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The ancestors of today’s Irish were the Celts whose language was archaic: sometimes even using roots and stems in place of words, and as the monks discovered, did not even have words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It was the monasteries that gave to this language of the Celts the major Latin transplant that it needed to survive. This hybrid language is now the ‘Gaelic’ spoken by the shepherds in remote mountain areas and by members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army; many of whom currently teach it fluently in the British prison system.

The O’Briens

The farmhouse was solidly built out of stone by workers who undoubtedly had lain in their graves for many a year now. This land, not far from Dublin, had belonged to the O’Briens for generations. The earliest O’Brien greengrocers had discovered the secret to keeping this argumentative clan together: they had all made a good profit by selling their agricultural products in Dublin. And in this continued venture they did seem to cooperate together, however when they individually struck off to Dublin to work for wages, then the O’Briens inevitably got into trouble.

Today it was not agricultural work in which the family was engaged. Today was bullet day. A sort of production line was in progress with hundreds of fired Armalite brass cartridge cases coming into one end of the room. Emerging from the other end of the workplace were fully functional 5.56mm rifle cartridges, known in America as .223 Remingtons. This entire operation, although highly illegal here in Ireland, was a model of utter simplicity. The youngest O’Brien placed the empty brass case into a recess drilled into an oak block. He then took a punch and punched out the old spent primer and then passed the brass case to the next worker who installed a new primer and placed the cartridge in a resizing die and squeezed it to proper form in a hand press. Then it passed to the next person who poured in a measured amount of gunpowder and who in turn passed his product to another person who placed the cartridge in another press and pressed in a new bullet. The last man on the team—the oldest—sealed the new primers, thereby completing the finished product. They had evidently done this many times before because it all went like clockwork. The anti-English sentiment could plainly be observed because decorating the wall of the workroom, under glass and surrounded by a blackthorn frame, was a yellowed newspaper front-page showing a photo of O’Connell Street in Dublin all strewn with debris caused by the outlawed Irish Republican Army blowing up Nelson’s Column in the City’s center. In fact, one of the men now working on this ammunition production line had participated in that event. The headline on the old newspaper told the story in a way that was typically Irish; it read: FAMOUS BRITISH ADMIRAL LEAVES DUBLIN BY AIR.

The majority of Irish farmers were far more peaceful than the O’Briens. Most of their Irish neighbors had made their peace with England years ago and none of the farmers within a mile of the O’Briens had ever seen a bullet in their entire lifetime, yet a certain amount of hostility against England seemed everywhere.

Irish farms generally passed on to the oldest male child. This firstborn then also accepted the responsibility to send his other brothers out of Ireland with a small bit of money to at least give them a chance of getting situated overseas where they could find employment. These Irish lads then came to America and England and to Australia and Canada. These were countries where people spoke the same English language and where employment opportunities were far, far better than at home in Ireland. Sean O’Brien would be the son to whom the farm would be given if this time honored practice continued, but times were rapidly changing in Ireland and Sean O’Brien was getting caught up in that change. It was the family business, ironically, that was keeping Sean away from his farm and now his brothers were spending most of their time working on the farm.

The O’Briens had always devoted a lot of time and energy to the old Sinn Fein Political party whose philosophy of throwing the British out of all of Ireland by whatever means necessary, is still very much alive here in Ireland and even today the name Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone) can be seen everywhere, from being molded on the clay pipes being sold to tourists, to graffiti written on the lavatory walls. The Sinn Fein Party is the legal arm of the very much illegal Irish Republican Army (IRA) whose men, though few in number, manage to keep both Ireland and England in constant turmoil even though they are regularly caught not only in England but by their own Irish Government as well and duly placed behind bars. But a number of these IRA men keep leaving these prisons on a fairly regular basis by either ruse or explosion and this tends to add to the exasperation of many in the British Government who counteract by making absolutely certain that plenty of money is sent out of England to correct this ‘Irish Problem’. All this money is being pumped out to Ireland sometimes as fast as all the North Sea oil wells pump it into England. In fact, in some periods England may have even spent more money on her troops in Ireland than she got from the profits on all her North Sea Wells. The two English agencies who are allotted substantial amounts of this money to combat this ‘Irish Problem’ in ways that they deem will be effective are England’s MI-5 (English FBI) and MI-6 (CIA).

* * *

In England, southwest across the water and about five hundred miles away in the city of London, John Powell sat before the MI-6 psychiatrist, who by now was of the opinion that John was fairly close to being insane.

"What exactly do you mean by saying that all the trees seem to be against you?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Not all of them Sir, but a lot of these trees here in England were planted by those Irish Navvies and we don’t know what they may have done to them now, do we? I believe the roses are all friendly. They are probably English and on our side, but most of the trees are definitely bending toward me and always trying to get at me and I don’t like that," said John.

"Do you ever feel like committing suicide?" asked the MI-6 doctor?"

"No I want to stay alive as long as I can so I can kill more of them," said John Powell.

"Do you ever feel that you need help in a mental way?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Yes," answered John.

"How do you feel at these times when you sense that you need help?" asked the doctor.

"I can’t sleep and I’m anxious about everything. Time seems almost to stop and every minute seems like it’s forever. Tranquilizers don’t help at all; they usually have to shoot me full of Thorazine," said John.

"Excuse me for a moment," said the doctor and he left the room, closing the door and activating the lock so that John could not follow.In an adjoining room the doctor picked up the phone and rang up another member of the agency. ". . . Then you people are really intent on utilizing this warped creature?" the doctor asked.

"Yes," answered the voice on the other end of the line, "we absolutely must have him on this next job."

"But," said the doctor, "I have a responsibility to the people of this country and under the law—"

"He will be leaving England and the English law forthwith," broke in the voice on the line. "You are about to torpedo our entire operation. Look, I’m not supposed to divulge any information as to where he is headed, but in strict confidence, I want you to know that he is headed directly across Saint George’s Channel to the Republic. We have a doctor in Dublin who knows how to take good care of him. If you think he will need some medicine between here and there, then simply tell us what will be required."

"If I approve him and this ‘Gem of Humanity’ gets transferred to the Emerald Isle then you people owe me one. Do you understand this?" asked the doctor.

"I will certainly inform my superiors of your cooperation," said the voice.

"Good," answered the psychiatrist, hanging up the phone and thinking that besides putting them into his debt, he also would be saving the British taxpayers’ money by getting this lunatic out of England and, best of all, turning him loose in Ireland. Yes indeed, he thought, this has turned out to be a very good day and he smiled as he went back to the door and turned the knob that only unlocked from that side. He then entered the room where he left John Powell.

"You are good enough to work John. No man should judge his neighbor," said the doctor, as he signed his name to the document now in front of him. "John," said the doctor, "One of the safest spots in this world, if you ever find that you need one, is Phoenix Park in Dublin where you can sit amidst hundreds and even thousands of various colored roses." Then the doctor put his hand on John’s shoulder and lowered his voice as if to keep any unauthorized people from listening and said, "That’s one of our very own men over there putting all those roses in so you don’t have to worry about any of them."

"I’m much obliged to you Sir," said John.

"England expects each of us to do his duty," said the doctor as he stamped his signature with the official seal. He then escorted John out of the room with a friendly handshake.

A bit later the doctor received a call from a young female employee thanking him for what her supervisor said was good interdepartmental cooperation on his behalf. "Are you going to tell me about this over dinner tonight?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Are you buying and paying for it?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said the doctor.

"That sounds fine," replied the young pleasant voice. And the doctor thought to himself that this might, indeed, turn out to be his very best day at the agency.

* * *

O.K. Cromwell headed the team that was responsible for sending John to Ireland. Cromwell’s computer had churned and sifted through years of old data and endless bits of information sent to him by informants and agents in Ireland. The results of all of this simmering and boiling down were now served to him at his desk in the agency building. Now, Cromwell sat for several hours behind his massive desk digesting all of this information and every few moments making a note on something that needed to be acted upon or further looked into. The people who knew and worked with Cromwell said that he did not believe in God, but they were all wrong, because he believed infallibly in his new computers and these computers were Cromwell’s God. Unlike ordinary people, Cromwell had found these machines to be absolutely trustworthy. They most definitely had proven their worth with numerous arrests of London based IRA operatives. Here at hand was Cromwell’s chance to use all this data from Ireland itself and combine it with more that he would get from the Irish banks shortly and this would give him a good idea of who was doing what inside that nefarious IRA. Then he would hit the right parties and he would hit the IRA one of the hardest blows that they would ever receive. And he would hit them right on their own home ground in Ireland itself.

As the business day ended and virtually all of the many clerical workers for the MI-6 Group were now leaving the city of London for their homes somewhere on the outskirts, Cromwell alone remained at his desk contemplating his great master plan. He was certain now as he looked at what his computer had delivered to him that several dozen families in Ireland were the key people behind all the IRA’s financing. He had found their Achilles heel. This was their weak link. Yes, he had enough people on hand to effectively put a definite end to England’s ‘Irish Problem’. When about a half million American Dollars was paid out soon, it would bring him the necessary information from the Irish banking system to feed into his computers. They were better than bloodhounds in sniffing out the complicated financial trails of the drug people and the IRA: The computer would tell him who these IRA families were. And he had more:

Some of the inputs to Cromwell’s computers were lists of license plate numbers. The English children often go along the street writing down the license plate numbers of all the cars that they find parked on the streets near their homes. The English police are well aware of this typical English cultural habit and wholeheartedly approve of it; they have made good use of it too. This childhood activity has given the police the information that they needed on many occasions to put criminals behind bars. In Dublin one evening, an Irish boy, who had just returned from visiting relatives in England, now copied what he had learned there from his English playmates. This boy walked down O’Connell Street in Dublin a bit before dark taking down license plate numbers of all the cars he saw parked there. One of the numbers he wrote down on the list was from Tim O’Brien’s car that was parked, that evening, near the Nelson’s Column Monument.

It was six or seven hours later that night that the monument blew apart. The Dublin agents would never even have thought to ask if any children had written down license plate numbers because that sort of thing wasn’t done over in Ireland, but since this was commonplace in England, the normal routine order to inquire in the neighborhood whether children had taken down license plate numbers, was sent out by a young clerk who was ignorant about what went on overseas. When the order was received by the MI-6 agents in Dublin it was laughed at but nevertheless obeyed and when these professional agents did, in fact, receive the boy’s list, they were all fairly well astonished. But these were the days before the computer and no agency had either the time or the personnel to devote to matching all those numbers with names and to take the result and match it with criminal records, So this information languished with a lot more of the same type and it all lay dormant for years until now. Cromwell’s big computer held inside its memory banks all the license registry information for the past thirty years in both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, a colossal and costly achievement. Because of an administrative blunder, all records of licenses in the Greater London area were entered into the computer as far back in time as they could be obtained. It was not long before the computer people were engulfed with thousands of requests to find the names of people whose license plate numbers could be barely discerned in old photographs. Probably more taxpayer money was absorbed by these types of individual quasi-useful undertakings than in all the rest of the criminal investigative work that Cromwell’s computer was put to.

The same way that an election return computer points to the winner of the election, so now did this computer point at likely suspects in the Republic of Ireland. But there were still far too many suspects and the list of names still had to be narrowed down further, but the name of Tim O’Brien was one of the names now high on the list of people who needed to be investigated some more by MI-6. The computer was at its best in tracking down complicated money trails such as these enemies of England used to hide their illegal IRA purchases. MI-6 had its tentacles well into the Irish banking system and it would not be very long now until Cromwell would be looking at the O’Brien’s money trail.

That afternoon John Powell, along with several others, went aboard a tug boat that headed in the direction of Ireland. During the darkness at about two in the morning the tug met up with a typical Irish fishing boat and the MI-6 men were transferred to the fishing vessel where they were dressed in clothes that would customarily be worn by the local Irish. They would disembark by carrying off fish as ordinary fishermen. Only their speech now would give them away and they were warned once again to keep their mouths shut on arrival. Although the English Government remained on friendly terms with the Republic of Ireland, certain key players in England have always felt that direct intervention was the best route when dealing with the Irish. And so this time again, as many times before, an English force headed to Ireland without bothering to notify the Irish Government.

