Warlord

TWENTY-FIVE

THE NAME OF THE ISLAND, THOMAS McMahon, if you please."

"Right. Lamb Island, I think. Or, maybe Sheep Island it was. Hell, man, I dunno. Something like that."

"Think, Mr. McMahon. I need to know the exact name of that island," Congreve pressed.

"Mutton Island. That was it, all right. Mutton Island. Off Sligo."

Congreve stood and paid the barmaid, taking the bottle of Irish whiskey from the tray and placing it before the old IRA man.

"As Mr. Hawke said, if you think of anything else, please call. I will make it well worth your while. Good night, Mr. McMahon."

"You two figuring on going out there any time soon? Mutton Island, I mean."

"We're determined to locate Mr. Smith, dead or alive. If, as you say, he lived on Mutton Island around the time of the murders, I suspect it will be the first place we look. I bid you good evening, sir." Ambrose started to get to his feet. The Irishman shot him a look.

"Wait," McMahon said. "Sit down."

Ambrose did. "What is it?"

"I wasn't going to say anything about this. But I figure this is me only chance. If you gents are willing to pay me some serious money, I'd be willing to part with some very serious information."

"We're all ears, Mr. McMahon," Hawke said. "This is your one chance."

"You fellas heard of something called 'the Real IRA'?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ambrose said. "They ambushed and killed two British policemen in an attack on the Massereene Barracks last March. They don't acknowledge the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the long-standing peace. I'm afraid these people are determined to provoke more bloodshed and I think it is abominable."

"Yer afraid with good reason," McMahon said, downing his whiskey and pouring another. "They've got something in the works, y'see. In the late planning stages. And-"

"Mr. McMahon, with all due respect," Hawke said, "how are you in a position to know what these people are planning? Ever since their Omagh bombing killed twenty-nine people and injured two hundred twenty others, they've been considered a credible terrorist organization both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Believe me, we watch their every move very carefully."

"But you ain't on the inside, are ye, Mr. Hawke?"

"And you are?"

"Aye. I'm up to me old tricks. Building fireworks for them. Old habits die hard, y'see. They're using land mines, homemade mortars, and car bombs now, and I'm privy to a lot of stuff I shouldn't know about because I keep me ears open."

"And now you offer to betray their trust for money, Mr. McMahon. One naturally wonders how reliable such information might be, seeing as how selling legitimate information will place you in a very dangerous position. You know what the IRA does to traitors as well as I do. Why are you doing this, one wonders."

"I'll tell ye why! These bastards betrayed me, they did. Betrayed all of us! They use my skills but there is no respect anymore. They let me take the fall for Lord Louis, spend half me bleeding life in prison. Now they look at me as if I ain't there. Besides, they're bringing in weapons from foreigners now, and I'm sure me days are numbered."

"Foreigners? Collaborating with the IRA?" Hawke said, leaning forward. "Foreigners from where?"

"I forget."

"Look, here, McMahon. How much money do you want?" Hawke asked, up to here with the man.

"Enough to leave Ireland for good and start a new life for meself. What's left of it, anyway. I want to die in a nice warm bed, with the cool hand of a fair colleen on my brow if not elsewhere." He downed his drink, licking his lips, pouring himself another.

"Tell us what you know. We'll bicker later. But if we think your information is valuable and believable, we will provide you with sufficient funds to resettle outside Ireland. Agreed?"

"Aye."

"Well, then?"

"There's a safe house. I go there now and then to make product deliveries, if you take my meaning. There's a huge cache of weapons in that basement. Their arsenal, if you take my meaning. Enough to blow up half of Ireland. For the last month or so, it's been a bloody frenzy there. People coming and going all hours, day and night, most of 'em masked. Lot of high-level boys talking late into the night. Planning."

"Planning what?"

"I ain't privy. You'd have to ask the man himself. Smith is in charge."

Smith?

Hawke and Congreve, stunned, looked at each other in shock.

"Smith?" Hawke said, keeping his voice steady.

"That's what I said, didn't I. Maybe I just signed me own death warrant, but there, I've said it, and fuck all."

Congreve said, carefully, "Smith is still involved with the IRA? We were under the impression his involvement ceased thirty years ago, after the Mountbatten murder."

"Ceased? Why do you say that? Why, they practically anointed him the bloody King of Eire after he pulled that killing off. Mountbatten was just the beginning for our Mr. Smith. He was always in for the long haul."

Hawke said, "The long haul?"

"That's what I said."

Hawke leaned forward, making sure he had the man's attention. "Mr. McMahon, this is a very serious matter. Please try to concentrate. What other acts of terrorism against Britain and the Crown was Mr. Smith involved with?"

"Too many to recall, to be honest. But I can name a few for certain."

"Please."

