The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (28 page)

He finished an hour later, and had become a sweating, trembling collection of parts he could barely control when Frank stepped into the barn, wearing a jacket and tie. He cradled a large thermos and two mugs in one hand, and carried his briefcase in the other. Conor hiked an eyebrow at the green thermos, obviously an old and well-used artifact.

"I take my mugs as I find them," Frank explained, "but one should never leave home without a proper thermos. The Stanley model is one of America's greatest contributions to civilization. Shall I pour? I'd hoped for a visit amongst your livestock, but perhaps you ought to sit down. I don't suppose you have a break room or some such?"

"No." Conor smiled. In the most grueling of circumstances, his boss never lost the power to amuse. "Let's get you out of here. My head is hammering as it is. Touring you around my cow barn will make it explode altogether."

They sat on the picnic bench, side-by side in friendly silence, sipping their tea and watching the morning fog roll up off the pasture.

"What's your stake in this, Frank?" Conor kept his eyes fixed ahead, setting his mug down between them. "I'm remembering our first dinner at your club in London. You talked about getting intelligence on a global money-laundering operation that props up terrorist groups. That was a load of shite and you knew as much, even then. It wasn't any global operation, no network of smurfs running around throwing cash into off-shore accounts. No international wizard. This is small beer, really. One criminal fucker and his two pathetic sidekicks snookered a man into breaking the law and joining them. A job for Interpol and local police. Why would MI6 care? If there's intelligence to collect and analyze it's like shooting a gnat with a feckin' howitzer. So why is British intelligence even involved in this? Or are they?"
 

Conor faced Frank, steeling himself for the answer to that last question. The agent's initial reaction was unsettling. He closed his eyes and dropped his head with a smile, looking relieved at finally being caught.

"Ah, Conor. As if you haven't suffered enough you have the torment of wondering whether all along you've been under the finger of a rogue agent, operating off the ledger. Not the case, I assure you. The mission has always been officially recognized by MI6. I will admit however, I used my position and seniority in the service to make it so."

He reached down and picked up his briefcase. Conor thought he would leave without further explanation. He'd experienced that sort of anti-climax before. Instead, Frank pulled out the folder from the previous evening and passed the photograph to him.

"The third man in the picture. Desmond Moore. You know his name, but not all of his story. He was a hard-living, hard-drinking criminal who drifted into the Irish National Liberation Army, and then to the Armagh branch of the IPLO. Unbeknownst to him, he was also an informant, passing information to British intelligence on the groups' ties to the international drug and arms trade. Desmond Moore was my younger brother."

"Holy mother of God." The blood drained from Conor's face before quickly flowing back in a rush of irritation. "You didn't think this was something I deserved to be told?"

Frank shrugged. "The story was tangential to your mission, and to be perfectly honest I was ashamed to tell you. I supported Desi, just like a big brother should. Money for him, and money for his causes. In return—although he never realized it—he supported me. My career became cemented on the back of my access to those two paramilitary organizations. When the IRA disbanded the IPLO, Desi mucked about with illegal bookmaking and small-time drug dealing and we fell out of touch. As you correctly observed, those sorts of activities are of small interest to MI6. Several years later he came to me, wanting drinking money for a trip to Geneva. He'd been recruited into a project so secret he wouldn't even tell me, but he was childishly excited. The matter didn't seem worth much attention. When he returned I dutifully tried to ply him with money and whiskey, and then more money, but to no avail. Later he disappeared, and I was relieved. He represented an unpleasant weight on my conscience. Then, a few years before you and I first met, someone discovered the remains of a mutilated body on the edge of an Armagh construction site."

Frank took the photograph back and slipped it into his briefcase. "Desi was no Thomas McBride. He was not a good man. Along with being a criminal he was a cruel and uncouth bigot, but he was my own brother. My blood. I assiduously betrayed him over a number of years then tossed him aside when his value no longer compensated for my discomfort. After the discovery of his body I set about unraveling what he'd been getting up to, going back to the first period when I lost touch with him, which eventually led me to a pub in Dingle, and a story about a couple of lads from Armagh who had corrupted Thomas McBride and ruined his little brother's life."