* * *

In Dublin, Sean O’Brien was at the airport disguised as an airport worker, complete with uniform and badge and he resembled all the rest of the workers on the airport terminal ramp. He could not afford to associate with any of these other employees though because they might spot him as a phony so he ambled over to an aircraft where only people in military uniforms could be seen. They, he figured, would be transients that would think him just another airport worker who was meandering around shirking his duties. A sudden rain squall hit the field and the military people vanished into their airplane and outside O’Brien found himself trying to keep dry by standing under the wing. He stood there alone looking for the commercial flight that he was to meet. It was due soon and it carried IRA armament hidden in the unpressurized part of the tail section where the panels could be opened with a simple screwdriver. Suddenly then came the IRA alarm signal over his hand held radio telling him that something was very, very wrong: "Let’s close it down boys," the voice said. This was the signal to leave the area at once. But it was too late because now uniformed men started to emerge around both sides of the terminal building coming out onto the airport apron. A quick look around him showed O’Brien that there was open flat concrete all about him with absolutely no place to run to and hide. A small door on the bottom of the aircraft was open and he quickly pulled himself up into this hole in the belly of the airplane. It was a cramped space, this belly compartment, that contained hydraulic tubing and racks of electronic equipment. As he snaked himself into this area, he saw that the only level flat place was about two feet wide and five feet long, but he could not stay in this flat area now because it was too close to the hatch opening and he would be quickly seen by anyone who simply looked into the entry hatch. He moved cautiously slowly forward avoiding wires, tubing and cables until he found a spot where he could crouch with the equipment rack between him and the opened hatch, thereby hiding him somewhat from view of the hatchway. He got as comfortable as he could in this bent over position. He had noticed that there was a long heavy towbar still on the nose wheel of the airplane and that gave him some feeling of assurance that this aircraft would be here for quite a while. This feeling quickly turned to anxiety as he heard a tug pull up and a heavy clank as the bar was pulled from the plane and attached to the tug that now drove away leaving the airplane free to go. Looking through the equipment rack he saw a man stick his head into the small hatchway and look at a hydraulic gage for several seconds and then the hatch door was slammed shut and the handle was turned from the outside locking him securely in this small compartment and putting him in total darkness. He remained where he was until he heard the jet engines start up and the aircraft began moving. He knew that no one would be opening the hatch while the plane was moving so he slowly and cautiously crept back to the level platform in front of the equipment rack. Here he was able to stretch out and get a bit more comfortable. The jet engines suddenly roared to full power and Sean could feel the acceleration and he had to hold on to one of the legs on the equipment rack to keep from slipping back along the shelf. Then the nose of the airplane rose and he had not only to hold on tighter but he had to quickly find a place to wedge his feet also. He knew the airplane was now flying, but to where? As the plane stopped climbing and finally leveled off, he found he could relax his hold and settle down. Now there was another problem.

The shelf that he was lying on was beginning to get cold and in the darkness he moved his hand and felt that the metal skin of the aircraft was ice cold. This was the temperature of the outside air that the plane was presently flying through. This particular compartment had an engine bypass duct coming into it and this contained hot compressed air, bled from one of the engine’s compressor stages. Thus heat was being supplied to this small compartment at nearly the same rate as the outside air was cooling it and even though Sean was not warm enough to be comfortable, the temperature was tolerable. Not only was Sean lucky in this respect, he was also very, very lucky that this particular compartment was inside the fuselage area that was pressurized; otherwise he simply would not have survived.

After about forty-five minutes the noise of the engines decreased perceptibly and now the nose of the airplane headed down and Sean was tending to slide head first toward the front of the plane. After ten minutes Sean noticed that the area was becoming a bit warmer; the airplane had descended into the lower, warmer air layers. When the plane took off, the noise of the engines at full power had blocked out all other sounds, but now with the aircraft descending and with the engines throttled way back, Sean could presently hear the hydraulic lines all vibrating their different tones as the various mechanisms were being actuated. A few moments after he heard the last of these hydraulic noises, came the landing, and he was forcibly thrust head first toward the front of the plane as the engine reversers were actuated. After the plane landed, Sean knew that there was a possibility that someone would open the hatch door and see him, so he felt around in the darkness and moved slowly back to his hiding place in front of the equipment rack.

‘Murphy’s Law’ states: Anything that can go wrong, at some time or place, eventually will go wrong. Because of this, steel pins with long red cloth or plastic strips attached are placed in each landing gear after the airplane lands, especially if people are going to be working under it or on it. This is an added safety feature to assure that the foldable gear does not collapse while the plane is on the ground, because of some human error or mechanical failure. Before this particular flight departed, exactly like many other flights all over the world, the mechanic pulled these steel gear pins out and walked forward so that the Captain and flight crew could see him, and then he held up these pins with their bright red streamers until he received eye contact from the Captain. No Captain will depart until he sees these pins pulled, because it would be impossible to retract the landing gear if they would accidentally be left in place. On this particular flight, however, the ground crew was short handed and also had an above average number of equipment problems and after these pins had been pulled and shown to the flight crew, they were never returned to their proper storage spot on the airplane, which was next to the hatch opening in the same belly compartment where Sean O’Brien was now hiding.

Sean was safely hidden behind the rack when the plane stopped. Shortly after this the hatch opened and Sean saw a hand feel around near the hatch opening; then a head popped in and looked and said to someone outside, with a decidedly British accent, "No gear pins!"

"Let me look," said another distinctly English voice, and a second head pushed itself in and looked and vanished. Sean could hear these English voices talking about missing gear pins. Things were quiet for a while and then a noisy diesel generator was cranked up outside and this was when Sean decided to leave. He crawled back to the hatchway and put his legs through the small hole and lowered himself to the ground. As he pulled his head out of the hole, he saw a van approaching and it stopped a mere fifteen feet from him. There was nothing that he could do but stand there. The driver of the van had on the same uniform as the people on board the airplane. This man started toward Sean but then his attention was diverted to a large cut on one of the aircraft’s tires and he stooped over and examined it, all the while talking to someone on his hand held radio. Then, over the noise of the diesel generator, he shouted to Sean, "Have you people found those gear pins yet?"

"No," replied Sean, shaking his head.

"Would you do me a favor?" asked the military man who had long ago discovered that tact was needed in dealing with this highly unionized aircraft bunch.

"Yes," answered Sean, who now walked toward the man who was still bent over examining the cut on the tire.

"They have located a set of gear pins in stock. Get them. Help yourself to the food," said the military man, handing Sean the key to the van while also now measuring the cut in the tire to see if it was allowable because there were detailed directives telling exactly how big a tire cut could be and still be considered air worthy.

Sean had realized, when walking toward this man, that his Dublin Airport Badge would give him away so he made it a practice to be sniffing and holding his nose while he was close to the uniformed man so that his arm was always directly between the man’s eyes and his Dublin Identification Badge. He could plainly see this other man’s identification though, and it told him that he was now at London’s Heathrow Airport.

Sean lost no time in inserting the key into the ignition switch and starting the engine. He drove in the same direction that the van had come from and as he drove he removed his Dublin Badge and put it in his shirt pocket. This van had one big seat clear across the front and on the passenger’s side there was a plastic bag filled with small fancy sandwiches of the type commonly served by airlines. On the floor just below the bag of sandwiches was a white plastic bucket filled with chopped ice and small cans of tomato and orange juice. This, undoubtedly, was the food to which his benefactor had referred. Sean was not certain where he was allowed to drive and he felt relieved when he spotted a fuel truck moving in his direction and he slowed down and waited for the fuel truck and then turned a bit and followed it. He still did not know where he was headed, but at least he was going away from the airplane on which he arrived and by following this truck he would not be getting into trouble for being in an area where he should not be. As the fuel truck passed airplanes and buildings, Sean looked about but could not see a definite way out of this huge airport. Then he spotted three stewardesses, all by themselves, pulling their suitcases behind them on collapsible aluminum caddies. He pulled up to them and stopped. He got out and crossed over to the passenger’s side, opened the doors for the girls and then grabbed the food and drinks and then he sat in the back of the van stuffing his mouth with food and washing it down with juice.

"Drive love," said Sean, with his mouth full so as to hide his Irish accent, to the nearest girl.

"Meg’ll drive," replied the girl.

"He’s got airport decals on this; this thing can go right out the gate!" exclaimed a girl to the tall red haired stewardess who now sat in the driver’s seat.

"Our car is in the parking building. Could we go there?" asked the red head who was now at the wheel.

"Go," answered Sean.

"You used to drive out here, didn’t you Meg?" asked the girl who was now handing the last suitcase to Sean in the back.

"Yes, when I worked for the Foreign Office," answered Meg.

No sooner did the other two girls get into the front seat and close the door, than the van shot off like a rocket and headed straight for the worse mess of congestion on the entire airport. Many red lights were flashing; jetways were moving and telescoping; airliners were moving, some under their own power and some being towed. There were long trains of baggage carts and there were many regular cars, tugs, vans and even some electric carts and bicycles, all moving at various speeds and different directions. Meg never even slowed down. She seemed to know exactly where everything was headed and she drove right through this melee just as if she owned the place. She went right in back of one airliner and its jet exhaust hit the side of the van like a massive hammer, rocking it from side to side and making everyone cough from breathing the hot concentrated kerosene fumes which jetted back out of the airplane’s engines. Meg laughed and headed the van straight toward the side of a building. Sean was coughing and had tears in his eyes from the blast of fumes; his view toward the front was also limited because of the three girls who sat together on the front seat. Sean saw that they were headed right at a building and he held on tight for what he thought would be a sudden crash but they shot through a tunnel instead. They emerged out of this tunnel and into another area as congested as the first and Meg drove through all of this traffic exactly as before and headed for another tunnel. But a baggage handler had not pulled his long train of baggage carts quite far enough and a corner of the last cart on this long curved train still blocked the tunnel entrance enough where a vehicle as large as the van could not enter. Meg needed a few more inches of room to get through.

"I’m all right Jack!" she exclaimed as she backed up, then she put the van into first gear and hit the offending baggage cart hard enough to slide it sideways and slam it into the heavy metal post that protected the cement entrance way of the tunnel. Now she found that she had barely enough room and she proceeded slowly through the tunnel with about an inch to spare on either side of the van. Sean, however, was the only one observing the scene out of the rear window and now as the baggage tug pulled on its long curved train with the rear cart locked firmly on the heavy metal protective post, the entire train tried to straighten out, tipping the carts, and hundreds of suitcases were thrown toward the inside of the curve and onto another baggage train also knocking bags from it too. Here now were the bags for two different airplanes thoroughly mixed. Some were run over and crushed and others were dragged along the cement. Some of these bags would actually go aboard their scheduled flights, but most would arrive days or even weeks later and those on which the labels were torn or abraded off and whose possessors had failed to include their names and addresses inside, would never ever be seen by their owners again. Sean was simply astounded by what he saw. Here was a young girl who had hurt the English more in a few moments than some of Sean’s IRA friends had intentionally done in their entire careers. Sean was silent about what he had seen and Meg drove on totally unconcerned and approached the airport gate slowly. The occupant of the guard house spotted the decal and waved her on. But vehicles coming the other direction were all stopped and the identification of each person ascertained. No individual without a proper badge nor any vehicle without a proper decal was permitted entrance.

Sean felt much relieved after they passed this gate and left this restricted area where, without proper identification, he would have been instantly apprehended. He now looked about him and saw, shoved under the seat, a mechanic’s tool box that was locked, but the hinge pin for one of the top covers protruded a bit showing that the owner had locked himself out several times and had removed this pin to get it open. Sean tried to remove the pin with his fingers but it was too tight; he needed a pair of pliers. There were two other small leather bags lying next to the tool box and Sean also looked these over and found that they too were both locked. It seemed, now, that whenever Sean looked up into the rear view mirror, the blue eyes of the tall red haired driver were examining him. Sean also looked back at her, intrigued by the attention that he was getting from this tall red haired girl. The van now stopped in a spot marked: SERVICE AREA NO PARKING. Meg saw Sean observing the signs.

