The Double Tap

She was the richest little girl in the world. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice, rich almost beyond comprehension. As she played in the surf, giggling and shrieking and running from the waves, the white-jacketed waiter slowly polished a crystal tumbler and tried to imagine what it must be like to have so much money. The interest on the interest was still more than he’d earn in a lifetime. In a thousand lifetimes, maybe. He polished the crystal diligently and when he held it up in the Mediterranean sunlight it sparkled like a diamond. He was wearing white cotton gloves so that his fingers wouldn’t mark the pristine surface. He placed it on a solid silver tray and reached for another tumbler.

The little girl knelt down by the water’s edge and picked up something, a sand crab perhaps, or a pretty shell, and she skipped across the beach to her guardians who sat together under a huge umbrella. The man was her grandfather, wealthy in his own right but nowhere near as rich as the little girl. The woman was her great aunt, a withered husk of a human being, wrapped in a black shawl despite the searing heat. The little girl showed them what she’d found and they smiled benevolently. That they loved and cherished her was beyond doubt. Even from his post a hundred feet from the umbrella, the waiter could see it in their eyes. The old man ruffled the girl’s wet hair and her laughter tinkled like a glass windchime. The old woman smiled a toothless smile and said something in Greek.

‘No, Auntie,’ admonished the little girl. ‘English today. Today we must speak English.’ The waiter held up the second tumbler and inspected it. The little girl was learning English, Spanish and Russian in addition to her own language. She was only eight years old, but already she was being groomed for the life that lay ahead of her. A life of wealth and power, a life that few other people in the world would believe existed. What could it be like to have so much, the waiter mused? And yet, thought the waiter, she was also to be pitied because the immense wealth had come at a heavy price. She was an orphan: her mother and father had died in a power boat accident the previous year. Now, as she laughed and played, she had only the company of her aged guardians and the men in dark glasses.

There were three bodyguards, big men, wide shouldered and well-muscled, standing close to the umbrella, their heads constantly moving even though there wasn’t a stranger within half a mile. It was a private beach, on a private island, one of the dozen or so homes around the world owned by her trust fund, but the bodyguards never let their concentration slip. They wore shorts and brightly coloured shirts and had white smears of sunscreen down their noses, but no one would ever mistake them for holidaymakers. Occasionally the sea breeze would lift their loose shirts to reveal a holstered handgun or a sub-machine pistol. In addition to the three bodyguards on the beach, there were another two in the house and ten more sleeping or relaxing in the barracks next to the swimming pool. The little girl was under guard for every minute of every day; even as she slept two men would stand outside her bedroom door and another two under her window. She was the richest little girl in the world and she was the most protected.

The waiter slid the tumbler onto the tray and covered it with a crisp white cloth so that the crystal wouldn’t be desecrated by windblown sand. He was sweating and he had to resist the urge to wipe his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He kept a wary eye on the old man. It was almost noon and he would soon be wanting his first glass of ouzo of the day.

The little girl ran back to the sea, hopping across the hot sand until she reached the cooler fringes of the water’s edge. She squatted down and splayed her hands, palms uppermost, releasing the crustacean she’d so proudly shown the old couple. It was a small crab and it scuttled sideways, seeking sanctuary in the wet sand. Within seconds it had burrowed to safety and the little girl waved goodbye.

Far out to sea, a powerful speedboat ploughed through the waves. One of the bodyguards put a pair of binoculars to his eyes and studied it for several minutes. He spoke to the other men in Yiddish. They were Israelis, as were all the child’s protectors. It had nothing to do with religion, the waiter knew, it was simply that Israeli-trained bodyguards were the best in the world. If necessary they would die to protect their charge.

The old man looked towards the waiter and nodded. The waiter took the ice bucket and the bottle of ouzo out of the gas-powered refrigerator and placed them on the tray. He held it with both gloved hands as he walked gingerly across the burning sand, hot even through his leather-soled shoes. As soon as he stepped out of the shade of the massive umbrella above the bar he felt the sun beat down on his hair and a rivulet of sweat ran down his neck. The three bodyguards were now all standing fifty feet or so behind the little girl, looking over her head at the speedboat which was arcing through the waves, away from the beach. There was more Yiddish, and shrugs.

The ice cubes rattled wetly in the ice bucket and the waiter took extra care where he put his feet on the shifting sand. The old man had bent his head close to the old woman, listening intently. She was probably warning him about drinking too much, the waiter thought, and he smiled to himself. The bodyguards were to the waiter’s side, still staring out to sea. He took his right hand off the tray and dropped the ice bucket lid onto the sand before grabbing for the silenced automatic. The metal had been chilled by the ice and he was aware of how pleasant it felt through the cotton gloves as he levelled the gun between the shoulder-blades of the nearest bodyguard and fired twice. The man dropped to the sand as the waiter fired two more shots into the back of the middle bodyguard. The gun made no more sound than a child’s cough and the third bodyguard had only begun to turn when the waiter put two of the mercury-tipped slugs into his back. Out of the corner of his eye the waiter saw the old couple struggling to their feet but he knew there was nothing they could do. They were too old, too feeble, to do anything but watch.

The waiter stepped over the legs of one of the dead bodyguards, the gun now warm to the touch. The child was kneeling in the sand, trying to find the crab. She looked up at him as he approached, smiling because there were only friends on the island, friends and protectors. She frowned when she saw the gun in his hand. The waiter smiled down at her. ‘Are you frightened?’ he asked softly.

She looked up at him and smiled again, hopefully. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not.’

The waiter nodded and shot her in the head, then in the chest. Behind him he heard a mournful wail, more of a howl than a scream. He couldn’t tell if it was the old man or the woman. In the distance, the speedboat headed in the direction of the shore, its twin engines roaring. The waiter ran towards it as the blood of the richest little girl in the world soaked into the sand.

Mike Cramer wiped the condensation from the window of the taxi and peered out. The rain had stopped, though the taxi’s windscreen wipers continued to swish back and forth. ‘You can drop me here,’ he said to the driver, a sullen rock of a man who hadn’t spoken a word all the way from the ferry terminal.

‘Suit yerself,’ said the driver, jamming on the brakes. Cramer couldn’t remember having said anything that might have offended the man. Maybe he’d just heard some bad news. Cramer thrust a twenty pound note into the man’s hands and told him to keep the change, taking some small pleasure from the fact that for the first time the driver’s face cracked into a smile. ‘You’re sure now?’ queried the driver, as if the large tip had provoked a change of heart. ‘The place you’re wanting is further up the hill, it’s no trouble.’

‘I want to walk,’ said Cramer, opening the door and shouldering his duffel bag. He trudged up the hill, the wind at his back. He didn’t quite understand himself why he was walking and not driving up to the door. It was symbolic somehow, but he wouldn’t be able to explain the symbolism to anyone. It was something to do with arriving on his own two feet, walking like a man and not being driven like an invalid, but even that felt too simplistic. He slipped his hand into the pocket of the reefer jacket and felt the two brass keys. One for the front door, the solicitor had said, and one for the kitchen door. The kitchen door was also bolted from the inside, so he’d have to go in the front way.

He rested the bag on the pavement and turned to look out over the harbour. To the left bobbed the fishing boats of Howth, sturdy working boats, huddled together as if sheltering from the bitter cold wind but more than capable of taking the worst that the Irish Sea could throw at them. To the right, the weekend boats of the yacht club, their steel lines singing in the wind, their pristine white hulls rocking gently in the swell, tethered neatly in rows along the wooden pontoons of the marina like soldiers on parade. The yacht club building was a creamy yellow colour, its modern lines at odds with the weathered fishing village. Behind the club was a car park, but only two vehicles were parked there and one was a delivery truck. Fair-weather sailors, thought Cramer, and today wasn’t fair weather. He swung the duffel bag back up on his shoulder and grunted. High above his head, seagulls swooped and banked, screaming for attention. Cramer craned his neck back and stared up at them. They reminded him of vultures, gathering over a dying animal. Cramer smiled at the image despite himself.

The cottage was close to the brow of the hill, a hundred feet or more from its nearest neighbour. It was small and squat, a granite pillbox with tiny windows and a steeply sloping roof, built to withstand the raging sea and the storms that blew in from the north-east. It was a hardy home, a home that had outlasted the men who’d built it and that would be around for generations to come. The curtains were drawn and the windows were grimy. The cottage had been empty for more than six months, the solicitor had said. The property market was in a slump and the house was too small for most people. That was why he’d been able to buy it so cheaply. There was another reason, Cramer knew. Few people wanted to move into a house where someone had died. Cramer didn’t care either way.

He dropped the duffel bag onto the stone step and put the key in the rusting lock. The key grated, and for a moment he thought that it would refuse to turn, but then it clicked and he pushed the battered oak door open. He stepped across the threshold, dragging the canvas bag after him. The door opened into the living room, a large brick fireplace to his left, a cramped staircase to the right. An overstuffed armchair sat next to the fire. Cramer noticed that the leather was all scuffed on the arms and there was a dark, greasy patch on the back of the chair where the previous occupant had sat for hours, staring into the flames. He closed the door behind him. The air was stale and damp so he threw open the single window and allowed the cold salty sea breeze to blow in. Tattered curtains, long faded and thin in places, flapped in the draught like trapped birds. There were ashes in the grate, and on the floor by the chair was an earthenware ashtray containing a single cigarette, stubbed out and broken in half. Next to it stood a tea-stained mug, chipped and cracked. Cramer felt like a detective at a crime scene, though there had been no doubt what had killed the old man who used to live in the house: a massive heart attack in his sleep, brought on by too much whisky and fried food and not enough exercise, coupled with the fact that he’d passed his allotted three score years and ten by a decade or more.

A chipboard door led through into a compact kitchen containing an ancient refrigerator, a dirt-encrusted gas stove and a Welsh dresser. Cramer opened the refrigerator door and the light came on. The solicitor had promised to reconnect the electricity supply and he’d been as good as his word. A packet of long-forgotten cheese sat at the back of the refrigerator, black inside its plastic wrapper, next to a half-used bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup lying on its side as if it had been hurriedly thrown in. Cramer closed the door. The stairs led up to a single bedroom, and Cramer could smell what was within before he pushed open the door. The room was barely twelve feet by ten, little more than a cell with a single bed and a wardrobe. The sheets and blankets had been thrown aside as if the occupant had leapt out of bed, but Cramer knew that the old man had been taken away by ambulancemen, because he’d been dead for a week before anyone knocked at his front door. The sheets were stained with stale urine and faeces and there was long-dried blood on the yellowing pillow. Cramer opened the window and took a deep breath of fresh air.

A door in the corner of the room opened into a tiny bathroom containing a tub so small that he’d have difficulty sitting in it never mind lying down, a washbasin and a toilet. The white plastic lid was down and Cramer flushed without opening it. The cheese had been enough of an unpleasant surprise.

He pulled the soiled sheets and pillowcase off the bed and took them downstairs. There was a cardboard box by the fridge containing old tins and several empty whisky bottles. Cramer dropped the sheets onto the rubbish then unlocked the kitchen door and threw the box outside into a small walled yard. There was a rusting bicycle leaning against the wall, its saddle missing and its chain broken, a reminder of the days when the old man had been able to cycle around the village. Cramer closed the door. The air was fresher and he could breathe without fighting the urge to throw up, but now it was too cold to take off his jacket. There was coal in a brass scuttle and a newspaper on the windowsill, and he soon had a fire burning in the grate. He rubbed his hands and held them out, warming them in front of the flames as he sat in the old man’s chair. ‘There’s no place like home,’ he muttered to himself. Outside, the screams of the gulls grew louder and more insistent.

The Colonel put his elbows on his knees and leant forward over the chessboard, his forehead screwed into deep creases as he studied the pieces. He made a soft clucking noise as he considered his options. The rook seemed the best bet. He sat up and reached for the piece, then stopped midway, his hand suspended above the board. No, the bishop. The bishop first, then the rook. He moved the bishop, pressing the piece down hard on the board so that it registered with the computer.

A tiny red light flickered on the side of the plastic board, letting him know that the computer was thinking. The Colonel had developed an intense dislike of the flashing light. He’d only had the chess-playing computer for two weeks, but it was without doubt the most able player he’d ever faced. At its highest setting it could defeat him seventy-five per cent of the time, and he was determined to keep on playing until he could consistently better it. The telephone warbled and he picked up the receiver, his eyes still on the board. He was beginning to have second thoughts. Maybe it would have been better to have moved the rook first and then attacked with his bishop. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Mike Cramer’s surfaced,’ said a voice that the Colonel instantly recognised.

‘Where?’ He sat back in his chair.

‘Ireland. We spotted him at Holyhead boarding the ferry to Dun Laoghaire.’

‘There’s no doubt?’

The caller sniffed, once. ‘None at all.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Howth, north of Dublin. He’s bought a cottage there.’

‘He’s what?’ The Colonel closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘What the hell is he up to?’ he asked.

The question was rhetorical but the caller answered noneatheless. ‘We were hoping you’d be able to tell us.’

Mike Cramer put on his reefer jacket and buttoned it up to the neck as he closed the front door behind him. He didn’t bother locking it. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked down the road. An elderly woman was standing on a stepladder cleaning the windows of the neighbouring cottage and as he walked by Cramer wished her a good morning. He found a general store facing the west pier and he bought coffee, milk, sugar, and a newspaper, not because there was anything in it he wanted to read but because he’d need it to get the fire going. He wasn’t hungry but he nevertheless put eggs, bacon and a loaf of bread into the wire shopping basket before handing it to the young lad behind the counter. ‘Are you here on holiday?’ asked the boy as he totalled up Cramer’s purchases and put them into a blue plastic carrier bag.

‘Nah, I’m living here,’ said Cramer, passing over a twenty pound note.

The boy frowned. ‘In Howth? Jesus, I’m doing all I can to move out. There’s nothing for anyone here.’ He gave Cramer his change.

‘It’s got everything I want,’ said Cramer. ‘See you around.’ He walked along the sea front to a pub built of the same stone as his cottage. Three fishermen in bright orange waterproof jackets were drinking at the bar and they turned as one towards him as he stepped inside. They looked like brothers, balding, broad shoulders, ruddy cheeks and hands gnarled from too much exposure to sea water and cold winds. Cramer nodded a greeting and went to the far end of the bar where he ordered a double Famous Grouse from the matronly barmaid. He downed the whisky in one go and smacked his lips appreciatively.

‘Good?’ asked the barmaid.

‘Oh yes,’ said Cramer.

‘Another?’

‘Definitely. And have one yourself. While you’re at it, I’d like to buy the guys over there a drink.’

The barmaid beamed and refilled his glass. ‘Are you celebrating or something?’

‘Or something,’ said Cramer. He raised the glass and toasted the fishermen.

The boy sat in front of the television set and watched the rocket soar through the sky. A flat emotionless voice was calling out numbers but the boy didn’t know what they referred to. Nor did he care. He sat open-mouthed as the rocket and its three astronauts headed for the moon. The moon. They really were going to the moon. Just like in the comics. The boy leaned back and put his hands on the floor as he stared at the screen. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be in a space capsule, drinking through a tube and going to the toilet in a space suit. The boy wanted to go to the toilet but he didn’t want to miss one second of the launch. He pressed his legs together and blocked out thoughts of his full bladder. He heard his name being called but he ignored it and shuffled closer to the screen until his feet were almost under the television set. Something fell away from the bottom of the rocket and for a moment he thought that something had gone wrong, but then he heard the clipped voice say that separation had been successful and he realised that everything was okay.

His mother shouted for him again and the boy leaned forward and turned up the volume. The rocket was a small dot in the sky with a thick white plume trailing behind it. The boy wondered at what point the rocket was actually in space and not in the sky, and if there was a line somewhere up there that separated the two.

