He grinned. 'Moira, definitely. Then me, once she's rejected it.' His grin faded as a new thought came into his mind. 'Nick, there's a real complication to all this. The Yes Man and his team didn't ship their heroin into virgin territory. There's a turf war going on in Dublin, and it's him who sparked it.'
'PIRA won't be liking that one little bit.'
'Haven't you heard, Nick?' He raised an eyebrow. 'PIRA have been disbanded! They've handed in every single weapon they ever had and taken up landscape gardening . . .'
If his aching jaw had let him, he'd have laughed as hard as I did.
'A turf war is the best news I've had all week. It's going to help us get Finbar back. Now grab some kip. I'll wake you when we get to the border and I need your wallet. It's the most corrupt spot on earth. Last time I crossed here it cost a hundred bucks.'
I wasn't sure he'd heard the last bit. His shemag-draped head was banging against the window and he was snoring like a chain gun.
I checked the dash. The clock said it was midday. We had a full tank, and that was plenty for the distance we had to cover. We'd be going at a fuel-efficient pace anyway because I didn't want to be conspicuous or get involved in even the slightest accident.
There was nothing much else I could do now but resist the temptation to search for Predator-shaped specks on the horizon.
PART FOUR
97
Herbert Park, Dublin
Tuesday, 13 March
1017 hrs
Dom was standing at the kitchen island. He was on his fourth call and his third coffee since we'd arrived at the house an hour ago.
We'd met up that morning at Bertie's Pole, as arranged, then jumped into a cab and headed straight here to flush out the Yes Man.
We still had our coats on. We weren't staying long. I had a fake leather three-quarter-length number I'd bought in Islamabad, a really good pair of rip-off Levi's and a shirt. The whole lot had come to all of about twenty dollars.
'That's no excuse, David.' Dom was in short, sharp, aggressive, don't-bullshit-me-I'm-the- Polish-Jeremy-Paxman mode. He wanted results. 'He's still missing. You said you'd move heaven and earth. I've been a good friend to you and the police in the past, given you good coverage. Now you've got to start helping me.' He slammed his thumb on to the red button. Inspector David of the Gardai was a golf mate – or had been before this call.
Dom had called in another set of favours all over town. He and Siobhan had already hassled every man and his dog to find Finbar; they'd hit drug outreach programmes, fellow reporters, anybody with influence. Now he was calling them all over again. We wanted those ripples to spread. We wanted to spark up the Yes Man and bring him out into the open. The lines would still be monitored, and there'd probably been a trigger on the house from the moment he'd seen we were flying into town. That was just what we wanted. He knew where we were, and now he thought he knew what we were doing.
The only person Dom didn't call was Siobhan. He'd done that from a call box in the city. She was fine and well holed-up, although if she took more than one bath a day it was cold. She must have left the house as soon as I'd called her. There was half a plate of scrambled egg on the side. It was congealed and rancid, but the flies seemed to like it.
Dom put the phone back into the charger, put his cup under the espresso spout and threw in another capsule.
'Well done, mate. He'll have followed us since we took off for Islamabad. Now we're back together and searching for Finbar, he'll show his hand.'
The Yes Man would want us dead, but it wasn't going to happen in daylight on a residential street. Drive-by shootings of prominent newsmen or bundling people into vans without anyone noticing were the stuff of bad TV shows. This wasn't Kabul. He would pick his moment, and it would be soon.
'He's like a human Predator, all-seeing, all-hearing. Any time now he'll aim to take us out. But we'll be waiting.'
'Then what?'
'This story can only have one ending, mate. Even if the plan works and we find Finbar alive, he's never going to stop. You, me, your family, we're in