Rough Justice by Jack Higgins Page A

younger brother is Monsignor Hilary Baxter in the Bishop of London’s Office. St. Mary’s Hospice in Wapping was facing closure because their lease was coming to an end. We’ve been able to resolve their problem.”
    To that, there was no answer. “I see, sir.”
    “If you call round to Wapping this afternoon with the documents in your file, there’s an old boy called Frobisher who’ll go through them with you. All the necessary work’s been done. You just pretend at the hospice and look busy. Sister Maria Brosnan expects you Monday.”
    “What about my identity?”
    “It’s all in the file, Harry, courtesy of the forgery department of MI6.”
    “And weaponry?”
    “I’m afraid you’re expecting too much there. After all, you’re a traveling civilian heading into the war zone. There’s no way you could go armed.”
    “I see, sir, it’s we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you time.” It was a statement, not a question, and Miller carried on. “What you really want aren’t the Stingers on that boat. This is all about Kelly, the publican of the Sailor who has fallen out of favor with the Provos, and this Liam Ryan who you say is a psychopath.”
    “Two years ago, he formed a breakaway group, no more than a dozen people, calling it the Irish Liberation Movement. Wholesale butchery, torture, kidnap—his favorite pastime is removing his victims’ fingers with bolt cutters. Bad news for the Republican movement as a whole. The word is the Provos put their best enforcer on the case. Eight of Ryan’s people are known to have been executed for certain, but perhaps more.”
    “But not Ryan?”
    “A will-o’-the-wisp with all the cunning of a beast. He’s one of the few big players who’s never been arrested, so there aren’t prison photos. He’s always avoided cameras like the plague, a bit like Michael Collins in the old days, but we have one anyway.”
    “How is that, sir?”
    “He took out an Irish passport five years ago under a false name. There’s a copy of the passport photo in the file.”
    Miller had a look at it. The face was very ordinary, cheeks hollow, the whole thing desperately stilted, the face of some little man for whom life had always been a disappointment. Miller replaced it.
    “Thanks very much, sir. Would you have told me all this if I hadn’t asked?”
    “It’s the name of the game.” Glover shrugged. “I’d get on with it if I were you.” He patted the file. “I’ll put the word out that you’re off on a spot of leave.”
     
 
THE OFFICE WAS EMPTY when Miller went in, so he sat at the desk and checked out the contents of the file. There was a passport in the name of Mark Blunt, aged twenty-four, a surveyor by profession, a London address in Highbury. He’d been to Italy once, France twice, and Holland on a day trip from Harwich. The photo had the usual hunted look and made him look thinner.
    He worked his way through the survey reports referring to various parts of the priory in Belfast. It was all laid out simply and made perfect sense. There was also a Belfast street map, some photos of the priory and the docks.
    So far so good. He put the file in his briefcase and pulled on his raincoat, tense and slightly worked up. The door opened and Alice Tilsey came in.
    “You clever bastard,” she said. “Off on leave, are we? How in the hell did you work that?”
    “For God’s sake, Alice,” he said. “After a year in the Corps, I’d have thought you’d have learned when to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business.”
    A look of total contrition and horror spread over her face. “Oh, my God, Harry, you’re going in-country, aren’t you? I’m so bloody sorry.”
    “So am I, actually,” he said, and left.
     
 
MR. FROBISHER at St. Mary’s Hospice in Wapping was in his early seventies and looked it. Even his office seemed like something out of Dickens. He stood at a drawing table and went through documents with Harry, in the kind of faded voice that seemed