CLASSIFIED: TOPSECRET

OPERATIONAL: IMMEDIATE

FROM: US EMBASSY/LONDON

TO: BROGNOLA/STONYMAN OPS STICKER SENDS

RELIABLE SOURCE INDICATES TWO HUNDRED

KILOS HIGH GRADE COCAINE NOW IN TRANSIT X

DESTINATION=NYC

ARRIVAL = IMMINENT

SHIPMENT ABOARD PANAMA FREIGHTER

CANAL QUEEN X SHIPMENT BEING BROUGHT

IN BY JOHN MCELROY X MCELROY SHOULD

GIVE SOLID LEAD TO SHILLELAGH

END

Two hundred kilos — roughly ten million dollars at wholesale levels. By the time it got to the streets it would be worth at least three times as much. The Drug Enforcement Agency would love to get that kind of a bust, and Stony Man's Hal Brognola was going to give it to them — with a string attached.

John McElroy was a leader in the Irish National Army of Liberation — NAL — an offshoot of the IRA. The organization specialized in terrorist attacks in England, always in large crowds. Their civilian body count was in the hundreds. In one attack, when the former Secretary for State for Northern Ireland was assassinated in a massive bomb blast in a crowded soccer stadium, a stampede of panicked spectators tried to flee the scene, doubling the number of dead.

In all, the NAL was responsible for killing and crippling more than three hundred people.

McElroy's primary function within the NAL was that of fund raiser. Increasingly, the terror-mongers in Ireland had had to resort to smuggling drugs and guns to fill their war chests.

He was an engaging man, according to intelligence files, and a talented organizer. These talents allowed McElroy to build one of the major drug-distribution rings in Britain, the profits from which went to finance NAL activities. The anticipated foray into the American market represented a major expansion of McElroy's activities.