The Angel Tapes (33 page)

The man smiled. “Give them time. You won't know the place in ten minutes. It's always the same. Would you follow me, please?”

He led the way past a guard and down a corridor to a locked door. It opened when he keyed in a code and they entered an elevator. It was the heavy-duty kind, designed to take many tons of weight. Blade thought of gold bullion.

They descended into the bowels of the bank. It was difficult to know just how far down they went, so slowly did the elevator seem to travel. Then the door slid back with a siss of hydraulics and Blade looked out into a corridor, brightly lit and vigilant with surveillance cameras.

The bank official made no attempt to conceal from Blade the code he punched into the second numeric pad, located on a steel door a little way down the corridor. That door opened onto yet another—steel, with a third security pad. Finally they entered the vault proper.

It was flanked by the sort of safety deposit boxes you see at post offices, airports, and train stations; rows of them, reaching to the ceiling, in ascending order of diminishing size. The bank official went to a big one at floor level. He unlocked it with a key chained to his wrist, reached in, and lugged out two large suitcases. Their locks had been sealed and imprinted with a date and the circular seal of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Are they heavy?” Blade asked.

“Not as heavy as you'd expect. Banknotes don't weigh all that much.”

Blade tested this. It sent a thrill through him, lifting a suitcase that contained—what? twelve-and-a-half million dollars? The lottery. A childish part of him saw himself heading straight for the airport with a one-way ticket to Rio. “What is in ze suitcases, senhor?” “Oh, just money.” “
Assim!
Welcome to Brazil, senhor.” All his worries over.

Dead easy.

But the bank official was calling up reinforcements on his cellular phone, and when Blade and he reemerged on ground level with the two cases, there were three security guards to escort them to the car.

“Sign, please?” the bank official said, and Macken put his signature to a piece of paper that bore more zeros than were decent. Helped by one of the guards, he stowed the cases in the trunk of his car. There were no more waiting cabs at the curb.

The garda presence in College Green had increased in the interim, as had the number of sightseers behind the barriers. People had come with their families; already small children were perched on fathers' shoulders, although there was nothing to see except their counterparts behind the barriers outside Trinity College.

Dame Street was cordoned off at this point. Blade showed his ID to a uniformed police officer and was escorted by a squad car up the wrong side of the street. Some time later, he turned into Eustace Street, headed down to the Liffey, and turned left. He glanced at the clock on the dash. Not yet seven-thirty.

O'Connell Street was cordoned off as well, and alive with milling crowds, the early birds come to secure the best places before the show began. Excited children waved little American flags; adults waved camcorders. Blade heard a pipe band rehearse an ancient Irish marching song.

On learning Macken's identity, an officer pulled back a barrier and allowed the car through. Blade couldn't resist a quick look to his left as he crossed the wide street, passing the O'Connell Monument. The scene bore an eerie resemblance to that of a morning eleven days before: the crowds of people, the police cars, even the helicopter overhead. Only the mood had changed and the roadway was bare and gray.

Up Eden Quay now, past Beresford Place, and under the massive railroad viaduct that overshadowed Butt Bridge. The bright stone of the Custom House reflected the morning sunlight.

Blade stopped at the appointed place, on the white tiles in front of the building, and cut the engine. He wound down the window and received a putrid smell from the murky river, invisible under the quay wall. Gulls screamed and dived in the sun. There was a faint hum of traffic from the opposite side.

Blade waited.

*   *   *

“Bravo-niner-two-eight sealed and secure, sir,” the American barked into his walkie-talkie. “Over.”

“Did you double-check? Over.”

“Affirmative, sir. Six to go. Over.”

They'd been busy since first light: two score of CIA men, assisted by some of Redfern's team and Dublin police officers. Every manhole that Macken's dogs had entered had been reentered by humans and its culvert searched thoroughly. Following inspection, each manhole was sealed, and patrolled at regular intervals. The inspection team was now halfway through Nassau Street, a stone's throw from the Irish houses of parliament.

A helicopter pilot flying above the city would have noted the presence, too, of armed men standing on the rooftops at places where streets turned corners or intersected, places where the presidential motorcade would be forced to slow.

All this was standard procedure. Angel ruined the neat equation.

