Time then to raise his aide from his bed. To execute the plans, to have a person-to-person telephone conversation with the just awakened Prime Minister in his Downing Street flat.
The ripple effect was like no pebble in a pond. It was as though he had thrown in a brick. Suddenly with no appetite for breakfast, the Prime Minister had called back to Trafalgar House to speak to the Northern Ireland minister who was clearly stunned by the development. The Royal Air Force helicopter was already on its way to ferry him to London as the PM’s principal private secretary telephoned the homes of the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Minister of Defence, the Attorney General and other key figures.
The extraordinary meeting of the inner Cabinet was arranged for ten o’clock.
It was a fierce and acrimonious debate. That morning they had been due to go public on the existence of the Trafalgar House talks. This was because, the night before, the editors of Britain’s national press had met in a private function room above the Wig and Pen Club, symbolically at the heart of old Fleet Street. There they discussed the DNotice restrictions on reporting the talks and the growing haemorrhage of news leaking from across the Atlantic. Already it had been picked up by he Figaro in France and Die Welt in Germany. For once united, the most powerful editors in the land served notice on the government that they were going to publish. Damned or not.
The dilemma for Downing Street was simple. Senator Abe Powers III, with the backing of the President of the United States, had decided in view of the onfgoing terrorist campaign in London that the Provisional IRA should be given a voice in the closing stages of the Trafalgar House talks. Aware that the British Government would be adamantly opposed to this, Powers warned that he would go public on the whole matter that was otherwise so nearly ‘in the bag’. That would clearly embarrass Britain as, seen in an international perspective, it would be regarded as the party responsible for the breakdown of the peace negotiations. Furthermore Washington threatened to raise the Irish question forcibly at the United Nations, urging for positive action to be taken on the world stage.
Government ministers huddled and argued for over an hour before a counterproposal was struck, aimed at damage limitation. Whilst the attendance of any member of the Provisional IRA remained firmly unacceptable until the movement categorically renounced violence, an independent spokesperson of extreme Republican persuasion would be acceptable as a face-saving compromise.
This, the wily Secretary for Northern Ireland pointed out in a phone call to Abe Powers at Trafalgar House, might also save him the almost certain embarrassment of Ulster Unionist politicians walking out on this point of principle.
Further, the inclusion of this independent voice could be dressed up at the imminent press conference as success for the genuine bipartisan nature of the talks, rather than as a climb-down in the face of terrorism.
By midday Abe Powers III had agreed.
One hour later Donny Fitzpatrick received a telephone call at his home in Scotstown from Sinn Fein headquarters in Dublin, informing him of the decision.
The name?
The Most Reverend Bishop Joseph McLaverty. The eightyfive-year-old rogue clergyman, long retired from active participation in the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, whose outspoken views on the justice of the Irish Republican cause was almost evangelical in its fervour and heartfelt intensity.
Fitzpatrick replaced the receiver and turned round. His wife, sensing something, stood expectantly at the door.
In a rare show of emotion, the Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA let out a whoop of triumph and punched the air with his right fist.
‘We’ve done it! We’ve got our man at the table!’.
At the time Donny Fitzpatrick received his telephone call, Tom Harrison was in a taxi heading for Heathrow Airport.
The day had begun with the bedside telephone at Trenchard’s flat shaking him from a deep and exhausted sleep. In his dream he had been back aboard the dumper truck, confronted by a snake-like clump of wires the thickness of a human wrist. Only one wire out of, perhaps, a hundred would be right. As he snipped with the cutters the bell started ringing.
He was still drenched in the cold nightmare sweat as he reached for the receiver.
‘Tom!’ It was Casey. ‘Thank God you’re all right.’
‘I’m half asleep, that’s all.’
‘I heard about the Blackwall Tunnel bomb last night. I was terrified you might be involved… I tried calling, but there was no reply.’
‘I got in late.’
‘And were you there?’
He smiled, touched by her concern. ‘You know me, can’t resist a challenge.’
‘God, it must have been awful.’
‘I can think of better ways to spend an evening.’ He didn’t want to dwell on the subject. ‘How’s your trip going with Eddie?’
‘Interesting. You know, it’s an experience. Lots of contacts…’ Somehow he thought she sounded evasive. And was there just a note of apprehension in her voice?
He said: ‘Don’t let the place scare you. Its reputation’s worse than its bite. Individually they’re a nice and friendly lot. The Proddies and the Catholics. Just don’t go nosing into any dark corners, if you know what I mean.’
‘Don’t worry, Tom. Eddie knows his way around,’ she said quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly, he thought.
They hung up and Harrison looked round Trenchard’s spartan guest room. Late summer sunshine streaked through the window onto his two small suitcases. All he had in the world now. Suddenly, inexplicably, he felt as though a great burden had been lifted from him. Like this room, his life had become unexpectedly uncluttered, free of responsibility and commitment. The accumulated emotional baggage of life left behind. Pippa would be keen for a divorce and he had found Casey. His job at the forefront of bomb disposal was over and, much as he regretted it, the idea of no more life-threatening danger had its own attractions. Particularly after the previous night in the tunnel. Perhaps it really was time to step down. ‘ Let younger men take over.
By the time he’d shaved, showered and dressed he had made his decision. He telephoned Pippa’s father and asked to speak to his son.
Archie was excited. ‘Dad, that bomb in the Blackwall Tunnel — did you sort it out?’
‘I did my bit.’
Archie was well aware of his father’s self-effacing euphemisms.
‘Great! What happened? The boys at school will want to know all the details.’
‘When we meet. Listen, how d’you fancy a few days’ hiking and camping?’
‘Terrific! It’s so boring here with Mum at work and it’s days before I can go back to school.’
‘Then I’ll clear it with your mother and pick you up at lunch time tomorrow.’
And I’ll pay a visit to Les Appleyard this afternoon, he thought as he hung up.
The telephone rang again as he was making coffee. It was Trenchard.
‘Hallo, Don, what gives?’
‘Your lady friend, Casey Mullins.’
Harrison frowned. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s over here in the Province.’
‘I know.’
‘And d’you know what she’s doing?’
‘Vaguely, Don, she and Eddie Mercs are doing some research on the Abe Powers talks.’
‘It goes a little deeper than that.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘She’s trying to track down the AIDAN bombers. And she’s getting mixed up with a bad lot.’
Although he heard the words, he could scarcely believe his own ears. ‘D’you mean Sinn Fein or PIRA?’
‘Not over the phone,’ Trenchard came back sharply. ‘I’m not at liberty to say anyway. This is strictly on the old pals’ act, Tom. She’s in danger of getting mixed up in stuff she doesn’t understand. If I were you, I’d have a word in her shell-like.’