Three: Suspicion

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Major Kathleen Walsh, British Army Intelligence Service, proved to be charming and intelligent, an excellent speaker, facilitator, and symposium host, and – as it transpired – an amusing and vivacious dinner companion. She had been born south of Belfast, but had mostly served overseas and even knew some of the same cities Pete did. Despite the grim nature of the symposium topics and the occasionally gruesome discussions, Pete would have enjoyed himself overall – if he could have convinced himself that he was only imagining the faint but persistent smell of a rat.

Major Walsh also kept Pete's schedule so full that, by mid-afternoon on the third and final day of the conference, he had not had any opportunity for private speech with MacGyver. They'd seen each other often enough – Mac was in every general session, not sitting too close but never very far away. He hung around in corridors and materialised inside conference rooms where breakout sessions were being set up, never seeming out of place while managing to be everywhere. When he wasn't on a silent periphery, Pete often saw him in animated conversation with other attendees – or, more frequently, with the staff and support personnel. On at least four different occasions, he'd spotted Mac fixing some recalcitrant piece of audio or video equipment while the British Army officer in charge of technical support stood around looking either flustered or grateful.

Kathleen Walsh never seemed to notice MacGyver, and had barely nodded when Pete had introduced them on the first day. For his part, Mac seemed to be deliberately avoiding her notice, although he took more than one opportunity to bait her assistant, Grant, a young British Army Lieutenant whose obsequious mannerisms irritated both Americans almost beyond endurance.

When the final session ended at last amongst sincere expressions of inter-organisational camaraderie, Pete tried to slip out of the main conference room without calling attention to himself or being buttonholed. But as he turned away from the cluster of VIPs exchanging animated farewells, Grant appeared in his path.

"Lieutenant." Pete nodded and tried to slip past without the evasion being too obvious.

"Col. Thornton – "

"Please, I've told you already, Mister is fine. Or just Pete. I don't bother with the "Colonel" nonsense these days unless I have to."

Pete ground his teeth at the young man's unctuous grin. "Oh, but I can't do that. Major Walsh would never condone that level of informality. She's looking for you, by the way. I believe she's hoping to detain you for dinner this evening."

"Mr. Thornton!? Sorry to butt in like this – excuse me. Gosh, I'm sorry about that. Was that your foot?" MacGyver's voice cut across Grant's over-rich accent like a slow knife through cheese, the Minnesota drawl so exaggerated that Pete had to stifle a laugh. "Mr. Thornton, I've got an urgent message for you from Barrington – he wants to ask you about Cairo, and it just can't wait."

Pete breathed deeply again. In their private code, 'Cairo' meant that they needed to talk privately, while 'Barrington' – or any name beginning with a B – meant that Mac had found a location where that would be possible, and all Pete had to do was to play along. "MacGyver, it can't be that important," he snapped to cover his sudden surge of relief. "Couldn't you put him off? You know what an old woman Barrington is. I briefed him fully before I left!"

"Yeah, I know, but he insisted. It won't take long – they have a room standing by for you with a secure phone line." MacGyver took Pete's elbow and steered him away from Grant.

"It's about damned time," Pete murmured as Mac led him from the plush carpeted corridors of the conference centre into the utilitarian backcountry. "You've been playing the 'junior colleague' role so well, I'd practically forgotten what your voice sounds like." They entered a small room with plain white walls, unfurnished except for two chairs and a small table with a telephone, a pad of paper and a pen. Mac swung the door shut, picked up the phone and dialed rapidly, then held it out as Pete settled into one of the chairs.

Pete held the handset to his ear, wondering at the charade, and had to swallow another laugh as the automated voice chirped in his ear.

"At the tone, the time will be ... eleven ... fifteen … am. The temperature in ... Washington, DC ... is … forty … eight … degrees."

MacGyver hadn't taken the other chair; instead, he was leaning over Pete so as to effectively block his face from any observer. Pete kept the telephone handset in front of his mouth and spoke quietly.

"Any surveillance inside this room?"

Mac's eyes glanced around. "If there is, it's really well hidden."

"'If'? If you're saying 'if', that's good enough for me." Pete began to lower the receiver, then stopped at the faint shake of Mac's head.

"Not good enough for me."

"Mac, the British are supposed to be our allies."

"Yup. So why'd you bring me along?"

Pete couldn't help playing devil's advocate. "Well, it has been an interesting event. We really could do with more of this kind of cross-organisational cooperation."