There was a banging from his mother’s bedroom, the sound of a walking stick being pounded against the threadbare carpet. The boy got slowly to his feet. The banging was repeated, more rapidly this time. The boy went into the hallway and looked up the stairs. His legs felt like lead. His mother called his name again and the boy put a hand on the banister. He put his foot on the first step. He wished with all his heart for his father, but he was at work and wouldn’t be back for hours. From the sixth step he could see his parents’ bedroom door, painted in the same pale green colour as the rest of the doors in the house. The boy had lived in the house all his life and he couldn’t remember them ever being any other colour. He took the stairs one at a time, pausing between each step, his eyes fixed on the door. ‘Where are you?’ his mother shouted, then he heard her cough.

‘I’m coming,’ he called and ran up the last few stairs. He gripped the doorknob and pushed open the door. His mother was on the bed on her hands and knees, her body wracked with hacking coughs. Her mousy brown hair was tangled and matted, her eyes were red and puffy and there were stains down the front of her blue flannel nightie. She looked up as he walked into the room and stood at the foot of the bed.

Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. ‘What do you want, Mum?’ he asked.

His mother sat back on her heels and wrapped her arms around her stomach. ‘I just want to get better,’ she cried.

‘Me too,’ said the boy. ‘That’s what I want, too.’

She held out her arms and he climbed up onto the bed and clung to her. She smoothed the back of his head with her hands and made small shushing noises. ‘You’ve got to be strong,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to need your help.’ The boy buried his face in the flannel nightie and its smell of sick.

The man in the wheelchair stopped to examine a rack of brightly coloured ties, running the silk through his gloved fingers. A salesman in an immaculate dark blue suit raised an eyebrow but the man in the wheelchair shook his head. Just looking. He put his hands on the wheels and pushed the chair forward. The people who passed him studiously avoided eye contact, as if they were embarrassed by his disability.

He rolled slowly towards the suit section. His legs were wrapped in a thick blue wool blanket and he felt sweat trickle down his thighs. An elderly man was being measured by a young assistant while his much younger fur-coated and clearly bored wife watched. Two Japanese tourists were pulling suits off the racks, holding them up and talking animatedly. The man in the wheelchair smiled to himself. Compared with Tokyo, the prices in Harrods were probably a bargain. He never paid Harrods prices for clothes, never wore anything with a label that could be recognised.

The Arab swept into the menswear department, flanked by two Harrods executives and a trio of bodyguards. The bodyguards were thickset men in black suits and tinted sunglasses and had matching thick moustaches. Saddam Hussein lookalikes. Their eyes swept back and forth like searchlights, but the man in the wheelchair noted with some small satisfaction that they looked right through him. Cripples were always invisible. The Arab was dressed in full desert robes and looked like something out of Lawrence of Arabia, totally out of place among the racks of tailored suits. Behind the Arab walked three black-robed women, their faces covered except for their eyes. One was clearly the Arab’s mother, she was short and squat and moved like a buoy bobbing in a rough sea. The other two were his wives. The man in the wheelchair propelled himself forward.

One of the wives was a Saudi princess, and by all accounts she was built like a Russian weightlifter. The other, his second wife, was a former Playboy centrefold from Utah who’d been about to embark on a movie career when she’d settled for the sheikh and his millions instead. In the black robes, it was impossible to tell the two wives apart. The man slipped his hand under the blanket.

The manager of the menswear department was gushing about how honoured he was to see the valued customer again, rubbing his hands together and bowing obsequiously. One of the bodyguards walked close to the wheelchair, checking out a man standing by the changing rooms. The man in the wheelchair smiled up at the bodyguard, but he was ignored. The silenced automatic coughed twice under the blanket and the bodyguard fell backwards, blood spreading across his white shirt from two large black holes.

The man in the wheelchair stood up, slipping out from under the blanket like a snake shedding its skin. He took three paces forward and shot the second bodyguard twice in the chest. The man was dead before his knees crumpled. The third bodyguard was reaching for his gun when he took a bullet in the sternum. As he slumped forward, clutching at his chest like a heart attack victim, the man shot him in the head, blowing blood and brain matter across the display of ties.

Shoppers began screaming and running for the exits, but the man was an oasis of calm among the panic. He aimed his gun at the Arab. The Arab’s eyes widened in terror, then almost at once he visibly relaxed. The old woman was backing away, her hands held up in front of her face, her mouth open and making loud snoring sounds.

The two wives stood stock still, frozen in terror. Close up the man could see that one was dark, with brown eyes, pockmarked skin. Obviously not the centrefold.

He turned to the other woman, levelled the gun between her big blue eyes and fired, then stepped forward and shot her again in the chest as she fell.

The man spun on his heels and walked quickly to the stairs, the gun at his side. People ran from him, leaving his way clear. Shouts and screams came from behind him, but he kept on walking, his head down. He reached the stairs and went down to the ground floor, keeping the gun pressed to his side. He walked to the Egyptian Hall and took the escalator to the lower ground floor. The screams and shouts had faded away by now, and by the time he stepped off the escalator no one was paying him any attention. He turned left and walked briskly through to the stationery department, as if he had nothing more pressing on his mind than the purchase of an executive writing set.

The door to the stationery stock room was unlocked, as he knew it would be. The man slid the gun into his belt and buttoned his jacket over it as he walked across the store room and into the entrance of the tunnel. Heating pipes ran along the length of the roof of the tunnel and he jumped up and dragged down a brown warehouseman’s coat he’d stuck there earlier. The tunnel curved to the right ahead and the man could see that he was alone. He dusted the coat off and slipped it on as he walked among boxes of merchandise waiting to be taken into the store. The tunnel was the main supply route into the store, and the reason why delivery trucks were rarely seen blocking the Knightsbridge streets above.

Glancing in a circular mirror positioned at the bend of the tunnel, he saw several workmen heading his way so he kept his head down and walked purposefully. He wasn’t challenged, nor had he been when he’d tried a dry run two days earlier.

Several electric carts rattled past, piled high with more boxes, but the drivers paid him no attention. The tunnel was about five hundred feet long and led to two lifts which went up to the main Harrods warehouse facilities. The man ignored the lifts and raced up the stairs to the single exit door which opened onto Trevor Square. A fresh-faced security guard, a telephone pressed to his ear, was looking his way, his mouth open in surprise, and the man pulled out his gun and shot him in the throat without even breaking stride. The security guard was still dying as the man closed the exit door and walked out into the sunshine. Ten minutes later he was on the tube, heading for Victoria Station.

Mike Cramer held the half-empty bottle of Famous Grouse in his hand, swirling the whisky around as he stared into the fire. He’d made himself a bacon sandwich earlier but it sat untouched on a plate by the chair. He could feel the whisky burning away at the lining of his empty stomach and he knew that he should eat something, but he had no appetite. A shower of soot fell down the chimney, startling him. The flue probably hadn’t been swept in years, though the fire burned well enough.

He looked at his wristwatch, more out of habit than because he wanted to know the time. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere to go. It was almost midnight. He sat back in the old armchair. It was comfortable and seemed to mould itself to his shape like a living thing. He’d moved it so that he could see the front door and the window and keep his back to the wall — though he was still close enough to the fire to feel its warmth. Cramer rolled his head from side to side. He could feel the tension in his neck, the muscles taut and unyielding. He yawned and his jaw clicked, another sign of the strain he was under. He got to his feet and climbed the stairs.

He hadn’t been able to buy fresh sheets or a pillowcase in the village so he’d made do with the rough blankets and the stained pillow. He’d spent the night in worse places, and he had no qualms about sleeping in a dead man’s bed. Cramer was well past the stage of believing in ghosts. He smiled to himself. Famous Grouse was the only spirit he had any faith in these days. He put the bottle on the floor by the bed and then took the Browning Hi-Power 9mm automatic from his shoulder holster and placed it under the pillow. It was Cramer’s fifth night in the cottage. He didn’t think it would be much longer.

Thomas McCormack was putting the final touches to a bright red-feathered trout fly of his own design when the phone on his workbench rang. He sighed and stopped what he was doing. It was Aidan Twomey, an old friend and colleague, but after the bare minimum of pleasantries McCormack realised that it wasn’t a social call.

‘There’s a Brit here, Thomas,’ said Twomey, whispering as if he didn’t want to be overheard. ‘Looks like a Sass-man to me. Living in old man Rafferty’s cottage.’

McCormack pulled a face as he studied the half-finished fly. ‘Sure he’s not a relative?’

Twomey snorted down the phone. ‘Rafferty related to a Sass-man? You’ll have him spinning in his grave, Thomas. Nah, Rafferty didn’t have any relatives over the water. He was the last of his line. No kids and his wife died a few years back. A local solicitor sold the cottage, lock, stock and barrel. Then this Brit moves in.’

‘And you think he’s SAS?’

‘I’d bet my life on it, Thomas. He’s definitely army, that’s for sure. I’ve seen enough of the bastards in my time, you know that. He was in the pub, on his own, drinking. And he’s been taking long walks, like he was waiting for something.’

‘Doesn’t seem to be keeping a low profile, then?’ said McCormack impatiently. He wondered why Twomey was bothering him with such a trivial matter. If the SAS were conducting an undercover operation in Howth, the man would hardly be drinking in the local pub.

‘I was wondering if maybe the boys had anything going in Howth. Anything they’d rather keep to themselves.’

‘Not a thing, Aidan. Take my word for it.’

‘Aye, right enough, right enough. But it’s the way he’s carrying on. Like he was waiting for something to happen.’

McCormack clicked his tongue in annoyance. Initiative was all well and good, but he didn’t appreciate having his time wasted. ‘Well, thanks for the tip, Aidan. I’ll make a note of it.’

‘Cramer,’ said Twomey. ‘Mike Cramer. That’s his name.’

McCormack’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Mike Cramer. That’s his name. That’s what he told Padraig in the pub. I checked with the solicitor, too, and that’s the name on the deeds of the cottage.’

‘This Cramer. Describe him.’ McCormack sat hunched over the phone as he made notes on a sheet of paper, the fly forgotten.

‘Just over six feet tall, thin but looks like he can take care of himself, you know. Deep-set eyes, his nose is sort of hooked and looks like it might’ve been broken. Brown hair, a bit long. His accent is all over the place, but he’s definitely not Irish. He told Padraig he was from Scotland originally.’

‘Did he tell Padraig what he was doing in Howth?’

‘Enjoying the sea air is all he said. What do you think, Thomas? Did I do the right thing calling you?’

‘Oh yes,’ said McCormack. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you did the right thing all right. Now listen to me, Aidan, and listen well. Stay where you are. I’ll have someone down there as soon as possible. Make sure no one goes near him, I don’t want anyone asking him questions. I don’t want him frightened off, okay?’

‘Sure. But I don’t think your man’s going anywhere. He’s well settled in at the cottage.’

McCormack replaced the receiver and sat staring at his reflection in the mirror on the wall. Cramer the Sass-man back in Ireland, sitting in a pub as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

The young man slowed the blue Citron to a walking pace as he scrutinised the numbers on the houses. ‘There it is,’ he said to his passenger. ‘Number sixteen.’

‘What’s the guy’s name?’ asked the passenger, a redhead in his late teens, pale skinned with watery green eyes.

‘Twomey. Aidan Twomey.’

‘Never heard of him.’

The driver stopped the car and turned to look at his passenger. ‘Yeah, well he’s probably not heard of you either, Paulie. The difference is, Aidan Twomey did a tenner in the Kesh for the Cause and he’s got McCormack’s ear, so I’d be careful what you say, you hear?’

Paulie held his hands up in surrender. ‘I hear you, Davie. Jesus, you’re touchy today.’

Davie shrugged. He was a couple of years older than Paulie and since their father had died he’d become accustomed to being the man of the family. He ran his hand through his thick, sandy hair. ‘This is important, Paulie. We can’t afford to fuck up.’

‘We won’t,’ said Paulie. He opened the glove compartment and took out a revolver, checking that all the chambers were loaded. It was an old gun and had once belonged to their father, though it had never been used in anger. For the last five years it had lain under the attic floorboards, wrapped in an oiled rag.

‘What the hell are you doing with that?’ hissed Davie.

‘We might need it.’

‘McCormack said we were to watch and report on this guy until the boys get here.’

‘So?’

‘So the word was watch, not shoot. We won’t be needing a gun, Paulie.’ He took it from his brother and shoved it under the front seat. ‘McCormack would have your balls if we got caught with that.’

‘Who’s gonna catch us? This isn’t the North.’

Davie glared at him. ‘Just do as you’re told, will you? We watch, we wait, and that’s it.’

‘Then the boys from Belfast get the glory?’

‘That’s the way it goes. Don’t you worry, our turn will come.’ He climbed out of the car and walked down the path to the front door of the pretty bungalow with its views of the sea below. The garden was well-ordered, the grass neatly clipped and there was a stone bird bath in the centre of the lawn. Paulie followed him, glowering resentfully.

Davie rang the doorbell and the front door opened imamediately. Twomey squinted at his two visitors as if he needed spectacles. ‘Hello, boys, your dad’s in the car, is he?’

‘No, we’re. .’ began Paulie, but Davie silenced him with a baleful stare.

‘Thomas sent us,’ said Davie.

‘Oh, it’s Thomas is it, not Mr McCormack?’ said Twomey. He grinned impishly. ‘I’m only messing with yer, lads, come on in.’

He ushered them into his sitting room and poured them large measures of whiskey without asking. He handed them brimming glasses and sat down on a flower-printed sofa. ‘Is it just the two of you, then?’ he asked.

‘There are four coming from Belfast,’ said Davie.

‘Do you know their names?’

Davie shook his head. He felt his cheeks redden as he realised it was a sign of how low down he was in the organisation. ‘Thomas wanted us to keep tabs on the Sass-man until they get here.’

Twomey drained his glass. ‘I’d best be showing you where he is, then. We’ll use my car. I’ll get my coat, it looks like it’s going to rain.’

Mike Cramer stood on the sea wall, his back to the harbour. His face was dripping wet and when he licked his lips he tasted the tang of salt. Through the misty rain he could see the huge hump of quartzite rock called Ireland’s Eye, sitting in the boiling sea like a massive iceberg. The rain lashed against his face but it was a fine spray rather than a soaking downpour. If it hadn’t been for the chill wind it would have been refreshing.

The wall curved around the marina, sheltering the yachts from the rough water, and at the far end was a lighthouse, its beam already flashing out to sea, guiding the fishing boats home. A black Labrador, its fur shining wet, walked over and sniffed at Cramer’s boots, wagging its tail. Cramer patted it on the head absent-mindedly. He turned to walk back along the wall to the harbour. A solitary car was parked in the yacht club. There were three men sitting in it, an old man and two who couldn’t have been much more than teenagers. ‘It’s started,’ he said to the dog. The dog growled as if he understood, and Cramer smiled. An old man and two kids. There’d be more on the way, guaranteed.

The uniformed cop pushed back his wooden chair and stretched out his long legs. He yawned and turned to watch a pretty black nurse walk down the corridor. Her hips swayed sexily and as she turned a corner she looked over her shoulder and grinned. The cop grinned back. A cup of cold coffee sat untouched by the side of his chair, next to the afternoon edition of the Baltimore Sun.

The cop stood up and arched his back. He didn’t enjoy sitting for long periods, especially in the corridor of a crowded hospital. He hated hospitals. When his turn came to die, he hoped it would be out in the street or between the sheets with a hot blonde, not in some antiseptic white-painted room with tubes running into his veins and a stinking bedpan on the floor. He shuddered involuntarily. This was no time to be thinking about death.

The elevator doors at the end of the corridor hissed open and a young doctor in a white coat stepped out. He was tall with a shock of black hair that kept falling over his eyes as he walked towards the uniformed cop. He was carrying a small stainless steel tray covered with a white cloth. The cop nodded a greeting, and the doctor made to go past. The cop held up a hand to stop him. ‘Whoa there, partner,’ he said.

The doctor frowned. He was wearing wire-framed spectacles and he squinted as if he wasn’t used to them. ‘I have to take a blood sample,’ he said impatiently. The cop studied the plastic-covered identification badge pinned to the top pocket of the doctor’s white coat. The small colour photograph matched the man’s face. John Theobald, MD. Cardiovascular Department. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said the cop.