He finished his tea, and brushed a few invisible specks of nothing from his trouser leg. "So you see, there is something personal for both of us in this journey, although mine is largely one of atonement."

"You're not alone in that either, Frank," Conor said.
 

They shared a long silence, each of them wandering in memories, until Frank sighed and rose from the bench. "My flight leaves Burlington in less than three hours." Watching Conor brace his hands against the bench and struggle to his feet he added, "You'd do well to crawl back into bed. We can talk when you've had a few days to recuperate from all this."

"No. Don't pull this on me again." Conor straightened. "Don't just disappear like the last time and leave me wondering. You have to deal me in on however this is going to end. I've earned that much."

"Of course you have, Conor. That, and a great deal more." Frank regarded him fondly. "Very well. I'll tell you the latest. Sedgwick has had some luck in picking up information on the DEA's traitor, Tony Costino. We believe the next move in this chess game centers around him. Costino hoped Durgan would help in finding you, but that was over two months ago, and Durgan's most recent aggression was not actually against you. This suggests he's been withholding assistance. Now things have changed. His master plan is off the rails and he must assume Ciaran Wilson, his last trusted associate, is in custody cooperating with the FBI. Since the Garda raided his house in Dingle he realizes his real identity has been exposed. We've located and frozen all his bank accounts, both legal and illicit, so he's living on whatever cash he had on hand when he disappeared. The Garda haven't the manpower for ongoing surveillance, but they've been doing regular evening rounds on his house as well as your old farmhouse in Dingle, but he's not turned up at either of them. He's on the run, trapped in Ireland, which is too small a place to hide for long. He needs help, and the only bit of leverage left to him is the information about you that Costino is looking for. I expect they will connect again soon, if they haven't already. If Sedgwick can find him, I'm quite confident he'll be able to 'persuade' Costino to lead us to Durgan. I'll be conferring with him in a few days and I promise to keep you involved. In the meantime, take good care of the lovely Kate, and for God's sake take care of yourself. She will need your support in the weeks ahead."

Conor looked down at the bench, a different sort of pain slicing through his chest. "I doubt she wants anything from me."

"Nonsense. Who do you suppose sent me over with the tea? I mentioned you were not in your room and she instantly knew where you'd gone. She was quite alarmed." Frank smiled. "A little time and space my boy, and patience. You are a challenging package of oddities to be sure, but Kate is a woman of spirit, and you are far too good—and far too handsome—for her to give up on you."

I
N
THE
WEEK
following Frank's departure, Kate slept little, usually waking with a dull headache and a jaw so clenched she had to coax her brain into letting it loose. She spent the better part of each day in her office with the door closed, emerging only to escape into the twilight for a restless hike through woods and meadows.

Her predominant emotion during this time was anger. Not a blistering rage—that might have blazed hot and fast and burned out more quickly. Her anger seemed like a low fever she tended daily, a symptom to indulge when the underlying disease is too frightening to tackle. It took root with the first glimpse of her wedding portrait lying exposed on the coffee table as a bloodless piece of evidence, and it became the only firewall she had to prevent the revelation from destroying her.

Irrational and unfocused, nothing wandering within its radius was exempt from her resentment, including Conor. She made no pretense about her intention to avoid him, but on the rare occasions when their paths did cross she didn't ignore him—she did something worse. She managed their exchanges by playing the role of the quintessential innkeeper asking after her guests. How did he feel? Was there anything he needed? Her superficial tone clearly hurt him, but she couldn't seem to stop. Conor didn't complain, and since she treated him like a guest he behaved as one. He kept mostly to his room as he convalesced, playing his violin softly in the mornings, and she often heard his lilting voice in the lobby outside her office, charming the real guests into senseless enchantment.
 