"Yeah, it's been a real eye-opener. Did you know what the IRA is doing with bomb threats these days? They call in a warning – to a school, say – and watch to see where the evacuees go. The next day, or the next week, they call in another threat. But there's no bomb at the school. No, they bomb the evacuation zone." Mac looked as sick as Pete had ever seen him. "D'you know what the life expectancy is for kids here?"

"Yeah, I know. And you know what? I'm not used to being called 'naïve'. Do you know what Kathleen said to me on my first evening here?"

MacGyver didn't comment on Pete's use of their hostess' first name. "No, what?"

"She said, 'God help you Yanks if the terrorists ever show up on your own soil.'"

Mac winced and nodded. "So – do you really think this was just about teaming up to beat the bad guys? Is there anything else going on?"

Pete hesitated, picking up the pen from the table and tapping it against the phone base. All he had was instinct – but his instincts had saved his life – and others' – too many times to be ignored. "I don't know – "

"Aw, the heck with knowing, Pete! What d'you feel?"

"Okay, fine! There's something else going on, has been from the start, and I still don't know what it is!"

"They've been really friendly." MacGyver looked searchingly at Pete; he had wondered at Major Walsh's attentions but hesitated to probe further.

"That's just it." Pete started to lower the telephone handset, then recalled himself. "They're friendly and accommodating – and they know me just a little bit too well. Too thoroughly. You know what I mean?"

Suddenly Mac did know. "They've reviewed your dossier recently. In detail."

"Bingo."

"Now why would they do that?"

"I don't know. But I do know that they didn't review yours." Pete grinned. "You're a wild card."

Mac returned the grin. "Always glad to oblige." He filched the pen from Pete and started to fiddle with it. "So what's the game? How're you gonna play your wild card?"

"Good question." MacGyver watched Pete frown over the phone and nod vigourously at its inane repetition, the old campaigner carrying on the charade even as his mind was elsewhere. "The symposium's over . . . whatever they've got in mind, they'll have to do it soon. When Grant buttonholed me just now, he was extending another dinner invitation from Kath – from Major Walsh."

Mac studied the pen in his hand. "She's a special lady." In his peripheral vision, he saw Pete start to smile a bit too broadly and then check himself. "No, I really mean it."

"What are you trying to say, Mac?"

"Well, she's a local, isn't she? More or less?"

"She's from County Down – about twenty miles south of here. What about it?"

"Something I noticed starting at the border. Literally. You know how, everywhere you go in the whole Eastern bloc, you find Soviet officers talking Russian right out of a Moscow prep school, and local staff whose Russian is, well, even worse than mine when I'm out of practice. You get used to hearing the accents split between rank and file."

Pete nodded. When he and MacGyver had received their intensive Russian language training – as well as the periodic refresher courses they were required to take – the DXS always went to great lengths to provide tutors with well-educated Muscovite accents.

"It's the same here. The orders are given in English accents and taken in Irish. Pete, whose country is this supposed to be anyway? Never mind. What I mean is that Major Walsh is the highest-ranked person I've met so far that actually has an Irish accent."

Pete looked thoughtful. "You've talked to a lot more of the personnel here than I have."

"I haven't been sewn up in a VIP bag."

"I know." Pete nodded again, briskly, to the phone and hung up. "C'mon, let's go."

MacGyver put the pen down, startled. "Where to?"

"We're going to go find Major Walsh, and I'm going to ask her what she's up to." Pete stood up. "Nicely, of course."

"You think she'll tell you?"

"I think she meant to tell me over dinner. But you weren't invited." Pete reached the door in two strides and flung it open. "C'mon."

"Wanna bet Grant finds us first?" Mac murmured as he followed. Even with an eye out, it was a change in air pressure rather than any sound or glimpse of movement that alerted him when Grant slipped out from another corridor door and fell in just behind them. Mac touched Pete's arm in warning just as the insouciant voice called after them.

"Well, Colonel Thornton! And your – colleague? Guard dog? Engineer? Tame technician?" Mac and Pete turned to face the smirking subaltern. "And how is the weather in Washington, DC at the moment?"

Pete met his look without flinching. "Forty-eight degrees. Don't you take notes?"

"Grant." All three men started, and Grant nearly jumped; no-one had noticed Major Walsh's approach. Grant recovered quickly and saluted.

"Go play in traffic."