‘That’s not really my problem, is it?’ said the doctor. ‘Now are you going to let me get to my patient, or not?’

‘He’s not your patient, though, is he?’ asked the cop. He tapped the clipboard he was carrying. ‘Your name isn’t on the list of approved medical personnel.’ He gingerly lifted the cloth and peered under it. On the tray lay a disposable syringe, a couple of cotton wool balls and a small bottle of antiseptic.

‘I’ve been on vacation,’ the doctor explained. ‘This is my first day back.’

‘Today’s Tuesday,’ said the cop, dropping the cloth back over the tray.

‘What do you mean?’ The doctor was irritated.

‘I mean, wouldn’t Monday normally be your first day back?’

‘I missed my flight. Look, what is this? What’s going on here?’ His voice rose angrily.

The cop held up a hand as if he were stopping traffic. ‘Doc, I’m just doing my job. That man in there is a very important witness in a federal case. .’

‘That man is a patient, a patient who has just undergone major heart surgery, and there are tests that I have to do on him to check that the operation went smoothly,’ interrupted the doctor. ‘Now, get the hell out of my way. If you’re that worried, why don’t you come in with me?’

The cop held the doctor’s look for a few seconds, then he nodded slowly. He opened the door and followed the doctor inside. A heart monitor beeped quietly. The only other sound in the room was the patient’s ragged breathing. The cop kept his hand on his holster as the doctor put the tray down on the bedside table. The doctor snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, pulled back the cloth and wiped antiseptic along the patient’s left arm, then quickly withdrew a sample of blood and pressed a small plaster over the puncture.

‘Satisfied?’ said the doctor, putting the blood-filled syringe on the tray and carrying it to the door. The cop moved out of the doctor’s way and held the door open for him.

‘Doc, I’m just doing my job.’

‘Yeah,’ said the doctor. ‘You and the Gestapo.’ He looked as if he were going to say something else, but then just shook his head and walked out.

The cop bared his teeth at the back of the departing doctor and slowly closed the door. He walked over to the bed and looked down at the patient. The man’s eyes flickered open as if he was aware that he was being watched. The electronic beep quickened. ‘Am I going to be all right?’ the patient rasped.

‘Peachy keen,’ said the cop, removing his gun from his glistening black holster. From the inside pocket of his leather jacket he took out a bulbous silencer and carefully screwed it into the barrel of the gun. ‘Just peachy keen.’ He pointed the weapon at the man’s face and fired once, then as his body went into spasm he fired a second shot into the newly-repaired heart.

Aidan Twomey was brewing a pot of tea when the doorbell rang. He put the kettle back on the stove and walked through the hallway. He could make out four figures through the rippled glass of the front door. He opened it and took a step backwards. ‘My God, talk about a face from the past,’ he said.

The broad-shouldered man at the front of the group was grinning widely. He was in his late forties, a decade younger than Twomey, with black, curly hair and a bushy beard. ‘Aidan, you old rascal. How’ve you been?’ said the visitor. The two men embraced. Aidan Twomey and Dermott Lynch had done time together in the cells of Long Kesh — Twomey for being in possession of an Armalite rifle, Lynch for assaulting a soldier at a checkpoint — and during their imprisonment it was Twomey who had shown Lynch how to brew the perfect cup of tea. In return, the younger man had taught Twomey how to manufacture explosives from fertiliser and engine oil. ‘I thought you’d retired, and here you are bringing us a Sass-man,’ chuckled Lynch. He introduced his three companions, hard-faced men with tough bodies. They were all carrying sports holdalls, like a football team geared up for an away match. There were two large nondescript cars parked on the roadside.

Twomey took them through to the sitting room and then brought out the teapot. Lynch shook his head in amazement. ‘Your timing was always damn near perfect,’ he said.

Twomey nodded at the cabinet by the window. ‘Get the cups out, will you, Dermott? And there’s a bottle of Jameson’s there too.’

‘Who’s watching your man?’ asked Lynch, pouring out generous measures of whiskey.

‘Two wee boys. Davie and Paulie Quinn.’

‘Aye, I knew their old man,’ said Lynch. ‘How are they shaping up?’

‘They’ve been watching the cottage all day, one of them phones in every hour.’

Lynch pointed to one of the sports bags the men had carried in. ‘We’ve walkie-talkies in there, there’ll be no more need for phoning,’ he said.

‘Jesus, I hope you’ve brought more than walkie-talkies with yer,’ said Twomey.

Lynch laughed heartily. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs now, would you?’ He leaned over and opened the bag by his feet. Inside was a Kalashnikov with a folding metal stock, disassembled into its component parts. He swiftly reassembled it and slotted in the curved magazine. He grinned. ‘Now, show me the Sass-man.’

The telephone rang and Twomey went over to answer it. ‘It’s Davie,’ he said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Do you want a word?’

Lynch shook his head. ‘Where’s Cramer?’ he asked.

Twomey relayed the question to Davie. ‘He’s on the harbour wall again,’ Twomey said to Lynch, holding his hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Doing what?’

‘Just standing there. That’s all he does. He walks and he stands looking out to sea.’

‘You think he’s waiting for something?’

Twomey shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

Lynch nodded. ‘Tell Davie we’ll meet him in front of St Mary’s Abbey.’

Twomey sat in the passenger seat next to Lynch as they drove to the ruins of the parish church which overlooked the harbour, reminiscing about the old days. It was still raining and the windscreen wipers flicked from side to side as they climbed the hill to the church. They found Davie standing with his arms folded across his chest, stamping his feet for warmth. He hadn’t dressed for the outdoors. Lynch motioned for him to get into the back of the car, next to Pat O’Riordan, a stocky farmer from Ballymena who was responsible for the deaths of three British soldiers. Davie recognised O’Riordan and his eyes widened as he realised the calibre of the men who’d driven down from Belfast. He was in illustrious company.

‘Where’s your car?’ asked Lynch, twisting around in his seat.

‘My brother’s got it,’ shivered Davie. ‘He’s parked on the west pier, across from the Sass-man.’ Water dripped off his hair and onto his pullover. He flicked his wet hair out of his eyes.

Twomey handed Lynch a pair of powerful binoculars. ‘That’s your man down there, on the sea wall,’ he said.

Lynch focused the binoculars, using the steering wheel to steady his hands. ‘That’s him, right enough,’ said Lynch.

‘You know him?’ Davie blurted out, then fell silent, embarrassed by his outburst.

‘Aye, lad, I’ve met Sergeant Cramer before.’

‘What do you want to do, Dermott?’ asked Twomey.

‘We wait,’ he replied, the binoculars still pressed to his eyes. ‘We wait and we watch.’

‘You think it’s a set-up?’

‘Look at him, Aidan. Standing there as bold as brass. He’s like a baited trap, and we’re the rats. We’re not going to do anything until we’re sure he’s alone.’ He handed the binoculars to Twomey and turned back to Davie. ‘What’s he been doing?’

Davie rubbed his hands together. ‘He walks along the beach, he walks up and down the harbour wall. According to the lad in the shop he buys some food: bread, milk, just the basics. Doesn’t seem to eat much, he’s more of a drinker. Famous Grouse. He buys a bottle a day from the pub.’

‘Is there a telephone in the cottage?’

Davie shook his head.

‘Has he spoken to anyone, any strangers?’

Another shake of the head.

‘Visitors?’

‘Not according to the neighbours. He keeps himself to himself, but he seems friendly enough to the locals. He’s made no secret of who he is.’

‘Good lad, you’ve done well.’ Davie smiled with pride as Lynch turned the key in the ignition. ‘Let’s take a run by his cottage while he’s down there,’ he said. ‘Show me the way.’

Thomas McCormack stared at the ripples on the surface of the river. ‘What do you think, Joe? Think he’ll take it?’

Joseph Connolly grinned. ‘It’s all in the wrist, Thomas. Give it a go.’

McCormack drew back his arm and sent his fly arcing through the air. It settled on the water but the trout below defiantly refused to bite. Connolly chuckled to himself. ‘He’s a cunning old bastard, right enough.’

McCormack wound in his line again. The two men had been standing thigh deep in the fast flowing water for the best part of thirty minutes, and neither had caught a thing, never mind the huge trout that was said to inhabit the shady spot beneath the riverside oak. ‘Go on, let’s see your best shot,’ said McCormack. He pushed his horn-rimmed spectacles further up his nose. The glasses and his greying hair gave him a scholarly, almost schoolmasterly, appearance, belying his role as a member of the IRA Army Executive, a man who regularly made life or death decisions. It had been an impassioned speech by McCormack which had resulted in a massive car bomb, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to London’s financial centre, and it had been McCormack’s idea to bring in the American sniper with a high powered rifle who’d killed half a dozen members of the security forces with long distance shots across the border.

Connolly was one of the hardliners in the Army Council, and one of the harshest critics of the 1994 ceasefire and the peace process that had followed. Connolly’s mistrust of the British Government bordered on the paranoid, and he had taken a lot of persuading before agreeing to back Gerry Adams’s peace initiative.

McCormack watched as Connolly cast his fly, a smooth, fluid action that McCormack had to admire. Connolly had been fly-fishing for more than half a century and McCormack was a relative newcomer, but even if he fished for another hundred years he didn’t think he’d ever be as good as the old man. ‘Come on, you bugger, isn’t that the loveliest, tastiest fly you’ve ever seen?’ Connolly whispered to the unseen quarry. McCormack held his breath, certain that this time the fish would take the bait, but the glossy blue fly sat untouched on the surface. ‘It’s not my day, sure enough,’ growled Connolly as he wound in his line.

McCormack pulled a pewter hip flask from the inside pocket of his waxed cotton jacket, unscrewed the top and offered it to his companion. Connolly’s liver-spotted hand trembled slightly as he took the flask, but McCormack pretended not to notice. Connolly had just turned seventy, and while his mind was still razor sharp, he was rumoured to have developed Parkinson’s disease. It wasn’t as if the man was an invalid, and McCormack had noticed that there were no shakes when Connolly was concentrating on fishing. McCormack hoped that the rumours were wrong and that the trembling was nothing more than a symptom of old age, like the thinning white hair, the liver spots and the hearing aid tucked behind his right ear. The old man drank from the flask, handed it back and began to tie another fly onto his line. ‘This Cramer,’ he said without looking up. ‘What do you think?’

McCormack smiled. The canny old bastard had read his mind. ‘It’s not a set-up,’ he said, slowly. ‘He’s on his own. Whatever he’s up to, he’s not with the SAS any more.’

‘Could be Five.’

‘Nah. British Intelligence wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole. Cramer was finished some time ago. He’s too well known here, and he’d be bugger all use anywhere else. Besides, if Five were using him, why would they put him in Howth?’

Connolly shrugged as he concentrated on his knot. ‘You tell me, Thomas. You’re the one who won’t let sleeping dogs lie.’

McCormack sensed admonition in the older man’s voice and realised that he’d have to tread carefully. ‘This is a murdering dog that deserves to be put down, Joe. Peace process or no peace process.’

‘No argument here,’ said Connolly, straightening up and looking him in the eye. ‘I just don’t want it to backfire on you, that’s all.’ He paused. ‘There’s no doubt that it’s Cramer?’

‘None. Dermott saw him five years ago, up close.’

‘Close? How close?’

‘We had Cramer in a farmhouse with another undercover Sass-man. Cramer’s partner died while he was being questioned, Cramer was lucky to get away with his life. Dermott was one of the team guarding him.’

‘Does Cramer know Dermott?’ asked Connolly.

‘Dermott says no. Cramer was hooded or blindfolded most of the time.’

Connolly fixed McCormack with a beady stare. ‘Dermott’s got a personal interest, hasn’t he?’

McCormack nodded. ‘Aye. But that’s not what this is about.’

‘And Cramer’s quite alone?’

‘No question of it. Dermott’s had him under twenty-four hour surveillance for the past three days. No one’s gone near Cramer, he’s made no telephone calls, and there are no other strangers in the village.’

‘Do you think he’s cracked? Had some sort of breakdown?’

‘It’s possible. He’s certainly not behaving rationally.’

‘Why not bring him in?’ asked Connolly.

‘Because there’s nothing we need from him. Other than to be an example of what we do to our enemies.’

A plopping sound at the far side of the river caught Connolly’s attention. He shaded his eyes with his hand but couldn’t see anything. ‘Aye, the bastard deserves a bullet, right enough,’ he said.

‘So I have the Army Council’s permission?’

Connolly smiled tightly. ‘Let’s just say there won’t be any tears shed. But we won’t be claiming responsibility, not officially. Politically it’s too sensitive; you know how things are at the moment. But Cramer’s been the death of too many of our people for us to leave him be.’ Connolly licked his lips and they glistened wetly. ‘When?’ he asked.

McCormack drained the flask and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Tomorrow morning. Early.’

Connolly put a hand on McCormack’s shoulder. ‘Just be careful, Thomas. If anything goes wrong. .’ He left the sentence hanging, and McCormack nodded. He understood. There must be no mistakes.

Dermott Lynch was tucking into sausage and chips in Aidan Twomey’s spotless kitchen when the telephone rang. Twomey answered it in the hall and a few seconds later he appeared at the kitchen door. ‘It’s Thomas,’ he said.

Lynch nodded and put down his knife and fork. ‘This’ll be it,’ he said. He took a mouthful of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He picked up the receiver. ‘Aye, Thomas.’

‘It’s a runner,’ said McCormack. ‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Fine,’ said Lynch.

‘You’re sure he’s alone?’

‘Dead sure.’

‘And he suspects nothing?’

‘He’s not even looking over his shoulder.’

‘Where are you going to do it?’

‘The sea wall. Every morning first thing he takes a walk. Stands near the lighthouse looking out over the sea like a fisherman’s wife.’

‘Be careful, Dermott.’

‘He’s a sitting duck.’

‘Just mind what I say. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.’

Lynch laughed softly. ‘Except for Cramer, you mean?’ He was still chuckling when he went back into the kitchen. Twomey was refilling their mugs with steaming tea. ‘It’s on,’ said Lynch, sitting down at the table and picking up his knife and fork.

‘What’s your plan?’ asked Twomey.

‘We’ll take him on the sea wall. There’ll be nowhere for him to run.’

‘You might be seen.’

Lynch snorted contemptuously. ‘We might be seen, but I doubt there’ll be any witnesses,’ he said.

‘Aye, right enough,’ said Twomey, sipping his tea. He put his mug down. ‘I’d like you to do me a favour, Dermott.’ Lynch narrowed his eyes, his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Not for me, you understand, for the Quinn boys. They’ve been pestering me. .’

Lynch grinned, understanding. ‘And they want to be in on the kill?’ Twomey nodded. ‘Sure, no problem. It’s about time the boys were blooded.’

Mike Cramer woke to the sound of seagulls screaming. He rolled out of bed and washed in the bathroom before dressing in the same clothes he’d been wearing all week. Before going downstairs he took the Browning from under the stained pillow and slid it down the back of his trousers.

He made himself a coffee and sat in the old man’s chair as he drank it. There were packets of bread and sausage in the kitchen but neither had been opened. The bottle of Famous Grouse sat half-finished in the hearth and he reached over and poured a slug into his mug. Not quite an Irish coffee, he thought wryly, but close enough. The gun was sticking into the small of his back so he took it out and placed it on his lap. The Belgian-made Browning with its thirteen cartridges in the clip was a good weapon to have in a fire-fight against multiple opponents. As a rule, Cramer would never get himself into a position where he’d have to fire at more than two targets, but he knew that the situation he was heading for was the exception that proved the rule. A one-off. He field-stripped the gun and checked the firing mechanism, then reassembled it with well-practised movements before draining his mug. Another reason for choosing the Browning was its rugged reliability and the fact that it rarely jammed. In all his years in the SAS he’d never had one fail on him. He stood up, wincing as he did.

