Private Dublin

Chapter 22

Amanda took us to a security control room where we went to a small audio-visual suite that lay off the main office and reviewed the camera footage for ourselves. We spent another hour studying every single angle and found no sign of the shooter from any of the cameras trained on the aircraft from the moment it reached the stand. If he’d disembarked at Dublin Airport, he’d done so like a magician performing a vanishing act.

Disappointed, we sat in silence while Andi drove us back to the city. I wondered whether the man known to us as Colm Finlay had somehow faked his boarding of the flight to Dublin and had in fact taken another plane. If so, he could be anywhere in the world by now. But how did that explain the discrepancy in the headcount at LAX, after the aircraft door had been closed, with that at passport control in Dublin?

“How could he get off the plane without anyone or any cameras seeing him?” Andi asked. Her frown suggested she shared my frustration with the mystery.

“Either he was never on the plane and the headcount at LAX was wrong,” I suggested. “Or he jumped out somewhere over the Atlantic.”

Andi smiled at my unhelpful suggestions. “Or someone smuggled him off the aircraft,” she replied. “And we just haven’t figured out how.”

“An insider at the airport?” I said.

“Why not?” she responded. “This group has people everywhere, right?”

I nodded slowly. It was certainly possible.

Andi’s phone rang and Conor Roche’s name flashed on the central console screen. She answered the call on the car’s Bluetooth audio.

“Go ahead, Conor,” she said. “Jack is with me.”

“I couldn’t find anything on your tattoo, but I checked the Interpol alerts and this Propaganda Tre is linked to a street gang called the Dark Fates,” he said.

Andi glanced at me and I nodded. The Dark Fates had been Propaganda Tre’s paramilitary arm in Rome and Monaco, the muscle to the other group’s brain.

“Well, the Dark Fates started showing up on our radar here about a year ago. Street thugs, but more organized than the usual gangsters. Drugs, extortion, that sort of thing. There was an altercation in a pub called the Night Watch three weeks ago. Officers picked up a ketamine dealer who is tied to the Fates. Goes by the name of Joe McGee.”

“You got any known associates or an address?” I asked.

“I couldn’t possibly give you his address,” Conor replied. “That would breach all sorts of confidentiality laws. But I could brief you in person if you meet me at number three Bessborough Avenue, East Wall.”

Andi smiled. “Bit of an odd place to meet.”

“It is, it is, I’ll grant you,” Conor said, “but that’s just me. Odd. I’ll see you there sometime soon.”

He hung up and I made no attempt to hide my bafflement as I looked at Andi.

“East Wall is one of the rougher parts of the city. The road he named is a residential street. My guess is he just gave us McGee’s address without putting himself at risk if the call was recorded.”

“Smart,” I said, grateful for the renewed hope that came with Conor’s lead.