As Grant retreated, Pete started to speak, but Walsh held up a hand. "I apologise, gentlemen. Please understand. He's good at his job . . . but he is a prat."

"Kathleen, we've – "

Walsh gestured again. "Please. Won't you come along to where we can talk? All three of us, and just the three. I know, Peter, I should have leveled with you on Day One – "

"Try Day Minus-One."

Walsh nodded. "True enough. I had my reasons. Probably not very good reasons . . . but I'm generally obliged to do my best with second-rate material. I've grown used to it."

She led them to a small, well-stocked private conference room with a table, half a dozen comfortable chairs, walls that looked convincingly soundproofed, and a windowless door that locked. Pete and Mac each made their own swift appraisal of the interior; their glances met in the same beat.

"Good enough for you this time, Mac?"

"Yup."

As the two men took their seats, Walsh dropped a stack of dossiers on the table in front of them, all bearing assorted security clearance stamps. MacGyver picked up the top folder, which was prominently labeled 'Thornton' and obviously well-thumbed. Pete took the next one in the stack, noting that it showed none of the same signs of recent or extensive handling.

"You got Pete's weight wrong," Mac remarked after a moment's perusal.

"Too high, or too low?" Walsh inquired.

"Guess."

Pete turned a page and cleared his throat. "And you've also got MacGyver's shoe size incorrect."

"Shoe size – Peter, those dossiers don't have shoe sizes in them – "

"Well, why not?" Pete's mouth twitched as Mac tried to hid his own grin behind the folder he held. Walsh sank into her chair as the stiff atmosphere in the room melted. "All right, Kathleen, enough. What's all this about?"

- - -

It was about terrorism.

It was about bombs, and bloodbaths, and blood feuds, and blood money, and the kind of bone-deep hatred that just never lets up. It was about the kind of mess that you get when packs of killers start tearing each other apart like rabid dogs, and you can't get anywhere close to them or they'll all start tearing at you.

It was about the most reckless thing I'd ever heard Pete asked to do, and I couldn't believe he said yes.

"'Tisn't just that the Unionists are up in arms over this so-called Agreement – there's rumours of more fractures building up within the IRA and the Provisional IRA. We've got breakaway paramilitary units and splinter groups and rogue cells and bloody-minded opportunists with short fuses and long memories. I swear everyone in Ireland has a grudge against somebody . . . and they're all thirsty for more guns and more money."

Pete was frowning over a report. "And you're certain the funding is coming from America? From private citizens?"

"Where else? We've been sending our best blood overseas for centuries. For every living soul in Ireland today, there are ten abroad, and they have far more money and even less sense. For years now the IRA have been targeting the sentimental fools of the US and Canada for cash cows. That's where you come in, Peter."

MacGyver broke in, speaking for the first time in several minutes. "Y'know, I just looked through this dossier you've got on Pete, and I didn't see 'sentimental fool' anywhere. Did I miss it?"

"Jaysus, MacGyver, if you think I meant that you haven't been listening."

"Oh, I've been listening. And what I'm hearing is that you want to use Pete as bait."

Mac was glowering at her in angry frustration – frustration that was worse because, somehow, she wasn't glaring back. Instead she shook her head ruefully and turned to Pete.

"Peter, have you any notion at all just how damned lucky you are to have this man at your back?"

"I'd say I have a very good notion. And you haven't answered his question."

"No more I haven't, true. But by God, I'd give anything to have just one man on my staff – or anywhere in this bloody province! – that I could count on like that." She turned to MacGyver, whose glower hadn't wavered, and met his gaze squarely. "No, not bait – it's the smell of American dollars that's the bait. I want Peter for the hook."

"The hook?"

"All right! I've already admitted that I set up the symposium to bring him here – and got yourself into the bargain! – not but what it was a good enough idea on its own. But I did choose you, Peter, out of a stack of possibilities and a fleeting hope. You've got the background in intelligence and the experience in field operations that I need. But more than that, you're clean. You're not part of the system here."

Mac glanced at Pete and saw the pained expression on his face. "It's really that bad, then?" Pete said.

"Worse. If this place here were any more corrupt . . . I've an intelligence service that's too alien to pass for anything but an invading army, a police force that's just as sectarian as the terrorists I'm supposed to be fighting, a justice system that's an entrenched oxymoron, and enforcement that's rotten to the core with dependence on informers and supergrasses. Half the convictions we win these days will collapse given a good kick. And I can only trust my own assistant because he's too much of a prig to cross me."