"Don’t worry, it’s tea time and it will be quite a while before they will be back to check," she said. "Would you wait ‘till we get our car and then we’ll drive it back here to get our bags?" she asked.

"Yes, I’ll wait," answered Sean.

"Are you Irish?" asked Meg, who by now had noticed his accent even though he had purposely limited his words to avoid problems here in this country that had been having difficulties with Ireland now for some eight hundred years.

"Yes," answered Sean.

"My grandmother was Irish," said Meg.

"Which county was she from?" asked Sean. This being almost an automatic question because the answer will tell if they are from the Republic or from one of the six counties of Ulster.

"County Cork," replied Meg.

"I’ve been there," said Sean, feeling that a county in the Republic was far more acceptable than one from Ulster.

"I had better catch up with the other girls; I have the key," said Meg, who also knew the game and did not know if she had answered correctly or not. She was off like lightning.

With all the girls now gone, Sean looked about inside the van and found a pair of pliers in the glove compartment that he immediately used to pull the hinge pin on the tool box cover. Rummaging through the tools he found a sock with an employee’s identification badge hidden inside. Sean knew the reason for this. Employees often get extra badges by claiming that theirs are lost. They all know that eventually badges get torn off and lost so why not get the new badge when the time is convenient to them rather than wait until the badge is really lost or misplaced; then when they cannot find their badge, they have the new one available immediately. Sean thought to himself that he would have given everything he owned for that badge a few minutes ago when he felt trapped inside the restricted area of London’s main airport, but now he no longer needed it, nevertheless, he had every intention of handing it over to the first IRA contact that he met here in London because they would certainly make good use of it. Sean’s interest then turned to the two thick leather bags that both had locks on them. He used some of the tools in the toolbox to cut through the leather of one of the bags and was astounded by what he saw: the bag was filled solid with packets of American One Hundred Dollar Bills; they even had bands around them telling how much was in each small packet. Sean quickly cut through the second bag and it was more of the same. He took a ruler from the toolbox and put together a stack of these packets that was one inch high and then read the bands and found out that this was twenty thousand dollars worth. He then quickly grouped all the packets from one of the bags together and measured them and estimated that there had to be more than two hundred thousand American Dollars in each bag. Sean thought to himself that this surely was drug money and that these people would soon be looking for their van and this money. He found that about a thousand dollars was all that would fit into his wallet, which already contained some Irish Pounds. He remembered seeing a roll of black tape in the toolbox so he got it and taped both money bags shut and pushed them back under the seat again where they would be out of view. He had Irish money and all of this American money, but he had not even one penny of English money, which was what he desperately needed now in this country. He looked up and saw all the girls walking back without their car.

"We really need your help. Our car won’t start," said Meg.

"Well, I don’t have to be back and I have this van all day," said Sean, thinking it a tale that the girls would believe.

"We only live about ten miles from here," said one of the girls.

"Good," said Sean, thinking that he would then be in a neighborhood where he might find a place to stay and therewith lose no time in getting rid of the van.

Meg again took her spot in the driver’s seat and they all departed the airport area and during this phase of the journey there was a lot more conversation among the four occupants of the van.

"We certainly appreciate your help," said Meg, again looking at Sean through the mirror whenever she got a chance.

"Do you live in a good neighborhood? I need to find a place myself, nothing fancy," said Sean.

"Mrs. Williams might rent you a room," said Meg, and the other two girls who were chatting, abruptly stopped and both looked at Meg.

"She only rents to girls," said one of the stewardesses to Meg who by now had her mind made up about what she was going to try to do.

"She hasn’t been able to rent that room next to me to any girl," replied Meg.

"It needs fixing and painting," the other girl shot back.

"A guy wouldn’t mind living there," said Meg. "We’ll tell her you’re my cousin from Ireland," she added.

"I’d like to see the place," said Sean, as Meg drove on and Sean watched as the scenery slowly changed to one in which more and more houses were evident.

"Well, here it is," said Meg, as they pulled into a private parking space in front of a house in a residential neighborhood. Sean was used to seeing houses built of native stone, but here everything seemed to be built out of brick and these houses were not detached and set apart, but they were all set together in long rows. Land here, Sean could see, was at a premium.

The girls gathered up their suitcases and headed inside and Meg introduced Sean to Mrs. Williams as her cousin from Ireland. Mrs. Williams sat in front of a television set that at one time had been a colour set, but now only registered gray and purple hues. Sean took a look at the vacant room and then managed to get Meg to come outside with him where he could talk with her alone.

"Look, she needs a new television. Let’s get her one before you ask her if I can stay," said Sean.

"You are going to buy her a tele?" asked Meg.

"Yes, but you’ve got to find a small family store that will take American Dollars because I haven’t changed enough money yet," replied Sean as he opened the door to the van for Meg to again drive. She wasted no time in doing so and soon after that, Sean had some new supplies and some English money in his pocket and both he and Meg were placing a new colour television in front of Mrs. Williams, who Sean only smiled at but who Meg now talked to and it was not long after this that Sean was bringing his toolbox and two leather bags into his new room.

Sean removed the food and any other trash items from the van and washed everything inside and out with detergent and water. He knew that this van was going to be dusted for fingerprints and he wanted none of his nor any of the girls to be found on it. He then put on a pair of latex gloves and drove the van to where Meg told him the nearest Underground Station was located. He then drove back so as to familiarize himself with this route because he knew that he would be walking this way many times during his London stay. Then he drove to where a further Underground was located and here he looked about for a place to park the van. He wanted a place where there would be few people around to see him and at last he found it in a well to do residential neighborhood. Here he drove very slowly and was drawn to one spot in particular because of the name on the private parking space. It said ‘O. Cromwell’, a name that was hated in Ireland over and above all other names. It was here that Sean decided to park the van. He looked about and saw no one observing him so he got out and locked the door and walked swiftly away while pulling off his latex gloves. He headed for the Underground Station and dropped the key to the van in a sewer as he passed by it. When he reached the Underground Station he went down and got a ticket for the station nearest to Mrs. Williams and in a few minutes he was back at the station near where he now lived. He then walked to his new home: a walk that he would make many more times until he would figure out exactly how to get a driver’s license in this enemy land in which he now found himself.

He found a telephone on his walk and put in the necessary coins and called and was rewarded with an answer. It was a London based IRA agent, but Sean knew that he had to be very careful because it was extremely likely that MI-5 had this line bugged.

He said: "My name is Sean and I have unexpectedly arrived here in London from Dublin Airport. I want them to know back home that I will be on holiday here for a while with friends. Did you get all of that?"

"Yes, Sean unexpectedly arrived in London from Dublin Airport and will stay on holiday for a while in London with friends," said the voice.

"Thank you," replied Sean and hung up. He had given the IRA enough information so that they would know he was safe and he knew that they would report this to his family. He knew he could not trust them with any more information than that because English gaols were full of IRA men. Sean understood that he had to be extremely careful over here. The money he now had would buy him time to figure out how to get back home to Ireland. He made a mental note to never again use this phone and that all other calls to the IRA would have to be spread about the city of London.

Meg was there when Sean returned and he told her that he had taken the van back to the airport and he had just now returned via the Underground.

"Want to make another trip to the airport? They called and told me the car is fixed and I want to get it," said Meg.

"Let’s go," replied Sean, and they both set out together holding hands and walking toward the Underground Station.

* * *

Across the water, in Ireland, some fishermen were unloading fish from a small fishing vessel. Later that same evening these fishermen were all given new clothes and new identity papers and then found themselves on the road to Dublin.

* * *

At about this time the telephone rang at the O’Brien’s farm house and a voice told them about Sean’s trip to London and that he was safe and would be there awhile.

* * *

And at this very same time in London, an angry O.K. Cromwell was driving home in the rain. This was possibly his worst day ever at MI-6. His agents had lost about half a million in American Dollars which would surely delay his homeland assault on the IRA unless the money was presently recovered. For the type of information that Cromwell needed, certain bankers in the Republic of Ireland had to be promptly paid. Many others had to be paid in cash too and not in English Pounds because the British Government could not be seen as being in any way involved.

Where had this money gone? Both of the men entrusted with the money had advanced degrees from Oxford and nothing in either of their records even hinted of a calamity like this. What could possibly have gone wrong? Everything had been planned so exactly. Nothing like this had ever happened to Cromwell before. Cromwell drove toward his house in the rain and was angry. But then his anger soon turned to rage when he saw that his own private parking space was now occupied by a large van, but he knew exactly what he had to do; he had done it several times before. He pulled his own car in so that his front bumper touched the rear bumper of the van, then he went outside into the rain and got a small chain out of the boot and fastened the two bumpers together. He would now, as he had done before, pull the van out into the road and park his own car and then call the police to inform them that a van was blocking the road. He pulled now, with his car, but the van would not budge. He got out into the rain again in order to release the brakes on the van but found all windows and doors locked up tight, so he smashed one of the windows with his jack and reached inside and opened a door. But now he found that this van was far different from the vehicles that he had pulled out before: This van was equipped to be theft proof with its ignition switch on the steering column, and now that the key was pulled out, the steering wheel was locked all the way to the right and the gearshift was locked in reverse. Cromwell cursed and removed the chain and drove off down the street, both sides of which at this late hour, were now filled solid with parked cars. It was quite some distance away that Cromwell finally found an empty space to park. As Cromwell walked back to his house, the rain started coming down harder and harder as if someone up there was trying to convince him that there was indeed a God.

* * *

Meg had driven Sean to her favorite eating spot. They had finished their meal and were both sipping a small glass of wine and Sean ordered a bottle of the same type to take back with them.

"You used to work for the Foreign Office?" asked Sean.

"Yes, but I got into trouble," said Meg.

"Driving?" asked Sean.

"Yes, and the fact that it was all politics and congeniality; it didn’t matter how smart you were," said Meg.

"Did they let you go right away or did they warn you first?" asked Sean.

"Oh, I had plenty of warnings, but I don’t take to being warned," said Meg.

"Didn’t that hurt you getting another job?" asked Sean.

"I had a very good friend in the Foreign Office who knew that I had applied for this stewardess job and when the Airline’s letter of inquiry about me came in, she diverted it and opened it herself and mailed them a standardized reply that gave me a good recommendation. The Airline never questioned it and hired me," said Meg.

"Didn’t you worry about it?" asked Sean.

"That’s not the only thing I’ve done: I had to change my medical report for the airline," said Meg.

"What!" exclaimed Sean.

"Yes, I’m three inches too tall for stewardess requirements so I carefully whited it out and retyped in the height that would pass," said Meg.

"That’s hard to believe. They may find you out though," said Sean.

"What are they going to do? Are they going to take the job away? Well, they weren’t going to give it to me in the first place; so what have I lost? asked Meg.

"I guess that’s true," replied Sean.

"I couldn’t have done that with a large organization but this airline isn’t big enough to have its own medical staff so it hires this service out; I figured the height requirement was something that this medical outfit had copied from another airline that had small airplanes. Now everyone realizes that I’m taller than all the other girls, but since I’ve never missed a flight and I’m as helpful as I can be, I believe I’ll stay there for a while longer. I like them and they seem to like me. And this is nothing like being a robot in the Foreign Office; here I’m using my brain. This little airline really needs people who can think and work out problems," said Meg.

Sean had been attentively listening and then he reached over to an adjoining table and got hold of a discarded newspaper before the man who was cleaning off the table could reach it. Sean then heard nothing more of what Meg was saying because his mind was now concentrated on an article about two IRA men, the Maclise Brothers, who late one night had removed several tons of weapons from a London Armory. But they had been too greedy and had stolen too much because the weight of their enormous haul was so great that it substantially bent down the springs of their vehicle and noticeably flattened the tires. These things were duly perceived by two Bobbies who were on patrol in the area and alongside of whom the two Maclise Brothers pulled up and asked directions because they had gotten lost on their way back. One of the officers directed them along a road that led past the Station House and as soon as the brothers pulled away, this officer lost no time in phoning in his suspicions of these two with Irish accents, and they were both subsequently apprehended along with their booty. Sean now read where their trial was scheduled for tomorrow in London. It was only now after he finished reading that his mind turned back to Meg again.

