The Marching Season Read Free Page B

detectives produced a photo-kit sketch of the woman from the Underground. The sketch was sent to the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the headquarters of MI5 and MI6. Officers pored over their files and photographs of all known members of paramilitary groups, Republican and Loyalist. When no match was discovered, the photo-kit image was put into broader circulation. Police theorized that after the bombing the woman probably boarded a departing flight at Heathrow and fled the country. The photo kit was shown to ticket agents, baggage handlers, and airport security officers. Every airline that had a flight leaving Heathrow that night was given a copy. Every inch of videotape shot from every surveillance camera in the airport was viewed and viewed again. The photo kit was given to friendly intelligence services in Western Europe, along with Israel’s Mossad.
    At 7 P.M., the search for the woman was brought to an abrupt halt by the discovery of another body in the rubble of the train platform. The features of the face were surprisingly intact and roughly matched the photo kit provided by Krajicek. The Dutchman was brought to Heathrow to view the body. He nodded grimly and looked away. She was the woman he had helped in the Knightsbridge Underground stop.
    A similar series of events played out across the Irish Sea in Dublin. No fewer than a dozen witnesses reported seeing a bearded man with a limp carrying a large heavy briefcase into the library just before the bombing. The doorman at the Shelbourne Hotel provided a detailed description of the suspect to a pair of Garda detectives two hours after the blast.
    The library attendant who had given the bearded man a pass for the reading room survived the blast with only minor cuts and bruises. He helped police pick out the suspect on a videotape shot by the library’s surveillance cameras. The Garda released a photo-kit sketch and a fuzzy image made from the videotape. Copies were faxed to London. That evening, however, rescue workers once again pulled a body from the rubble that appeared to match the description of the suspect. When a pathologist removed the clothing from the corpse he discovered a heavy brace on the right knee. Detectives ordered the knee X-rayed. The pathologist discovered no injury to the knee—either bone, cartilage, or ligaments—that would require the support of such a heavy brace. “I suspect the man was wearing the brace in order to produce a limp rather than support a damaged knee,” the pathologist said, staring down at the corpse’s leg. “And I’m also afraid that your only suspect in this case is officially quite dead.”
    To the north, in Ulster, case officers from the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary began calling on their sources and informants, from the bars and backstreets of West Belfast to the lime-colored farms around Portadown and Armagh. None turned up anything promising. An army surveillance camera had captured Eamonn Dillon’s murder, and the security camera over the door of the Celtic Bar had recorded the killer’s escape. Neither vantage point produced a usable image of the gunman’s face. The RUC appealed for calls to the Confidential Line—a special telephone hot line where informers can provide tips to police anonymously—but none of the 450 calls produced meaningful leads. Twelve claims of responsibility were reviewed and dismissed as hoaxes. Units devoted to technical intelligence gathering—video surveillance and electronic eavesdropping—hastily reviewed recent tapes and intercepts, searching for missed signs of an imminent attack. Their review turned up nothing.
    Initially, there was a good deal of dispute about the possible perpetrators of the attacks. Was it one group or two? Was it coordinated or simply coincidence? Was it the work of an existing paramilitary group or a new one? Republican or Loyalist? The assassination of Eamonn Dillon and the bombing of the National Library in