THE SNOW HAD started to melt in the south of England leaving a soup of watery muddy substance that was the bane of shoe leather. There were three men in the room that morning but only one man had been recently fighting the elements; the same man that now looked so conspicuous in his civilian clothes.
Lechaim had opted for a blue blazer and grey slacks with black shoes that had acquired white tide marks from their skirmish with the soggy slush. The white shirt and striped Sandhurst tie he had put on for the occasion felt uncomfortable after many months of dressing casually and he was looking forward to discarding them when he returned home. However, at this moment, he had other things on his mind as he listened to Colonel Coburn
“We are quite certain now that the IRA had nothing to do with the attack on the abbey that night. For one the arms they carried were far too sophisticated, and for another, the men were highly trained!”
Lechaim listened to the Colonel's words with interest. It had been four days since Lechaim and Tony had met up on the cliff tops near Brighton. With the passing of Samantha Jessep, the gloom that had hung over England seemed to lift as well, and the sun was now awake again. Its morning rays cast shafts of light through the window of the Colonel's office playing in his eyes.
“Tony! pull the blind down a bit, would you!” the colonel requested as he broke off for a moment.
When this had been done and Tony had returned to his chair next to Lechaim's in front of the large oak desk, Colonel Coburn, from his seat behind it, continued with what he had been saying.
“We have established that Peter Sartori organized the attack on the abbey and Samantha Jessep had been his accomplice at the time. The reason for the attack, we are still not clear about, but one thing is certain. Those behind it now want Lechaim here out of the way!”
The colonel smiled at Lechaim and he returned the smile.
“Until now we have not been able to link either Peter Sartori or Samantha Jessep to their employers, but we may have had a break! Hence my reason for calling you in this morning,” the colonel said looking directly at Lechaim. The colonel then paused to gather his thoughts before he continued.
“It appears that this woman, Samantha Jessep made a telephone call to Rome while she was in London!”
“You mean she used an open line, Sir?” Lechaim asked incredulously.
The Colonel's ears noted the “Sir” and concluded that Lechaim had been away from them far too long.
“Yes! Highly unusual in her line of work but that's exactly what she did.”
“But surely, sir, that means that the phone call cannot have been important. She would never use an open line to contact her employers.”
“Quite right, Lechaim, quite right! We too assumed at first that the phone call was irrelevant, that is until we checked out the other party. According to the hotel register, she placed a call to the Vatican in Rome!”
“What!” This time Lechaim forgot the “Sir” in his astonishment.
“That's not all, Lechaim! The call she made was to one of the most senior dignitaries in the Roman Catholic Church!”
Lechaim did not know what to make of this information and could only sit and look at the Colonel and Tony Wright in bewilderment. Finally, he asked, “And just who exactly was it she called?”
“A Cardinal Tsana, probably the highest placed Cardinal in Rome and one of the Pope's likely successors.”
“I see!” Lechaim said, but he did not really. What had Samantha Jessep been doing talking by telephone to a Cardinal of Rome, he thought. It did not make any sense at all.
“I understand from Tony here that you intend to go to Rome next week yourself?”
“That's right, sir. I want to see how my late wife's uncle is faring. He had a breakdown some time ago and I thought I'd see how he is!”
The Colonel didn't need reminding that Lechaim and Monsignor Michael Cronin were related or that Lechaim had lost his own wife not so long ago. Sarah flashed through his mind for a second and his face darkened.
“Are you aware that Monsignor Michael Cronin is in the care of this same Cardinal Tsana?”
“No, I did not!” Lechaim replied, astonished by this news.
“That’s why you’re here!” the Colonel said. “We need to find out more about this Cardinal Tsana and your going to visit the Monsignor gives us a perfect opportunity to nose around! That’s if you have no objections?”
“Of course not, Sir! I'll be interested to find out more about him myself!”
“The army hasn't been in touch regarding your formal discharge?” the Colonel then asked.
“No, sir! I would have thought by now that I would have heard something.”
The Colonel looked a trifle embarrassed as he said, “My fault, I'm afraid! I delayed the paperwork!”
Lechaim's eyes narrowed as he posed the question, “May I ask why, sir?”
“That attempt on your life on Corregidor convinced us that you would be better off under the Army's wing, for the time being, so to speak.”
“But how did you know about that? I told no one!”
“We got the information through our American cousins, late as usual, of course!”
Lechaim remembered the yacht that he had hitched a ride back to Manila on and the American, Don Talbot, and his family. Had that really been a lucky coincidence he wondered.