The shoulder holster was hanging on the back of the front door, its supple leather glistening in the sun which filtered through the grimy windows. He eased it on, holstered the Browning, and slipped on his reefer jacket. He had a strong premonition that today was the day. The waiting was over.

From his vantage point amid the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, Paulie Quinn watched Cramer walk slowly down the road to the harbour, his hands in his pockets. Cramer kept his head bent down as if deep in thought. Paulie wondered what was going through the Sass-man’s mind, whether he knew that today would be his last day on earth. Paulie put his walkie-talkie next to his mouth. ‘He’s on his way,’ he said.

‘I see him,’ said Lynch who was sitting with Pat O’Riordan, parked in the yacht club car park.

Paulie put the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and pressed the binoculars to his eyes. He didn’t want to miss a second. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be closer to the action. He’d much rather have been down on the road with his brother, but Lynch had said someone had to be up on the high ground, and he was the youngest. One day, thought Paulie with a tinge of bitterness, one day he wouldn’t be the youngest any more. He’d show them.

Cramer noticed the glint out of the corner of his eye, a flash of light from the old church. His heart began to race and he took several deep breaths. He fought the urge to turn his head and to look up the hill as he walked around the bend in the road and saw the harbour stretched out before him.

Two fishing boats were sailing away from the west pier leaving plumes of dirty grey smoke in their wake. Down on the beach two dark-haired men were throwing a stick for a black Labrador. They were walking slowly along the strip of sand, towards the marina. The dog raced back and forth, its bark whipped away in the wind before it could reach Cramer’s ears. Cramer recognised the dog, but not the men. There were several cars parked next to the yacht club building. Two men sat in one of the cars, not moving. Cramer rolled his head around, trying to loosen the muscles in his neck. He was tensing up, and this wasn’t the time to go stiff.

‘Right, let’s get the bastard,’ said Lynch, shoving his walkie-talkie into the glove compartment. He opened the door and went around to the boot. Leaning over his navy blue holdall, he slipped out the Kalashnikov while O’Riordan stood behind him, shielding him from the road. Lynch was wearing a long raincoat, open at the front, and he held the assault rifle inside, pressing it close to his body. ‘Okay,’ he said, stepping away from the car while O’Riordan pulled a handgun from the holdall and slid it into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket.

They walked across the car park, the wind pulling at their hair and whipping up ripples in the puddles at their feet. Ahead of them, Cramer had stepped onto the sea wall and was walking out to the lighthouse.

Davie Quinn was sitting on a wooden bench in front of the public toilets, a newspaper on his lap. He stood up, holding the folded newspaper so tightly that his knuckles went white. He nodded at Lynch and began to walk along the road.

Cramer stood at the far end of the sea wall, staring out to sea. He moved his head slowly to his left and saw that the two men were closer now. Half a mile away. The dog was running in circles around them, but they’d stopped playing with it. The two big men had left their car and were walking purposefully across the car park. And the boy, the boy was walking down the road holding the badly concealed gun as if he feared it would break if he dropped it. Five, he thought. Five plus the one on the hill make six.

He wiped his face with his hands and yawned. It wasn’t from tiredness, he knew. It was the tension. He pulled a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and unwrapped a stick. The wind blew the green wrapper from his fingers as he slipped the gum into his mouth, and he turned to watch it whirl through the air. He frowned as he saw the lone figure standing on the sea wall where it met the road. How had he missed one?

‘Where the fuck did he come from?’ hissed Lynch. He put a restraining hand on O’Riordan’s shoulder. ‘Hold a while, Pat. Let’s see what that guy’s up to.’ Lynch looked across at the Quinn boy who was standing on the pavement, unsure of what to do. Lynch motioned with his head for Davie to go back to the bench.

‘Maybe he’s just out for a walk,’ said O’Riordan hesitantly.

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

The man was in his fifties, perhaps older, wearing a green Barbour, a cap and green Wellington boots. He walked with a stick, though it seemed to Lynch that it was for effect rather than because the man was unsteady on his feet. He strolled briskly along the sea wall, swinging the walking stick as if it were a military cane.

From where they were standing, Lynch couldn’t see Fitzapatrick and McVeigh on the beach. He just hoped they’d have the sense to hold back.

Cramer didn’t look around as the man in the Barbour jacket joined him at the edge of the sea wall. ‘Nice day for it,’ said the man amicably.

Cramer’s upper lip curled back, but still he didn’t turn to face the visitor. ‘Nice day for what?’

‘For whatever it is you’re doing.’ He tapped the ground with his stick. ‘Just what the hell are you doing, Sergeant Cramer?’

‘The only one with a rank these days is you, Colonel.’

The Colonel tapped his stick again. He turned around so that his back was to the sea. ‘I count five,’ he said. ‘Do you think five will be enough?’

‘Six,’ said Cramer. ‘There’s one up on the hill.’

The Colonel acknowledged the correction with the merest hint of a smile. ‘They must really hate you to do this, you know? The Unionists are bound to claim it’s a breach of the ceasefire.’

‘Maybe,’ said Cramer.

‘Unless they’re planning to remove all the evidence. If there’s no body, I suppose there’d be no proof that it ever happened. Not now you’re no longer with the regiment. It’s not as if you’d be missed, is it?’

‘Thanks, Colonel,’ said Cramer bitterly.

‘Do you know who they are?’

Cramer shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He noticed for the first time that the Colonel was wearing a blue tie covered with small winged daggers. Cramer smiled. Only the Colonel would go up against a team of IRA hitmen wearing the regimental tie of the Special Air Service.

‘Dermott Lynch’s running the show. He’s got Pat O’Riordan with him. Down on the beach you’ve got Gerry Fitzpatrick and Fergus McVeigh. We couldn’t identify the youngster.’

‘Lynch’s good.’

‘Oh yes, he’s good. And he’s got a personal interest in you, of course. We’d love to get hold of O’Riordan, too. But the rest are strictly second division.’

The Colonel looked at his watch, then turned back to face the sea again.

‘What do you want, Colonel?’

‘A chat. You’ve got time for a chat, haven’t you?’

Cramer shrugged listlessly. ‘I’d rather be on my own, if that’s all right with you.’

‘But you’re not on your own, are you, Sergeant Cramer? There’s an IRA active service unit armed to the teeth heading your way.’

‘You’d best be going then, huh?’

The Colonel shook his head sadly. ‘This isn’t the way to do it, Joker.’

The nickname made Cramer smile. It had been a long time since anyone had used it. ‘Do what?’

‘You know what.’

Cramer sighed and hunched his shoulders. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly.

‘I know you’re dying.’

For the first time, Cramer looked across at the Colonel. ‘We’re all dying,’ he said venomously.

‘How long?’ asked the Colonel. ‘How long did the doctor give you?’

‘If you’re here, you already know.’

‘Two months. Three months at the most. The last few weeks will be in intolerable pain. You’ll need to be on a drip, and even that won’t be enough.’

‘So you know why I’m here.’

‘Because you’re frightened of dying in a hospital bed, screaming in agony. Friendless. Alone.’

Cramer wrinkled his nose at the image. ‘Thanks for sugar-coating it for me, Colonel.’

‘Bowel cancer isn’t a pleasant way to die.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘So you’ve decided to go down fighting. To die like a soldier, in battle.’

Cramer smiled and drew back his jacket so that the Colonel could see the Browning in the holster. He looked over his shoulder. The men on the beach were still heading in their direction. Lynch and O’Riordan were standing in the car park, talking. ‘You should go, Colonel. This is going to get messy.’

‘Hear me out, Joker. This isn’t the way to do it.’

Cramer’s eyes hardened. ‘With all due respect, Colonel, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

The Colonel thrust his square jaw forward. His jaw, and the wide nose which had been broken several times, gave the man a deceptively simple appearance, but Cramer knew that he had an IQ in the high 150s and was one of the top twelve chess-players in the United Kingdom. ‘I can offer you a better way.’

‘Yeah, right. What do you want me to do? Swallow my gun? I’ve tried, Colonel. I can’t.’

The Colonel shook his head. ‘That’s not what I’m offering. I’m offering you a chance to do something worthwhile with your last few weeks.’

Cramer frowned, then looked away. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Over the last two years there’ve been a series of assassinations around the world. Businessmen, politicians, criminals, all killed by one man. A professional killer who’ll hit anyone if the price is right. He’s never been caught, and we have no idea who he is.’

‘We? We as in the SAS?’

‘The FBI, Interpol, MI6, the SVR, Mossad.’

‘All the good guys, huh?’

The Colonel ignored the interruption. ‘He likes to get in close, this killer. He always uses a handgun. We’ve dozens of witnesses, but we don’t know what he looks like.’

Cramer frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Oh, we’ve dozens of descriptions all right. He’s short. He’s tall. He’s thin, he’s overweight, he’s balding, he has a beard, blue eyes, brown eyes, pale skinned, tanned. The only thing we’re sure of is that he’s white and male.’

‘A master of disguise,’ said Cramer, smiling at the cliche.

The Colonel shrugged. ‘He uses contact lenses, he grows facial hair as and when he needs it. He puts on weight, he takes it off. Maybe he even has plastic surgery. There isn’t anything he won’t do to succeed.’

Cramer turned around slowly. The men in the car park had started walking again. They’d soon be at the sea wall. He looked anxiously at the Colonel, who seemed unfazed by the approaching killers. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘Do you know what a Judas Goat is?’

Cramer shook his head.

‘Say you’re trying to trap a tiger. You can trample through the jungle all you want, you’ll not see a hair of it. You’re in his territory. You’re wasting your time trying to hunt it. So what you do is you take a young goat, a kid, and you tether it in a clearing. Then you sit back and wait. The tiger seeks out the bleating goat, and BANG! One dead tiger.’

‘A Judas Goat?’ repeated Cramer. ‘Sounds more like bait to me. That’s what you’re offering me? The chance to be bait?’

‘I’m offering you the chance to go up against the most successful assassin in the world, Joker. To the best of our knowledge he’s never failed. Never been caught, and never failed. Wouldn’t that be more of a challenge for you? Those bastards down there might call themselves an IRA active service unit, but we know better, don’t we? They’re psychopathic thugs with guns, that’s all. Sure, you’ll die with a gun in your hand and the blood coursing through your veins, but there’s no honour in being gunned down like a rabid dog. Sheer weight of numbers, that’s the only advantage they’ll have. They’ll just keep firing until you’re dead. You’ll get a couple of them, maybe more, but look at the company you’ll be dying in. Hell’s fucking bells, Joker, you wouldn’t give those bastards the time of day and yet you want to die with them?’

Paulie Quinn swung the binoculars from side to side, scanning for Fitzpatrick and McVeigh. They flashed across his vision and he panned back slowly until he had them dead centre. They’d stopped on the beach and were watching Cramer and the new arrival. McVeigh scratched his head and Fitzpatrick shrugged. McVeigh said something and Fitzpatrick nodded, then they started to walk, pulling their guns from beneath their bomber jackets. Paulie turned the binoculars onto Lynch and O’Riordan, who were striding towards the sea wall. O’Riordan turned as he walked and motioned with his hand for Davie to follow them.

Paulie searched for his brother and found him walking quickly along the road, clutching a newspaper. Paulie smiled. His brother looked tense, but he was doing exactly as he’d been told, following behind Lynch and O’Riordan, ready to cut off Cramer’s escape if he should try to get around them. Paulie wondered if Davie would get to shoot the Sass-man. God, he hoped so. He wondered who the man in the Barbour jacket was and why he was so earnestly talking to Cramer. Whoever he was, he was as good as dead. Lynch had obviously decided to take him out as well.

Cramer said nothing. He stared out to the horizon and took several deep breaths. The Colonel waited for him to speak. ‘Why does he take risks?’ Cramer asked eventually. ‘Why does he always do it close up? There are easier ways to kill. Safer ways.’

The Colonel nodded. ‘The FBI reckon it’s because he enjoys it. He wants to see his victims as they die. He’s a serial killer, but a serial killer who gets paid for his work. It’s not a question of whether or not he’ll kill again, it’s when. He’ll keep on killing until we stop him, because he’s not doing it for the money. He’s doing it for the thrill.’

‘And you want this guy to try to kill me?’

The Colonel turned to look at Cramer. He shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he said softly, his voice barely audible above the sound of the waves crashing against the sea wall. ‘We’re pretty sure that he’ll succeed.’

Cramer didn’t say anything.

‘The man has never left any physical evidence behind,’ the Colonel continued. ‘No fingerprints, no blood or tissue samples, nothing. If we catch him close to you with a gun in his hand, it’s not enough. It’s not even attempted murder, it’s just possession of a weapon and for all we know he might have a licence for it. Even if he points the gun at you, what have we got? Threatening behaviour? Maybe attempted murder. If we’re lucky he’ll go away for five years. No, he has to pull the trigger. Once he’s done that, we’ve got him.’

Cramer nodded, finally understanding. ‘And if he pulls the trigger, I’m dead?’

The Colonel nodded. ‘But you’ll have a chance. You’ll be armed; if you see him coming for you you’ll be able to shoot first. It’s a better chance than the Judas Goat gets.’

‘He’ll kill me,’ said Cramer flatly.

‘But you’ll die with honour. In battle. Against a real professional. Isn’t that a better way to die? Better than being shot by these thugs?’

Cramer stared out to sea. ‘Is that how you’d like to go, Colonel?’

‘If I had the choice, yes.’ The Colonel’s voice was flat and level. ‘It’s your call, Joker.’ If you want it to happen now, I’ll just walk away.’

The Colonel looked towards the men on the beach. They were about a quarter of a mile away, still walking in their direction. The other two men had reached the end of the sea wall and the youngster was walking down the road behind them, the newspaper held in both hands. ‘You don’t have much time,’ said the Colonel. He tapped his stick on the concrete and the cracks sounded like gunshots.

Cramer chuckled coldly. ‘That’s the truth,’ he said. He paused. ‘How do you know he’ll come for me?’

‘We know who one of his intended victims is going to be. I’ll explain later, but we’re looking for someone to take his place.’ He paused. ‘Well?’

Cramer rubbed his chin and then sighed. ‘Okay.’

‘You’re sure?’

Cramer narrowed his eyes and studied the Colonel. ‘What? Now you’re trying to talk me out of it? I said I’ll do it. I’ll do it.’

The Colonel put his hand on Cramer’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Thank you.’

Cramer shook his head. ‘I’m not doing it for you, Colonel. I’m doing it for me. But first we’ve got to take care of them.’ He nodded down the sea wall where the two IRA men were walking quickly towards them. The one in the raincoat was holding both hands to his sides, clutching something. A weapon, probably an assault rifle. The men on the beach had broken into a run, guns at the ready.

The Colonel took a small transceiver out of his coat pocket, pressed the transmit button and spoke rapidly into it. Cramer couldn’t make out what the man had said, but seconds later he heard the roar of two massive turbines and a huge red, white and blue Westland Sea King helicopter appeared from behind Ireland’s Eye. Its main rotor dipped forward and it sped through the air towards them. ‘Damn you, Colonel,’ Cramer shouted above the noise of the engines. ‘You knew I’d accept, didn’t you?’

The Colonel said nothing as the helicopter circled and then dropped so that it was hovering only feet above the harbour wall, the rotor wash flattening the water below. He motioned with his stick for Cramer to get in first. Cramer took one last look over his shoulder, deafened by the turbines. The bearded man had pulled a Kalashnikov out from under his raincoat and was holding it, seemingly unsure whether or not to fire. For one moment they made eye contact and Cramer could feel the hatred pouring out of the man, then a hand reached out of the belly of the Sea King and half pulled, half dragged him inside.

Lynch upended the Kalashnikov and slipped it back under his raincoat as the huge helicopter lifted away and banked hard to the left.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ asked O’Riordan.

‘Fucked if I know,’ said Lynch. He stared after the Sea King as it flew off across the waves, his curly black hair blowing behind him. Fitzpatrick and McVeigh ran up, panting for breath.

