Chapter 23

BRIGHTON – 1984

Danny was not happy that they called him in on the whole sordid Brighton affair at the last minute. His suspicion was that the hierarchy was in a state of confusion because of changing circumstances and the threat of retribution after the assassination of a ruling Prime Minister was pushed front and center with shocking realization.

When he first was read into the operation, it was his cautious nature that kept him from standing up in the small room filled with frightened men and shouting,

"You bloody fools, this isn't a game. It is reality and this is crossing the line."

He tried his best to keep his poker face on and not give any "tells" to the others merely listening and nodding his head to show that he understood. It certainly was not because he agreed with the mission objectives. Danny was well aware it was the new laws of imprisonment for so many of the faithful that prompted the explosive mission but there were other less spectacular ways to deal with that and he knew instinctively that the entire affair would be horribly counter-productive to the cause of national freedom.

A knock on the closed door stopped all talk because none of them wanted a single word to leak outside the small group of planners and the limited number of "need to know" troops on the ground putting the operation into action.

Danny had spent several hours going over the steps already in place and saw that some of the details were sketchy at best and disastrous if not properly formatted. He was especially concerned about the placement of the charges and the composition of the detonation material. It didn't appear to him that the structural foundation of the huge building was at risk from that type of charge and would probably only cause a partial structural failure leading to a failed mission. He had grave reservations about the qualifications of the operatives assigned to the field action and the possibility of negative collateral casualties was so high that if he were in charge he would have ordered an immediate cancellation of the ill-conceived event.

The upshot of the meeting was to appoint Danny to the "clean-up" revision to the mission even though he expressed his opinion it was too late to change the outcome unless they immediately called for an end to the entire enterprise. He took his two best associates with him who he referred to simply as Mister Alpha and Mister Bravo because neither of them wanted their professional names associated with an operation in the heart of the Empire at Brighton. They both perked up when he explained to them that they would be trying their best to either modify the operation or to stop it if it seemed the best course of action to take.

His initial reaction to the scene of pending crime was subdued because he had mixed feelings about the operation. Danny wanted to do something to focus the Whitehall attention on the silly new laws of incarceration that separated families with dubious evidence and seldom drew the line between guilt and innocence. It was as if the assumption was made that if the bloke was Irish he had to be guilty of something. The "prison" period was the most depressing era of the conflict and only remained active because in a certain obscene way it was effective.

He put "Patrick" in the blind establishment column and wrote him off as too dull to appreciate the nuances of the operation and the influence of a changing scenario. He was the type to follow orders even when he didn't agree with them because he didn't want to take the risk of being thought disloyal. It was because of that reason Danny didn't even make an effort to explain to Patrick his reason for being there except to say he was just more "backup".

His primary source of concern was the Polish agent "Katya".

Danny had to admit in many respects the pretty and nubile Katya was a superior agent because she had a reputation of taking action based on her instinctive feel for the situation and was almost always correct in her analysis. He was constantly on his guard to keep his real mission a secret because he suspected she would terminate him as a danger to the success of the mission under her supervision. Patrick would probably just wire Belfast for instructions but Katya would drill a hole right between his eyeballs with her little small-caliber purse handgun. He never made a move on the pretty agent because it was as dangerous as sleeping in a bed of snakes.

As the time drew close for the beginning of the conference, Danny knew that no matter what he did he would not be able to stop the event completely because of the back-up charges secretly installed on the first floor that Katya had let slip out just two days ago. It would take him at least ten days to clear them and still make it look like it was a slipshod job of placement. He was reluctant to contact his handler because it would look like he was losing it and admitting failure. He was always one to face the facts head-on and it was starting to look like it was time to cut their losses and move back away from the scene before getting caught in the drag-net that was sure to follow.

He was halfway to London when the news of the blast came over the radio and Katya looked at him with a strange look on her face. Patrick had already taken a flight to Belfast the previous evening and was probably already in the midst of changing identities to cover his tracks.

Katya looked like a thunderstorm brewing to break loose with a vengeance when the radio assured the general public that the Prime Minister was safe and not injured in the debacle. However there were unspecified casualties including some fatalities of conference attendees as yet undisclosed for reasons of notifying the next of kin. Danny knew she immediately considered the mission a failure and he decided it was not a good time to bring up the subject of disassociating themselves from the operation in all future conversations and relationships. He knew she was not a trusting person and would suspect that he had something to do with the scaling back of the blast and undercover efforts to sabotage the entire mission right from the very beginning. It was far too late to reveal the high command's change of heart because she would feel betrayed and had good reason to not trust him ever again.