And to some purpose, sir. Fox whistled. Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star with Oak Leaves, Vietnamese Cross of Valor. He frowned. And the Legion of Honour. How in the hell did the French get involved?
Ferguson stood up and walked to the window. An interesting one, that. His last flamboyant gesture. He saved the neck of a famous French war photographer, a woman, would you believe it, name of Anne-Marie Audin. Some ambush or other. She pops up in the story again. The photo from the Paris-Match article, remember, with Brosnan, Liam Devlin and Frank Barry? The good Mademoiselle Audin took that, amongst others. She wrote the same story for Life Magazine and got a Pulitzer Prize for it. A behind-the-scenes look at the Irish struggle. Went down very well in Boston.
Fox reached for the next file. But how in the hell did he move on from that to the IRA?
Wildly illogical, but beautifully simple, Ferguson turned and walked back to the fire. Ill shorthand it for you and save you some time. On leaving the army, Brosnan went to Trinity College, Dublin, to work for that doctorate we mentioned. In August, nineteen sixty-nine, he was visiting an old Catholic uncle on his mothers side, a priest-in-charge of a Church on the Falls Road in Belfast. When did you first visit that fair city, Harry?
Nineteen seventy-six, sir.
Ferguson nodded. So much has happened, so much water under the bridge, that the first wild years of the Troubles must seem like ancient history to people like you. So many names, faces. He sighed and sat down. During Brosnans visit, Orange mobs led by B Specials, an organisation now happily defunct, went on the rampage. They burnt down Brosnans uncles Church. In fact, the old man was so badly beaten he lost an eye.
I see, Fox said soberly.
No you dont, Harry. I had an agent once called Vaughan Major Simon Vaughan. Wont work for me now, but thats another story. He really did see, because like Brosnan, he had an Irish mother. Oh, the IRA has its fair share of thugs and mad bombers and too many men like Frank Barry, perhaps, but it also has its Liam Devlins and its Martin Brosnans. Genuine idealists in the Pearse and Connolly and Michael Collins tradition. Whether you agree with them or not, men who believe passionately that theyre engaged in a struggle for which the stake is nothing less than the freedom of their country.
Fox raised his gloved hand. Sorry, sir, but Ive seen women and kids run screaming from a bombing too many times to believe that one any more.
Exactly, Ferguson said. Men like Devlin and Brosnan want to be able to fight with clean hands and a little honour. Their tragedy is that in this kind of war that just is not possible.
He got up again and paced the room restlessly. You see, I cant blame Brosnan for what happened in Belfast that night in August, sixty-nine. A handful of Republicans, no more than six in all led by Liam Devlin, took to the streets. They had three rifles, two revolvers and a rather antiquated Thompson sub-machine gun. Brosnan found himself caught up in the thick of it during the defence of the Church, and when one of them was shot dead at Devlins side, he picked up the mans rifle instinctively. He was far and away the most experienced fighting man there, remember. From then on he was caught up in the IRA cause, Devlins right-hand man during the period Devlin was Chief of Staff in Ulster.
Then what?
During the first couple of years or so, it was fine. Men like Devlin and Brosnan were able to fight the good old-fashioned guerrilla kind of war that would have delighted Michael Collins heart. No bombs they left that to men like Frank Barry. Taking on the army was the way Devlin saw it. He believed that was the way to gain world sympathy for the Cause. By the way, how would you feel if you were the General Officer commanding Northern Ireland, and you went into the private office of your headquarters at Lisburn one fine morning and found a rose on your desk?
Good God.
Yes, Brosnan loved that sort of nonsensical and foolhardy gesture. The rose was a play on his own name of course. Not only did he do it to the G.O.C., he also left one for the then Ulster Prime Minister and for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The implication was clear enough.
He could have killed and didnt.
Thats right. Brosnans rose. Ferguson laughed. We had to make it classified to keep it out of the papers, not that theyd have believed it. Who would?
What happened later?
All changed, didnt it? An escalation of the worst kind of bloodshed, the bombers gained the ascendancy in the movement. Devlin became Chief Intelligence Officer in Dublin. Brosnan worked with him as a kind of roving aide.
Reading on through the file, Fox said, It says here hes got Irish Nationality. Hows that, sir?
