Drink With the Devil (12 page)

“Then what?”

“The ship disappeared, but lifebelts and what was left of a lifeboat were washed up on the Irish coast. End of story.”

“And it said nothing about who was behind it?”

“Not a word.”

“Interesting,” Sollazo said. “Let’s take a walk.”

They strolled across the grass and passed the bench where Kelly and his niece were sitting, heads together. She glanced up casually and Salamone said, “Hi, Liam.”

“How’s yourself, Paolo?” was the reply.

Sollazo and Salamone passed on and Kathleen Ryan said, her accent more American than Irish now, “Who was that one, Uncle Michael?”

“Paolo Salamone. He’s a nurse in the hospital. We’ve something in common. We’re both doing twenty-five years for shooting a policeman, only in his case it was for shooting a policewoman. Anyway, how are you?”

“I’m fine. They keep me busy at the hospital.”

“Still no man in your life?”

“Too much bother.” She smiled. “Lucky I managed the job at Green Rapids. At least I can see you regularly.”

“And for how long, another fifteen years?” He shook his head. “You can’t waste your life like this, Kathleen.” He was angry now and stood up. “God, how could I have been so stupid? A small-town bank, I said. A piece of cake and then that policeman came round the corner.”

“It was just one of those things.”

“Well, thank God you managed to drive off and get the hell out of it.”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. She said, “You know you shouldn’t smoke.”

“So I can extend my life a year or two here in good old Green Rapids Detention Center?” He grinned wryly and dropped the cigarette to the ground. “All right, I’ll be good. Come on, I’ll walk you to the gate.”

There were a number of people going in the same direction and she noticed Salamone and Sollazo. They reached the security exit and paused. Ryan kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for coming.”

“I’ll see you Friday.”

She went through security and approached her car. As she unlocked her door she saw Sollazo walking towards a silver Porsche. He glanced at her casually, then looked away. For some reason it made her feel uncomfortable, and she got in her car quickly and drove off.

Sollazo watched her go and reached for his mobile phone and called his office. When his secretary answered he said, “Rosa, check the files for a report in the
New York Times
of a robbery in the north of England connected with a ship called the
Irish Rose
, which apparently went down at sea.”

“Very well, sir, anything else?”

“Yes, get our people in London to check for any newspaper stories there. They’ll probably be more detailed. I want this like yesterday.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“I’m having dinner early with Don Antonio.”

“At the Long Island house?”

“No, the Trump Tower apartment. As soon as you get that stuff from England, fax it to me there.”

“I will.”

Sollazo drove away thinking about the situation, and particularly the fact that the way gold prices had climbed; fifty million pounds in bullion in 1985 was now worth double.

I
N HER ROOM
at Green Rapids General Hospital, Kathleen Ryan undressed and went to the shower. She was due on the evening shift in an hour, on call for emergency surgery until six in the morning, not that she minded, for she loved her work, was good at it.

It had been her uncle who had insisted that she find a life for herself after his trial and sentencing and she’d put in five hard years of training. Ossining had been the bad time. She hadn’t been able to see him much while he was at that grim fortress. In a way his heart problem had been a blessing. The less restrictive regime at Green Rapids allowed a great deal of visiting and getting a post at the town hospital had made all the difference.

But it hurt her to see him there, a shadow of the man he had been in those great days back in Ireland when they’d taken on the might of the IRA, even on occasion the British Army, and won. At that memory, a thrill passed through her that was almost sexual.

She toweled off, dried her cropped hair, and put on her uniform. She combed her hair, checking herself in the mirror, strong face, dark eyes, not pretty but striking, this girl who had at the age of fourteen killed two members of the IRA with a hand grenade, who at the age of sixteen had shot dead at close quarters a man named Bert Fox.

It all came back. The Lake District, that lonely road and the taking of the transporter and Martin Keogh and the final, brutal confrontation on the
Irish Rose
. And at the memory, the old excitement surged through her.

“There’s got to be more than this,” she said aloud. “He can’t rot in there for another fifteen years.”