*   *   *

The call came at eight o'clock precisely.

“
BLADE! TOP O' THE MORNIN' TO YOU. I SEE YOU GOT THE CAR WASHED, TOO. WAS THAT IN MY HONOR? I'M FLATTERED
.”

As was the case that Friday afternoon eleven days ago outside the American embassy, Blade found himself looking every which way in an effort to spot the enemy. But there was no one on foot in the vicinity and his was the only parked car.

“Let's just get this over with, Angel,” he said curtly. “I'm not in the mood for small talk.” There was no more need to tread carefully; Carol was in the home stretch now and wouldn't jeopardize her own plan at this stage. The Kevlar vest was beginning to torment Blade with its clinging stickiness.

“
AH NOW, BLADE, SURE I'M ONLY TRYING TO BE NICE. NO NEED TO GET ON YOUR HIGH HORSE. A SHAME TO SPOIL THE LOVELY MORNING THAT'S IN IT. WELL, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE ALL THAT CASH WITH YOU? I BET YOU THOUGHT OF DOING A BUNK. A ONE-WAY TRIP TO RIO, EH? WOULDN'T THAT BE GRAND
?”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, was she psychic as well as crazy?

“Let's just get on with it, Angel. Where do you want me to go?”

There was a chopper overhead. Blade heard it hovering above and immediately behind him. Carol, wherever she was at that moment, had seen or heard it as well.

“
WAIT
.”

He did.

“
I WARNED YOU, BLADE
.”

“For Christ's sake, Angel, this has nothing to do with me. I don't know who the fuck it is. They're probably checking the surroundings for the president.”

“
WELL, WHOEVER IT IS, GET RID OF HIM. I MEAN IT, BLADE. IF THAT HELICOPTER ISN'T GONE WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES, THERE'S GOING TO BE BLOOD ON THE STREETS AGAIN. I'M HANGING UP NOW. YOU MAKE SURE THAT THING IS GONE BY THE TIME I RING BACK
.”

Blade made the call. The garda manning the switchboard at Harcourt Square was as mystified as Macken. It was not a police chopper.

“Find out who it is,” Blade ordered. “Find out fast. And tell the cunt to get the fuck out of here. He can fly into the Liffey for all I care.”

“This could take time, Detective Superintendent.”

“We haven't got any.”

“It might help if I had a reg.”

“I'll have a look.”

Blade got out of the car and glanced at his watch. The helicopter had remained hovering above him. Who the fuck was it? The CIA? No, Redfern wouldn't be that stupid. Then he saw the markings: the familiar, yellow-and-black livery of the Automobile Association. The Sky Patrol provided radio updates on Dublin's traffic.

Blade gave details.

“I'll get on to them, Detective Superintendent. They'll be out of there before you know it.”

The operator was as good as his word. Blade saw two faces staring down at him with what might have been curiosity, shortly before the helicopter wheeled and soared out in a northerly direction. He looked at his watch again. Those had been the longest four minutes of his life.

His phone rang.

“
NOW THAT WE'VE GOT THAT OUT OF THE WAY, WE CAN GET DOWN TO BUSINESS AGAIN
.” Angel was no longer in a frivolous mood.

“I'm listening.”

“
CROSS THE RIVER AND KEEP STRAIGHT ON INTO MOSS STREET. TURN LEFT AT TOWNSEND STREET. HAVE YOU GOT THAT
?”

“Yes.”

“
AND LEAVE THE LINE OPEN
.”

So Redfern had been mistaken: The rendezvous was to take place south of the river. Blade wondered about that. If Carol's plan was to flee the country with the money, then she'd two possibilities. The ferry terminal was in Dún Laoghaire, a twenty-minute drive to the south; or she could continue on down to Rosslare in County Wexford and take the boat to France. On the other hand, if Carol had decided on escaping by air, then she was close to the East Link causeway that would take her to Fairview, which would provide her with a convenient route to the airport. Better than the regular route—that was being used this morning by the U.S. president.

But she wouldn't take it, would she? She'd never get through the checks at the airport and ferry terminals—not today at any rate.

