Touch the Devil by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page B

and mad bombers and too many men like Frank Barry, perhaps, but it als o h as its Liam Devlins and its Martin Brosnans--genuine idealists in the Pearse and Connolly and Michael Collins tradition. Whether you agree with them or not, they are men who believe passionately that they're engaged in a struggle for which the stake is nothing less than the freedom of their country."
    Fox raised his gloved hand. "Sorry, sir, but I've seen women and kids run screaming from a bombing too many times to believe that one any more."
    "Exactly," Ferguson said. "Men like Devlin and Brosnan want to beable to fight with clean hands and a little honor. Their tragedy is that in this kind of war that just is not possible."
    He got up again and paced the room restlessly. "You see, I can't blame Brosnan for what happened in Belfast that night in August, sixty-nine. A handful of Republicans, no more than six in all--led by Liam Devlin--took to the streets. They had three rifles, two revolvers, and a rather antiquated Thompson submachine gun. Brosnan found himself caught up in the thick of it during the defense of the church, and when one of them was shot dead at Devlin's side he picked up the man's rifle instinctively. He was far and away the most experienced fighting man there, remember. From then on he was caught up in the PIRA cause. Devlin's righthand man during the period Devlin was chief of staff in Ulster."
    "Then what?"
    "During the first couple of years or so, it was fine. Men like Devlin and Brosnan were able to take on the army, fight the good old-fashioned guerrilla kind of war that would have delighted Michael Collins's heart. No bombs--they left that to men like Frank Barry. Taking on the army was the way Devlin saw it. He believed that was the way to gain world sympathy for his cause. By the way, how would you feel if you were the officer commanding Northern Ireland and you went into the private office of your headquarters at Lisburn one fine morning and found a rose on your desk?"
    "Good God."
    "Yes, Brosnan loved that sort of nonsensical and foolhardy gesture. The rose was a play on his own name, of course. Not only did he do it to the top general, he also left one for the Ulster Prime Minister and for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The implication was clear enough."
    "He could have killed and didn't."
    "That's right. Brosnan's rose." Ferguson laughed. "We had to make it classified to keep it out of the papers, not that they'd have believed it. Who would?"
    "What happened later?"
    "All changed, didn't it? An escalation of the worst kind of bloodshed, and the bombers gained the ascendancy in the movement. Devlin became chief intelligence officer in Dublin, and Brosnan worked with him as a kind of roving aide."
    Reading on through the file, Fox said, "It says here he's got Irish nationality. How's that, sir?"
    "Well, the American government was not exactly delighted with his activities, and then in nineteen seventy-four, Devlin sent him to New York to execute an informer who'd been helped to seek refuge in America by the Ulster Constabulary, after selling them information that had led to the arrest of nearly every member of the North Belfast Brigade. Brosnan accomplished his task with his usual ruthless efficiency and got out of New York by the skin of his teeth. When the American State Department tried to extradite him, he claimed Irish nationality, which he was entitled to do under Irish law because his mother was born there. If you're interested, Harry, I could do the same. My grandmother was born in Cork."
    Fox quickly glanced through the rest of the file. "And then the French business."
    "That's right. Devlin sent him to France in nineteen seventy-five to negotiate an arms consignment. The middleman turned out to be a police informer. When Brosnan arrived at a fishing village on the Brittany coast to take delivery, a rather large consignment o f r iot police was waiting for him. In the ensuing fracas, he wounded two