Solo - Jack Higgins [44]
'Do you think you can?'
'There's a man I know in Belfast who might be able to help. I'll have to see.' She got into the Porsche. He closed the door, went round and got behind the wheel. 'Can I see you again when I get back?'
To her own surprise, she found herself replying without the slightest hesitation. 'If you'd like to.'
'Wouldn't have asked if I hadn't, would I?'
Security Factors Ltd was in a small cul-de-sac off Great Portland Street. It was just after seven when Morgan went up the stairs and tried the door marked Office. It was locked but there was a light on inside. He pressed the bell and waited. There was a shadow behind the glass, the door opened.
Jock Kelso was fifty-five and looked forty, in spite of his close-cropped grey hair. He was over six feet tall, tanned and fit-looking, a man to avoid in one situation or to lean on in another. He had served in the Scots Guards and then the Parachute Regiment for twenty-five years, five of them as Regimental Sergeant-Major to Morgan.
'Hello, Jock.' Morgan moved inside. 'How's the security business?'
Kelso led the way through into another office, small and uncluttered, a neat desk, green filing cabinets, carpets on the wall. It was here that the real business of the firm was conducted. From this office, mercenaries had gone out to fight in the Congo, the Sudan, the Oman and a dozen other dirty little wars, for Jock Kelso was in the Death business. He knew and so did Morgan.
He poured whisky into two paper cups and said, 'I heard about Megan. I'm sorry.'
'I want the man responsible, this Cretan they talk about,' Morgan said.
'Anything I can do, Colonel, you know that.'
'Fair enough, Jock. I've got a lead. It could mean something or nothing, but it means going back to Belfast to find out.'
'Out of uniform?' Kelso looked grave. 'They get their hands on you, Colonel, they'll have your eyes.'
'Get word to O'Hagan,' Morgan said. 'Tell him I'll be at the Europa in Belfast from tomorrow afternoon. That I must see him. Can you do that?'
'Yes,' Kelso said. 'If that's what you want.'
'It is, Jock, it is. How have you been managing since your wife died?'
'Fine: my daughter, Amy, she's still at home. Looks after me just fine.'
'She must be about twenty now? She engaged to be married or anything?'
'Not her.' Kelso laughed. 'Got her head screwed on right, that one. She's in business for herself as a florist. Doing very well, especially on the delivery side. Amazing how they grow. One minute, they're just kids, the next...'
He paused awkwardly. Morgan emptied his paper cup and shivered. 'Cold tonight. I must be getting old.'
'But not as cold as Korea, Colonel.'
'No.' Morgan said softly. 'Nothing could ever quite match up to that. I'll let you know when I get back.'
Kelso listened to him descending the stairs, then picked up the telephone and called for a taxi.
It deposited him twenty minutes later outside the Harp of Erin, a public house in the Portobello Road which as its name implied, was much frequented by London Irish. The bar was crowded, an old man in the corner playing a concertina and singing a famous Irish street ballad, 'Bold Robert Emmet'. As Kelso entered, the entire room was joining in the chorus of - tried as a traitor, a rebel, a spy; but no one can call me a knave or a coward, a hero I lived and a hero I'll die.
There was more than one unfriendly look as he shouldered his way through to the frosted glass door marked Snug. When he went in, he found three men sitting at a small table playing whist.
The big man facing him was named Patrick Murphy and he was organizer for North London of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Provisional IRA.
'Jock?' he said.
'It's important,' Kelso told him.
Murphy nodded, the other two got up and went out. 'Well?'
'I've got a message for O'Hagan.'
'And which O'Hagan would that be?'
'Don't play games with me, Patsy, we soldiered together too long. Tell O'Hagan that Asa Morgan will be at the Europa from tomorrow and he wants to see him as soon as possible on personal business.'
'What kind of personal