MacGyver passed Pete a quick, scrawled note: So what's the difference between a prig and a prat? Pete gave him an annoyed look and stuffed the note into a pocket.

"The supergrass system has spooked the Provisional IRA to the point that we're finally seeing less violence on a daily basis . . . but with the new Anglo-Irish Agreement, most of Belfast is primed for rioting. I'm supposed to stop the next escalation before it starts. I need some solid intelligence."

Pete was nodding. "And this contact you say you've got – Mary O'Sullivan – do you trust her?"

"Implicitly. She's the one solid resource I've got, but I have to protect her, keep her cover secure – at any cost."

Any cost? Mac ground his teeth at the implication, wondering why Pete seemed to have missed it. He broke in again. "If she's your best source, the one you're counting on to make this work – why don't you have a dossier on her?"

Walsh looked from Mac to Pete in puzzlement. "Her dossier? It's right here." Walsh picked up a buff folder and handed it across the table. "Read it and weep."

Pete blinked at the name on the label: Máire Ui Súilleabháin. "Kathleen . . . just how do you get 'Mary O'Sullivan' out of that?"

Walsh snorted. "Put it through a fine mesh and strain out all the extraneous vowels." Pete raised an eyebrow, and MacGyver filched the file from him and studied it as Walsh continued. "Look, it's all part of the whole romantic Nationalist Celtic heritage business – some of them will go back to the oldest, most cluttered Gaelic spelling they can dredge up out of the old records. But don't blame Máire; it was her husband changed the name, and she's stuck with it now."

Pete shifted his chair to read over MacGyver's shoulder. "Mac, that book you were reading on the plane – "

"Yeah. Padraig Ui Súilleabháin. I wasn't gonna even try to pronounce it without a native guide." Mac glanced up at Walsh. "Any relation?"

"Patrick O'Sullivan. That was her husband."

"'Was'? But the book was only just released – "

"Posthumously. It's all in there . . . she saw it through to publication after he was gunned down in the street eighteen months back. After she'd got out of hospital herself, that is. She was walking beside him when he was killed."

"Which side shot them?"

Walsh shrugged. "He'd been writing some very candid articles for the press, and three different groups claimed him as a target."

"You want Pete to risk his life on the word of somebody with a grudge?"

Walsh bristled, and her dark eyes flashed; Mac noted with interest that it was a stronger reaction than any she'd shown yet, in spite of his needling. "If she is, she's a right – she wasn't hit herself when they shot Padraig. She was carrying their first child, and she lost it from the shock. Since then . . . well, the book's all well and good, but even before she could sit up again she was on fire to do more, and still is." She looked from Pete's considering frown to MacGyver's unconvinced scowl. "You can trust her – I do."

Pete took the dossier from MacGyver and studied the photo on the inside cover. Máire Ui Súilleabháin was in her mid-forties, but her dark brown hair already showed streaks of grey and deep lines were etched in her face. He realised she was probably a contemporary of Walsh's, although hardship had left her looking considerably older than her years. "So she's Catholic, but anti-IRA?"

"She's anti-conflict."

"Well, that sure makes a difference," MacGyver grumbled.

"Believe it or not, it does," Walsh retorted. "We could do with more of it. And we could do with more like her."

"You seem to know her very well," Pete remarked. "Known her for long?"

"We go back to university together." Mac looked at her sharply, but Pete only nodded.

"Look, Peter. Is it so much I'm asking you to do? You know what we're up against . . . if I could just get some solid information on the splinter groups, I might be able to keep a step ahead of them. I'm damned if I know whether Ireland has even a prayer of hope for any real peace someday . . . for today, I'll settle for a few less killings than otherwise. And you are Irish, Peter, aren't you – Irish-American?"

"Well, yes, but I don't really know the details – "

"That's just it. You fit the profile of what they look for – that kind of fuzzy notion of heritage is what they glom on to. All we need is to get them pointed at you, and we can do that in a few days if you're game for sticking around. I can clear out at least one nest of vipers and maybe pick up some threads that'll lead to more."

Yeah. Everyone knows what terrorists look like. Where they live . . . how they talk, how they dress, what religion they follow.

How they're different from anyone you know. And they're crazy.

About as crazy as Pete had to be to agree to any of this.

So what could I do but agree to stick around too?

- - -