Patriot games - Tom Clancy [32]
"Tony, this is Cathy, my wife, and Sally, my daughter. Cathy, this is Tony Wilson. He's the cop who's baby-sitting me."
"Didn't I see you last night?" Cathy never forgot a face-so far as Jack could tell, she never forgot much of anything.
"Possibly, but we didn't speak-rather a busy time for all of us. You are well, Lady Ryan?"
"Excuse me?" Cathy asked. "Lady Ryan?"
"They didn't tell you?" Jack chuckled.
"Tell me what?"
Jack explained. "How do you like being married to a knight?"
"Does that mean you have to have a horse. Daddy?" Sally asked hopefully. "Can I ride it?"
"Is it legal, Jack?"
"They told me that the Prime Minister and the President would discuss it today."
"My God," Lady Ryan said quietly. After a moment, she started smiling.
"Stick with me, kid." Jack laughed.
"What about the horse, Daddy!" Sally insisted.
"I don't know yet. We'll see." He yawned. The only practical use Ryan acknowledged for horses was running at tracks-or maybe tax shelters. Well, I already have a sword, he told himself.
"I think Daddy needs a nap," Cathy observed. "And I have to buy something for dinner tonight."
"Oh, God!" Ryan groaned. "A whole new wardrobe."
Cathy grinned. "Whose fault is that. Sir John?"
They met at Flanagan's Steakhouse on O'Connell Street in Dublin. It was a well- regarded establishment whose tourist trade occasionally suffered from being too close to a McDonald's. Ashley was nursing a whiskey when the second man joined him. A third and fourth took a booth across the room and watched. Ashley had come alone. This wasn't the first such meeting, and Dublin was recognized-most of the time-as neutral ground. The two men on the other side of the room were to keep a watch for members of the Garda, the Republic's police force.
"Welcome to Dublin, Mr. Ashley," said the representative of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army.
"Thank you, Mr. Murphy," the counterintelligence officer answered. "The photograph we have in the file doesn't do you justice."
"Young and foolish, I was. And very vain. I didn't shave very much then," Murphy explained. He picked up the menu that had been waiting for him. "The beef here is excellent, and the vegetables are always fresh. This place is full of bloody tourists in the summer-those who don't want French fries-driving prices up as they always do. Thank God they're all back home in America now, leaving so much money behind in this poor country."
"What information do you have for us?"
"Information?"
"You asked for the meeting, Mr. Murphy," Ashley pointed out.
"The purpose of the meeting is to assure you that we had no part in that bloody fiasco yesterday."
"I could have read that in the papers-I did, in fact."
"It was felt that a more personal communiqué was in order, Mr. Ashley."
"Why should we believe you?" Ashley asked, sipping at his whiskey. Both men kept their voices low and level, though neither man had the slightest doubt as to what they thought of each other.
"Because we are not as crazy as that," Murphy replied. The waiter came, and both men ordered. Ashley chose the wine, a promising Bordeaux. The meal was on his expense account. He was only forty minutes off the flight from London 's Gatwick airport. The request for a meeting had been made before dawn in a telephone call to the British Ambassador in Dublin.
"Is that a fact?" Ashley said after the waiter left, staring into the cold blue eyes across the table.
"The Royal Family are strictly off limits. As marvelous a political target as they all are"- Murphy smiled- "we've known for some time that an attack on them would be counterproductive."
"Really?" Ashley pronounced the word as only an Englishman can do it. Murphy flushed angrily at this most elegant of insults.
"Mr. Ashley, we are enemies. I would as soon kill you as have dinner with you. But even enemies can negotiate, can't they, now?"
"Go on."
"We had no part of it. You have my word."
"Your word as a Marxist-Leninist?" Ashley inquired with a smile.
"You are very good at provoking people, Mr. Ashley."