Well, the American Government was not exactly delighted with his activities. Then in nineteen seventy-four, Devlin sent him to New York to execute an informer whod been helped to seek refuge in America by the Ulster Constabulary after selling information which had led to the arrest of nearly every member of the North Belfast Brigade. Brosnan accomplished his task with his usual ruthless efficiency, got out of New York by the skin of his teeth. When the American State Department tried to extradite him, he claimed Irish Nationality, which he was entitled to do under Irish law because his mother was born there. If youre interested, Harry, I could do the same. My grandmother was born in Cork.
Fox quickly glanced through the rest of the file. And then the French business.
Thats right. Devlin sent him to France in nineteen seventy-five to negotiate an arms consignment. The middle man concerned turned out to be a police informer. When Brosnan arrived at a fishing village on the Brittany coast to take delivery, a large consignment of riot police was waiting for him. In the ensuing fracas, he wounded two and shot one dead, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Belle Isle.
Belle Isle, sir?
The French dont have Devils Island any more, Harry. They just have Belle Isle. In the Mediterranean, of course, which sounds pleasanter, but it isnt.
Fox closed the files. All right, sir, but where is all this getting us?
Set a thief to catch a thief, Harry. You said it.
Fox gazed at him in astonishment. But hes in prison, sir. You said so yourself.
For the past four years, Ferguson said. But what if we could do something about that?
The internal phone rang and Ferguson went to it and picked it up. He nodded. Fine. Tell him well be straight down. He turned to Fox. Right, Harry, grab your coat and lets get moving. We havent got much time.
He moved to the door and Fox followed him. With respect, sir, where to?
Bradbury Lines Barracks at Hereford, Harry. Headquarters of Twenty-second Special Air Service, to be precise. Ill explain it on the way, and he hustled on through the door like a strong wind.
It was cold in the street outside, rain reflecting on the black asphalt, and as the big black Bentley pulled away, Harry Fox leaned back against the seat and buttoned his old cavalry overcoat one-handed. So many things circling in his mind, so much had happened and Brosnan simply wouldnt go away, this man he had never met and yet felt he knew as intimately as a brother. He closed his eyes and wondered what Brosnan was doing now.
It was cold in the street outside, rain reflecting on the black asphalt, and as the big black Bentley pulled away, Harry Fox leaned back against the seat and buttoned his old cavalry overcoat one-handed. So many things circling in his mind, so much had happened and Brosnan simply wouldnt go away, this man he had never met and yet felt he knew as intimately as a brother. He closed his eyes and wondered what Brosnan was doing now.
Belle Isle is a rock situated forty miles to the east of Marseilles and some ten miles from the coast. The fortress, an eighteenth century anachronism, seems to grow out of the very cliffs themselves, one of the grimmest sights in the whole of the Mediterranean. There is the fortress, there is the granite quarry, and there are some six hundred prisoners, political offenders or criminals of the most dangerous kind. Most of them are serving life sentences and, the French authorities taking the term seriously, most of them will die there. One thing is certain. No one has ever escaped from Belle Isle.
The reasons are simple. No vessel may approach closer than four miles and the designated clear area around the island is closely monitored by an excellent approach radar system. And Belle Isle has another highly efficient protection system provided by nature itself, a phenomenom known to local fishermen as the Mill Race, a ferocious ten knot current that churns the water into white foam on even a calm day. Hell on earth in a storm.
Martin Brosnan lay on his bed in a cell on the upper landing, reading, head pillowed on his hands. He was stripped to the waist, strong and muscular, his body toughened by hard labour in the granite quarry. There were the ugly puckered scars of two old bullet wounds in his left breast. His dark hair was too long, almost shoulder-length. In such matters the authorities were surprisingly civilised, as the books on the wooden shelf above the bed indicated.
The man on the opposite bed, tossed a pack of Gitanes across. Have a smoke, Martin, he said in French.
He looked about sixty-five with very white hair and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face. His name was Jacques Savary, a Union Corse godfather and one of the most famous gangsters in Marseilles in his day. He had been a prisoner in Belle Isle since 1965, would remain there until he died, an unusual circumstance in one of his background for usually the Union Corse, the largest organised crime syndicate in France, was able to use its formidable influence with the judiciary to pull strings on behalf of members of Jacques Savarys standing who found themselves in trouble.