"That Christmas bombing at Harrods in London that killed five and injured almost a hundred. 1983 it was, I believe. That was Smith. The next year, he almost got Lady Thatcher and her entire Cabinet down at that hotel in Brighton. So many others. The mortar round fired into Downing Street back in '91…"

"Good Lord," Congreve said, leaning back in his chair, trying to digest what he'd just heard. Smith, still out there? Still attacking Britain? It was almost inconceivable he could have gone this long without attracting the attention of the Secret Service or Scotland Yard.

Hawke said, "You say he's in the midst of planning another operation. What do you know about it?"

"Only that it's big, like I said earlier."

"A bomb, you said."

"Aye. But a bomb like nothing seen in these parts. A Big Bertha of a bomb that will wreak more havoc and kill more people than in all the years since 'The Troubles' began is what I hear."

"A conventional weapon?" Hawke asked, glaring at the man.

"I can't say. I'd tell ye if I knew. Honest I would. Maybe brought in by Smith himself. He's traveling all the time, and I don't mean down to Brighton for the sea air."

"When is this operation?"

"Soon. I hear a month or two, but it could be sooner."

Congreve said, "This safe house. In order to get your money, you must tell us its exact location. Once we have confirmed that, you'll be paid. How much do you want?"

"I was thinking twenty thousand pounds sterling would do me quite nicely."

"Think fifteen thousand pounds sterling and you have a deal."

"Done," McMahon said with a smile that revealed stained and crooked teeth. He then poured himself another drink.

"Where, exactly, is the house located?"

"Heard of the Dog, a small river in County Sligo?"

"No."

"Not really a river, more like a stream. A tributary that runs off the River Mourne. Follow the Dog to a town called Plumbridge. The house is three miles due north of the town center. It's an old place called the Barking Dog Inn. A farmer's sheepdog drowned in that river one night. Some say you can still hear him barking when the moon's full, under that old wooden bridge. The house stands in a wood, not too far from the bend in the river. It's due east of the only bridge over the Dog for miles. A wooden bridge."

"We'll be in touch, Mr. McMahon," Congreve said, ending the meeting.

The famous criminalist stood up and followed his friend Hawke through the crowd gathered at the smoke-filled bar and out into the wet night. Ambrose could not possibly have been more excited than he was at this moment. McMahon was a thoroughly reprehensible character, but, possibly, he had just provided them with unbelievably valuable information.

Nothing less than confirmation that there had indeed been a "third man" as he and Constable Drummond had insisted from the start right up to the very end. Not only did he exist, he was still very much alive. Active, if one could believe McMahon, in this dangerous New IRA uprising. And he was apparently operating within a few miles of where they stood at this very moment.

STANDING OUTSIDE, CONGREVE SAID, "WE'VE got our 'pawn,' Alex. Smith! It has to be. Still alive after all these years? Astounding. Still functioning? It beggars belief."

"We don't have him yet, but by heaven we may have just gotten a whole lot closer. McMahon's evidence is all hearsay, of course. No proof of any of it. But if we could prove murder out on Mutton Island, and tie Smith to it, well, then-"

"Yes, my thoughts exactly. I'm not quite sure where to begin. What do you think, Alex. Mutton Island first? Or confirm the presence of this IRA safe house? The Barking Dog Inn."

They started walking through the misty rain to the hired car. An ungainly little beast called a Ford Mondeo. It certainly wasn't the Locomotive. In fact, Hawke had taken to calling it "the caboose." Once inside, Hawke pulled a map from the car's glove box.

Hawke said, "Mutton Island is only one hour's drive from here. And not far offshore. Let's get out there as quickly as possible. Hire a fishing boat. See what's to be seen, if indeed anything is. After that, we'll turn our efforts toward an investigation of this bloody Barking Dog Inn. We'll need time, men, and weapons to set that operation up properly. I'll have to make all the necessary arrangements with British Army forces in the event it's determined a full-scale raid on the safe house is warranted."

"Quite right. But, still, you must admit it's a breakthrough. Smith still at it, Alex? In Northern Ireland?" Congreve said.

"We'll find out, I suppose, when we check in at the Barking Dog Inn. If Smith is among the plotters there when we take it, and we manage to take him alive, I'll have some extremely good news for the Prince of Wales."

"You're not going to call him now? With what we've just heard?"

"I think not."

"Why? He'll be jubilant."

"I simply don't trust this fellow McMahon. Throw enough money and booze at him and he'll say what he thinks you want to hear. This could still be the wildest of goose chases."

"I don't think so, Alex. You know that feeling, when you've finally got the bone in your teeth?"

"Not really."

"Well, I do. And I've got it now."

"Good feeling or bad feeling?"

"For a copper? Best feeling there is."

"Can you hold that thought until we get to Mutton Island?"

"Can and will."