Despair flooded over her and she sat down, opened a bottom drawer in her desk, and took out a briefcase. Inside was a large envelope containing fifty thousand dollars in cash, money she had painstakingly saved, money against the day they would have to move fast, she and Uncle Michael, for from the time he had been moved from Ossining to the easier regime of Green Rapids she had entertained the wild hope that he might be able to escape. She had even approached a forger in New York, an old cell mate of her uncle in Ossining, who had provided her with two false Irish passports at a thousand dollars each, a special price as a favor.

She found them now and examined them. Daniel Forbes, that was her uncle, and she was Nancy Forbes. A waste, the whole thing, for as she soon discovered, in spite of its liberal regime, security at Green Rapids was stringent.

She looked at the photo in the false passport and somehow it was a stranger. “Whatever happened to Kathleen Ryan?” she asked softly.

At that moment the door opened and another nurse looked in. “Ready, Jean?”

“On my way,” Kathleen told her. “I’ll be right with you.”

She closed the briefcase, put it back in the drawer, and went out.

D
ON
A
NTONIO
R
USSO
was seventy years of age and of ample proportions, his loose cream linen suit accentuating his bulk. His hair was long and gray, swept back from his fleshy, arrogant face. A man who had always been used to having his own way. He got up, leaning on his cane as Sollazo entered the sumptuous living room of the Trump Tower apartment.

“Marco, good to see you.” They embraced. “A glass of champagne?” Don Antonio snapped his fingers at a manservant. “Oh, by the way, there are some faxes for you. Can’t your office give you a night off?”

“Sorry, Uncle, this is important. May I?”

“Of course.”

Sollazo went into the office, found the faxes, and read them quickly. He returned to the living room, accepted his glass of champagne, and sat opposite Russo.

“Can we talk business?”

“Always.”

“Good.” Sollazo told him in detail of his conversation with Salamone.

When he was finished, the Don said, “More than interesting. And the faxes?”

“They confirm the mention in the
New York Times
, but in more detail. Naturally, as usual with newspapers, the accounts differ, but broadly speaking they agree as to general details. A truck carrying fifty million pounds in gold bullion was knocked off on a country road in the English Lake District. A young boy told the police he’d been chased away from a ferry called the
Irish Rose
at an old disused jetty not far from the scene of the action. He also said he’d seen a truck of the right description turn off the main road toward the ferry later in the day.”

“So?”

“Obviously the bullion truck put to sea on the ferry.”

“And what happened?”

“End of story. Over the next few days a smashed-up ship’s boat, lifebelts, and so on, all bearing the name
Irish Rose
, were washed up on the coast of County Down.”

“I see.” Don Antonio sat there frowning. “And Salamone said that in a fever, this man Kelly spoke of being the only one who knew where the boat went down?”

“That’s right.”

“And you said bullion of the order of fifty million pounds?”

“Yes, but that was ten years ago. Gold prices have greatly increased. I’d say at least one hundred million pounds in present terms.”

“Now that kind of money is always interesting.”

“I was thinking,” Sollazo said, “with the right kind of salvage boat these recovery jobs are quite easy these days, as long as you know where the ship is, which the authorities don’t.”

“So they tell me.” Don Antonio sat there thinking about it. Finally he nodded. “I wonder who this man Kelly was working for. Was it just business or the IRA or something like that?”

“It’s a thought,” Sollazo said.

“You know, a few years ago I had dealings with the IRA. We used to provide arms through a Sicilian connection. Their Chief of Staff was a man called Barry — Jack Barry.”

Sollazo said, “It’s all peace talk with the IRA these days. Gerry Adams at the White House speaking for their Sinn Fein party.”

“So what?” the Don said. “Barry is an old fox. If anyone will know anything of this affair, it will be him. His private number in Dublin will be in my special address book in the top right-hand drawer of my desk. See if you can get him.”

I
N
D
UBLIN
J
ACK
B
ARRY
was sitting by the fire, bored out of his mind and reading a newspaper, rain brushing the window, when the phone rang.

“Barry here.”

