Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [109]
Fitzmaurice put his hands palms down on the table. “You won’t do it, then?”
Ryan saluted Fitzmaurice with his pint and took a swallow. “You know there’s not a peeler or a judge in the Free State who could make me reveal an anonymous source of information. Not even you could do it when you tried, and we go back to the days when we were lads playing football in the alleys on the north side of the Liffey.”
Fitzmaurice laughed. He knew it to be so. The only possible way to get John Ryan to reveal his sources would be to take away his drink and lock him up in a hospital detoxification ward. “You’ve not answered my question.”
Ryan set his pint down and leaned forward. “Did you record Spalding’s confession that implicated Carrier and make a copy for yourself?”
Fitzmaurice nodded. “You know me well, John Ryan.”
“Did you use a video camcorder or a tape recorder?”
“A camcorder, of course.”
Ryan held out his hand. “Let me have the disk with the video file on it.”
“I can’t just give it to you. Noel Chancy would know in a instant that I am your source.”
“Is the confession on the Garda server?”
“Yes.”
Ryan smiled, took out a business card, wrote on it, and pushed it toward Fitzmaurice. “Take the DVD to a city branch library where no one knows you, use one of the computers, and send it to the Web address on the back of the card.”
Fitzmaurice picked up the card and waved it at Ryan. “This is all well and good, but how does one explain the sudden appearance of a Garda interrogation video on the World Wide Web?”
“Are the Garda computers harder to crack than the Pentagon’s? A sixteen-year-old-boy in Norway ran riot in the U.S. military computers earlier this year, and from what the newspaper’s technology reporter tells me, the U.S. government still doesn’t know how deep the boy penetrated. So I should think we have more than adequate cover and deniability. In this particular instance I would imagine that some college student viewed the video while probing the Garda computers during a cyber visit, decided it was a worthy and interesting example of his technical wizardry, and put it on the Web for all to see.”
“Hackers often get caught.”
Ryan nodded. “Many do, but not all. I’ve made use of a few of them in the past with excellent results. Are you game?”
“You’ll start with Paquette?”
“Of course. She’s the entrée to the story. If the video shows what you say it does, my exposé in the Sunday edition will be picked up by every television newsreader in Europe and North America within the day.”
Fitzmaurice took the documents he’d promised Paquette out of his suit coat pocket and handed them to Ryan. “Call her on her mobile, and when you’ve finished meeting with her, give her these. Her number is attached.”
Ryan nodded, glanced at his watch, drained the last of his pint, and stood. “You’ve given me a lot to do, otherwise I’d stay for another.”
“You do your best work when you’re sober, John.”
“Now, that’s a disquieting thought,” Ryan said merrily. “Thanks for lunch. Don’t tarry. I need that video file sent along promptly.”
“I’ll see to it.”
Fitzmaurice paid the bill and made his way out of O’Donoghue’s. From their earliest days together as schoolboy chums and neighborhood hooligans, John Ryan had never once lied to him or broken his word. His only worry was Deputy Commissioner Noel Clancy, who had a keen eye for his shenanigans. If pressed, he’d plead ignorance, of course, and hope that Noel would be secretly pleased by the unusual and highly regrettable circumstances that were about to unfold.
At the branch library he sent off the video file to the Web address Ryan had given him. On his way back to the office he sailed the DVD out the car window and into the Liffey.
It was a pleasant, clear early Sunday morning when Fitzmaurice’s door-bell rang. He looked out the window to see Noel Clancy waiting at the door. Dressed in his Garda