A chilling thought crossed his mind: Did the bitch want to escape at all? Was the business with the $25 million no more than a pantomime? Perhaps she'd demanded the money simply in order to put the cat among the pigeons, have two governments running about at her whim. A nice revenge when you thought about it. And the more Blade thought about it the more he was convinced that the money was a sham, a front to conceal Carol Merrigan's real motive—that of wreaking vengeance on Blade Macken.

And Blade himself: What was he doing here? There must be, he mused, a side to us all that pushes us to the limits. We want to know. We want to expose ourselves to acute danger. We want to look death in the face. We want to know. Our egos push us there, to the brink. So determined are we to impress upon others our need for the truth, that we will hazard our lives, that we might confront others with the truth, even if the baring of the truth leads to our downfall. We want to know—and we want others to know, too.

As he turned right, Blade glanced at the glass towers of Dublin's financial district. He thought of the deals that would be done there this morning. To be sure, some of them might rival his and Angel's, might exceed their deal. Yet those transactions would involve virtual money, existing on computer screens, as it was shunted back and forth across the world, growing or dwindling as markets fluctuated. Blade and Angel were doing it the old-fashioned way: wads of tactile, folding money stashed in a car trunk.

“
WHERE ARE YOU NOW
?” she asked abruptly.

Well, thank the living fuck for that, Blade thought. She isn't all-seeing, after all. He'd begun to think that Angel had eyes everywhere.

“Coming up to the junction with Westland Row.”

“
OK. GO THROUGH THE LIGHTS AND BEAR LEFT AT THE TRAFFIC ISLAND. THIS IS FUN, ISN'T IT, BLADE
?”

“Oh, great
craic
altogether. And to think I could be doing something really boring now, like waiting for the parade.”

“
THAT'S THE SPIRIT. TAKE THE FIRST TURNING ON THE LEFT
.”

Blade obeyed. He'd been glancing every few seconds in his mirror. So far as he could make out, Redfern's men were nowhere to be seen. He hoped to blazes they'd kept their word. If not, there'd be hell to pay. Hell, and fire, and brimstone.

Yet another thought struck him. When had he last charged the phone battery? Christ, wouldn't that be something: the president of the United States losing his life and fuck-knows-what-else happening, and all because of a run-down phone battery.

Blade drove slowly past the entrance to Windmill Lane, the graffiti shrine to U2, Ireland's greatest rock band.
“God Save Bono!”
he read.
“I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky and the moon turns red.”

“
TURN RIGHT AT THE END OF THE STREET, DRIVE TWO HUNDRED YARDS, UNTIL YOU SEE A SIGN SAYING ‘DONNELLY'S COAL,' AND STOP
.”

He did as directed. There were not many people on foot in this part of Docklands. As Blade turned the corner, he cast an eye over a group of youths with shaved heads. They were drinking cans of strong cider, at eight-thirty in the morning.

He also noticed a beggar-woman shuffling along the sidewalk, a baby at her breast.

Two hundred yards down the litter- and glass-strewn street, an ancient metal signboard on a gable testified to the fact that a coal merchant's business had once flourished here. Blade stopped the car and killed the engine. In his door mirror he saw the beggar-woman approaching. She wore a plaid shawl that covered her from head to hip, a floral print dress and battered shoes. She had her head down, so it was hard to make out her features. Her hair looked as though it hadn't been washed in months and her face was streaked with grime. Blade had to concede that the disguise was near-perfect.

Fuck her. She'd been so bloody clever, each step of the way. He was damned if he was going to let her believe that she'd won
every
round. This round was his—a part of it, at least, the part where you take the enemy by surprise.

Blade had his pride, too.

He opened the car door and stepped out. “Hello, Angel,” he said evenly. “Or would you prefer it if I called you Carol?”

She stopped dead in her tracks and her mouth flew open. Blade had to suppress a grin, a grin of triumph. Know thine enemy—wasn't that half the battle won; wasn't that what the martial master Von Clausewitz taught in chapter one of his primer, the book that was the bible of all fighting men?

They stared at each other, the adversaries face to face at last. He saw that, beneath the grime and the unwashed hair, she was almost pretty: a grown-up version of the little girl he'd dandled on his knee, had bought birthday and Christmas gifts for, who'd called him Unca Bwade when her teeth had been in braces.