The Road to?
Clayton Webb shivered as he moodily glared out of the window, Christ, how he hated this country. It was the middle of July but it hadn't stopped raining for three solid days and nights. No wonder they called the damned place the 'Emerald Isle' it couldn't be anything else but green the amount of watering it got. Well, green below and grey above, he amended his thoughts.
No, the only redeeming feature this place had was the quality of the whiskey. The beer was too heavy for his stomach and too warm to his palate. But the Whiskey… ahhh… that was a horse of entirely a different colour, although the barman in this small pub in this small village overlooking an equally small cove just north of Kilkee on the island's Atlantic coast had treated him to a scandalised look when he had asked for ice to be added to his glass.
He looked moodily down at the half inch of now-diluted whiskey in his glass and decided that maybe the barman had a point after all, it did seem a shame to dilute good whiskey, but he hadn't expected his contact to be so late to the meeting. With that black thought on his mind he looked up expectantly as the door opened, just as he had the last three times someone had entered the small bar, but this time his features relaxed, not quite into a smile, as he saw the petite blonde cross the floor towards him, evidently having spotted him sat at his window table. Not a difficult task as there were only about half a dozen people in the bar, and he was the only one in a three piece suit.
"You're late!" he snapped as she wordlessly dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table.
"Couldn't be helped," she said with a dismissive shrug. "You've seen what the roads are like over here. Eight miles stuck behind a farm tractor and nowhere anywhere safe to pass it. Still, I'm here now, which I probably wouldn't be if I had attempted to get past that damn thing, so quit whining!"
Webb's grunt could have meant anything, but he hauled himself to his feet and said, "Well, now you are here, I'd better get you a drink. What do want?"
"Oh… a Sprite and soda water, please," she smiled up at him, her face becoming almost beautiful as she lost the pinched, guarded look it customarily wore.
Webb nodded his acknowledgement of her choice and crossed to the bar, returning in a couple of minutes with a glass in each hand. In the meantime the blonde had shrugged out of her raincoat, revealing the pale blue lightweight sweater and black pants she wore underneath it.
"Thanks," she smiled as he handed over her drink and retook his seat. Taking a sip of her drink she regarded him quizzically for a few moments and then asked, "Well… now that you've got me here, what are you going to do with me?"
Webb slid a hand inside his jacket pocket and brought put a shiny envelope in the garish colours of a well-known photographic processing chain, and pulled out what looked like a full roll's worth of cheaply processed colour prints, and began going through them as if showing holiday snaps to an acquaintance.
And most of the pictures were the sort that an American tourist would take in this corner of Ireland, Celtic crosses, Iron Age monoliths, tumuli, picturesque seas-side cottages, fishing boats clustered in a small harbour, landscapes and the like, but two of the pictures were of a different type. The first was a somewhat grainy black and white print and showed a man in his mid-forties, standing casually in a doorway, his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he talked to another man who had his back to the camera. The second shot was much clearer and was obviously a police mug shot, full face and profile.
"This is your target. Padhraig Scanlon. He's thoroughly nasty piece of work. Used to be in the IRA and was a key element in the supply of arms from Gadhafi's Libya to that organisation. He's one of the bhoys that didn't take too kindly to the Good Friday agreement, and happily occupied himself with being a pain in the ass to the IRA and to the Brits at the same time, until he had to clear out of Ireland when it all got too hot for him. He spent the last few years cultivating his contacts in the world of illegal arms and ended up supplying arms to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, and then to the Taliban." Webb paused to take a sip of his drink.
"Intel has come in that Scanlon's grandmother is terminally ill, and that he's slipped back into the country from Syria, where he's currently based. It's your job to make sure that he doesn't slip out of the country again. Ever."
The slim blonde nodded, "And is there an intel package?"
"Yep, in the envelope with the negatives. Don't mess this one up!"
"I haven't yet," the blonde answered.
"Apart from Princess Alexis," Webb said cruelly.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't working for you then was I?" the blonde snapped back at him. "You know my record, and you figure I'm more use to you out here rather than inside a federal penitentiary somewhere, otherwise that's exactly where I'd be! So, get off my back Webb!"
"Just remember who you are O'Hara, what you are and who is responsible for you being where you are. You start forgetting that, and I may just tear up our cosy little agreement and you can spend the next forty years behind federal bars! If you live that long!"