‘Put your guns away, boys,’ said Lynch. ‘We’re not here to shoot helicopters.’

The two men thrust their handguns into the pockets of their jackets. ‘What’s going on, Dermott?’ asked McVeigh.

Lynch ignored him. He whirled around and peered at the harbour road, half expecting to see a convoy of armed soldiers heading their way. The street was empty. It wasn’t a trap. That was something to be grateful for, but it made the Sass-man’s sudden departure all the more bemusing.

Fitzpatrick’s walkie-talkie crackled and they heard Paulie Quinn’s anxious voice. ‘What’s happening? Where’s he gone?’

‘Shut that thing off,’ barked Lynch, heading towards the car.

Mike Cramer sat with his arms folded across his chest as the massive helicopter flew low and fast across the waves. One of the Sea King crewmen handed him a set of padded headphones and Cramer put them on, grateful for relief from the deafening roar of the engines. Cramer’s head was full of questions, but he said nothing. The Colonel sat down on the seat in front of the emergency exit window and held out his hand. Cramer handed over his Browning Hi-Power.

Cramer looked around the cabin. This Sea King was like no other he’d ever been in. It was packed with electrical equipment, some of which he recognised. There was an extensive array of radar screens, far more than he’d expect to see in a search and rescue helicopter, and a Marconi LAPADS data processing station. The crewman who’d hauled him into the helicopter and given him the headset was seated in the sonar operator’s seat in front of the sonar/radar instrumentation racks. In addition there was a lot of equipment Cramer had never seen before, equipment without brand names or labels of any kind.

The helicopter banked to the right, keeping low. Through the window behind the Colonel, Cramer saw a small yacht carving through the waves. They were heading east. Cramer smiled to himself at the thought of the IRA hit team standing on the sea wall. All foreplay and no orgasm, armed to the teeth and nothing to shoot at.

He wondered if he’d done the right thing, agreeing so readily to go with the Colonel. He owed the Colonel nothing. It was now more than seven years since Cramer had left the regiment. He’d only worked for him once since, and that had almost ended in tears. Cramer closed his eyes and leaned back against the metal bulkhead. The Colonel had used him as bait then, too, sent him to the States on the trail of Mary Hennessy, the IRA terrorist who’d tortured and killed Cramer’s friend. At least this time Cramer knew what he was getting into. At least this time he knew the odds of surviving.

What had the Colonel said? A killer who loved to get up close. A killer who’d never been caught. A killer who was so successful that the only way to stop him was to use a Judas Goat. Maybe it really would be a better way to die. Cramer had seen a lot of men and women die and he knew that there were good ways and there were bad ways, and that most people didn’t get the chance to choose. He opened his eyes again. The Colonel was unscrewing the cap off a stainless steel Thermos flask. He poured black coffee into a plastic mug and offered it to Cramer. Cramer shook his head.

The Colonel had always been able to read him like a book. He’d known that Cramer would accept the mission and had made all the arrangements accordingly. Cramer wondered if the man had had a fallback position, someone else who would have accepted the job if Cramer had turned it down. He also wondered if anyone else had already refused the mission.

Once well away from land, the helicopter began to gain height and they were soon several thousand feet above the sea. At first Cramer had assumed that they would be landing on a ship, but he soon realised that the helicopter was going to fly all the way to the British mainland. He settled back. There was nothing to do but wait.

Dermott Lynch and Pat O’Riordan drove into Dublin along the Howth Road. Lynch was fuming as he stared out of the window, his lips set in a tight line. The original plan had been to drop the weapons off and drive back up to the North, but Cramer’s disappearance had changed all that.

They passed Trinity College, and Lynch scowled at the bright blue clock which topped the grey stone building. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning. ‘Forget about it, Dermott,’ said O’Riordan.

‘Why was he there?’ asked Lynch. ‘It was as if he was waiting for us. Then suddenly he’s whisked away. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It doesn’t have to make sense. He’s gone and that’s it.’

Lynch scratched his beard. ‘The Brits are up to something, Pat. They’re fucking with us and I want to know why. Maybe McCormack will know.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

Lynch shook his head. ‘No need. You get back to your farm. I’ll speak to McCormack then catch the train back tonight.’

O’Riordan braked sharply to avoid a bus. Lynch wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and he lurched forward. ‘Sorry,’ said O’Riordan. ‘I’m not used to driving in the city.’

‘Just think of them as cows,’ said Lynch.

‘Aye, Dermott, I’ll do that,’ said O’Riordan with a grin. The traffic was crawling along Dame Street and O’Riordan was stamping on the brake as if he was at the wheel of a tractor. ‘The Quinn brothers did all right,’ he said.

‘They were okay,’ agreed Lynch. ‘Davie has potential, Paulie’s still a bit young.’

‘They’re both keen.’

‘Yeah, but that’s not always an advantage, Pat, you know that. I’m not sure that I’d ever want my life to depend on the likes of Paulie Quinn.’ Lynch ran a hand through his beard and glared at the traffic, as if he could make it vanish through sheer effort of will. ‘I’ll get out here,’ he said.

‘Yeah, might be best.’

Lynch twisted around and picked the holdall off the back seat. It contained the Kalashnikov and the handguns they’d handled at Howth. Lynch had no qualms about carrying the weapons through the streets of Dublin. He said goodbye to O’Riordan, climbed out of the car and walked along the pavement. A crocodile of French students carrying red and green backpacks blocked his way and he moved through them with a smile. A pretty young girl with long blonde hair banged into his holdall and yelped. She rubbed her leg and looked reproachfully at Lynch. He smiled sympathetically. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said.

The helicopter started to descend and Mike Cramer swallowed to clear the pressure in his ears. Directly below were blue grey waves, to the left was a wide beach and beyond the stretch of sand were woodland and ploughed fields. He looked at his watch and did a quick calculation: assuming they’d been flying at the Sea King’s normal cruising speed of 140 knots, they were probably somewhere over Wales. In the distance he saw three hills, wooded around the base but bare at the top, like balding men. There was a microwave radio station on the top of one, but Cramer didn’t know the country well enough to be able to identify it. The helicopter banked to the right and down below he saw a large peninsula sticking out towards Ireland. As the helicopter continued to descend Cramer picked out lush green fields dotted with sheep, isolated copses and a scattering of small farms, then they flew over the ruins of a castle towards what looked like a large country house set in its own grounds. The helicopter circled over the house before dropping down to land.

Cramer’s ears were aching from the constant roar of the Sea King’s turbines and the padded headphones were damp with sweat. He disliked helicopters, even though one had saved his life seven years earlier, rushing him to hospital in Belfast with his guts ripped open. He’d have died in an ambulance, no question about it; only the Lynx could have made it to Belfast City Hospital in time. But that didn’t mean he enjoyed travelling in the machines. He could never get over the feeling that the whole business depended on one nut keeping the whirling blades in place. If that went it was so long and good night. Still, there were worse ways of dying. Much worse.

Cramer’s stomach heaved as the helicopter flared and came in to land and he tasted acid bile at the back of his throat. He swallowed and coughed and swallowed again and then the helicopter was down, its rotors slowing. The crewman climbed out of his seat and opened the door. Cramer climbed out after the Colonel. Cramer kept his head low, even though he knew that the rotors had plenty of clearance. They jogged to the front of the Sea King, away from the whirling tail rotor, then the Colonel gave the pilot a thumbs-up and the helicopter climbed back into the sky, the downdraft flattening the grass all around them and ripping at their clothes like a thousand tiny hands.

Cramer watched the helicopter fly off to the west. ‘This way,’ said the Colonel, leading him towards the building Cramer had seen from the sky. It was built of red brick, three storeys high and topped with a slate roof. There were two wings either side of a main entrance, where a circular driveway curved around a stone fountain which didn’t appear to be working. There was an air of neglect about the place, as if it hadn’t been occupied for some time.

The helicopter had dropped them inside a stone wall which surrounded the house and several acres of lawn. Cramer saw two men standing either side of a large wrought-iron gate, big men wearing leather jackets, jeans and training shoes.

‘The building was a girls’ preparatory school until a few months ago,’ the Colonel explained. ‘It gets a little chilly at night but we won’t be disturbed.’

Another guard stood at the entrance. He greeted the Colonel with a curt nod and acknowledged Cramer with a slight smile. They walked into a huge entrance hall which rose to the top of the building. A wide stone staircase wound upwards, past a long, thin chandelier, coated with dust. Corridors led left and right and Cramer glimpsed a succession of white-painted doors, all closed. ‘Classrooms that way,’ said the Colonel, indicating the left. ‘We’ll be eating in the dining hall, to the right. I’m using an office over there. I’ve allocated you a staff bedroom on the second floor.’

‘How long will I be here?’ Cramer asked.

‘A week. Maybe longer. First I want you to read all the files, and there are some people I want you to meet.’

The Colonel headed up the stairs, his stick clicking on the stone steps. He took Cramer up to the second floor and along a corridor to a large room containing a bed, a sagging armchair, an old oak wardrobe and matching dressing table. Under a sash window stood a table piled high with files. The Colonel waved his stick at the paperwork. ‘They’re copies of the files held by the various law enforcement agencies who’ve been investigating the killings. For those in Europe I’ve only included the Interpol paperwork. Languages weren’t your forte, I remember.’

‘Mais oui, mon colonel,’ Cramer replied dryly, his accent deliberately atrocious. He went over to the table and ran his hand over the files. His window overlooked the rear of the school and he could see a large car park with half a dozen vehicles bunched together in one section and, to the right, a line of single storey buildings with large metal chimneys. Through the windows he could just make out huge ovens, cooking equipment and rows of stainless steel cupboards and shelving so Cramer guessed they were the former school’s kitchens.

‘I’ll have some food sent up to you. Read as much as you can today and we’ll start in earnest tomorrow,’ said the Colonel. He stopped at the door. ‘Do you have any questions?’

Cramer shook his head. ‘I probably will have after I’ve read all this. Just one thing.’

The Colonel smiled. ‘Famous Grouse?’

Cramer was surprised. ‘Am I that transparent?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought whisky was doing your stomach any good.’

Cramer shrugged. ‘That might have been good advice a few years ago. Now it’s a bit late.’

‘The man whose place you’re taking drinks red wine. He never touches whisky.’

‘So when I take his place, I’ll drink wine.’

‘Just so you know.’

‘I hear you, Colonel.’ It was general practice in the SAS for troopers and noncommissioned officers to refer to their officers as ‘Boss’, but Cramer had never been able to bring himself to use the more informal term with the Colonel.

The Colonel tapped his stick on the bare floorboards. ‘I’ll have it for you this evening.’ He closed the door behind him.

Half an hour later, while Cramer was still reading through the first file, there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ he said, not looking up. A middle-aged woman, plump with a pleasant face, her hair tied back in a bun, elbowed the door open and carried in a tray containing a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk. She introduced herself as Mrs Elliott, with the emphasis on the Mrs, and left the tray on the dressing table. He thought it best not to ask Mrs Elliott about the whisky. She didn’t look much like a drinker.

The dogs leapt out of the starting gate at full stretch, their paws kicking up puffs of sand on the track. The crowd yelled and screamed as the greyhounds hurtled after the mechanical hare, but Thomas McCormack seemed more interested in the programme he was holding. ‘Next race, number six,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Yeah?’ said Dermott Lynch. ‘Is it one of yours?’

McCormack gave Lynch a crafty sideways look. ‘No, but it’s going to win.’

Lynch studied the dog’s form as the greyhounds rounded the first bend. It had finished unplaced in its last three races, but he knew better than to question McCormack’s advice. McCormack owned a string of greyhounds and on at least two nights a week he could be found at Dublin’s Shelbourne Park dog track.

Lynch looked up as the favourite crossed the finishing line and was engulfed in the waiting arms of a girl. She was a pretty young thing, shoulder length hair the colour of copper, and a figure that even the blue overalls couldn’t conceal. On any other day Lynch would have been tempted to strike up a conversation with her, but the visit to the dog track wasn’t a social event. He’d been summoned there by McCormack.

Lynch looked up at the results board at the far end of the stadium. The short odds on the favourite meant that no one would get rich on the race, but the dog McCormack had tipped would be running at twelve to one. The two men walked back inside to the betting hall and stood in a queue, waiting to place their bets.

McCormack gave the cashier a handful of notes and asked for it to be placed on number six, to win. Lynch took out his wallet. He dithered for a second or two and then took out all the banknotes it contained. He considered an each-way bet, but McCormack was standing at his shoulder, watching. Lynch handed over all the notes. ‘Number six, to win,’ he said. McCormack smiled and nodded.

They went outside to watch the dogs being walked. Number six looked good, its coat glossy, its hindquarters strong and well developed, holding its head up high as if it knew it was due for a win. ‘Have you got a dog running in this race?’ Lynch asked.

McCormack nodded at a brown dog at the far end of the line, sniffing listlessly at the shoes of its handler. ‘He’s coming on but it’ll be a few months yet before he peaks.’ They left the showing area and headed towards the track. ‘So, Dermott, what happened?’

‘A helicopter came from nowhere. Bloody nowhere. Lifted him off and flew away with him.’

‘Army?’

‘No. Not army. Red, white and blue it was. Not a soldier in sight. It’s a mystery all right, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a mystery.’

McCormack took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. ‘What do you think he was up to?’

‘I don’t know. Whatever it was, I think there was a change of plan. I don’t think he was expecting the helicopter. Or the man who appeared on the sea wall.’

‘This man, any idea who he was?’

Lynch shook his head. ‘Military, I think. He walked like a soldier. Carried a stick.’

‘Armed?’

‘Couldn’t tell.’

‘What about the helicopter? Did the crew have guns?’ McCormack put his spectacles back on and peered over the top of them.

Lynch thought for a second and then shook his head. ‘No. I only saw one of the crew, he pulled Cramer in, but he wasn’t armed, I’m sure of that.’

McCormack tapped the programme against his leg as he walked, his head down in thought. He didn’t speak for almost a minute. ‘I think we’re going to have to let this one go, Dermott.’

‘I want the bastard,’ said Lynch fiercely.

‘Connolly wasn’t over happy about us going after Cramer in the first place, you know. Let sleeping dogs lie, he said. He took some persuading.’

‘Yeah?’ Lynch scratched his beard as if it itched.

‘Yes. I had to take sole responsibility for it. If it had gone wrong, I’d have been the one explaining to the Army Council. And it damn near did go wrong. We were lucky it wasn’t a trap, right?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, Thomas. We had Howth pretty well sewn up. If the SAS had been there, we’d have known about it.’

‘That’s as may be. But whatever Cramer was doing, it’s over now.’

‘I want him,’ said Lynch.

‘I know you do. But you’ve got a personal interest, Dermott, let’s not forget that.’

‘Let me go after him. Please. I’m asking as a friend.’

McCormack snorted softly. ‘You can’t ask me that as a friend, and you know it. You can only make a request like that to me as a member of the Army Executive.’

The next race was about to start and the spectators began to pour out of the betting hall and cluster around the track. The on-course bookmakers were frantically chalking up new odds. Lynch could see that the odds on number six were already shortening. ‘And if I do ask you as a member of the Army Executive?’

‘Then I’d have to refuse your request. If you’re adamant then I could put it before the Army Council, but I know what their answer would be. And so do you. They’ve too much to gain from the peace process, they’re not going to jeopardise it over one man.’

‘Not even a man like Cramer?’

‘Not even for Cramer. Look, Dermott, if it was up to me, of course I’d say yes. Hell, I’d even help pull the trigger. But you know what we were told in 1994. No mavericks. No splinter groups. We speak and act with one voice.’

The handlers began walking the dogs towards the starting gate. ‘We were so bloody close,’ hissed Lynch. ‘A minute earlier and we’d have got him.’

‘But you didn’t,’ said McCormack softly. ‘So now it’s over.’

Lynch wanted to argue but he knew it would be futile. ‘Whatever you say, Thomas.’