". . . Mrs. Williams will be in bed by now," said Meg. Sean heard this and correctly understood it, so he signaled for the waiter who immediately came and to whom Sean handed an American One Hundred Dollar bill.

"I only have this American money because I haven’t had time to change enough yet," said Sean. A short time later the waiter returned with the change in British currency. Sean seemed to be having no trouble spending these American dollars here in London.

"I believe there is an old dumb waiter between our two rooms but the doors seem to be fastened shut," said Meg as she drove back home.

"I saw that too and I noticed that there were screws in the corners of the doors. I should be able to take them out," said Sean.

"I certainly hope that you can. I wouldn’t want to have to wait up every night until Mrs. Williams goes to bed before I sneak you into my room," said Meg.

"When I get the dumb waiter doors open then you will be able to crawl through to my room too," said Sean.

"I’m sorry but your room needs to be fixed up and painted. It’s lacking the necessary atmosphere," said Meg.

"You need atmosphere?" asked Sean.

"Most definitely," replied Meg, whose mind was focused solely on her driving and Sean. Sean’s mind alternated between Meg and the Maclise Brothers who were in the same IRA brotherhood and who needed his help. If money would help get them released then he had plenty to help them with. That night, while Sean would not have traded places with anyone else in the entire world, the Maclise Brothers spent their hours in a barren cell furnished by an inhospitable English Government. Neither this government nor Sean knew that plans were now under way to ensure that this was to be the final night of the Maclise’s internment.

Sean had left Meg’s room a bit before daylight, and by early morning he was on the Underground and he got off at Marble Arch and walked over to Hyde Park after having breakfast. There he listened to speakers talking about various subjects, when all of a sudden there was a collision of several motor cars along with an abrupt bunching of vehicles and people shouting and horns blowing and then emerging from this melee were two men who seemed to be handcuffed together. Sean watched with amazement as these two men, with their hands together, ran from this crowd over to Hyde Park and then ran along the grass as fast as they could. Sean immediately suspected that these were the Maclise Brothers and they had now made an escape. Sean had over two thousand American Dollars with him and he knew that this much might make all the difference in getting them both safely back to Ireland so he ran after them as fast and as far as he could. He only stopped once to listen to a portable radio that someone had in the park; the radio station now issued a flash bulletin of a possible criminal escape in London. Now he was certain it was them and he felt that he absolutely had to give them this money. He had lost the men several times but spotted them again, but now as he looked around he saw no one at all moving and he figured that they must have stopped to rest somewhere so he started to check everyone in the area and finally he came to two men sitting on a park bench with their eyes shut and a newspaper over their hands. Sean gently lifted an edge of the newspaper and spotted links of a chain. Now he felt certain he had found them and he knew they spoke Gaelic.

"Erin go bragh!" said Sean loudly right in front of their faces, bringing both figures instantly back to life. He then dumped all his American money in their lap. "I’ll be back with some shears that will cut the chain," said Sean and he ran to look for an Iron Monger where he could buy something that would cut through steel.

These men on the bench did indeed look alike and may well have been brothers, but the chain under the newspaper was a chain for a dog that they regularly brought into the park and illegally turned loose and so they kept the chain hidden under the newspaper while the dog roamed and they slept.

"He’ll be comin’ back with shears!" exclaimed one of the men and he whistled and they left as soon as the dog heard the whistle and returned. With their dog now chained and their pockets filled with money, they now headed swiftly home. Sean found when he returned that they had both gone. He felt that they knew best and he wondered what fate had in store for them.

Sean then returned to his new found home and was happily greeted by his red haired girlfriend who, together with him lost no time in removing the screws from the dumbwaiter doors. Now he could come and go from Meg’s room without being observed. He then replenished his pocket supply of American Dollars from one of the leather bags and headed with Meg on a tour of the central part of the City of London. Even Meg did not want to drive there, so they again walked hand in hand toward the Underground.

While these two sat on the Underground train they unknowingly passed right under the building where O.K. Cromwell was now questioning two of his agents.

* * *

". . . You had this money in these bags and then you put them into this van and then you left? " Cromwell angrily asked.

"We had the key with us," replied one of the agents.

"You didn’t know that they make duplicate keys here in England?" roared Cromwell.

"The regulations clearly state that only one key shall be—" the agent started to say but was cut off by Cromwell.

"A duplicate key was made by a man with his own money right at the airline terminal because the person who was in charge of issuing the key was always out chasing the women and was hardly ever there. So by making his own key he was better able to perform his own job and he didn’t have to waste time waiting for the person to come back and issue him a key," related Cromwell.

"Well, then he took the money," replied the agent.

"No! He took the van. He has been thoroughly questioned and some of our very best people have given him many polygraphs and they all agree that he did not take the money. Now if you two do as well as he did on these forthcoming polygraphs then we will know that you did not take the money," Cromwell angrily answered.

"You think that we took—"

"At this stage of the game I don’t know what to think," said Cromwell, and he left.

Cromwell needed time to think so he decided to walk back to his office in London. As he walked he felt that he had to face facts: Only a handful of people with top clearances knew about the money. This thief not only seemed to know about the money and when it could be obtained but he also knew, Cromwell felt, who was in charge because he parked the van in front of the right home. Even his computers were of no avail to Cromwell now and as he walked through this City of London, his own city, he felt more alone than Sean O’Brien, who had never even wanted to come to this city in the first place.

Cromwell had hardly ever taken time off before during working hours, but now he had to have this time to think and he walked through streets that he hadn’t seen since he was young. While he was walking on the Embankment he saw a tall red haired girl kissing a young man and he thought to himself that he would have liked to have gotten married but this espionage work was deadly business and one could not afford to bring a wife and children into this murderous game because people here played their roles ruthlessly and here neither the agent nor his family were ever perfectly safe.

With his feet getting tired, Cromwell now went down into an Underground station and got on a train. He sat down and as the train rolled along he looked at the people sitting there with expressionless faces. He had always felt superior to these common people, but today he felt exactly like one of them; he looked just like they looked; he felt tired. When he finally did get to his office he was feeling low but now he learned that the serial numbers of all of those bills had never even been recorded. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Cromwell’s spirits fell to rock bottom. He now knew the chance of ever recovering that money was next to nil.

* * *

The Maclise Brothers had indeed made their spectacular escape near Hyde Park, but Sean had not witnessed what he thought he had. The two that he saw running were only two of countless Irish volunteers who the IRA had brought in to help the cause of these two brothers. After the IRA rammed the vehicle containing the two and held guns at the heads of the other occupants and the brothers ran making their escape, so did countless others all run hand in hand in every direction of the compass, away from the same site so as to throw off people who might try to locate where the real pair went.

Although the actual IRA operatives in England are few in number, there are a great many Irish in England who can be counted on to ‘help the cause ‘. Here in London these part time volunteers for these IRA events seem always to be plentiful. Thousands of people, in fact, used to march complete with sunglasses and the rest of the IRA garb, right through the City of London until Parliament went and passed a law making it all illegal.

A person could not get more militantly IRA than Bernadette Devlin; she was pro IRA to the core. Her Irish constituents even sent her to London as their duly elected Member of Parliament, but she had rather bad manners in this austere body and punched one of her fellow members in the jaw while he was giving a speech that she didn’t like and for this she was duly deprived of her membership privileges for a while. Later she even survived a machine gun attack by staunch anti-IRA activists. Colorfully confronting her in Northern Ireland was preacher Ian Paisley who led the anti-IRA forces. Both Bernadette Devlin and Ian Paisley were experts at their respective trades. Each could give a speech where ten thousand women would end up crying and either could give equally effective speeches where ten thousand men would be ready to march.

* * *

If it would have been Meg who had come to Dublin, and not the other way round then these two would probably have never looked twice at each other. In Ireland Sean was gradually accepting more and more responsibility for running the family farm and he would not have needed Meg there. Here in London Sean needed Meg. She actually saved him by getting him safely out of the airport. Here Sean was entirely dependent on her because he did not know London and in the back of his mind was always the British Suspect Law known popularly as the ‘Sus ‘. Very few American tourists are aware that they can be locked up in both England or Ireland for as long as those governments consider necessary without any recourse to trial and with no evidence whatsoever. These laws were designed to suppress terrorism but none-the-less all should be warned about these laws. Sean was well aware of this and this added to his dependency upon Meg. Sean did not know all the particulars of these laws but he thought that if he were caught, then he would be jailed under the ‘Sus ‘ and all of his money would be confiscated under ‘Treasure Trove ‘ and he was not too far off in his assumption.

In Dublin, Sean was attentive to his duties in running the family farm but here now, with these suddenly removed, he turned this attentiveness to Meg and she thrived on it. Meg showed him London and he took it all in but was particularly impressed with the London Underground System. He had been to Paris and had used the ‘Metro’ and found that he had to write down the names of the stations on the ends of the lines and those crossover stations or else he could get totally lost, but this in London was far different. He had never seen anything quite like this. It was simple to use. You didn’t have to write down anything: you only had to remember where you were going. There were always plenty of full maps on the tile walls and partial maps in the cars themselves. The volume of traffic carried by this system simply amazed Sean. These trains sometimes were arriving in less than five minute intervals. He felt as if he didn’t even have to wait; by the time he and Meg went down the steps to the tracks then there was a train or one came within a few minutes. Sean never knew a city so large as this where it was so incredibly easy to travel from one spot to another. It seemed that they merely asked someone where the nearest Underground was—everyone seemed to know—and then they walked a few blocks and went down and got on the train and a few minutes later they were right where they wanted to be, no matter if it was one mile away or twenty. Sean had never believed that anything like this even existed. The London Underground System impressed Sean more than anything else in England.

Meg and Sean were now on an Underground train as it started up and an American father was explaining the system to his six year old daughter.

He said: "You see this map here; we are now traveling on this light blue line; so that’s the Victoria Line were on now. We got on here," he said as he put his finger on the spot on the map in the car.

The little girl’s eyes were glued to him and that map as he continued, "Now we are going this way and the next name that we should see on the tile walls should be Victoria Station," said the father while all the rest of the people on this fairly full car were tuned in and listening to their English language spoken in this strange accent.

"And if we don’t see Victoria Station written on the walls then that means that we are going the wrong way and we have to get out and cross over to the other side like we did at Black Friars," said the little girl.

Sean looked around and there were smiles in both directions up and down the car as far as he could see. Everyone on that car suddenly realized that this American father did not have much more experience with the Underground than this six year old because he had taken a train in the wrong direction.

A person who knew this to be the fastest and cheapest way to get around London was J. Paul Getty, who at one time was one of the world’s richest men, if not the richest man. He regularly traversed the city of London—along with everyone else—on the London Underground trains. At the very same time that he was thus sitting alongside of the various common people of London, he was contributing millions to construct his art museum in California that some people say is the richest in the world. Although J. Paul Getty never worried once about his personal safety on the London Underground, he never even saw his art museum in California because traveling in an airplane terrified him. Getty had owned and run Spartan Aircraft Company during the war and had seen many of his friends killed right in front of his eyes while testing those planes at Spartan.

After spending the day in Central London, Sean and Meg were both tired, but they had eaten and again brought back with them a bottle of wine. They got off the train and hand in hand climbed the steps up out of the station and began to walk home. As they walked back they both looked forward to the time they would spend together. When they arrived they went in and both wished Mrs. Williams a good night as she watched her new television, then as she turned to observe them, they both entered their respective rooms and locked their doors. Sean lost no time in quietly opening the dumbwaiter door. He crawled through and saw Meg at one end of the bed; he immediately went to the other end and together they lifted off the mattress and placed it on the floor. They had both learned, their first night together, that this bed creaked excessively and was far too noisy.

