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It had been a rare and privileged occasion, but despite the flowery language, the soft voice, and the extravant promises, nothing had finally been forthcoming. No money, no arms for the Irish Cause. Finally, it had been a disappointment and the man who had arranged the meeting, Hakim al-Mansour, head of the foreign arm of the Libyan Secret Service, the Moukhabarat, who now signed himself “Harry,” had been apologetic.
And now this, a summons, for that was what it was. Though no time had been suggested for the meeting with the bishop, Father O’Brien knew none was necessary. Harry meant “without delay.” Although the Arabs can delay for years when they are so minded, when Qaddafi summoned in this manner, one went—if one wanted his largesse.
Father O’Brien knew that his trusted friends in the Cause did indeed want that largesse. Funds from America were down; the constant appeals from the Dublin government—men Father O’Brien regarded as traitors—not to send arms and money to Ireland had had their effect. It would not b
e wise to ignore the summons from Tripoli. The snag would be to find a good excuse to travel again so soon.
In a perfect world, Father O’Brien could have done with a few weeks’ break. He had but three days earlier returned from Amsterdam, ostensibly from a seminar of the War on Want.
During his time in Europe he had been able to slip away from Amsterdam and, using funds he had earlier salted away in Utrecht, take two long-term leases in false names for one apartment in Roermond, Holland, and another in Münster, West Germany. These would later become safe houses for the young heroes who would go over there to carry the war to the enemy where they least expected it.
Traveling was, for Dermot O’Brien, a constant part of his life. His Order busied itself with missionary and ecumenical work, and he was its International Secretary. It was the perfect cover for the war. Not the War on Want, but the war against the English, which had been his calling and his life since he had held the broken head of the dying young man in Derry all those years ago and seen the British paratroopers running down the street, and spoken the last rites, and made his other, personal vow, of which his Order and his bishop knew nothing.
Since then, he had nurtured and honed his visceral loathing of the people across the water and had offered his services to the Cause. They had been welcomed, and for ten years he had been the principal international “fixer” for the Provisional IRA. He had raised the funds, moved the money from one deep-cover bank account to another, secured false passports, and arranged for the safe arrival and storage of the Semtex and the detonators.
With his help, the bombs in Regent’s Park and Hyde Park had torn apart the young bandsmen and the horses; through his assistance, the sharpened coach bolts had scythed through the street outside Harrods, ripping out entrails and severing limbs. He regretted that it was necessary, but he knew it was just. He read the reports in the newspapers and watched beside his horrified colleagues in the television room at the manor; and he would go, when invited by a colleague in parish work, and take the Mass with a calm soul.
His problem that spring morning was fortuitously solved by a small announcement in the Dublin Press, a copy of which was still lying across his bed where he had read it while drinking his morning tea.
His room also served as his office, and he had his own telephone. He made two calls, and during the second he received a warm welcome to join the group whose forthcoming pilgrimage had been announced in the paper. Then he went to see his Superior.
“I need the experience, Frank,” he said. “If I stay in the office the phone never stops ringing. I need the peace, and the time to pray. If you can spare me, I would like to go.”
The Superior glanced at the itinerary and nodded.
“Go with my blessing, Dermot. Pray for us all while you are there.”
The pilgrimage was one week away. Father O’Brien knew he did not need to contact the Army Council to ask them also for permission. If he had news when he returned, so much the better. If not, no need to trouble the Army Council. He sent a letter to London, paying the extra to guarantee twenty-four-hour delivery, knowing it would reach the Libyan People’s Bureau—the Libyan government’s term for its embassies— within three days. That would give Tripoli time to make their arrangements.
A week later, the pilgrimage began with Mass and prayers at the Irish shrine of Knock. Thence it moved to Shannon Airport and a chartered jet to Lourdes, in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. There Father O’Brien slipped away from the crowd of lay men and women, nuns and priests, who made up the pilgrims, and boarded the small charter plane waiting for him at the Lourdes airport. It deposited him four hours later at Valletta, Malta, where the Libyans took him over. Their unmarked executive jet landed at a small military base outside Sirte just twenty-four hours after the Irish priest had departed from Shannon. Hakim al-Mansour, urbane and gracious as ever, was there to meet him.