‘Good man.’ The race was about to start, but McCormack was already perusing the programme as if the outcome was a foregone conclusion. ‘Number two in the race after this. Guaranteed.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘You’ll be able to use your winnings from this race.’

‘Thanks. Thanks for the tip.’

‘When are you going back to Belfast?’

‘Tomorrow morning. I’ll catch the first train.’

‘Good. There’s a wee job I want you to do for me when you get back.’

‘Sure, Thomas. Whatever you say.’

McCormack studied the programme as the traps sprang open and the greyhounds burst out, like shells from a mortar.

Mike Cramer lay on his back and listened to the blackbirds, a pleasant contrast to the savage cries of seagulls he’d heard the last time he’d woken up. He opened his eyes and squinted at his wristwatch. It was just before five o’clock though it was already light outside. He rolled out of the single bed, padded across the bare floorboards to the window and pulled open the thin curtains. A thickset man in a grey sports jacket stood in the middle of the lawn, a walkie-talkie pressed to his mouth. He looked up and gave Cramer a half-wave. Cramer waved back.

To the right, beyond the lawns but still inside the wall that surrounded the property, were three tennis courts, lined up like playing cards in a game of Find The Lady, and beyond them a croquet lawn, the hoops still in place. Cramer ran his hands through his hair. He smelled his armpits and wrinkled his nose. He needed a shower, badly. By the bed stood a three-quarters empty bottle of Famous Grouse. The Colonel had brought it up after darkness had fallen and had sat on the bed keeping Cramer company, drinking the whisky and toasting the old days, the days before Cramer had been shot and tortured and before the cancer had started to grow. Cramer unscrewed the cap off the bottle, swilling it around like a mouthwash before swallowing and grimacing as it went down his throat.

He tossed the bottle on the bed and went into the bathroom, which was tiled from floor to ceiling. The grouting was black and stained and a mouldy smell was coming from the bathtub. The showerhead was as large as a saucepan lid and Cramer turned it on. To his surprise the water came out steaming hot almost immediately.

On a shelf above the sink stood a can of menthol shaving foam, a pack of disposable razors, a toothbrush still in its plastic wrapping and a tube of Colgate tartar control toothpaste. Cramer picked up the toothpaste and smiled, wondering who had done the shopping and why they’d chosen the tartar control formula. He cleaned his teeth and shaved and then climbed into the bathtub and stood under the shower. There was no shower curtain and water cascaded off his body and onto the tiled floor. He noticed a fresh bar of soap in a shell-shaped soap dish and he used it to wash himself thoroughly. He hadn’t realised how long it was since he’d felt truly clean.

He wrapped himself in clean towels and sat on the bed and read another of the files as he dried himself. It was an American killing; the victim had been a Chicago lawyer. The lawyer had several Mob figures as clients and the Chicago newspapers had suggested that the killing was one of a series of tit-for-tat murders, as two crime families fought for control of lucrative concrete-pouring contracts. The police file was never closed, though, and the latest addition, a memo from the Marseilles field office of the Surete — in response to an official Chicago Police Department enquiry — pointed out that the lawyer’s widow had remarried within the year and that she and her new husband were now living in the South of France. The new man in her life was twenty years younger and a good deal poorer than her husband had been. The file also contained a photograph of them together, she with the over-tight cheeks and slightly too-open eyes that indicated a face lift, he with a weightlifter’s chest, slick-backed hair and movie star looks. She’d been questioned several times but there was no evidence linking her to the assassin. It looked like the perfect crime, but Cramer wasn’t concerned about who’d financed the murder, it was the killer he was interested in.

The fact that it was the same man in both shootings wasn’t in question. Two shots, one to the face, a second to the chest: that appeared to be the killer’s trademark. When Cramer had attended the SAS’s Killing House in Hereford, he too had been trained in the ‘double tap’ — two shots fired in quick succession. However, the SAS instructors had stressed the importance of aiming at the torso so that there was less chance of missing — head shots were deemed too risky.

The killer had walked into the lawyer’s office and shot him dead in front of his secretary. The secretary’s description of the killer was detailed, but unhelpful: brown hair, brown eyes, just under six feet tall, lightly tanned skin. Any or all of those characteristics could be altered, Cramer knew. Hair dye, coloured contact lenses, lifts in the shoes, sunbeds or tanning cream. There was an artist’s impression based on the secretary’s description, and a computer-generated photo-fit, and while they did resemble each other, they had little in common with the pictures in the other files Cramer had read.

All the files on killings which had taken place in America contained FBI Facial Identification Fact Sheets, which had been filled in by investigating agents prior to the photo-fits being generated. They contained a list of facial features, and witnesses were asked to tick the pertinent boxes. Cramer took the sheets from the various files and compared them. They were just as disparate as the photo-fit pictures. The shape of the head could be categorised as oval, round, triangular, long or rectangular. All of the boxes had been ticked by at least one of the witnesses. The mouth could be classed as average, both lips thick, both lips thin, lips unequal, large or small. Most of the witness reports ticked the lips as average, but there was at least one witness who ticked each of the other categories. The consensus seemed to be that the man’s eyebrows were average, his ears were average, his chin was average and his nose was average, but there was no consistency. Two witnesses said the man had a double chin, one said his eyebrows met in the middle, another said he had protruding ears. Cramer was beginning to understand what the Colonel had meant when he’d said that they had plenty of descriptions but no real idea what the assassin looked like.

He finished drying himself and then looked around for clean clothes. There was none, the chests of drawers and the wardrobes were empty. Cramer shrugged and pulled on the clothes he’d arrived in. It seemed that the Colonel hadn’t thought of everything.

As he went down the main staircase he smelled bacon and when he walked into the dining hall the Colonel was already there, sitting at one of the long refectory tables and tucking into a fried breakfast. The Colonel picked up his coffee mug and nodded at the stainless steel serving trays which were lined up on a table by the door. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything else you want, Mrs Elliott will get it for you. She’s quite a cook.’

Cramer walked along the row of trays. There were fried eggs, scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, sausages, tomatoes, fried bread, even kippers, enough to feed a battalion. Cramer wasn’t hungry but he knew that he’d have to eat. He spooned some scrambled eggs onto a plate and went over to sit opposite the Colonel. Mrs Elliott bustled out of the kitchen carrying two steaming jugs. ‘Coffee or tea?’ she asked. She sniffed and Cramer had the distinct impression that she could smell the whisky on his breath.

Cramer asked for tea. The Colonel waited until she’d gone back into the kitchen before asking Cramer how he’d slept. Cramer shrugged. ‘Same as usual,’ he said. The Colonel didn’t have to point out the bags under his eyes, Cramer had seen them staring back at him as he’d shaved.

‘Did you get a chance to read any of the files?’

‘Half a dozen, in detail.’

The Colonel put down his mug of coffee. ‘Any thoughts?’

Cramer shrugged and stirred his eggs with his fork. ‘Half of the hits were in the States, right? That suggests that the killer is an American.’

‘Maybe. Or it could imply that Americans are more willing to hire professionals to do their killings.’

Cramer nodded. ‘I can’t work out why he shoots them in the face first. You know the drill. Two shots to the chest, then one to the head to make sure, if you have the time. But only if you have the time. In the Killing House it’s two chest shots, then on to the next target. We don’t have the luxury of head-shots.’

‘Which means what?’

‘Which means, I suppose, that he’s not SAS-trained,’ answered Cramer. ‘In fact, I can’t think of any Special Forces group which trains its people to go for head-shots.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t agree with the way he was trained,’ said the Colonel as Cramer put a forkful of eggs in his mouth and swallowed without chewing. ‘Remember, he’s always very close to the target. Within ten feet, often closer. At that range, head-shots are less chancy.’

Cramer shrugged and stirred his eggs again. They were good scrambled eggs, rich and buttery with a hint of cheese, but he had no appetite. ‘It’s a question of training, though,’ he said. ‘If it’s drilled into you to kill one way, it’s damn difficult to do it any other way.’

‘We can talk that through with the profiler when he arrives,’ said the Colonel, placing his knife and fork together on the plate. As if by magic, Mrs Elliott appeared and whisked it away.

‘Profiler? What’s the deal there?’

The Colonel wrapped his hands around his steaming mug. The dining hall was cavernous and the propane heater at the end of the table provided little in the way of warmth. ‘The man we’re looking for is a professional assassin, there’s no doubt about that. That’s how the police would look at it. A psychiatrist might take a different view. He could look at him as a killer who keeps killing. A serial killer. And serial killers develop patterns. By analysing those patterns we might be able to build up a picture of what makes him tick. The FBI has a team of specialists based in Quantico who profile serial killers for police forces around the country.’

‘And one of these profilers is working on our killer?’

‘The FBI did the initial profiling, but now we’ve got a guy who used to work for the Bureau helping us,’ said the Colonel. ‘Name of Jackman. He used to be one of their best operatives, now he runs a private profiling agency in Boston.’

Cramer swallowed another mouthful of eggs without chewing. ‘A private serial killer profiler?’

‘He offers recruitment advice to companies, stops them hiring bad apples. He gets called in to help movie stars with problem fans, stalkers and the like. And he’s helped resolve several kidnapping cases where the police haven’t been called in. Some of the biggest insurance companies use him.’

Cramer frowned. He washed his eggs down with his tea. ‘I don’t get this, Colonel. Why isn’t the Bureau helping us?’

‘The FBI have less than a dozen profilers on staff and a single manager and they’re on a tight budget. They do a total of about eight hundred profiles a year but they have to turn away at least two hundred. The Bureau’s total budget for profiling is just over a million dollars a year, despite all the publicity the unit gets. They don’t even have the time to do written profiles on a lot of the cases they handle — they offer advice on the phone to law enforcement agencies all across America. But Jackman can give us as much time as we need. He’s had access to all the case files for the past three months. I want you to meet him before we put you in place.’

Cramer put down his fork. The bulk of his scrambled eggs remained untouched on the plate. ‘What will he be able to tell me?’

‘He might be able to give you an idea of what sort of man the killer is, give you a profile so that you recognise him when he moves against you.’

Cramer smiled thinly. ‘Moves against me? You mean tries to kill me.’

‘Whatever. It’ll give you an edge.’

‘I’ll take whatever I can get,’ said Cramer. He rubbed his stomach.

The Colonel leaned forward, concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

‘A bit sore, but nothing like as bad as it’s going to be in a few weeks.’

‘There’s a doctor coming later. He’ll give you a check-up.’

‘I’ve been seen by experts, Colonel. I’ve had all the second opinions I need.’

‘All the same, I want him to look at you. He might be able to prescribe something for the pain.’

Cramer shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Painkillers will just slow me down. Besides, the pain lets me know I’m still alive.’ He pushed the plate away and drained his mug.

They both looked over at the door as they heard footsteps in the hallway. A short, portly man carrying a large briefcase entered the dining hall, walking quickly as if he was behind schedule. He was wearing a dark blue blazer and black slacks and his shoes gleamed as if they’d just been polished. The Colonel stood up. ‘The doctor?’ asked Cramer.

‘The tailor,’ said the Colonel.

‘A tailor? What the hell do I need a tailor for?’

‘The man whose place you’ll be taking wouldn’t be seen dead in clothes like yours, Joker.’

The tailor put his briefcase on the table, opened it and took out a tapemeasure and a small notebook. ‘Up, up, up,’ he said to Cramer, talking as quickly as he walked. Cramer got to his feet and held out his hands to the sides. The Colonel smiled as the tailor busied himself taking Cramer’s measurements and scribbling them down in his notebook. ‘Three suits, we said?’

‘That’s right,’ said the Colonel. ‘All dark pinstripe, double breasted, no turn-ups. A dozen shirts, all white, double cuffs. Socks, underwear, a selection of casual shirts and trousers. Conservative.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said the tailor, kneeling down in front of Cramer and deftly measuring his inside leg.

‘And an overcoat,’ said the Colonel. ‘Cashmere.’ Cramer raised an eyebrow. ‘Quality shows,’ the Colonel explained. ‘Especially when you get up close.’

The tailor measured Cramer’s arms, his waist and his chest. ‘Which side will you be carrying?’ the tailor asked Cramer.

‘Carrying?’ repeated Cramer, confused.

‘Shoulder holster,’ said the tailor.

‘Left side,’ said Cramer.

‘Good, good.’ The tailor turned to the Colonel. ‘What about accessories?’ he asked. ‘Belts, ties, cufflinks?’

‘I’ll leave that up to you,’ said the Colonel. ‘Bring a selection.’

‘Certainly,’ said the tailor. ‘Certainly.’

‘And you can supply shoes?’

‘Of course, of course.’ The tailor looked up at Cramer expectantly.

‘Ten and a half,’ said Cramer.

The tailor made a note, stood up, picked up his briefcase and left.

‘Regular whirlwind,’ said Cramer, his hands still out at his sides.

‘He puts the guys in Hong Kong to shame,’ said the Colonel. ‘He’ll have it all ready within forty-eight hours.’

‘And I get to keep them after it’s all over?’

The Colonel began to reply, then he realised that Cramer was being sarcastic. He shook his head, almost sadly. ‘I’d forgotten why they called you Joker,’ he said.

Cramer shrugged and sat down again. ‘So when does it happen?’

‘A few days. There’s still some preparation to be done.’

‘Just don’t leave it too long,’ warned Cramer.

The top shelf of the larder was just out of the boy’s reach so he had to stand on a chair to reach the tin of beef stew. He opened the can, emptied it into a pan and stirred it carefully on the gas stove. When the stew began to bubble and spit he poured it onto a plate and carried it upstairs with a glass of milk. His mother was sitting up, her back propped up with pillows. The walking stick lay on the covers next to a stack of old magazines. ‘I made you lunch,’ said the boy.

His mother smiled. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said.

The boy carried the plate and glass over to the bedside table and put them down next to a box of tissues. He handed his mother a fork. ‘It’s beef stew,’ he said.

‘My favourite.’

‘It’s not your favourite. Your favourite is roast chicken, you always say. But I couldn’t make roast chicken.’

‘This is my favourite today.’ She took the fork and the boy held the plate for her as she speared a small piece of meat. She chewed slowly, then nodded. ‘Delicious.’

‘Yeah? Are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure.’ She reached over and ruffled his hair. ‘How was school today?’

‘Okay, I guess.’ He stood watching her, waiting for her to take a second bite, but she put the fork back on the plate and lay down, wincing as she moved. ‘Try some more,’ he urged. ‘It’s good.’

‘Maybe later.’ She sounded tired. She always sounded tired, the boy thought. As if she’d given up hope.

‘Didn’t I cook it right?’ he asked, frowning.

She smiled. ‘You cooked it just fine. I’m tired, that’s all.’

The boy put the plate on the bedside table and gave her the glass of milk. ‘Milk’s good for you,’ he said. She took a sip. It left a white frothy line across her upper lip. He reached over and wiped away the milk on her lip with his hand. ‘When are you getting better, Mum?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Soon?’

‘Maybe soon.’ She patted the edge of the bed and he climbed up and sat next to her. ‘Do you know where Daddy keeps my medicine?’ she asked. The boy nodded. ‘I think I need some more,’ she said. ‘Can you bring it up to me?’ The boy chewed the inside of his lip. ‘You can do that for me, can’t you?’ she said. The boy shrugged. ‘Go and get it for me. Please.’

‘Daddy says. .’ He tailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

His mother reached over and patted his leg. ‘Your daddy says what?’

The boy sighed deeply. ‘Daddy says only he can give you the medicine. He said you’re not to have it.’

His mother nodded as if she understood. ‘I’m sure that if Daddy knew how much I needed my medicine he’d give it to me.’

The boy turned his head away and stared at the door. ‘Daddy said not to.’

His mother began to cough. The boy picked up the box of tissues and pulled one out for her. She took it and pressed it to her mouth as her chest heaved. He watched anxiously until the coughing spasm was over. When she took the tissue away from her mouth it was spotted with blood. His mother screwed the tissue up as if hiding the evidence of her illness. ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ she said.