This was a short night for the pair because Meg was scheduled for a six o’clock morning flight which meant she had to drive because the first Underground train through their nearby station would not come through early enough to get her there with enough time to prepare for the flight. After Meg left, Sean crawled back to his own room and slept several more hours and then studied the dumbwaiter shaft and then installed some magnetic latches that he had bought and these held the doors shut. He then snipped the old screws in half and reinstalled only the tops of the screws back into the existing holes so that they looked like they were holding the doors securely fastened closed, the same as they originally had done. Sean saw something else inside the dumb waiter shaft too: it was the perfect place to hide his money. He took a flashlight and ruler and carefully measured a spot between the beams of the old house. Then he took a knife and cut out a sliver of wood from these beams. He added a few more American bills to his pocket supply and off he went with the measurements and piece of wood, toward the Underground. The train took him to an area where he found a tin smith who he gave the measurements to and also showed the wood sample to. The tin smith agreed to make a metal box and attach the wood to it but Sean would have to take the wood sample to a carpenter to get the wood part made. Sean walked to the carpenter’s shop with his sample and found not only would the carpenter make the wooden part but he would also stain it to the same color as the sample and deliver it to the tin smith. Sean thanked him, paid him and walked down the street looking for a place to eat breakfast. He found a spot that was bursting with activity and the name, written in bright green, almost invited him in; it said McNEIL. Sean was surprised to hear some Irish accents when he entered. He had not heard this Irish way of speaking for several days now. He ordered his breakfast and was eating it when another man sat down next to him and ordered a cup of tea and then turned to Sean and with a clearly imitated Irish accent that immediately put Sean on guard.

"Is this your first time in London?" the man next to him asked.

"This is the first time that I’ve eaten breakfast here," answered Sean. He then looked the man directly in the eyes and studied him well because Sean did not like that question. It was one that an English MI-5 agent would be asking new arrivals, and if this person was from MI-5 then Sean wanted to remember exactly what he looked like.

"I can tell from the way you talk that you haven’t been here long," said the man and Sean knew that he had a definite problem here now, but he also knew that with all the Irish accents around that the English here were outnumbered so he shouted into the man’s ear as loud as he could.

"Well if you can tell that then there are a lot of English agencies that will give you a job." said Sean as he stood up as if ready to fight, never taking his eyes off of the other man. Sean knew that people who have recently illegally entered a country are always frightened and want to avoid disturbances but any Irishman who was here legally would stand his ground and he wanted it to appear to this man that he was doing exactly that.

"Top of the morning to you," said the man hastily gulping down his tea; then he was gone. Sean sat back down and finished eating, then he went, to the man standing behind the cash register, to pay. This man proudly wore his name, hand sewn in green, on his shirt: it, like the sign outside, said McNeil .

"I overheard your conversation and there are some of us here that think your breakfast partner has already taken that English job you suggested," said McNeil smiling.

"Does he come in here every day?" asked Sean.

"Several times a day; he only buys tea and always sits next to new arrivals," answered McNeil. This told Sean two things: that the man who sat next to him was an English agent and that McNeil was a person to be trusted.

"At first I thought he was MI-5 but when he said ‘Top of the morning’ then I knew that he had been to Ireland and that he must be from England’s MI-6 agency," said Sean, while paying for his breakfast.

"Top o’ the mornin’ to you me boy," said McNeil correctly leaving off the ending on the words ‘of’ and ‘morning’ exactly as it is done back in Ireland. He then handed Sean his change.

"Where should I sit so I can quietly enjoy breakfast every morning?" asked Sean. Thereupon McNeil left his position at the cash register and led Sean over to a table and introduced him.

McNeil said: "This fellow was rude to the ‘Black-and-Tan’ and does not want to eat breakfast with him again. Could we find a spot for him over here? asked McNeil of a group who were all smiles.

"You figured him out, did you!" one of the group remarked.

"There is nothing that McNeil can do. If he prevents the ‘Black-and-Tan’ from coming in then they find some health violation or building code violation and they close him down," said another.

"We have all finished breakfast, but come along with us and we’ll talk about this ‘Black-and-Tan’," said a third man, and they all rose and Sean went with them and felt quite at home with this group as he mostly answered the numerous questions that they had about how things were in Dublin these days. Sean marveled at them using this term ‘Black-and-Tan’ in their everyday language. It made Sean feel like he was stepping back in time. Sean remembered his great grandfather and some very old people using this phrase, but all of them had long been dead. Here the phrase lived on and these people kept using it. Sean remembered his great grandfather telling him that the ‘Black-and-Tan’ was a popular hunting dog at that time and everyone knew about them and then when the hated English troops came to throw the people off their farms, their uniforms were the same color as the dog so they too were called ‘Black-and-Tans’.

As this group walked down the street, they told Sean that this agent needed to be fixed. All of this group had come to England from Ireland and all had been given trouble by these type of people. They resented his quasi governmental questioning of new arrivals. The group now entered a bar called ‘Dooleys’. Here Sean listened to them and bought his share of the Half and Halfs and Guinnesses that were downed. This entire group knew that while the English law might be written to seem fair to all, there were always certain individuals who seemed to take and enforce these laws in ways that they saw fit. This was where the unfairness came about.

Sean had listened to a plan that they had worked out and saw that it needed to be modified somewhat and financed; otherwise it looked OK. Running things on the farm had given Sean the self confidence and persuasiveness that he now used to convince the group that together they indeed might be able to pull this thing off.

"But how do you know we will get the money?" asked one of the men.

"I will meet with a wealthy Irish-American tonight who cannot become involved but who loves to finance these kinds of things. I will let you know one way or the other, at breakfast tomorrow," said Sean.

Sean had been at Dooley’s for several hours and had drunk a bit more than he should have, and when he arose he had to grab the table to steady himself for a bit; several in the group saw this and laughed. As he walked away he felt a bit unsteady, but the alcohol perhaps even emboldened him to do what he did next. He left this neighborhood and found a pay phone and called one of the daily tabloids and asked for the name of an independent photographer who did work for them because he told them he intended to open another furniture store and needed pictures to go in the newspaper for the grand opening. They gave him several names and phone numbers and these he subsequently called; one of these who he called seemed interested in what he proposed. Sean then called the IRA but did not tell them who he was but only that he wanted to make a contribution to them of one thousand dollars and for them to set the time and date where he could deliver it to them. This done he found a restaurant and treated himself to a steak and washed this down with several Guinnesses as he watched their television. Sean felt both a bit tipsy and sleepy now and when they showed a replay of the escape of the Maclise brothers, the alcohol made Sean’s mind confused and he thought that they had made a second escape. Sean knew that he had to walk some of this off before he returned home to Mrs. Williams so he strolled into Hyde Park and walked on the grass to avoid people and traffic until he felt a bit more sober. After walking for a while he came upon the same two men that he met the day before and here they were sitting again on the park bench. Sean spoke to them in Gaelic and this time handed them most of the money that he had with him which was close to two thousand dollars, and then he was on his way.

"I couldna’ understand a thing he was sayin’," said one of the men and he whistled for the dog which came and then once again with their dog and money well secured, they left.

The next morning Sean awoke with a hangover, but he knew that he had a lot to do and he washed and took three thousand more dollars out of one of the bags and was off for breakfast at McNeil’s. There, he told the boys that the American had generously agreed to finance them and he was anxiously awaiting the outcome. Sean then counted out the appropriate number of hundred dollar bills to each for their respective parts in this project. He then ate a hurried breakfast and then left to make the contribution to the IRA and pick up his box from the tin smith. Sean looked at his watch as he went down into an Underground station. He got on a train and after a few stops he got off and got on another line and finally got to the designated station at about the time the IRA had requested. At exactly the time given him he went over to a picture on the wall and rested against it putting his hand directly on the face of the man in the picture as he was told over the phone and which he somehow now remembered even though he had quite a bit to drink at the time he listened to their instructions. A man came over to him.

"You look tired," he said.

"I’ve come a long way," said Sean, which was the coded reply.

"You have a contribution?" asked the man.

"With me," answered Sean.

"Follow me," said the man who led Sean to a part of the station where there were no people.

"Look," said Sean as he gave the man the money. "We believe we are going to have a photo soon in a tabloid of an MI-6 agent and this will ruin his cover in London, but they will only send him somewhere else and that’s where you people come in. We will supply you with all the extra pictures that you need to ruin him wherever they send him," said Sean.

"Give me a code word so we will know that it is you when you call," the man said.

"Undercover," said Sean.

"Undercover it is then," said the man and he was gone.

Sean walked back and got on to a train that had just pulled in. He rode this train to a crossover station and then rode the other line to the station nearest the tin smith. He got out and walked to the shop and was pleased to find the box not only completed but it was fastened to a wood block that looked the same color and size as the wooden beams in the floor of the house. Sean paid the carpenter his bill and took the box back with him to the Underground and within the hour he was back home and had already placed all of his money into this rodent proof container and had placed it inside the dumb waiter shaft and between two floor beams so that even an experienced builder would think it was part of the original house construction. The box itself was totally hidden from view. Sean then went outside the house and it was not very long until Meg pulled up.

"Want to go flying?" she asked him.

"What?" asked Sean.

"I go for my flying lesson today," said Meg.

"I don’t believe it," said Sean.

"Yes, I’m taking flying lessons. Come along," said Meg.

"When are you going?" asked Sean.

"Right now; hop in," said Meg.

"Well!" exclaimed Sean and got into the car alongside Meg and away they both went toward a small airfield many miles away.

As she drove, Meg said: "I told them that they would get more business if they moved closer to London but they said that if they were any closer, then the students would interfere with the airline traffic around London so that’s why they are so far away. We will have to eat supper out there because it’s going to be pretty late when we get back to London. I know several good places to eat there though." As they went further from the crowded area of London and drove through the rural area, it reminded Sean a bit like the country in Ireland. Sean pointed out a Guinness sign to Meg as they passed it.

"They make that in Dublin," Sean said.

"I’ve heard," replied Meg.

"There is a story—it may well be true—that Lord Guinness only made one speech in the House of Lords. After he had been there a good many years and was known as one of their quieter members, he was taken aback by a statement from one of the Lords who claimed that one could no longer enjoy the scenery of the countryside because of all the signs saying ‘Guinness is good for you’. Lord Guinness arose and made his famous speech saying merely, ‘Guinness is good for you.’ And then he sat down and was quiet for his remaining years in that noble establishment," said Sean.

"I’d like to see Dublin sometime," said Meg.

"Well if you come then they will give you a free tour of the Guinness plant. It’s right alongside of the river Liffey whose water lost its clarity long ago in the dim and distant past. When you see the plant and that awful water running alongside of it then it makes a person wonder if they might use any of that water in their plant so they mention several times in the tour that all of their water comes from Saint John’s spring in the mountains many miles away," said Sean.

After miles of driving and all vestiges of the big city and its numerous inhabitants left far behind them, Meg pulled her car into the parking area of a small airfield where several light planes could be seen. Sean watched as Meg and her instructor took off and while they were spending their hour in the air, Sean talked to the people at the airfield. He found that while some airplanes are extremely expensive to buy, others were terribly cheap. And it wasn’t size that seemed to make the difference: many huge airplanes were cheap because it required so much money to make them comply with government regulations, that the industry shied away from them and they sold at bargain prices. It dawned on Sean that since he now had plenty of money that he could purchase one of these mammoth bargains and utilize it in some devastatingly destructive manner against this English Government. He thought that he might furnish the IRA with one of these ‘bargains’; they weren’t going to be complying with any government regulations anyway, but Sean knew that he would have to remain firmly in charge of this airplane or the IRA would muck it up as they so often did. When Meg landed after her hour in the air, they both drove to a country restaurant and ate, but Sean only sort of half listened to Meg as she chatted on; his mind kept wandering back to what he might do with a giant airplane.

