Jig by Campbell Armstrong

unmask us?’
    â€˜I can’t answer your questions, Jock. I don’t have the answers. But my best guess is that they’re not going to send any messenger boy. They’ll send a man who knows his business. And whoever he is, he’s going to be goddam determined to find out what happened to the entire operating budget of the Irish Republican Army for one whole year.’
    Nicholas Linney closed his buff-coloured folder. He blinked his narrow eyes. ‘Let me get this straight. Are we meant to understand that this guy represents a threat to our personal safety? Is he going to come here armed?’
    There was an unmistakable relish in Linney’s voice. He sounded like a man who had been confined too long to the drudgery of paperwork and whose blood quickened at the possibility of physical menace. For a moment Cairney wondered if Linney had played a role in the murderous hijacking, but he dismissed the speculation as fruitless. Linney, Mulhaney, Dawson – any one of this trio might have had his own reasons for arranging the piracy. Cairney, who disliked the track of his own suspicions, pushed the thought out of his mind.
    He said, ‘I can only assume this man would carry a weapon, Nick. But if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.’
    Linney smiled. It was a humourless little movement of his mouth. ‘Believe me, Senator, I’m not remotely worried. I can take care of myself.’
    â€˜I’m sure you can,’ Cairney said. ‘What really concerns me is the fact that we can’t predict how this person will behave. We don’t know how he operates, if he’s rational, if he’s given to violence. We’re in the dark as much as he is. And since that’s the case, it would be wise for each of us to take whatever precautions we think necessary. At least until the situation is resolved.’
    Kevin Dawson smiled uncertainly. ‘You don’t really imagine we’re in danger, do you?’
    Cairney shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Ireland sends a man who doesn’t know our names, doesn’t know if one of us is responsible for this terrible situation, a man whose only mission is the recovery of the money by whatever means. Put yourself in his shoes. How would you act if you had been entrusted with a task like this one? How would you behave?’
    Cairney listened to the silence that followed his questions. He thought now of the faceless figure who would come from Ireland. He imagined somebody stalking the Fund-raisers, a shadowy man driven by his sense of justice, of setting right a terrible wrong. He tried to envisage such a man, and even as he did so he experienced an unsettling chill. People who betrayed the Cause always paid an awful price because it was the one crime that was neither forgiven nor forgotten – and if somebody in this room had played a part in the seizure of the Connie’s cargo, then Cairney could almost feel sorry for the culprit. Almost.
    As he turned away from the window and the cold sight of the frozen trees around the lake, he wondered how this Irishman was going to proceed with his efforts. What if he did find out the identities of the Fund-raisers? What then? Was he going to come and knock on the front door and ask polite questions? Cairney severely doubted that approach. The Irishman would have other ways, quite possibly unpleasant ones, of getting to the truth. Cairney shivered slightly. He was too old to face the prospect of physical threats, even violence. But he understood one thing – that whoever came from Ireland was sure to be a man who was determined to get results, no matter what lengths he might have to go to achieve them.
    â€˜The whole thing’s academic anyway,’ Mulhaney said, blowing smoke rings. ‘The guy has absolutely no way of finding us.’
    â€˜I wish I could be as certain as you, Jock,’ Cairney said unhappily, staring down into the polished wood