“Mr. Jack Barry? Is that you? An old friend, I hope. Don Antonio Russo.”

“Dear God,” Barry said. “And what can I do for you?”

“More what can we do for each other, Mr. Barry. I’m talking serious business here. Does the name
Irish Rose
mean anything to you?”

Barry swallowed hard. “Should it?”

“What would you say if I told you that I know the whereabouts of a man who calls himself Kelly, but in a fever speaks of being the only one who knows where the ship has gone down, the only one who knows where the gold is?”

“I’d be more than interested.”

“Fine. It seems to me we might have a mutual interest here that could profit both of us. My nephew, Marco Sollazo, who is also my lawyer, will be with you tomorrow.”

“I look forward to meeting him.”

Don Antonio put the phone down. “We have a good source at Green Rapids Detention Center?”

“An excellent one.”

“Phone now. We need a copy of Kelly’s photo as quickly as possible, then get in touch with the airport and tell them to have the Gulfstream ready to go. Let’s say midnight. They’re four hours ahead in Ireland so you’ll be able to see Barry late morning.”

“Of course, Uncle.”

“And then dinner.” Don Antonio smiled. “Suddenly I have quite an appetite.”

I
N
D
UBLIN ON
the following morning it was just coming up to noon when Barry answered the sound of the bell at his front door and found Marco Sollazo standing there.

“Mr. Barry?”

“And you’d be Mr. Sollazo?”

“That’s right.”

“Come in for a moment while I get my coat. You’ll have to excuse the mess, I’m on my own these days. My wife died last year.”

Marco Sollazo waited in the small parlour. There was a sofa, two easy chairs, a fireplace, faded family photos of children at various stages of their development. It all fitted with the image of the pleasant-faced sixty-year-old man in the cardigan whom he had just met and yet this man had been for several crucial years Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA.

He came in wearing a raincoat and cloth cap. “We’ll take a walk in the park and then have a drink and a bite to eat at Cohan’s Bar.”

“Anything you like.”

Barry took an umbrella down from a hatpeg in the hall. “Just in case,” he said. “This is Ireland, remember.”

They crossed the road to where the park waited behind green painted railings. Sollazo said, “Your home, is it unsafe to talk there? Do they have you wired for sound?”

“Hell no. Oh, they tried it back in the old days, the British Secret Intelligence Service, Irish Intelligence, Dublin Special Branch. I had my own experts who used to come round once a week and sweep the house. I expect your uncle had to take the same precautions.”

“And still does.”

“Well I’m not Chief of Staff for the IRA anymore.” He smiled. “A time for peace, Mr. Sollazo, that’s what they tell me.”

“So no more IRA?”

Barry laughed out loud. “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. There’s another Chief of Staff in my place, our command structure intact throughout the country, and as your President and the British Prime Minister have found to their cost, we don’t intend to give up our arms.”

“Yes, I understand from the newspapers that the refusal of your people to comply in the matter of arms is a main talking point when the President visits London on Friday.”

“They can talk until they’re blue in the face, it won’t make any difference. We’ll hang on to our arms come what may.”

“You don’t think this peace will last?”

“It never has before.” They turned through the park gates and it started to rain, and Barry raised the umbrella. “I told you it would. Anyway, let’s get down to business.”

Sollazo took the photo his contact at Green Rapids had provided the previous night. “Do you know this man?”

“I certainly do,” Barry nodded. “His name is Michael Ryan, once a notorious gunman for the Loyalist cause, a black Orangeman from Belfast.”

“Would it surprise you to know that he’s been in prison in America for the past ten years?”

Barry smiled. “Now there’s a wonder. He dropped out of sight in nineteen eighty-five, but totally, and I could never figure that out. What did he do?”

“He shot a policeman while robbing a bank. They gave him twenty-five years.”

“Poor sod.” Barry whistled. “He must be sixty-five now. I don’t suppose he’s got much chance of seeing the light of day.”

“Not really. He can apply for probation after fifteen years, but he’d be around seventy by then and not much chance of parole, anyway. He shot a policeman, remember.”