The Hostage (25 page)

The train stopped and the doors opened. Henri looked up to see the two men drag Hank from his seat and along the aisle past the elderly woman, who could do nothing, but watch in utter horror.They pulled Hank down the stairs, took an arm each and lifted his limp body out of the train. The biggest of the men, the one who had been seated behind Hank, lifted him easily on to his shoulder and together they walked casually down the platform, Henri in front, sombre as an undertaker. The handful of people in the station took little notice or couldn’t care less about what appeared to be a drunk being carried home by his workmates.

No station staff were on duty at the turnstile as Henri led them through. The two powerful men followed, each pausing to slide his ticket into the machine and push on through.

They trooped down a flight of steps into a short, litter-filled tunnel, which led out to a small car park in the centre of the sleepy town. They walked to a van that looked as if it had seen many miles over many years. The squat man opened the back; Hank was thrown on to the dirty floor and the door was closed. Henri climbed into the passenger seat and the squat man into the driver’s seat. A moment later the van was driving out of the car park. The large man in the back rolled the unconscious Hank on to his front, took a length of cord and tied Hank’s wrists together. He looped the line around Hank’s neck, pulling on it so that Hank’s arms bent further up his back, and then bent Hank’s feet back and tied the line around his ankles. Hank lay trussed up better than a turkey, blood bubbling from his mouth as he breathed, the rest of his face bloody from the gash across his forehead. The large man sat back on a box, produced a packet of non-filter Gitanes from a pocket, lit one and handed it to the driver. He lit another and offered it to Henri, who declined with a polite wave. As the two men puffed on their cigarettes, filling the van with smoke, Henri opened his window.

Bill Lawton cracked open a miniature whisky and poured it into the plastic cup, over ice that had not had time to melt before the first double had been drained. An overactive imagination was keeping him from convincing himself that he was not blown.Thirty-three thousand feet below he could see the coast of England from his window at the back of the British Airways 757. The thought they might be waiting for him in Heathrow had almost changed his mind about catching the flight, but he concluded that if they knew about him they would have nabbed him right away to avoid the risk of letting him slip from their grasp. But then again it was possible they might have wanted to watch him to see if he led them to anyone else.

Before checking on to the flight Bill had pondered his pitifully few options if he did choose to run. The Republic would not be a wise option. There was nowhere in that country he could start a new life. He didn’t know who his handler was. It was someone high up obviously, but there were dozens to choose from. Going over to the Republic was the last thing Bill wanted to do anyway. What with the new relationship the Irish Government had with Britain in the fight against terrorism he would be as unsafe there as in England. He had enough money to fly to some foreign country, South America for instance, buy a car or motorbike and head into the hills, perhaps literally. But the fact that he still had access to his money indicated they did not know about him or at least were not ready to pull him in. He had gone to a cash dispenser in the airport and had drawn out the maximum he could from his bank account and two credit cards. If they did want to pull him in the first thing they would have done was block his money sources to impede his attempt to escape.

If he did decide to run the obvious location was North America. It would be the safest civilised location before settling for a shack in the middle of some godforsaken jungle or outback. But America had problems for him too.That vast country would only truly be a safe haven under the protection of one person in particular, the man who got him into all of this in the first place, but the very thought of meeting him again filled Bill with bitter resentment. Bill told himself to forget about running, for the time being at least. The powers that be did not know the identity of their RIRA spy yet and doing a runner would point the finger straight at him. It would be wise to plan to run eventually but for now he had to carry on as normal and use the time to organise it properly. He would gradually liquefy all his assets and then at the right moment quietly slip away. It would help if he knew whether or not Henri had escaped.That would aid his assessment of the situation with regard to the time he had. But then again, even if Henri had been caught, Bill doubted he would give them an accurate description of his British contact. Henri had the appearance and manner of a hardened vet, one of the old school. It would make sense, in the light of Bill’s value, that his handler employed a middle-man who was worth his salt.

