turned. ‘It gets more like the Borgias every minute. And as you’ve avoided explaining your remark about Peter not being blown up, I think I’m going to need this.’ She swallowed half the whisky. ‘Get on with it, Tony.’

      ‘Yes, well, the Sons of Erin. They passed on information obtained from the Connection. They all had contacts in Dublin and London.’ He was in agony and showed it. ‘It’s in the files. Everything’s in there, all the players, photos, the lot. I copied the Top Secret file and.…’

      ‘Tell me about Peter.’

      ‘They snatched him coming out of a pub in South Armagh, Barry and his men. They tortured him, and when he wouldn’t talk, beat him to death. They were building a new bypass road nearby, down to the Irish Republic. It had one of those massive concrete mixers that works all night. They put his body through it.’

      She sat there, staring, silent, then suddenly swallowed the rest of the whisky.

      He carried on. ‘They blew up his car with the heavy charge to make it look as if he’d gone that way. I mean, they needed us to know he’d gone, but couldn’t send us a postcard saying how.’

      He was a little drunk now. She cried out and put a hand to her mouth as she stood and ran for the door. She made it to the toilet in the hall and vomited into the basin again and again. When she finally wiped her face and came out, Hedley was there.

      ‘You heard?’

      ‘I’m afraid so. Are you okay?’

      ‘I’ve been better. Tea, Hedley, hot and strong.’

      She went back into the sitting room and sat down. ‘What happened? Why was nothing done?’

      ‘They decided to keep it black, which was why you weren’t told the truth. We had operatives check Republican circles in New York and Washington. We discovered there was indeed a New York dining club called the Sons of Erin. The names of the members are all in the file, along with their photos. They’re prominent businessmen, one’s even a US Senator. It all fits. There had already been examples of privileged information from London to Washington ending up in IRA hands.’

      ‘But why was nothing done?’

      Emsworth shrugged. ‘Politics. The President, the Prime Minister – no one wanted to rock the boat. Let me tell you something about intelligence work. You think the CIA and the FBI keep the President informed about everything? Hell, no.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘It’s just the same in the UK. MI5 and MI6 have their own dark secrets and they not only hate each other, but also Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Unit and Military Intelligence. For proof of that, you’ll find two interesting entries in the file, one American, the other Brit.’

      ‘And what do they refer to?’

      ‘There’s a man called Blake Johnson at the White House, around fifty, a Vietnam veteran, lawyer, ex-FBI. He’s Director of the General Affairs Department at the White House. Because it’s downstairs, it’s known as the Basement. It’s one of the most closely guarded secrets of the administration, passed from one President to another. It’s totally separate from the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service. Answers only to the President. The whispers are so faint people don’t believe it exists.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