Lechaim responded, “Sorry, sir, I don't quite understand what your mean by 'under the Army's wing'“
“It means that you're still Army, one of us and we protect our own. We lost eight good men in Ireland to this mob and we don't intend to lose any more. From now on you have our complete support and any backup that you require.”
“That's very kind of you, Sir, but...”
“No buts, Lechaim. We mean to catch these shits and we'll use every means at our disposal. You're one of our trump cards, so to speak!”
“How so, sir?”
“They want you dead!”
The two men smiled at each other again. There it was! He was to be the sacrificial goat that would entice the beast out of its lair.
Tony Wright who had been quiet all this time, joined in, “It's the only way, Lechaim. If the trail does lead to the Vatican, you're perfectly placed to penetrate the place. You have a relative that is a monsignor of Rome, and you now have a good excuse for going there.”
“We are not going to leave you out on a limb. Tony's going along for the ride!” the Colonel added.
“You mean that this is an official SAS operation, Sir?”
“You know better than that, Lechaim. Officially, we cannot get involved. Certainly not, as far as anything to do with the Vatican is concerned. No, if you two are silly enough to get yourself killed, as they say on that facile television show, we'll disavow all knowledge of you!”
The three of them chuckled for it had always been accepted in the SAS that on covert operations, you were on your own - your body could end up literally anywhere. It was the nature of the job and the men that did it were more likely than not buried in unmarked graves in foreign fields if they got a burial at all.
“Now, Lechaim, you're looking a little out of condition. What say you come to us for a few days and Tony here can take you through the ropes again.” Colonel Coburn smiled mischievously as he said this because he had never seen a man look fitter than the man to whom he spoke. However, the Colonel also knew that it wasn't always the strongest or the biggest that survived but more often the most adept.
Tony looked at Lechaim and added some words of his own. “I think that I can still show this young fellow a thing or too!” In fact, Tony was a year younger than Lechaim and there was little he could teach the other man, but he could sharpen up his friend's skills. The pair of them had always been fierce competitors and Tony therefore knew that Lechaim would not be able to resist another challenge.
Lechaim smiled at his friend's words, “If you can do everything else now as well as you can shoot, I think you can show me more than a thing or two.”
Tony looked uncomfortable as he replied, “Lucky shot! That was all!'
“Lucky shot, my arse!” the Colonel exclaimed. “I'm still not convinced he didn't use a telescopic sight though!” Of course, the Colonel was only joking. If Tony told him that he had shot the woman with a handgun from that distance, then it was true enough - he had never known Tony to lie.
For once, however, Tony had not told the whole truth, only half-truths. Like most, he valued his reputation which had taken years to build up, and he didn't want to lose it. Therefore, he had left it to others to draw their own conclusions regarding the shot that was rapidly becoming part of SAS folklore.
Changing the subject which he was uncomfortable with, Tony said, “Well, Lechaim, what about it!”
“You're on! When do you want me?” Lechaim asked the Colonel.
“Say tomorrow morning, early, for three days of intensive training!”
Lechaim smiled back at him ruefully. “Tomorrow morning it is then!”
“Oh! One other thing!” the Colonel added as he reached into his desk and pulled out a clipping from a newspaper article that had been written about the Cardinal. “Your man, Cardinal Tsana!” Colonel said as he pointed to the newspaper picture that accompanied the article.
Lechaim took the clipping from him and looked closely at the picture of the Cardinal.
“Good God!” Lechaim uttered.
The other two looked at him as Lechaim tugged his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a photograph. “Yes, it's him, all right!”
He pushed the photograph of Sinead’s uncle across the desk. “The other man in the picture, Colonel!”
The Colonel looked at the fuzzy face of Monsignor Michael Cronin and then at the man behind him whose features were in focus.
“Bloody hell!” the Colonel exhorted. “It’s Cardinal Tsana!” He then passed the photograph over to Tony Wright.
Tony took it and studied it for a while.
“Synchronicity!” Tony Wright exclaimed
“What are you babbling about, Tony?” the Colonel asked.
“Synchronicity!” Tony replied. “Carl Jung developed a theory about the collective unconscious.” Tony screwed up his face as he tried to remember the book he had read on the subject. “He wrote a book called ‘The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche’, or something similar!” he said. “In it, Jung explained that you could have a number of coincidences that are connected in some meaningful way although their occurrence defies the calculations of probability. He called his theory, synchronicity.
“Synchronicity or not!” the Colonel said, “There are more coincidences here than in a Charles Dickens novel.” He name-dropped ‘Dickens’ deliberately to let Tony know that he too read books.
“It’s certainly unbelievable,” Lechaim remarked as he recovered the photograph. He believed now though that it was more than synchronicity that was guiding him along his own particular path in life. Forces were at work that were certainly not of this world.