Bill assessed how difficult it would be for military intelligence to track him down based on their knowledge that their spy had quite likely travelled from the UK to Paris within twenty-four hours of the meeting. A check of all the flight listings wouldn’t do them any good since he was travelling on a false passport, and that was assuming he had flown between Paris and Heathrow. As far as they knew he might have travelled by train, ferry, car or caught a flight from one of half-a-dozen locations in the UK - with the option of as many carriers - to numerous European airports prior to arriving in Paris. Their only real hope was to wait for him to rear his head again, but he wouldn’t. After the scare he had today his spying days were over. Even his handlers would have to concede that one.

He repeated the words to himself. ‘It’s over, over at last.’ He could finally justify pulling out of the game he felt he had been manipulated into like a fool from the beginning. ‘That fucking bastard of a priest,’ he spat with intensity, unaware whether he’d actually said the words aloud. He looked over at the man across the aisle, who was still looking out of the window. He made an effort to calm himself down again.

He thought about being able to live a normal existence without the constant threat and worry of life imprisonment or assassination. But there might also be a price to pay for closing shop. There were some who would be angered by it. A lot of hopes were riding on him. It all depended on what the godfathers would say and how they would react. Surely they could figure out for themselves that it was over for him.

Of course,
he
wouldn’t,
Father fucking Kinsella!
That bastard wouldn’t let Bill off the hook quite so easily. He would happily leave Bill to be squeezed dry until he was caught and fried. Kinsella would interpret Bill’s end as invaluable publicity for the cause. The press would be all over it. Bill would be touted as the most successful and highly placed IRA mole within British military intelligence in the IRA’s history. Father Kinsella would of course communicate to Bill how sorry he was, but privately he would see it as Bill’s final and greatest contribution. ‘The fanatical bastard,’ Bill uttered as his blood started to boil once again. Then he sensed the man across the aisle look at him. Bill was thinking out loud. He drained his beaker and warned himself to calm down.

Bill considered the pros and cons of playing the godfathers along. He could try the extended vacation approach, asking for a hibernation long enough to ensure his identity was safe, several years for instance. But that was not something Bill really fancied trying. It would be like a ‘buy now pay later’ deal. The fact that he would have to start up again eventually would always be hanging over his head. And Father Kinsella would not forget to wake him up again. Bill was his greatest success and he would milk the glory to the bitter end - Bill’s end. How could a priest become such a manipulative bastard? Bill wondered. And why had it taken him so long to figure it out?

Bill could feel himself getting worked up again and needed a distraction. He took the duty-free catalogue from the pouch in front of him and flicked through it.What about tonight? he thought. Should he still see Aggy?

He looked up to see a stewardess approaching and he hit her with that Irish smile of his, which automatically appeared whenever an attractive woman looked at him.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘What do I have to do to get something from this catalogue?’

‘You ask me, sir,’ she said, returning his smile.‘What would you like?’

He pointed to one of the perfume bottles on the page. ‘What’s this one like?’

‘It’s the most expensive.’

‘Then I’ll take it . . . and have one yourself.’

Her smile widened to show a set of perfect teeth. ‘It doesn’t suit me,’ she said. ‘But thanks anyway.’ Her eyes lingered on his beyond the boundaries of normal service requirements. ‘I’ll go and get that for you,’ she said and walked away.

Bill leaned into the aisle to check out her shapely calves and bottom. Life was such a wonderful thing, he thought, and he had so much to lose. It was far too optimistic to be planning a normal life just yet but Bill was a flagrant romantic and the contemplation was irresistible. Sadly even a beautiful bottom such as that could not rid him of his fears. The black light of death was searching for him, he could sense it. He had been an idiot and he hated himself for it as much as he hated that bastard. He truly was the reluctant spy. He thought back to when he got into this crazy game. It had been a long, slow, process spanning several years. The truth was it went beyond the time of the priest, all the way back to the beginning. But that’s why the priest chose him.