Abigail served as their reluctant envoy, passing messages and providing updates in sad confusion until Kate at last confided in her. The situation once more proved the solid worth of her friend. Kate had always known Abigail's blustering theatrics were a salt meant to flavor the environment as needed. She understood when to grind the mill, and when to put it away. With tensions running high Abigail provided quiet leadership, comforting the inn's skittish staff and offering a listening ear for its two most miserable occupants.

The crisis reached its tipping point after eight days, on an evening of cold rain. Kate had stopped in the relative shelter of some pine trees, near the composting remains of the garden. She saw Conor coming across the meadow with a closed umbrella, his capped head bent against the icy downpour. Reaching her, he offered the umbrella with a tentative smile, but she crossed her arms and gazed beyond his shoulder.

"You're being foolish." She sniffed. "You shouldn't be out here in this."

"I might venture to say the same. Here. Take this if you're going to stay outside."

She took the umbrella roughly from his hand. "Why don't you ever use one yourself for God's sake?"

He stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "Because men are feckin' eejits. We'd sooner be caught naked than under an umbrella."

"That's ridiculous."

"Yeah."

At least she'd managed to stop talking to him like a robotic hostess, but Kate couldn't bring herself to go further. She stood under the umbrella, signaling him with stony silence.

"Kate, I understand you don't want to talk to me. I suppose I just wanted to tell you how sorry—"

"Conor, stop." She held up a hand, frowning impatiently. "Look, a lot of this isn't even about you, so don't try to take it all on and be a martyr to some misplaced sense of guilt. You do that, you know."

"Right, but—"

"No." She motioned again for him to stop. "Shut up and listen. You didn't lie through two years of marriage or let me nearly drown in the ocean, or do anything to try to hurt me. You don't own that guilt, so leave it alone. But you did bring this down on me. Of course you didn't intend to, but because you showed up at my door I'm dealing with something I might never have needed to know, and you know what? That would have been fine. He lied to me, he nearly got me killed, he robbed me and was ready to try again, but however unintentional, the one kindness Michael did for me was to let me think he was dead. What good does it do me to know the truth? What the fuck am I supposed to do with it? I've got all this unwanted reality and for that, yes, you're right to apologize. For that, you need my forgiveness."

"Will I ever get it, do you think?"

"I don't know."

Conor's head had been bowed throughout this tirade, his face obscured by his cap. Now, he pulled the bill more firmly over his eyes, and without looking up turned and walked back to the house.

As soon as he'd left her, Kate realized the anger that had fortified her was exhausted, expelled into the night with one furious outburst. In its place, confusion and sorrow finally came forward, like a distant relative at a funeral, waiting in the corner until recognized.

She'd committed to a life with the man she knew as Michael Fitzpatrick because she thought it offered more meaning than the lifestyle her family embodied. She'd treasured the memory of every happy time they'd shared, but now she reflected on the moments of unease she'd banished from her mind, of his aloof moods and unusual limitations. Of disappointments she'd accepted. She'd too easily assumed responsibility for everything. Her own privileged upbringing had created a sense of self-conscious guilt, something that seemed like the opposite of entitlement. He'd seen her vulnerability, and had used it against her.

What could she infer from any fonder memories, now? Those times when they'd been happy together. Had any of his attentions been sincere, or merely tactics employed to advance an end? Was anything they'd shared genuine? Had he loved her at all?

The sobs came at last, and she was relieved to finally give in to them. Kate turned and put her face to the rough, cracked bark of the pine tree, surrendering to the pain her soul must accept if it was ever to heal.

S
HE
RETURNED
LONG
past the dinner hour, slipping in through the front door. Being Monday, the dining room was closed, the ground floor quiet. The darkness was softened by pools of light from the few scattered lamps that remained on through the night. Kate heard the muffled movements of guests overhead, and she smelled bacon, which meant Conor must have eaten breakfast for supper again. A "fry up" as he called it, was about the sum total of his cooking prowess.