* * *

Also sitting down, but not eating, were two men who looked like brothers. By merely sitting on a park bench for two days in a row they had become the proud recipients of between three and four thousand dollars. They had been seated patiently all this third day feeling their good fortune might continue, but now it was getting dark and as yet they had received no more money.

"I donna’ think he’s comin’," said one of the men. The other man merely shook his head.

* * *

In this same city of London, several miles from the two men in the park, a tall thin IRA volunteer tried on some specially made clothes. Viewed from the front they looked like regular civilian clothes but when viewed from the rear he looked exactly like a uniformed London Bobbie. Another volunteer took delivery of a pistol and others worked into the night on project ‘Undercover ‘.

The very next morning while Meg and Sean were still sound asleep together in Meg’s bedroom in London, project Undercover began. The offending British agent was grabbed from his bedroom while he slept and he was gagged and shoved into a windowless van with a pistol held constantly to his head. He was completely undressed and after a short ride through the city of London, he was shoved out into a crowed of IRA volunteers who waited on the Thames River Bridge, directly in front of Big Ben, as daylight was just now dawning. As the city came to life this would be a very busy area. Even at this very early hour there was considerable interest in what exactly was going on here and people started to congregate. The police had already been called by numerous people with London accents telling them about a naked man standing in front of Big Ben. The police were on their way and as soon as they were spotted, most of the original IRA group started to disappear over the Thames Bridge and a few went down into the nearby Underground Station, but they were soon replaced by more curious people who stopped to look. As the first policeman came into the crowd, the photographer started taking his flash pictures.

The next day one of the tabloids had displaced its usual scantily clothed girl with a photo of the British Agent standing, naked as a jay bird, right smack dab in front of Big Ben. Now the British people are used to seeing Bobbies in pairs. The London Bobbie gets this popularized name from Robert Peel who first organized a police system, that really worked and that the people trusted, way back in 1828. These police are never fat and are always six feet in height or more and there are always two of them, Now the IRA knew that bribing a Bobbie to make a picture would be impossible so they had to bring one of their own in for that special touch they wanted in the picture. Here now printed full page in thousands of tabloids was this naked man standing directly in front of Big Ben and with one Bobbie—the real one approaching with his face to the camera, and the other Bobbie—the specially clothed IRA plant—was standing ramrod straight alongside this naked man, but this policeman had his back to the camera and was holding his policeman’s hat directly in front of the man’s genitals. The one word tabloid caption told it all; it said UNDERCOVER.

Not only did the group do this but with the additional help of the IRA, many more newsboys than usual were selling this tabloid around MI-6’s London office buildings. The IRA needed to make certain that there were plenty of copies for all those who wanted to see one of their fellow workers who had gotten his picture in the paper.

The IRA now had its people tracking down the true identity of this man and when they found out who he really was then they would prepare more of these photos, complete with his real name so that IRA members close to the next area where he would be sent, would have a good supply of these pictures to pass around.

* * *

Sean was watching television one day when on came a program about people getting false identities. Here was a news reporter standing next to a tombstone of a man who had been dead for more than ten years and the reporter was displaying a brand new birth certificate that was recently issued to the man whose name was engraved on the granite grave marker. Someone had simply filled in the form correctly and paid the required fee and here, for all to see, was the birth certificate. Sean grabbed a pencil and paper and quickly copied down all of the information that this show provided for him. This short television presentation supplied Sean with the major amount of information that he required to get a false identity which he needed to get his English driver’s license. Before Sean went to bed that night he had posted a letter to Somerset House in London requesting an application for a birth certificate. Several days later, in the mail, he received the application form. As he read the form he saw that not only would he have to give the name and date of birth but he had to supply the name of the father and the mother’s maiden name as well. This was something that the television show had failed to explain, but since Sean had plenty of time, he resolved a method that would be time consuming but that should get the job done. For the next several days Sean was at the library going over two years of microfilms of newspaper obituaries, starting with a year before and ending a year after his own birth date. He was only interested in male infants that had been given a name and that listed a London area cemetery where they were buried. Whenever he found one of these, he copied all the information that the obituary supplied him. After four days of this searching he had obtained fifteen names of named male infants buried in a London cemetery with the name of one of the parents also given, but none of these obituaries gave an exact birth date. Sean spent the next five days visiting cemeteries and of these fifteen possibilities, only seven tombstones could be found that listed the child’s name and birth date. Sean was well satisfied so far but the next day as he went to search the marriage record microfilms, he saw that they were guarded by a real dragon who regarded all of these machines and microfilms as her very own and who tolerated no one here who did not belong. Sean stood back and observed this older woman militantly running her department with whip in hand. He then turned and departed without even trying to search the marriage records. Sean walked down the street and his mind went back through all the methods that he had learned when he had read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People . Then Sean noticed a florist shop and went in and purchased a dozen roses complete with vase and returned and presented this offering to the dragon lady.

"I need your help. I’m going through law school and my professor gave me this project to locate some marriages and I don’t have the slightest idea how to do it or how to operate these machines," said Sean as the dragon lady held the vase of roses.

"Come this way. I do not want you operating these new machines. Use this old one; it’s slow and you will be less likely to damage the microfilm. Which years do you need?" she asked him.

Sean told her and she brought him what he needed and then she showed him how to operate the machine and then she went to her desk and there she placed the flowers for all to see; they were something that she knew she deserved, but very seldom obtained.

Sean now looked over hundreds of marriages that were performed eight, nine and ten months before the birth dates, and after hours of searching he had discovered exactly two marriages that he was absolutely certain fit, so now he had the father’s full name and the mother’s maiden name and their marriage date, for not only one but two of those infants who, if they had lived, would be close to his own age now. He felt proud of himself and he returned the microfilms and thanked his benefactress and left. The two names that he could apply for would be Richard Atkins or John Goldsmith and Sean felt that he had better go with John Goldsmith because Richard Atkins was not a name that would seem to imply an Irish accent.

Sean was still not absolutely certain that this was foolproof and since he did not want to get caught if this thing backfired, he used the return address for one of the men who ate at McNeil’s and who lived in a house with five other old men. Sean told the man at breakfast the next morning to bring him any mail addressed to John Goldsmith. A bit over a week later, at breakfast, the man handed Sean the letter from Somerset House addressed to John Goldsmith. Sean now had his birth certificate and his new identity that he could use to get his driver’s license.

Sean knew that his Irish accent was still a problem and that an Englishman was simply not going to believe that this John Goldsmith, who was born here in London and still here now, was going to come in and apply for a license speaking with an Irish accent. Sean visited several driver’s license testing stations and found one in a Pakistani area that was heavily staffed with Pakistani people. Here, he wisely decided, was the place to apply because here his accent would not even be noticed.

While Sean was in this area, he applied to a local driver’s training school to learn driving in London and Sean was impressed with the Pakistani who owned the business. His cars were old but all were well maintained and he actually tried to teach his students about English driving laws and not just siphon away the student’s money. Sean felt that here was a person who could be trusted, and this gave Sean an idea because he had one more problem that he had to deal with.

Back in Ireland, Sean had often talked with his father’s accountant—a wise old man who had taken a liking to Sean—and who had told Sean how governments, all over the world, net people for tax evasion. If one was netted for tax evasion, he told Sean, it was not like the butterfly being netted by the collector or the dog being netted by the dog catcher but the end results were exactly the same because the person was just as firmly caught. This net, however, was finding the person’s net worth. When any government discovers people whose net worth exceed their lifetime after tax earnings, then these people are destined to come before a jury of their peers to explain why this is so. If these people show a suitable explanation backed by authentic records then generally they have no further problems because the jury will find for them and against the government. But where no records have been kept and the jury does not believe the explanation, then the verdict usually goes against the defendant and the government wins. So this sends a message to you loud and clear. If you do not have the records to prove otherwise then you must not have assets in excess of your total earnings. This is it in a nutshell pure and simple; only real fools disregard this. This was one lesson that Sean remembered. Now, since here in England, Sean’s after tax earnings were zero, then his net worth should be zero too. He could afford to collect no visible property until he had taxable earnings. He could not, for the present, even have a car listed in his own name.

Sean noticed an ad in the paper that said, "Going to America." and then it listed items for sale which included a two year old car. Sean lost no time in calling the phone number and getting directions how to get there. Shortly he was on the Underground headed to see this car. He spoke with the person and looked at the car, which had low mileage and still looked new. The oil on the engine dip stick and transmission dip stick were both clear and so was the radiator coolant. Sean heard the motor run and could find nothing that did not function. He found out that this car had always been kept inside too. A cash price in American Dollars was agreed upon and Sean wrote up a receipt and handed the man a One Hundred Dollar bill to clinch the deal until later in the day when Sean would return with the money and they would transfer the title. The man took the money, signed the receipt and Sean was then on his way to the Pakistani driving school. There, Sean told the owner that he wanted to buy a car but he was in the midst of a divorce and if he got the car then it would not be long before his wife’s solicitor would find out about it and latch on to it, so the car would have to be in someone else’s name. Sean told the Pakistani that he would put the car in the driving school’s name and that the driving school would have the right to use the car at least fifty percent of the time during regular weekly business hours and if Sean used it more than that then he would pay the school a stipulated rental fee for the extra time. Tires, fuel and insurance would be prorated and the school would be responsible for the car’s maintenance. The Pakistani only looked at Sean and never said a word. Sean knew that he had to come up with the convincing closer.

"Look," said Sean, as he laid about six thousand dollars in the man’s hand and he also put the receipt in front of the man’s eyes. "I’m trying to give you this money. This is the money that I’m going to use to pay for the car. And this man has also told me that his firm is going to pay his moving costs so he will be agreeable to a very low sales price because he will then try to nick his firm for this loss that he incurred in moving. This way the government will think that you have picked up another cheap car but you will have one of the best cars around now and you will be able to get top customers. Come with me right now and see; I am going to pay the man and then you can drive away in your new car," said Sean.

The Pakistani wanted Sean to come with him to his solicitor, and Sean agreed. This solicitor, it turned out, was also from Pakistan and he saw that this was a very good deal for his fellow countryman. The solicitor too tried to convince him, but the man who had realized his highest dreams of coming here to England and then being able to build up a successful business, was now very reluctant to break any laws of this country that had given him this opportunity, and the solicitor knew this.

"This is a gift from Allah!" loudly said the solicitor. "It has nothing to do with the British Exchequer," he added.

These were the words that broke the ice and the solicitor saw that this had convinced his friend so he typed up the agreement between these two men. When it was finished they both signed and then they were off to take delivery on the car. The owner was both surprised and pleased when Sean counted out five stacks of ten hundred dollar bills and one stack of nine, which added to the hundred that he already had, was the agreed total of six thousand dollars. Sean then gave the keys to the Pakistani so he could drive the car back and then Sean and the original owner went to get the title legally transferred to the driving school. The value of the car was listed as six hundred dollars. Sean had thus completely evaded the trap that the British Government uses to trap tax evaders who purchase big ticket items. He did not purchase the car from a dealer; He did not pay with large English bank notes whose serial numbers and paths were well monitored by computers; He did not allow the car to be transferred at the big ticket price; last of all he did not allow the car to be put in the name as someone like himself who had no taxable earnings. He had done everything correctly and not only was he in good shape in this respect but now he would not be ripped off with maintenance fees charged by greedy and unscrupulous outfits, and with repairs done by the ignorant, all of which, if allowed to accumulate by the uninitiated and inattentive, can soon mount up, in a few years, to where that cost is more than the purchase price of the vehicle. Yes, the driving school would be wearing out the car, but they would also be replacing the worn out parts and they would be replacing things like timing belts and brake pads before they caused considerable damage. This was a deal where both parties won.

* * *

In Ireland things were on hold, because Cromwell needed information from various bankers about certain accounts. All this information was illegal but could be obtained if ample money was available but unfortunately the money designated for this had been lost. The strike force was here and ready to strike the IRA but the information needed to pinpoint exactly who these people were—such as the O’Briens—was not yet forthcoming.