William Lawton had not always been his name. He was two years old when the Lawton family took him in. It was not uncommon for a Catholic baby to be adopted by a Protestant family. Children aren’t born with religious, political or racial beliefs and the Lawton family did not mind where the child came from as long as it was the Celt side of Anglo-Saxon. His legal father was a copyright lawyer, born and educated in Northern Ireland and employed by a partnership that had offices in Belfast and London.The family had houses in the centre of both cities and even though his father spent most of his time in the Belfast office his mother preferred London, not least because it meant getting out from under the marshal law that governed the Province. By the time Bill was a teenager she had become entrenched in her only true interest - and the main reason she wanted to live in London - her charity organisation. She would be out of the house from dawn till late on her never-ending quest to feed and clothe the poor children of the world, which is what led to Bill boarding at the Royal Hospital School near Ipswich at thirteen years old. The school was a grand old institution and strongly associated with the Royal Navy, enforcing upon its students traditions such as parading most Sunday mornings before church in full dress uniform, brass band and rifles included. The school was equally enthusiastic about rugby, and even though he did not make head of house or captain of the first fifteen, his two foremost ambitions at the time, Bill had to say at the end of his five years at the school that he had enjoyed every one of them. He saw his parents on average once every couple of months for the first few years and by fifteen started spending more of his half- and full-term breaks with friends or travelling. For the last two years he spent all his vacations, apart from a couple of days around Christmas, roving alone, mostly across mainland Britain and occasionally France. He preferred travelling by himself for a number of reasons: none of his friends shared his specific historical interests; he was a spontaneous sightseer, jumping on and off trains as it suited him; but most importantly, he had learned how much easier it was to meet girls when alone.

He had never ventured into the Irish Republic for no other reason than he had not developed an interest in Irish history; his trips were generally motivated by his interest in a place. He was not particularly intrigued by politics or religion but would describe himself as a Loyalist or a Protestant if pushed. He bore no ill towards Catholics and like most people his age on the mainland he did not particularly care what the Troubles in Northern Ireland were about and wanted to see the bombing and the fighting come to an end.

Bill was eighteen and on his summer holidays prior to starting university when his curiosity about his origins grew enough to motivate him to explore them - as long as the process wasn’t too time consuming. Bill was not necessarily interested in meeting his birth parents; if anything he was inspired once again by his fascination with history. His prime area of interest was eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European history, specifically the French revolution, the British industrial revolution and America’s formative years up to the First World War. He hoped his own family history would reveal itself to have played some part in those times but he was not expecting much. He had no idea how his life was to change with the discovery of his ancestors, or one in particular.

It was his father who, respectful of the young man’s inquisitiveness, furnished him with the information that set the investigation in motion. He dug up the old adoption papers, which showed Bill’s birth parents to be John and Mary Meagher. His father was not completely sure about all the facts but he believed they were both killed in a traffic accident. Bill was a competent researcher and looked forward to the challenge of uncovering more. It did not take him long to discover his parents had died on a Saturday afternoon in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. John and Mary Meagher were originally from Tipperary in the Irish Republic and had left it five years before Bill was born to move to Ulster to take over the small farm John had inherited from an uncle. When John and his wife died, the farm, which was not a particularly successful venture, was taken over by relatives who owned adjacent divisions of what was originally one large concern.

Bill’s research failed to produce a location where they were buried and so he decided to visit the farm in the hope of finding out more. It turned out the family that had taken over the farmhouse were distant cousins and they informed Bill his parents had been killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver and that their bodies had been sent back to the Republic for burial. The cousins showed little enthusiasm in helping Bill. In fact they were down right inhospitable. They were unimpressed that Bill had come all the way from London that day and did not even invite him into the house for a cup of tea, conducting the entire conversation on the doorstep. The last thing Bill asked before leaving was if they had any photographs of his parents. They did not, and with that they closed the door on him. Bill felt embarrassed and confused by their hostility and it was only on the bus back to the family home in Belfast that it dawned on him that it was possibly because of his accent. He might have been born a Catholic, and a Meagher, but as far as they were concerned, he was now an English Protestant, kin or not.