Passport to Peril

Twenty-one

Farrell cracked wide-open the moment the police began their interrogation. Defeat, his first defeat, had been too much for him. Mentally unstable from the beginning, he was completely unhinged by defeat; he raved like a lunatic. Along with the raving he came out with the facts.

One fact, at least, fit with what he had originally told Ellen. He had spent several years in Africa, but not as a missionary. He was a free-lance spy and agent provocateur working to undermine various governments in independent Africa. In the course of his espionage he had come up with something big — a master list of all U.S. and British agents and sympathizers in one of the new African republics.

This information had been recorded upon the scrap of microfilm that he concealed in Ellen’s passport. He planned to offer it for sale in Berlin and would have solicited bids from four governments — those of the United States, Britain; the Soviet Union, and Mainland China. Anyone attempting to overthrow the pro-Western government would have found the list invaluable; anyone wanting to maintain the government would pay well to keep it out of enemy hands.

A member of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency received the microfilm from an agent of the Irish Government and took it back to Washington. Farrell — his real name, it turned out, was Henri Curtin, and he was a Belgian — was locked in a cell to await a trial that would send him to prison for life. The loose ends were tied up. The innocent victims — Sara Trevelyan, the man who had given Farrell a ride toward Dingle, another man shot by Koenig for an indeterminable reason — went to their separate graves. A garda named Patrick Daly had his motorcycle returned to him in acceptable condition. A man named Denis Mahoney received a C.I.A. check for one hundred pounds as compensation for seven full-grown sheep at seven pounds, ten shillings apiece, plus the balance for inconvenience and indignities suffered in the interest of the United States Government.

And Ellen Cameron missed the Berlin Folk Music Festival.

And now they were in Dublin again, where they had met and where the final stages of the interrogation had taken place. They had gone to O’Donohue’s for the singing, but left before closing and found another quieter pub several blocks away. They sat alone in the small snug and sipped pints of stout.

He said, “Well, they’ll clear up the problem of your passport in a day or two, I suppose. Issue you a new one. It would be nice if they let you keep the other for a souvenir, but I don’t suppose they will.”

“I guess not.”

“You’ll be glad to get the new passport, won’t you?”

“I suppose I will.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be anxious to get back to New York. You must have had enough of Ireland to last you for the rest of your life.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Everything you went through...”

“How can you say that?” She was actually angry. “I met the nicest people in the world. The most wonderful people on earth. I had a grand trip. Dublin, and then the small towns on the way to Dingle, and Dingle itself. And the men in Tipperary, God, what wonderful men they were! And the singing, and the food and drink, and the warmth of everyone, and the scenery, and the air, so fresh and clean...”

“Don’t forget the rain.”

“I didn’t mind the rain. I didn’t melt, did I?”

“Not noticeably.”

“And how could you think I could help being utterly in love with this country? Why? Because of a couple of horrible days? Because there are evil men in the world? Because I came a little close to getting killed? It wasn’t Ireland’s fault.”

“You sound as though you like it here.”

“I love it here!”

“And your eyes are funny. You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I am not. Damn you, don’t look at me, I can’t help it, dammit. Oh, David...”

A little later she said, “I’m going to be forward, I can’t help it. You know what brash things American girls are. And the first night in Dublin the cab driver said that all Americans are a little bit daft, so I’m sure you’ll pardon my brashness—”

“Sure, and it’s the way of you American colleens.”

“—because I want to go to Connemara with you.”

“Do you mean that?”

She nodded. “If you’ll take me. If I wouldn’t be in the way.”

“You could never be in the way, Ellen.” He took a deep swallow of the black stout. “Ellen? You must be a little homesick for New York. Anxious to see your friends and your agent and everyone. After all, it’s your home, isn’t it?”

“My home was a town called Belvedere, New Hampshire. The last time I went back was for my mother’s funeral. I never went back again. I never will.” She hesitated. “New York isn’t home,” she said. She thought of the crowds, the polluted air, the endless rushing around, the slums, the violence, the summer heat, the winter cold. The subways at rush hour, the harsh rudeness of strangers to strangers, the endless sensation of being trapped in a world of steel and glass and cement.

“New York was never home,” she said, “and never could be home.”

“Could Ireland?”

Her voice wouldn’t work; something seemed to be stuck in her throat. She swallowed but it wouldn’t go away.

“I was thinking,” he said. “About Farrell — I mean Curtin, I keep calling him Farrell. His disguises. First a priest and then a friar.”

She nodded.

“I hope it didn’t leave you with a permanent fear of clergymen. Because I think the two of us ought to see one together one of these days. On the way to Connemara. Ellen...”

And then, with a little sob, she was in his arms. She tasted his mouth on hers, felt his strong arms around her, holding her tight.

Ah, but the song was a lie, a lie!

After a few moments she eased herself out of his arms. He reached for her again and she drew away.

“Someone will see us,” she said.

“Not a chance.”

“But we’re in a pub, a public house...”

“Silly girl,” he said. “Why do you think they call it a snug?”

She smiled a lazy smile. “How very clever of them,” she said dreamily, “to call it a snug. For snuggling. How sweet!..”

And then she went to him, and neither of them said anything for a long time.