Cromwell, because of the loss of his money, had been dealt a set-back but it was not a crushing blow. Tax money is always something that continues to come in, but it is like an agricultural yield, and some seasons bring in higher yields than others, but the harvest continues on none-the-less. Cromwell knew that he again would have the money to continue, but for now he would have to wait before he could bribe these crooked Irish bankers.

Where Cromwell and many other English super-patriots were being shortsighted in their well meaning attempts to harm the IRA, was that they were taking hard earned English taxpayer’s money and they were spending it in Ireland; this could only help one country—Ireland. And it could only weaken one country—the one supplying the money—England.

This has not been the first time England has substantially aided her enemy. Prior to the American Revolution, wealthy Americans were heavily spending for foreign made items and thus depleting America of the very coinage that it needed to survive. Rich Americans bought so much of England’s industrial produce that every last ounce of gold and silver had to be shipped out of America to pay for it. There was practically no more coinage left in America with which her citizens could trade. George Washington even melted down his own silverware and coined it to help the dire situation. England, ironically, was the country that helped America avert an economic breakdown, because the situation was saved by the English troops who England always paid in good gold coinage and this they spent while they were in America, putting enough good money back into circulation again thus helping this new country avoid disaster. America absolutely needed this input of coinage at this critical time. One would have thought that England would have learned all of this by now.

* * *

Back in England Sean took his driving test as John Goldsmith and he gave the driving school’s address as his own and he had a small concealed pouch installed under the driver’s seat to hold his insurance papers and his driver’s license; these stayed here. He did not carry his new driver’s license with him ever because he did not want multiple sets of identification to be found on him. He would much rather be known by his real name most of the time because if he was caught then they would check with Ireland and probably if they thought he was harmless, he would be shipped back. Sean also knew that the poorer he looked, the faster they would send him home to Ireland.

Sean was well aware of the animosity created by the wealthy foreigner who grabbed up the local women; this was another reason he did not want to appear to have much money. But by taking Meg to the various restaurants in town; he knew that when she related this to her friends, then the people in his neighborhood would think that here was a sharp English girl taking this foolish Irishman for every hard earned penny that he was making. In their minds, this was the picture that he wanted to paint. Sean knew that most criminals are caught, not by a lot of hard police work, but by the tips received from ordinary citizens. Sean was especially helpful to the elderly friends of Mrs. Williams because he knew that they had a lot of time to gossip and spread the word about him. He wanted no disgruntled person calling 999 and telling Scotland Yard about this suspicious Irishman in their neighborhood.

Sean would not be the first to put his well being and his fortune aside and concentrate on some singular cause. The people in the nations that win the wars tend to forget all about them, but the losers never do.

England had won all the many wars with Ireland and in general the English hatred for their Irish foes was a thing of the past. But this is not so in Ireland. Here the hatred is kept very much alive and the embers continue to burn on and even break out occasionally into open flames over and over again for the past eight hundred long years. This hatred is passed on from generation to generation until it is believed just as strongly as any religion. Thousands of Irish have given their lives for this Irish cause.

This Irish hatred for all things English had left its indelible mark upon Sean who now, with his sexual and life sustaining needs well gratified, set out to find a suitable airplane with which he would inflict such a tremendous loss upon this unjust English system, that the name Sean O’Brien would ring out nightly in all the pubs throughout Ireland. These visions of grandeur seem to be commonplace among those who succeed too well and too early.

When Meg was in London then Sean was there too constantly, but when she was away on trips—her schedule would keep her away for days at a time—then Sean would also be gone on the road looking for an airplane which he intended to bring down Armageddon to this English enemy. Precisely how he was going to do all of this with only one airplane, never entered his mind. The important thing to Sean now was getting hold of this big airplane.

As the months went by there were many occasions where, with Meg gone, Sean would find himself all alone with one of the other girls and he often wondered how it would be to have sex with one of them as well but since he was constantly on the road looking for his airplane, he did not remain in the house long enough for a relationship to be established with any of them—or so he thought.

On one of his trips to a very remote section of England, Sean stopped in at a place to eat one Sunday about the time that the church was letting out and the place was rapidly filling up with customers as he was looking for an empty table. Sean could not find an empty table when suddenly a black haired girl, all of sixteen, pulled out a chair for him at a small two place table where she sat alone.

"Sit here if you’d like," the young girl said to Sean.

"Thank you," Sean said as he sat down across from her.

"Do you take sugar in your tea?" she asked.

"Half a spoonful," replied Sean.

"It’s lamb today. Is that OK?" she asked.

"Fine," said Sean and she was gone only to return in several minutes with his meal and tea and then she sat back down again with him.

"I work part time here but I’m not really working here today and I’m glad you sat here because I felt that I was taking a table away from one of their paying customers," said the girl.

Then a busy waitress came by and said, "Let’s see the pictures fast because I’ve got to get back." whereupon the girl sitting with Sean displayed many photos out on the table.

"What’s the bloke’s name?" asked the waitress.

"Johnny Day. He’s Irish," said the girl at the table. And with that Sean recognized the face in the pictures and now the name John Day struck him like an electric shock because he suddenly realized that this was a youth that worked in a Dublin Bank and who he had talked to and who had told Sean he was leaving for a new job in County Cork. What on earth was going on here? Then he comprehended that he might have stumbled onto something and this girl across from him was his only link to the answer.

"Is your girlfriend getting married?" Sean asked.

"Yes," answered the girl.

"Bring her a meal too. I’m paying. Here’s a tip now in case you are not here when I leave." said Sean as he pressed some coins into this new waitress’s hand.

"Thank you but you shouldn’t have," replied the girl as the waitress left and the girl put the photos back into her purse.

"When is the wedding going to be?" asked Sean.

"Next month at Saint Marys," replied the girl.

"How did they meet?" asked Sean.

"Oh her father does secret stuff for the government and Johnny brought some banking things to her father and they met," said the girl, and this gave Sean a much clearer picture of what was going on: John Day was a spy who had come here to England to sell MI-6 some information and was now going to marry into the family and probably end up as an MI-6 agent himself.

"I guess that you will be going to the reception," said Sean.

"I got an invitation but it will be high class and I don’t have the clothes that one needs to attend, but I’m going to the wedding at the church," said the girl. Sean thought to himself, if it’s clothes that you need then you shall have the clothes. Sean now wanted to attend that reception and get some pictures of these people. He knew that he could get plenty of help from the IRA for this. He would now have to trust them a bit more than he had been trusting them and he had to keep this girl whatever means it took. Her meal arrived and both of them ate while Sean’s mind kept going over the problem at hand.

"Oh, there’s Mr. Johnson," said the girl.

"Who is he?" asked Sean.

"He let’s me drive his motor car sometimes. It’s a darling little car. He wants to sell it," said the girl.

" How much does he want for it?" asked Sean.

"Oh, several hundred pounds. Did you want to see it? He probably has it parked right outside," said the girl.

"When we finish eating, we’ll look at it," said Sean, knowing that he now had the answer to keeping this girl and getting to the reception. It was going to cost him a car and some clothes, but he was going to get some pictures of MI-6 people. Rats all stick together and this place will be packed solid with them, thought Sean. Sean spent the rest of the meal talking with this girl about small talk and things that she seemed to be interested in and found that they were both having more eye contact as the meal ended. He knew that he was going to have to give her his name soon and he decided that he would tell her he was Sean O’Brien and not John Goldsmith which also meant that he could not let her see the car he was presently driving, but if everything went the way he thought then he soon would have another car at his disposal anyway. He then asked her first.

"What’s your name?" asked Sean.

"Sibyl Hall. What’s yours?" she asked him.

"Sean O’Brien," he replied and as she reached over to shake hands with him, he held on to her hand and they stared silently into each other’s eyes.

"Let me pay for these and we’ll look at Johnson’s motor car," said Sean smiling because this had a double meaning in that it was a popular IRA song sung in Ireland. Sean then paid for the meals and he left with his young friend firmly in tow.

"The Irish Rovers sing that, don’t they?" asked Sibyl.

"I never paid much attention to who it was that sang it," replied Sean.

"You’re a strange one. What type of work do you do?" asked the girl.

"Right now I’m visiting airfields because I want to buy an airplane to rent out to all these movie people." said Sean.

"Have you visited that airdrome on the coast about ten miles from here?" asked Sibyl.

"There’s nothing on the map. I didn’t know that one existed there," said Sean astonished by this news.

"Well there is," said the girl, now stopping outside in the parking lot next to a motor car and putting her hand on the door latch. "This is Johnson’s motor car," she added with a twinkle in her eye.

"It certainly looks like it would be worth several hundred pounds," said Sean looking at the car.

"I’d sell my soul for this motor car," said Sibyl.

"I may indeed buy it for you but it would not be your soul that I would be wanting," said Sean while looking at her.

"I know," she replied while looking directly into his eyes.

"Is it a deal then?" asked Sean as they both still looked straight into each other’s eyes.

She said nothing for quite a while. She only continued to look at him and then finally she said, "Possibly."

"It’s a deal then," said Sean, kissing her ever so lightly on her lips.

"I don’t believe this is really happening," said Sibyl with her eyes still on Sean and now holding hands with him.

"We have made a deal and now you will have your motor car," said Sean as Mr. Johnson approached them. It was after about twenty minutes of discussion that Sean was counting out hundred dollar American bills to Mr. Johnson who then signed a receipt and agreed to put the car in Sibyl’s name on Monday.

All three of them got into the car and Sibyl drove Mr. Johnson home where he got out and left the two of them alone inside the car.

"If you will drive me to that airfield then I will fill your tank with petrol," said Sean.

"Petrol will be hard to find around here on Sunday, but I have plenty in the tank to take you to the airfield and then I’m taking you someplace else too," said Sibyl but Sean did not comprehend what this meant.

Sibyl had not driven a mile before Sean was fast asleep. His mind had been furiously racing to accomplish all of this or his entire plan would fail and now with his mind at ease, it seemed to ask for a bit of rest and he slept. Driving these ten miles, with Sean sleeping next to her, were moments of heaven to Sibyl and as she drove her car along straight stretches of road, she would run her fingers through Sean’s curly hair. It was after the car had stopped in front of the airfield that Sean found himself being awakened by a kiss.

"We’re here already?" Sean asked.

"Yes," said this young girl who now went back to kissing him with her fingers on both of her hands now feeling his hair.

"You are simply beautiful," he said while holding her close after they had gotten out of the car. Then slowly they walked, hand in hand, into the airfield. They strolled past the big hanger building, which was open, but only a number of small airplanes were inside. There was a great amount of activity, however, around a huge twin engined propeller equipped airplane which sat further down the field and away from the hanger by about a hundred yards. It looked somewhat like an airliner except that it had a tail wheel instead of a nose wheel like all the modern airliners have.

"What is that thing?" asked Sean, while talking to some mechanics in front of the hanger.

"Oh, that’s McHugh’s C-46," said one of them.

"What is something like that used for?" asked Sean.

"I dunno Gov. You’ll have to ask McHugh," said one of them laughing.

"I take it that you don’t know either," said Sean.

" That’s right. They were built over in America during the last World War and this one was sitting for years on some bloody airfield in India after flying over the hump to China and back. These were the things that supplied China with everything they needed during the war from bases in India. McHugh was over in India and fixed it up enough to bring it here. I heard a Yank say that it would carry a Sherman tank. I heard it was the first airplane big enough to carry a tank but I don’t know about it carrying one of those Sherman tanks though. You can load just about anything through those big doors nevertheless," the mechanic said.

"We might look at it," said Sean.

"They are wheeling out the fire extinguishers, so that means that they’re getting ready to run it, so stay well clear of those air screws or propellers as the Yanks call them," cautioned the mechanic.

"We’ll do that. Thank you for the information," said Sean as he and Sibyl, hand in hand, walked over toward this big airplane. As instructed, they stayed away from the front of the plane and went over to a man who was looking at something near the big tail wheel.

"Where can I find McHugh?" asked Sean.

