The White House Connection by Jack Higgins

Dillon told him.
     
     
Ferguson went very still, frowning. 'Where is McGuire?' 'Wandsworth,' Hannah said, naming one of London's bleaker
     
     
prisons.
     
     
'Then let's go and see what he has to say,' and Charles Ferguson
     
     
stood up.
     
     
Wandsworth Prison was one of the toughest in the country, what was known as a hard nick. Ferguson saw the governor and served him with the kind of warrant that made that good man sit up. No one was to see McGuire except those designated by Ferguson, not even Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist section, and certainly not anybody from Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland or the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Any deviation from such a ruling could have sent the governor himself to prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act.
     
     
Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Dillon waited in an interview room and a prison officer delivered McGuire and withdrew on Ferguson's nod. McGuire almost had a fit when he saw Dillon.
     
     
'Jesus, Sean, it's you.'
     
     
'As ever was.' Dillon offered him a cigarette and said to the others, 'Tommy and I go back a long way. Beirut, Sicily, Paris.'
     
     
'IRA, of course,' Ferguson said.
     
     
'Not really. Tommy was never one for direct action, but if there was a pound or two in it, he could get you anything. Automatic weapons, Semtex, rocket launchers. Got away with a lot because of his Yank passport and the fact that he always acted as an agent for foreign arms firms. German, French.' He gave McGuire a light. 'Still fronting for old Jobert out of Marseilles, but then you would. He has the Union Corse protecting him.' He turned to Hannah. 'Worse than the Mafia, that lot.'
     
     
'I know who they are, Dillon.' She looked at McGuire with total contempt. 'Two AK47S and fifty pounds of Semtex were
     
     
found in your car last night. Samples, I presume? Who were you going to see?'
     
     
'No, you've got it wrong,' McGuire told her. 'I mean, I didn't know they were there. I was told there would be a car waiting for me at Heathrow when I got in. The key under the mat. It must have been a setup.'
     
     
Ferguson said coldly, 'We'll leave now.'
     
     
'Okay, okay,' McGuire said. 'You were right about the stuff in the car being samples. They were from Jobert to Tim Pat Ryan. When I flew in, I phoned to arrange the meet and discovered he was dead.'
     
     
'Indeed he is,' Ferguson said. 'But there was some mention of Jack Barry.'
     
     
McGuire hesitated. 'Barry used Tim Pat Ryan as a front man in London. It was Ryan who fixed things up. I can give you Jack Barry. I swear it. Just listen.'
     
     
'Get on with it, then.'
     
     
Hannah said, 'So you know Jack Barry?'
     
     
'No. I've never met him.'
     
     
'Then why are you wasting our time?'
     
     
'Let me,' Dillon said and offered McGuire another cigarette. 'You've never met Jack Barry? That's good, because I have, and he'd cut your balls off for fun if you crossed him. Let me speculate. Jack inherited the Sons of Erin from dear old Frank Barry, alas no longer with us. The Sons of Erin would kill the Pope, which isn't surprising as our Jack is one of the few Protestants in the IRA. However, he's had a falling-out with Dublin, Sinn Fein and the peace process. Probably thinks they're a bunch of old women.'
     
     
'So I hear.'
     
     
'So let me speculate again. His source of arms from Dublin has dried up. However, there's family money in his background, he's rich in his own right, so he's dealing direct with Jobert.
     
     
Semtex, guns, whatever, and you're the middle man. Ryan was in London, but, alas, no more.'
     
     
'That's right,' McGuire said eagerly. 'I'm supposed to meet Barry in Belfast in three days.'
     
     
'Really?' Ferguson said. 'Where exactly?'
     
     
'I'm to book in at the Europa Hotel and wait. He'll send for me when he's ready.'
     
     
'Send for you where?' Hannah Bernstein asked.
     
     
'How the hell would I know? I've already told you, I've never even met the