Dermott Lynch drove the Ford Granada slowly down the rutted track, the steering wheel threatening to tear itself from his gloved hands. It was only after he’d picked up the car that he realised it was an automatic and he was having trouble remembering not to use his left foot. It wasn’t as if he had a choice — the vehicle had been appropriated for him by two teenagers acting under IRA orders, and left in a car park close to Belfast railway station with its ignition key in the exhaust pipe. The Granada belonged to an old couple who lived in the outskirts of Belfast and they wouldn’t report it stolen until the following day, not if they knew what was good for them.

Davie Quinn sat in the front passenger seat, sniffing as if he had the beginnings of a cold. His brother Paulie was in the back. From occasional glances in the driving mirror, Lynch could see that the younger Quinn brother was nervous. His cheeks were flushed and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. ‘You okay, Paulie?’ Lynch asked.

Paulie jerked as if he’d been stung. ‘What? Oh yeah. I’m fine.’

‘Good lad,’ said Lynch, smiling to himself. Thomas McCormack had insisted that the Quinn boys be taken on the job. They’d both conducted themselves well in Howth, but no shots had been fired and no one had been hurt. It was important to discover how the boys would react under pressure. He looked across at Davie. Davie was by far the more confident of the two brothers and had all the makings of an ideal volunteer. He had a sharp intelligence but he kept quiet when necessary. Lynch was all too well aware of how many operations had been blown by a youngster who was the worse for drink showing off to his mates or a girlfriend. The ceasefire meant that it was more important than ever before for the organisation’s volunteers to conduct themselves well. The IRA wasn’t being dismantled, it was simply going even further underground, waiting for the call to return to violence if the political process failed to come up with the goods. Discipline had to be maintained, volunteers had to be trained, and active service units continued to gather data on prospective targets in Ireland and on the mainland.

If Davie handled himself well, Lynch would recommend that he be put forward for specialised training, with a view to sending him to the mainland as part of a deep cover active service unit. There was no doubt that he was committed to the Cause. His father had been gunned down in a Falls Road pub by three UFF men in ski masks, for no other reason than he’d been a Catholic. There had been no military honours at Paddy Quinn’s funeral, no pistol shots or tricolour draped over the coffin, because he had refused to have anything to do with the IRA. But his sons, they were a different matter. They’d joined the organisation a week after their father’s funeral, despite their mother’s protests.

The track curved to the left and O’Riordan’s farm came into view, a ramshackle collection of weathered stone buildings, a grey metal barn and a gleaming white silo. Lynch parked in front of the silo and told the Quinn brothers to stay in the car.

O’Riordan had the door of the farmhouse open before Lynch reached it, his arm outstretched. They shook hands and Lynch could feel the hard callouses on O’Riordan’s palms. It was a small farm and even with European Community subsidies it didn’t generate enough income for O’Riordan to employ more than two labourers, so he had to do much of the heavy work himself.

The acrid smell of pig manure wafted over from one of the outbuildings and Lynch pulled a face. He preferred his pork sliced into rashers and sizzling in a frying pan. O’Riordan laughed at his discomfort and slapped him on the back. ‘You never could stand the countryside, could you?’

Lynch cleared his throat and spat on the grass. ‘I suppose you need something to keep the cities apart,’ he growled. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yeah. The stuff’s in the stable.’ O’Riordan stuck his hands into his brown corduroy trousers and walked with Lynch to a single storey stable building. He pushed open a door to an empty stall and held it open while Lynch walked inside.

‘Jesus, Pat. How can you live with this stink?’ asked Lynch, holding his nose.

O’Riordan stepped in the stall and closed the door. He breathed in and grinned. ‘Nothing wrong with a little horseshit,’ he said. ‘It brings the roses up a treat.’ He picked up a shovel that was leaning against a whitewashed wall and used it to clear away the straw from a corner. He pushed the edge of the shovel into the gap between two of the flagstones and levered one up. Underneath were three stainless steel milk churns. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’ said O’Riordan as he placed the shovel on the floor. Together they pulled out the churns. O’Riordan unscrewed the caps and one by one emptied out more than a dozen polythene-wrapped parcels. ‘Choose your weapons,’ he said.

Lynch peered at the parcels. ‘What have you got?’ he asked.

‘A sawn-off, an East German Kalashnikov, a Czech Model 58V assault rifle, a couple of Uzis, a. .’

‘We’re not going to war, you know,’ interrupted Lynch.

O’Riordan ignored him and continued to rattle off his list. ‘. . half a dozen Czech M1970s, they’re just like the Walther PPK, a Romanian TT33, a Chinese Tokarev, a couple of Brownings, a 9mm Beretta. .’ He prodded the parcels with his foot. ‘Oh yeah, an old Colt.45, but it hasn’t been fired for ten years or so and it’ll probably take your hand off.’ He stood up and put his hands on his hips. ‘What do you feel like?’

Lynch pursed his lips and scratched his beard. ‘Italian,’ he said eventually. ‘I feel like Italian.’

O’Riordan bent down and picked up one of the packages. Lynch unwrapped the polythene. Inside was the Beretta wrapped in an oiled cloth with two clips of ammunition. He checked the action and nodded his approval. ‘Have you used it?’ Lynch asked.

‘Yeah, but it’s clean. What about the boys?’

‘Brownings. But make sure the safeties are on.’

O’Riordan grinned. ‘And I’ll have the shotgun. Just in case.’

‘Just in case?’

‘Aye. Just in case we have to get heavy.’

‘We won’t,’ said Lynch.

‘We’ll see.’ O’Riordan replaced the remaining weapons in the metal churns and Lynch helped him put them back into the ground.

‘Regular arsenal you have here,’ said Lynch as he lowered the flagstone back into place and kicked straw over it.

‘It’s always good to have a little put by for a rainy day.’ O’Riordan was wearing a specially-made nylon sling under his coat and he slipped the sawn-off shotgun into it, then went outside. While Lynch carried the pistols over to the Granada, O’Riordan led a brown and white mare from a neighbouring stall into the one containing the hidden weapons. Lynch handed the still-wrapped Brownings through the window to Davie. ‘Check them, then hide them under the seats,’ he said.

He tucked the Beretta into the back of his trousers and slid the spare clip into the inside pocket of his leather jacket before going back to join O’Riordan as he bolted the door to the stall. The horse snorted inside as if objecting to being locked up. Lynch knew just how the mare felt. He’d spent three years listening to the sound of cell doors clanging shut and it wasn’t an experience he’d care to repeat.

O’Riordan winked at Lynch. ‘You ready?’

‘Sure.’ He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He wanted the job done before five, before the man of the house came home. ‘Where’s the drill?’

‘Charging.’

‘Charging?’ Lynch frowned.

‘Charged,’ said O’Riordan, correcting himself. ‘I had it plugged in overnight. The wife thought I was planning some DIY. She’s going to be disappointed, isn’t she? I’ll go get it.’

O’Riordan disappeared inside the farmhouse and a minute or so later he reappeared with a Black and Decker cordless drill. He pointed it at Lynch and pulled the trigger and the bit whirred. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, putting the drill into a white plastic carrier bag.

Davie Quinn climbed into the back of the Granada without being asked. O’Riordan got in the front seat and nodded a greeting to the two brothers, but didn’t say anything.

The four men drove to West Belfast in silence. As they entered the city they passed a convoy of grey RUC Landrovers driving in the opposite direction, their windows protected by steel mesh. ‘Bastards,’ hissed O’Riordan under his breath.

Lynch smiled tightly. ‘Just be grateful they’re not heading our way,’ he said. He turned the Granada down a side road and parked in front of a pub. Like the Landrovers’, the pub’s windows were shielded with wire mesh. Two young men in anoraks and jeans stood in the entrance smoking cigarettes. The taller of the two nodded at Lynch.

Lynch didn’t bother locking the car doors and the four men walked purposefully down the road, Lynch and O’Riordan in front, the Quinn brothers following closely behind. A woman in a cheap cloth coat walked by pushing two crying babies in a buggy. Two boys with dirty faces and scabby knees sat on the kerb with their feet in the gutter and turned to watch the men go past. Lynch wasn’t worried about witnesses, he was on Catholic territory.

The house they were looking for was in the middle of a brick terrace, one of hundreds of near-identical homes, distinguished only by the colour of the peeling paint on the woodwork. Lynch pressed the doorbell and O’Riordan motioned for the Quinn brothers to stand to the side, out of sight. They heard footsteps, then the door was opened by an overweight grey-haired woman in a flowered print dress and a baggy green cardigan. Before she could speak, Lynch pushed her back into the hallway and pulled out his Beretta. The woman began to shiver and opened her mouth to scream. Lynch glared at her. ‘Be quiet,’ he hissed and clamped his hand over her mouth. O’Riordan slipped by and stood at the foot of the stairs. ‘Where’s the boy?’ whispered Lynch. The woman’s eyes gave her away, flicking towards the stairs. Davie Quinn closed the front door and locked it. From the kitchen Lynch could hear the tinny sound of a transistor radio. ‘Anyone else in the house?’

The woman tried to speak and Lynch moved his hand away from her mouth. ‘My daughter,’ she said. ‘She’s only twelve.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Please don’t hurt us, son. We’re good Catholics. The boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘Where is she?’ Lynch repeated, holding the gun in front of her face.

‘The kitchen. There’s been a mistake, son, you can’t. .’

Lynch motioned to Paulie and the teenager used his hand to silence the woman. Paulie and Davie both had their guns out. Paulie was sweating but Davie seemed calm. They were both looking at Lynch, waiting for instructions.

‘Take her through into the front room,’ Lynch whispered to Paulie. As Paulie bundled the woman into the room, Lynch went along the hall to the kitchen with Davie. A young girl with mousy hair tied back in a ponytail was sitting at a small table reading a magazine. She looked over her shoulder as Lynch walked up behind her and her eyes widened in horror.

‘You’re here for Ger, aren’t you?’ she asked, her voice trembling like a frightened rabbit. ‘I told him. I told him you’d come for him one day. I fecking told him, so I did.’

Lynch ignored the question. He picked up a tea towel and tossed it at Davie, then grabbed the girl by the shirt collar and pulled her to her feet. He half-dragged, half-carried her down the hallway to the front room.

The woman was sitting hunched on a threadbare sofa, playing with a rosary. Lynch dropped the girl down next to her mother. ‘Please, son, don’t hurt my boy,’ whined the woman. She put an arm around the girl and pulled her close.

‘Your boy’s been selling drugs to kids,’ said Lynch flatly.

‘Oh no, son, you’re wrong. My Ger’s a good boy. A bit wild, maybe, but he’s a good heart. .’ She began to cry softly.

On the wall above the woman’s head hung a portrait of the Pope, and next to it a black-framed photograph of John F. Kennedy. The woman looked up and stared at the pictures, as if pleading for their support. Lynch felt no sympathy for her. He knew that she’d already been warned about her son’s drug-dealing. If she wasn’t prepared to keep her family in order, the organisation was. By whatever means it took.

‘Keep them here,’ he said to Paulie. He knelt down in front of the woman and put a hand on the rosary. ‘We’re not going to kill your boy, but if you tell anyone, anyone at all, we’ll come back. Do you understand?’

‘Don’t hurt him,’ she sniffed. ‘Please don’t hurt him.’

‘Do you understand?’ Lynch repeated. ‘Say anything and we’ll be back. And it won’t just be for the boy.’

The woman nodded. She averted her eyes and began to mumble the Lord’s Prayer as she fingered the polished amber beads of the rosary. Lynch straightened up and motioned with his head for Davie to follow him. They joined O’Riordan at the foot of the stairs. O’Riordan had taken his sawn-off shotgun from under his coat. He nodded at Lynch and they moved silently up the stairs, Davie bringing up the rear.

There were four doors leading off the top landing. Only two were closed. Lynch put his ear to one of the doors but heard nothing. He eased it open. It was the bathroom, a cheap yellow bathroom suite and a green knitted cover on the toilet seat, with a matching cover on a spare toilet roll. He closed the door.

Davie was breathing like a train, his nostrils flaring. He had the tea towel in his left hand, the Browning in the other, and Lynch was pleased to see he had the safety off and the barrel pointing straight up. His finger was outside the trigger guard, just as he’d been told. Davie swallowed nervously as Lynch brushed by him and stood by the second door. Lynch seized the handle, nodded at O’Riordan, and thrust open the door.

The boy was standing in the middle of the bedroom, his back to them. He was listening to a Sony Walkman through headphones and playing air guitar, whipping his long red hair backwards and forwards in time to the music. The three men filed into the room and Davie closed the door behind them. It was a typical teenager’s room: rock ’n’ roll posters on the wall, a pile of dirty laundry in one corner, a cheap veneered bookcase filled with paperbacks, and a single bed with the bedclothes in disarray. It smelt of old socks and sweat and was almost as unsavoury as the stable where O’Riordan kept his arms cache.

The boy whirled around then froze as he saw his visitors. His mouth fell open, then he was suddenly galvanised into action, throwing himself across the bed and clutching for the window. O’Riordan dropped the carrier bag on the floor, stepped forward and grabbed one of the boy’s legs, pulling him hard and throwing him onto his stomach. The boy began to scream as O’Riordan sat across the base of his spine, pinning him to the bed. The boy lashed out with his arms but O’Riordan wriggled up his back and used his knees to hold him down. ‘Fuck off, yez bastards!’ the boy screamed, bucking and twisting even under O’Riordan’s weight.

‘Davie, come on lad,’ urged O’Riordan. ‘Get on with it.’

Davie rushed forward and used the tea towel to gag the struggling boy, then moved around to the foot of the bed and grabbed the boy’s ankles. O’Riordan put his head down close to the boy’s face. The towel muffled his screams. His cheeks were pockmarked with old acne scars and his red hair was unkempt and dirty, flecked with dandruff. O’Riordan grabbed a handful of hair and yanked his head back. ‘Listen to me, Ger. This is going to happen whether you struggle or not, do you hear me?’ The boy said nothing but continued to try to get up. O’Riordan thrust the barrel of the shotgun against the boy’s temple and tapped it, hard enough to hurt. ‘If you cooperate, they’ll be able to patch you up and you’ll be on your feet in a few months. Carry on fucking with us and you’ll never walk again. It’s up to you. Am I getting through to you, Ger?’ The boy suddenly went still. ‘That’s better,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Now take your punishment like a man and we can all get on our way.’ He sat up, keeping his weight pressed down on the boy’s shoulderblades.

Lynch reached around to the front of the boy’s waist, unclipped his leather belt and pulled his jeans down to his ankles. ‘Sit on his calves, it’ll stop him kicking out,’ Lynch told Davie and the young man obeyed. The boy began to cry, his tears staining the pillow.

Lynch was a veteran of more than a dozen kneecappings and he knew how important it was to seize control from the outset and to give the victim no opportunity to resist. Kneecapping was a particularly brutal form of punishment, but it worked, serving as a permanent reminder both to the victim and to others. No matter how good the surgeons — and the surgeons in Belfast were the best in the world at repairing and replacing shattered joints — the knee would never be as good as new. Even after the ceasefire, the IRA used kneecapping to punish drug dealers, rapists and joyriders, and men like Lynch had become experts at the technique. O’Riordan hadn’t lied when he’d told the boy it could be done easily or painfully. Depending on how the gun or drill was used, the kneecap could be merely damaged or the leg destroyed. Drilling from the side was painful enough, but drilling from the back of the knee would shatter the kneecap into dozens of splinters.

Lynch took the drill out of the carrier bag and switched it on. He pressed the trigger and the bit whirred and buzzed. The boy’s body went into spasm and Lynch pressed down with both his hands. The pillow and the gag stifled most of the noise.

‘Okay?’ asked O’Riordan.

‘Yeah,’ said Lynch. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Davie Quinn had his eyes closed. Lynch smiled. The first was always the hardest. Lynch placed the whirling bit against the side of the boy’s left knee with all the precision and care of a surgeon. There was very little blood as the bit tore through the flesh, then the noise of the drill changed from a high pitched whine to a dull grinding sound as it ripped through the cartilage. The drill shuddered in Lynch’s hand as the bit grated against bone and he fought to keep it steady.