"You’re talking to him," replied the man, never taking his eyes off of the flashlight beam that moved over the cable that he was checking.

"How much weight can this airplane carry?" asked Sean.

"Twenty-four tons gross; that’s airplane, fuel, crew and load; forty-eight thousand pounds total, said McHugh.

"You could carry a two ton load on it then?" asked Sean.

"If it was flying, it wouldn’t even know two tons was aboard. I could shut one engine down and even gain altitude," said McHugh.

"Are you interested in selling it?" asked Sean.

"That is exactly what I hope to do right here today very shortly son," said McHugh.

"Some one is going to make you an offer shortly then, is what you mean," said Sean.

"Who the hell are you?" asked McHugh.

"I’m the person willing to pay you one thousand American Dollars over the other man’s highest offer, but I want to be there when he offers it and I want to hear the offer," said Sean.

"You don’t even know what you are buying, do you son?" asked McHugh.

"You said it would lift several tons," said Sean.

"Not here in England son," said McHugh.

"It will fly, won’t it?" asked Sean.

"A lot better than it did when it was new, but there have been some laws that have changed since then," said McHugh.

"I would still like that option and here is the thousand over the other man’s price," said Sean as he counted out ten American One Hundred Dollar bills to McHugh as Sibyl watched wide eyed, taking all of this in.

"You’re on son, stick around," said McHugh.

"Explain your airplane to me while we wait," said Sean.

"These engines, that we are going to run, as soon as this guy gets here, are R-2800s. It was the largest radial engine made in America that turned out to be really reliable. Sure, they made a bigger R-3350 and the even bigger R-4360 but they never turned out to be anywhere near as trustworthy as these two engines on this airplane, The R-2800 was the engine that whooped Japan. These three bladed propellers are Hamilton Standard hydraulic propellers and a damn sight better than the four bladed Curtiss Electrics that originally came with the airplane. The fuel tanks are also new welded aluminum tanks. The old riveted tanks were bad to leak and they gave the airplane a bad name as a fire trap, which they certainly were with those tanks. There are no passenger seats inside. This is a strictly cargo version and it has to be loaded by a trained person so that the load is directly over the center of lift of the wing. Each engine has three fuel tanks and the range of the plane carrying a full load is over a thousand miles. It has an auto pilot and it’s working. In fact everything is working except the old rules that allowed it to fly. They are the things that are no longer still working," said McHugh.

‘This airplane was designed to take off from grass fields and that’s why the big tires and tail wheel instead of a nose wheel like on these modern airliners," said McHugh.

"I see a lot of red fluid dripping out at different places," said Sean.

"Yes and a lot more will be leaking out when we run these engines because then that hydraulic fluid will be under the pressure caused by the engine driven pumps. Most everything in this airplane works by hydraulic fluid under pressure. That’s the life blood of a C-46; it burns too. The more modern Skydrol is fireproof but it burns your eyes a lot worse if it gets in them," said McHugh.

Sean and Sibyl followed McHugh into the big airplane. They had to walk uphill to get to the front of the plane because the floor had to be sloped because of the tail wheel design. McHugh stopped abruptly before entering the cockpit doorway and pointed to a tank where a tubing type gage showed how much red fluid was inside. McHugh said, "Here’s where you fill the hydraulic tank."

Entering the cockpit and sitting down in the left hand seat, McHugh looked out of the windshield and spotted the buyer approaching; he said, "Let’s start number one." And immediately the man in the right hand seat, who had been busily engaged in working over the check list now merely read the remaining items to McHugh whose fingers flew to the switches and controls placing each in the proper position as it was called out. At the end of the list McHugh stuck his head out of the window and yelled to those on the ground, "Clear number one."

McHugh then reached up to the overhead panel with one hand to operate the starter switch while with his other he operated the throttle handle which was only inches from the mixture control which the other man was operating. As the big engine caught, McHugh slowly advanced the throttle and put his finger on the glass of one of the instruments and turned to Sean and said loudly over the engine noise, "This temperature gage has to rise up into the green area before we can run the engine any faster."

McHugh then turned to the man seated to his right and said, "Let’s start two."

The man on the right poked his head out the window and yelled, "Starting two."

The right engine then slowly moved its propeller blades and then some puffs of smoke could be seen and then the big blades moved faster and faster as this engine also started. McHugh then brought this engine up to the same speed as the left engine as both men kept their eyes glued to the instrument panel. Sean noticed that the other potential buyer had entered the airplane and was now coming forward to join the group already inside the small cockpit. McHugh then pointed to the temperature gage on number one engine which now had come up to the required temperature for run up. Both men now looked out their small side windows for any indications from the crew outside that anything was wrong and seeing no signals they both closed their windows making it much quieter inside. The possible buyer now came into the crowded cockpit and pulled down the jump seat from the rear wall and sat in it, leaving only Sean and Sibyl still standing. Even though the plane’s wheels were all chocked, McHugh and the other man both held their toe brakes on as McHugh slowly advanced the throttle for the left engine and as it picked up speed the entire airplane shook, vibrated and rocked especially when the propeller pitch was changed. Sibyl held on to Sean even tighter, not knowing if it was going to get worse or not. After the right engine was checked then the flaps were operated through their full range and the engines were shut down and quiet prevailed once more.

McHugh and the newly arrived man then talked and the man did get around to price and when he did make his offer, McHugh immediately said, "You may have to go a bit higher than that to get it my friend."

"That’s my highest offer." said the man.

"I’ll need a day to think about it," said McHugh.

"You’ve got twenty-four hours but not a minute more," said the man and he was gone as quickly as he arrived.

When he was gone, Sean told McHugh, "I agree to that price plus the thousand that you already have and you will have your money before twenty-four hours are past," said Sean.

"You’ve bought an airplane son." said McHugh and he and Sean shook hands and then McHugh extended his hand to Sibyl and she not only shook it but spoke to him like part of the team,

"It’s a pleasure doing business with you," said Sibyl.

A young boy then came into the cockpit and McHugh said to him: "Ralph, let’s get that rudder board back on. I’ll hold the rudder straight from here."

McHugh had to push his leg fairly hard against the left rudder pedal to counteract the strong Irish breeze that was trying to force the airplane’s huge rudder all the way to the right. About a minute later he could feel a slight movement of the rudder pedals under both of his feet and he knew that Ralph was sliding the rudder lock on; only then did he release his pressure on the left pedal which now stayed positioned evenly alongside the right pedal. Then he got out of his seat and faced Sean.

Sean said: "This plane goes into a corporation name and here is my solicitor’s address in London and his phone number. The money will be in his office tomorrow morning and you can sign the necessary papers and pick it up. Since you’ll probably be going to the States, I’ll have it available in American Dollars for you, but now we have to talk about those spare parts that you and that other man were discussing. I also need you to stay on for a while and show me more about this thing." And for the next hour Sean and McHugh worked out a deal where he and a mechanic would stay on for an additional week while Sean learned about the plane. The boy Ralph agreed to stay right on with Sean, making certain that no one pilfered the plane or the spare parts.

Sean and Sibyl then left McHugh and the C-46, and it was still a good hour from dark when Sibyl pulled her car up to an old stone ruin which was once a church and she said, "I have always loved this place and here is where I’m keeping my end of the bargain." And before an astonished Sean, she took off all of her clothes and carried a piece of soap with her as she walked barefoot to a nearby brook and spent several minutes bathing. Sean wasted no time in removing his clothes too and was with her as she soaped herself all over and then sat down in the water.

"God it’s cold!" she exclaimed.

Sean knew that he needed this girl to stay with him at least a month, then he would have the information he needed on this MI-6 bunch, so he had to make certain that she got a climax or she wouldn’t want to stay. Sean also washed a bit and then they were together on the ground and Sean told her, "I want you to have a climax but if I come in to you right away then I’ll go off to soon."

"I know," she said.

"That’s why you washed down there then, isn’t it?" asked Sean.

"Yes because I didn’t know if you were going to go down on me or not so I took the precaution of washing down there too," she said.

"You have done this before," said Sean.

"You’re not the first but you will be the second. Now does that make you feel better?" she asked him.

"I guess I better go down on you, but it’s hard to locate the right spot so tell me if I have to go higher or lower while I’m doing it to you, and then tell me when you feel yourself ready to go, then I’ll come in to you and finish off regularly," he said.

"Yes, yes, yes, quit talking. Hold me close for a while then do what you have to do," said Sibyl.

Sean did hold her close and they felt each other while watching each other’s eyes, with both of them eagerly anticipating what was about to happen. When Sean felt it was time, he went down on her and she did guide him to the correct spot, then she kept reiterating, "Yes, yes, yes, yes—"

"It’s so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Oh, I’m going; I’m going," she said, whereupon Sean now came into her and she gasped. Now he was inside of her having sex the way it should be and he alternately kissed her mouth and then her breasts without losing his rhythm. As he kept this up he could feel her nipples getting harder and harder as he sucked them and now she quivered and her vagina immediately closed tighter around his penis and he knew she was having her climax so he kept kissing her breasts and kept up the rhythm because he knew that the female orgasm is much longer in duration than the male’s and the female is particularly sensitive all over her body for a short time after her climax, so he kept on and tried to give her as much of this ecstasy as he could, but then he couldn’t hold off any longer and he went himself saying, "Take me; take me."

"Yes, yes," she said, and then, just as in the car, he was fast asleep beside her.

She was looking into his eyes when he awoke. With their bodies still together, she said, "Thank you; it was beautiful."

"You are beautiful," he said.

"No, not really because I’ve watched the very pretty girls in school who get all the boys and none of the ones that I wanted ever wanted me. When I saw you though, looking for a place to sit, I really wanted you; you looked so cuddly with your suit and curly hair and I needed you more than anything in this world and you never even saw me until I pushed out that chair for you. It wasn’t you that picked me. It was me that picked you, my friend. I want to stay here right next to you and talk to you. Can I?" she asked.

"Yes, tell me about yourself, and you are really pretty," said Sean.

"I’m glad that you really think so. It’s so seldom that you want the same person who wants you. It’s neat. But it’s the girl who really picks the boy. The really smart boys make themselves available to all the girls don’t they? It’s the girl who decides, from the ones available, who she’s going to do it with. Do you know what I especially like about you?" she asked him.

"No, what?" asked Sean.

You understand that life is not a one way street: it’s not just take. It’s both give and take. It’s a business deal where both parties have to both give and take. You were willing to pay for me and that built my ego up higher than you can ever imagine. I needed that right then too. When I do this with a man then I have to feel that I can trust him. Can I trust you?" She asked him.

"I don’t see why not. I like you," said Sean.

"But can I trust you not to tell anyone what I’m going to tell you? That’s what I mean," she said.

"Yes," answered Sean.

"The other person who I told you about is a much older man and I have always wanted to do this with someone more my age and do you remember saying that you might go off too fast? Well he told me I would have that problem with boys my age and I didn’t. Thank you, because it was really beautiful," she told him.

"You went with an older man?" asked Sean.

"I am still going with an older man but I have made a deal with you and I will continue to do it with you." And then she said with a glint in her eye smiling broadly, "Ask your solicitor tomorrow how much longer I have to keep doing it with you." She then held him even tighter and kissed him.

"How much older is he than you?" asked Sean.

"Quite a bit, but ours is a relationship of our minds. He and I are interested in the same things. Our minds work together wonderfully like one mind. It’s only that many years have separated our bodies," she told him.

"And you have done it up here?" asked Sean.

"I fell in love for the first time up here. Can I tell you about it?" she asked him.

"Certainly," he replied.

"I was nine years old and I brought a pencil and a piece of paper up here and held it over some words on an old stone and traced with the pencil until the words came out on the paper. I asked everyone what it meant but no one knew but they said a certain Catholic priest was interested in these old inscriptions and I brought my paper to him and he actually came out here with me to see my stone. He stayed here and we copied many more things inscribed on these stones and he told me all about them and those people who cut these words back in those old days. I learned Latin from him and he would give me lessons to take home and memorize and I would come back so proud