Because of the urgency of getting back to Lourdes and rejoining the group of pilgrims, there was no meeting with Colonel Qaddafi. In fact, it had never even been envisaged. This was an operation al-Mansour had been charged to handle alone. The two men talked in a room at the base set aside for them and ringed by al-Mansour’s personal guards. When they had finished and the Irishman had snatched a few hours’ sleep, he left again for Malta and Lourdes. He was excited. What he had learned, if it came to fruition, would constitute a huge breakthrough for his Cause.
Hakim al-Mansour secured his personal interview with the Great Leader three days later. He was summoned, as always, at a moment’s notice to present himself at the place where Qaddafi was staying that day. Since the bombing of the previous year, the Libyan leader had taken more than ever to shifting his quarters from place to place, spending more and more time out in the desert, an hour’s drive from Tripoli.
He was in what al-Mansour privately called “the Bedouin mood” that day, lounging at ease on a pile of cushions in a large and ornate tent at his desert encampment, dressed in a white kaftan. He appeared as languid as ever as he listened to the reports of the two nervous ministers who sat cross-legged before him. The ministers, townsmen by birth, would clearly have preferred to be seated behind their desks. But if the Great Leader’s whim was that they squat on cushions on the carpet, they would squat on cushions.
Qaddafi acknowledged al-Mansour’s entry with a gesture of the hand to be seated to one side and await his turn. When the ministers had been dismissed, Qaddafi took a sip of water and asked for a report on progress.
The younger officer gave his report without frills or exaggerations. Like all those around the Libyan leader, he was somewhat in awe of Muammar Qaddafi. The man was an enigma, and men are always in awe of an enigma, especially one who, with a wave of his hand, could require your immediate execution.
Al-Mansour knew that many foreigners, particularly the Americans, including those at the highest level, believed Qaddafi to be mad. He, al-Mansour, knew there was nothing mad about Muammar Qaddafi. The man would not have survived eighteen years of supreme and unquestioned mastery of this turbulent, fragmented, and violent land if he had been deranged.
He was in fact a subtle and skilled political operator. He had made his mistakes, and he entertained his illusions—notably about the world outside his own country and his status in that world. He genuinely believed he was a lonely superstar, occupying the center of the world stage. He really believed that his long, rambling speeches were received with reverence by millions of “the masses” beyond his own borders as he encouraged them to overthrow their own leaders and accept his inevitable supremacy in the cause of the purification of Islam according to the message he had personally received to accomplish this task. No one in his personal entourage dared to contradict this.
But within Libya he was unchallenged and virtually unchallengeable. He relied for advice upon a small circle of trusted intimates. Ministers would come and go, but his personal inner circle, unless he suspected one of them of treachery, had his ear and wielded the real power. Few of them knew anything about that strange place “abroad.” On this, Hakim al-Mansour, raised in a British public school, was the expert. Al-Mansour knew Qaddafi had a soft spot for him. It was justified—the head of the foreign arm of the Mukhabarat had, in younger days, proved his loyalty by personally executing three of Qaddafi’s political opponents in their European bolt-holes.
Still, the Bedouin dictator needed careful handling. Some did this with flowery flattery. Al-Mansour suspected Qaddafi accepted the flattery but took it with a pinch of salt. Al-Mansour’s own approach was respectful, but he did not varnish the truth. Rather, he phrased the truth carefully and certainly did not offer all of it—that would have been suicidal. But he suspected that behind the dreamy smile and the almost effeminate gestures, Muammar Qaddafi wanted to be told the truth.
That day, in April 1987, Hakim al-Mansour told his leader of the visit of the Irish priest and of their discussions. As he talked, one of Qaddafi’s personal team of doctors, who had been mixing a potion at a table in the corner, approached and offered the small cup to Qaddafi. The Libyan leader swallowed the draught and waved the doctor away. The man packed up his medicaments and a few minutes later left the tent.
Although a year had passed since the American bombers had devastated his personal living quarters, Muammar Qaddafi had not completely recovered. He still suffered occasional nightmares and the effects of hypertension. The doctor had given him a mild sedative.
“The fifty-fifty split of the material—it is accepted?” he asked now.
“The priest will report that condition,” said al-Mansour. “I am confident the Army Council will agree.”
“And the matter of the American ambassador?”