But Savary was different. He had chosen to ally himself to the cause of the OAS. It has been said that Charles de Gaulle survived at least thirty attempts on his life, but he had never been closer to death than during the attack masterminded by Jacques Savary in March, 1965. The Union had at least saved him from execution, settling instead for a life sentence on Belle Isle, mistakenly assuming that his release could be arranged at some future date.
Rain lashed the window, the wind howled. Savary said, What are you reading?
Eliot, Brosnan told him. What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
The Four Quartets. Little Gidding, Savary said.
Good man, Brosnan told him. See, all the benefits of an expensive education, Jacques, and youre getting it for free.
And you also, my friend, have learnt many things. Can you still open the door the way I showed you?
Brosnan shrugged, swung his legs to the floor, picked up a spoon from his bedside locker and went to the door. The lock was covered by a steel plate and he quickly forced the handle of the spoon between the edge of the plate and the jamb. He worked it across for a few seconds, there was a click and he opened the door a few inches.
The same locks since eighteen fifty-two or something like that, Savary said.
So what, it doesnt get me anywhere, only to the landing, Brosnan said. I never told you this before, but I once worked out a way to get out. A little climbing, a certain amount of wading through the central sewage system and I could be outside. Found that out three years ago.
Savary sat up, his face pale. Then why have you never done anything about it?
Because it gets you nothing. Youre still on the rock and nowhere to go.
There was the sound of footsteps ascending the steel steps at the far end of the landing and Brosnan quickly closed the door and worked the spoon around again. There was a slight click and he hurried across to the bed and lay down.
The footsteps halted outside, a key turned in the lock, the door opened. The uniformed guard who looked in was an amiable looking man named Lebel with a heavy Walrus moustache. He wore an oilskin.
Stir it you two, I need your services.
And what have we done to deserve the honour, Pierre? Savary demanded.
When I suffer, you suffer; you know I like you, Lebel said as they moved past him on to the landing. The bastards have just given me the burial detail for the next month and you know the regulations. When they take their last swim, it must be at night.
They paused for Lebel to unlock the door in the great steel mesh curtain at the end of the landing and Brosnan peered through it to the central hall below.
Whos dead? Savary demanded.
Lebel looked at the paper in his hand. 67824 Bouvier. Served thirty-two years. Cancer of the bowel.
It was a sobering enough thought to kill any further conversation as they descended to the hall and went over to the outer door where the judas gate was unlocked for them by another officer. They crossed the courtyard outside and climbed the steps to the mortuary.
It was a simple enough room with whitewashed walls, and lit by a single naked light. There were several well scrubbed wooden benches in a neat row. The corpse waited on one of them, strapped in a canvas body bag. An old convict in overalls that were too large for him, shoulders bent with age, scrubbed carbolic across the floor. He paused, leaning on his broom.
All ready for you, sir.
Brosnan knew the form, had performed the task many times before. There was a simple wooden cart against one wall which he trundled across and he and Savary got the body on to it.
Right, Lebel said. Lets go.
What about the chaplain? Savary demanded as they manoeuvred the cart down the steps.
Said he didnt want one. An atheist.
Savary was shocked. Hell, everybody should be entitled to a priest when he goes. He glanced sideways at Brosnan. You make sure they do things right for me.
You wont die, you old bastard, Brosnan said. Youll live for ever.
The guard on duty at the gatehouse emerged to open the gates and they moved outside and followed the road, not down toward the harbour, but curving up to the left. It was hard work, pushing uphill. Finally, they came out on to a small plateau on the edge of the cliffs.
There was no moon and the rock dropped sheer, a good forty feet into the water. There was an impression of waves out there, broken water, white foam, and Brosnan could feel salt on his lips like the taste of freedom.
Behind them, Lebel switched on a light above a wooden door and unlocked it. All right, lets get the weights on him.
The room was small with a wooden bench in the centre on which Brosnan and Savary placed the body. One of the walls was hung with a selection of oilskins and orange life jackets. The most interesting feature was the piles of heavy steel chain coiled neatly on the floor, each one in a different weight category according to a painted board on the wall behind it.