Eye of the storm Page 0,14
file on him in my study. He was born in Boston. One of those filthy rich American families. Very high society. His mother was a Dubliner. He did all the right things, went to Princeton, took his degree, then went and spoiled it all by volunteering for Vietnam and as an enlisted man. I believe that was nineteen sixty-six. Airborne Rangers. He was discharged a sergeant and heavily decorated.”
“So what makes him so special?”
“He could have avoided Vietnam by staying at university, but he didn’t. He also enlisted in the ranks. Quite something for someone with his social standing.”
“You’re just an old snob. What happened to him after that?”
“He went to Trinity College, Dublin, to work on a doctorate. He’s a Protestant, by the way, but his mother was a devout Catholic. In August sixty-nine, he was visiting an uncle on his mother’s side, a priest in Belfast. Remember what happened? How it all started?”
“Orange mobs burning Catholics out?” she said.
“And the police not doing too much about it. The mob burned down Brosnan’s uncle’s church and started on the Falls Road. A handful of old IRA hands with a few rifles and handguns held them off, and when one of them was shot, Brosnan picked up his rifle. Instinctive, I suppose. I mean Vietnam and all that.”
“And from then on he was committed?”
“Very much so. You’ve got to remember that in those early days, there were plenty of men like him in the movement. Believers in Irish freedom and all that sort of thing.”
“Sorry, sir, I’ve seen too much blood on the streets of Derry to go for that one.”
“Yes, well I’m not trying to whitewash him. He’s killed a few in his time, but always up front, I’ll say that for him. He became quite famous. There was a French War photographer called Anne-Marie Audin. He saved her life in Vietnam after a helicopter crash. Quite a romantic story. She turned up in Belfast and Brosnan took her underground for a week. She got a series out of it for Life magazine. The gallant Irish struggle. You know the sort of thing.”
“What happened after that?”
“In nineteen seventy-five he went to France to negotiate an arms deal. As it turned out, it was a setup and the police were waiting. Unfortunately he shot one of them dead. They gave him life. He escaped from prison in seventy-nine, at my instigation, I might add.”
“But why?”
“Someone else before your time, a terrorist called Frank Barry. Started off in Ulster with a splinter group called the Sons of Erin, then joined the European terrorist circuit, an evil genius if ever there was one. Tried to get Lord Carrington on a trip to France when he was Foreign Secretary. The French hushed it up, but the Prime Minister was furious. Gave me direct orders to hunt Barry down whatever the cost.”
“Oh, I see now. You needed Brosnan to do that?”
“Set a thief to catch a thief and so forth, and he got him for us.”
“And afterwards?”
“He went back to Ireland and took that doctorate.”
“And this Anne-Marie Audin, did they marry?”
“Not to my knowledge, but she did him a bigger favor than that. Her family is one of the oldest in France and enormously powerful politically and he had been awarded the Legion of Honour for saving her in Vietnam. Anyway, her pressure behind the scenes bore fruit five years ago. President Mitterrand granted him a pardon. Wiped the slate clean.”
“Which is how he’s at the Sorbonne now? He must be the only professor they’ve had who shot a policeman dead.”
“Actually one or two after the war had done just that when serving with the Resistance.”
“Does the leopard ever change its spots?” she asked.
“O, ye of little faith. As I say, you’ll find his file in the study if you want to know more.” He passed her a piece of paper. “That’s the description of the mystery man. Not much to go on, but run it through the computer anyway.”
She went out.
Kim entered with a copy of the Times. Ferguson read the headlines briefly, then turned to page two where his attention was immediately caught by the same item concerning Mrs. Thatcher’s visit to France that had appeared in Paris Soir.
“Well, Max,” he said softly, “I wish you luck,” and he poured himself another cup of coffee.
THREE
IT WAS MUCH warmer in Paris later that morning, most of the snow clearing by lunchtime. It was clear in the countryside too, only a bit here and