Davie opened his eyes but shut them quickly when he saw the bit emerging at the far side of the knee, covered in blood and flesh and bits of white cartilage. The boy went still on the bed, his face deathly pale. They usually passed out, Lynch knew, more from fear than from the pain. If they really wanted to make the victim suffer they’d wake him up before working on the second knee, but the boy was being capped more as a warning to others than to hurt him. Lynch kept the bit turning as he pulled it out of the injured knee so that it wouldn’t jam, then wiped his forehead with the back of his arm and went back to work, drilling through the second knee as easily as the first. When he’d finished, he pulled out the bit, switched off the drill and put it back into the carrier bag. O’Riordan climbed off the unconscious boy and untied the gag. Saliva dribbled onto the pillow.

Lynch checked the boy’s wounds. There was some bleeding, but it was far from life-threatening. He took a sheet and wrapped it around the boy’s legs. ‘He’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘You can get off now, Davie.’

The three men went downstairs to the sitting room, where Paulie was standing over the woman and her daughter, his Browning in both hands. ‘Wait five minutes, then call an ambulance,’ O’Riordan told the woman. ‘Make sure they take him to the Royal Victoria and if you get the chance, ask for Mr Palmer. He’s the best for kneecaps, okay?’

The woman nodded and kissed her rosary. ‘Thanks, son,’ she whispered. The girl burst into tears and buried her head in her mother’s lap.

Lynch drove the Quinn brothers to the Falls Road and dropped them off a short walk from their home, then headed for the M2 and Ballymena. ‘Did I ever tell you about the first capping I was on?’ asked Lynch. O’Riordan shook his head. ‘It was a guy who’d been taking pictures of little boys, naked. Didn’t touch them, but he was heading that way, so he had to be taught a lesson. Do you know Paddy McKenna? He’s in the Kesh now.’

‘Heard of him, yeah.’

‘Yeah, well we picked the guy up, four of us, and took him out to Kilbride to do the dirty deed. Paddy brought the drill. It was his first capping as well. So, we have the guy pinned down in the field, and we tell Paddy to get on with it. He starts looking around. What the fuck are you waiting for, we say. “Where’s the socket?” he asks. “Where’s the fucking socket?”’

O’Riordan laughed uproariously. ‘Easy mistake to make,’ he said, wiping his eyes.

It wasn’t until they were driving down the track that led to O’Riordan’s farm that he raised the subject of Mike Cramer. ‘What did McCormack say?’ he asked.

‘Let sleeping dogs lie. That’s what he said.’

O’Riordan snorted softly. ‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers.’

‘Yeah. But what can we do? How am I going to track down a helicopter? They could have gone anywhere.’

O’Riordan shook his head. ‘Not anywhere, Dermott. What goes up must come down. And Air Traffic Control must have been tracking it. You might try asking them.’

‘Oh sure, I’ll just phone them up and ask them if they saw a helicopter pick up a Sass-man in Howth. I can just imagine their answer.’

‘It was a Sea King, wasn’t it? That’s what it looked like to me.’

‘I suppose so. It was a big bugger, that’s for sure, not a normal army chopper. I’ve never seen a red, white and blue chopper before. They’re usually grey or green.’

‘What about the Queen’s Flight?’ said O’Riordan.

‘Aye, it could have been the Duke of Edinburgh himself, coming to lift our man off. How far can they go, any idea?’

O’Riordan shrugged. ‘A few hundred miles maybe. They were heading east, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have circled around and headed up north.’

‘Belfast? Yeah, that’s possible. Do we know anyone in Air Traffic Control?’

‘I’ll ask around. But you’d best be careful. McCormack won’t like it if he thinks you’re going behind his back.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

‘I mean it, Dermott. McCormack is a dangerous man to cross.’

‘I know. I’ll just be making a few enquiries, that’s all.’

Mike Cramer was walking around the croquet lawn, deep in thought, when he heard the Colonel calling him from the French windows at the rear of the main building. He looked up. The Colonel was waving his walking stick as if he was trying to call back an errant retriever. Cramer smiled at the thought. A Rottweiler would be a better comparison. During his last few years in the SAS, the Colonel had tended to use Cramer on operations where the qualities of a highly-trained attack dog were more in demand than the ability to bring back a dead bird.

Cramer walked across the grass. Away to his left, by the line of tall conifers which separated the tennis courts from the lawn, stood a broad-shouldered man in a dark blue duffel coat, one of several SAS troopers on guard duty. The wind caught the coat and Cramer got a glimpse of a sub-machine pistol in an underarm holster.

The Colonel had gone back inside by the time Cramer reached the window. It led into a large, airy room which appeared to have been the headmistress’s office. The Colonel sat behind a huge oak desk. The walls were bare but there were oblong marks among the faded wallpaper where framed photographs of netball and lacrosse teams had hung for generations. As Cramer stepped into the room he noticed another man, standing by an empty bookcase. ‘Cramer, this is Dr Greene,’ said the Colonel.

The doctor stepped forward and shook hands with Cramer. He was just under six feet tall, in his early fifties with swept-back grey hair and gold-framed spectacles with bifocal lenses. He was wearing a brown cardigan with leather patches on the elbows and was carrying a small leather medical bag. ‘Strip to the waist,’ said the doctor.

‘Top or bottom?’

The doctor looked at Cramer over the top of his spectacles, an amused smile on his face. ‘Whichever you’d prefer, Sergeant Cramer.’

Cramer took off his reefer jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. The Colonel made no move to leave. He read the look on Cramer’s face. ‘You don’t mind if I stay, do you?’ he asked and Cramer shook his head.

The doctor whistled softly between his teeth as Cramer dropped his shirt onto the desk. He walked over and gently touched the thick raised scar that ran jaggedly across Cramer’s stomach. ‘Across and up. As if someone had tried to disembowel you.’

‘That’s pretty much what happened. I lost a few feet of tubing and I had to wear a colostomy bag for the best part of a year, but I guess I was lucky.’

‘And this?’ The doctor touched Cramer’s right breast. There was a mass of scar tissue where the nipple had once been.

Cramer shrugged. ‘Pruning shears.’

The doctor walked around Cramer, noting the rest of the scars on his body. He touched him lightly on the left shoulder. ‘A.45?’ he asked.

‘A.357, I think. It went right through so they never found the bullet.’

‘And this?’ The doctor pressed a small wound on the other shoulder.

‘A fruit knife.’

‘And this thin one that runs around your stomach?’

‘A Stanley knife.’

The doctor shook his head in wonder. ‘You seem to have a lot of enemies, Sergeant Cramer.’

‘Just one.’

‘One man did all this to you?’

‘It was a woman. She did most of the damage.’

‘A woman?’ The doctor whistled through his teeth. ‘I wouldn’t like to meet her on a dark night.’

‘Mary Hennessy, her name was. She was an IRA terrorist. She’s dead now.’

The doctor stood in front of him again and studied the thick scar across his stomach. ‘That must have done a lot of damage inside.’

‘Tell me about it. If I hadn’t been helicoptered to hospital I’d have died.’

‘She was torturing you, this woman?’

‘She was torturing a friend of mine. He died moments before I was rescued. She did that to my stomach just before she fled. I guess she wanted me to die slowly, in a lot of pain. She almost had her wish. The rest of the stuff she did to me two years later.’

The doctor had Cramer open his mouth and took a small torch from the pocket of his cardigan. He peered at Cramer’s throat, then pushed his fingers against the side of his neck as if checking for lumps. ‘That seems fine,’ he murmured, then he pressed Cramer’s stomach with the flat of his hand. Cramer winced. The doctor pressed again, lower this time, and Cramer grunted. ‘That hurts?’ asked the doctor.

‘A bit.’

‘Did the doctors in Madrid think that the cancer could be a result of the trauma?’

Cramer nodded. ‘That, coupled with the stress. And my drinking.’

The doctor nodded. ‘How much pain are you in, generally?’

‘Generally, it’s okay. Twinges now and then. It hurts most when I eat.’

‘What about your appetite?’

‘That’s pretty much gone. Partly because it hurts, but mainly I’m just not hungry most of the time.’

‘Bleeding?’

‘Yeah. That’s why I went to the hospital in the first place. My shit went black.’

‘And you were losing weight?’

‘I went down from 184 pounds to 170. I thought it was because I’d stopped eating.’

‘And you’re still losing weight?’ Cramer nodded. ‘The doctors in Spain, how long did they give you?’

‘Three months. Max.’

The doctor sniffed. ‘I’ve seen the X-rays, and the scans. I’d say they were being optimistic.’ He straightened up and went over to his bag. ‘I’ll give you a vitamin shot now, and some tablets to take.’

‘Not painkillers. I don’t want painkillers.’

‘Just vitamins. But you’ll be needing painkillers before long.’

‘Yeah, well I’ll face that when I have to.’

‘I’ll leave you something, take it if and when you have to. And you’ll need something much stronger towards the end. I’ll arrange for you to have morphine and you can dose yourself.’

‘It won’t come to that.’

‘You think that now, but nearer the. .’

‘It won’t come to that,’ Cramer insisted.

The doctor held his look for a few seconds and then nodded acceptance. He opened his bag and took out a plastic-wrapped syringe and a vial of colourless liquid. He injected the vitamins and gave Cramer a bottle of tablets. ‘These are just multivitamins,’ he explained. ‘They’ll make up for what you’re not getting from your food. I’d drink milk if I were you, eggs maybe, if you can keep them down. Fruit would be good for you, but in small amounts. Better to eat a little often than to try to force down big portions.’ He looked over his shoulder at the Colonel. ‘Normally I’d tell him to take it easy, but I suppose that’s not an option in this case, is it?’

‘Sergeant Cramer’s going to be working, that’s true.’

‘Well God help him, that’s all I can say.’

‘I doubt that he will, but thanks for the sentiment,’ said Cramer acidly.

The doctor handed Cramer another bottle, this one containing green capsules. ‘For the pain,’ he said. ‘Not on an empty stomach. Not more than one at a time. And not more than six in any one twenty-four-hour period.’

‘Thanks, Doc,’ said Cramer.

‘I meant what I said about arranging morphine for you.’

‘And I meant what I said about it not coming to that,’ said Cramer, putting his shirt back on.

Dermott Lynch was sitting with his feet on the coffee table watching the BBC Nine O’Clock News when the phone rang. He let his answering machine take the call as he watched the BBC’s industrial correspondent explain the latest gloomy trade figures. He popped the tab on a chilled can of draught Guinness and poured it deftly into a tall glass as the recording announced he couldn’t get to the phone. He put down the glass as he heard Pat O’Riordan’s voice and picked up the receiver. ‘Yeah, Pat, I’m here.’

‘Screening calls, are we?’ said O’Riordan.

‘Just taking the weight off my feet. Figured I deserved a rest. How’s things?’

‘Don’t suppose you fancy giving me a hand cleaning out the pigs, do you?’

‘You’re dead right.’

‘Fancy a drink?’

Lynch looked at the Guinness as it settled in the glass, a thick, creamy head on the top. ‘You read my mind,’ he said.

Mrs Elliott served up a chicken stew with herb dumplings along with freshly-made garlic bread and buttery mashed potatoes. The Colonel and Cramer ate alone in the huge dining hall next to the propane heater. The Colonel had opened a bottle of claret but Cramer had refused. He had a glass of milk, instead. With a large measure of Famous Grouse mixed in.

Cramer toyed with his food, eating small mouthfuls and chewing thoroughly before swallowing. The Colonel watched him eat. ‘Bad?’ he asked.

‘The food’s fine.’ Cramer put down his fork. ‘I never had much of an appetite even when I was fit.’ He picked up the file that he’d been reading before dinner. ‘Have you read this one?’ he asked. ‘The Harrods killing?’

‘The Saudi Foreign Minister’s second wife. Ann-Marie Wilkinson. The Met think it was the first wife who paid for the hit.’

‘Cheaper than divorce, I suppose.’

‘I don’t think the Saudis bother with divorce, do they?’ said the Colonel. ‘I think they just take as many wives as they want.’ Cramer shrugged and took a long drink of milk, then added another slug of whisky. ‘Anyway, the first wife had the money,’ the Colonel continued. ‘She was related to the Saudi royal family and it seems that she resented all the attention Ann-Marie was getting.’

Cramer held up a photocopy of a typewritten report. ‘She was pregnant.’

The Colonel nodded. ‘I know. That’s another reason why they think she was killed. He had three children by the first wife, it could be that she didn’t want any competition. What’s on your mind?’

‘He murdered a pregnant woman. It takes a particular sort of killer to shoot a pregnant woman, don’t you think?’

The Colonel put down his knife and fork. ‘I’ve known plenty who would, without a second thought.’

‘Professionals? You think so?’

The Colonel leaned forward over his plate. ‘You’ve killed women, Sergeant Cramer. For Queen and country. And a soldier’s salary.’

‘I’ve killed terrorists who were female, Colonel. There’s a difference. And the Kypriano killing. The girl. Eight years old. He killed an eight-year-old girl.’

The Colonel gently swirled the red wine around his glass and stared at it. ‘He’s well paid for what he does. Half a million dollars a hit, we hear. Perhaps the money makes it easier.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Are you saying that if you were offered half a million dollars you wouldn’t do it?’

Cramer looked up sharply. ‘A child? No, I wouldn’t. Would you?’

‘Of course not. Not for any amount. But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about someone who’s prepared to kill for money. You’ve been trained to kill. And you’ve killed for no other reason than that you’ve been ordered to. Okay, so there are some things you wouldn’t do, but not everyone has the same degree of moral judgement.’

Cramer nodded noncommittally, but his eyes narrowed as he studied the Colonel’s face. ‘What if it was in the interests of national security, Colonel? Would you do it then?’

The Colonel looked at Cramer for several seconds, though to Cramer it felt as if the silence was stretching into infinity. The Colonel stopped swirling his wine and drained his glass. He was about to answer when Mrs Elliott appeared. The Colonel put down his glass while she collected their plates, frowning at the amount Cramer had left. As she went back into the kitchen, the Colonel stood up and excused himself, saying that he needed an early night. The unanswered question hung in the air like black rain cloud.

The pub was just off the Falls Road, a red brick building with metal shutters over the window and an orange, white and green tricolour flag hanging over the front door. A thickset man in a brown raincoat stood by the door, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes ever watchful.

‘Evening, Danny,’ said Lynch.

‘How’s yerself, Dermott?’ asked the man.

‘Getting by. Busy tonight?’

‘Aye, there’s a fair crowd in.’ He pushed open the metal door and Lynch heard the sound of a fiddle being played with more enthusiasm than ability.

Lynch grimaced. ‘That should soon clear them out,’ he said, and the doorman laughed.

Several heads turned as Lynch made his way to the bar. In the far corner the fiddler, a bearded man in his sixties, wearing a plaid shirt and baggy cotton trousers, was sawing away on his fiddle with gusto. Behind him was an anorexically-thin blonde girl with an accordion and a middle-aged man with a tin whistle, though they sat with their instruments in their laps as they watched the old man perform.

Two men in donkey jackets moved apart to allow Lynch to the bar. The barman came over immediately and greeted him by name. There were few bars in the Falls area where Dermott Lynch wasn’t known and respected. He ordered a Guinness and scanned the bar for familiar faces as he waited for it to be poured. A grey-haired old man in a sheepskin jacket with a tired-looking shaggy-haired mongrel sitting at his feet nodded a silent greeting and Lynch nodded back. A group of teenagers fell quiet as Lynch’s gaze passed over them. Lynch spotted one of the lads who’d kept an eye on the Granada while he’d done the kneecapping, but he made no sign of recognising him.

The fiddler sat down to scattered applause, then the blonde girl began to play her accordion, nodding her head backwards and forwards as she concentrated, her lips pursed. The barman placed the pint of Guinness in front of Lynch and took his money. Lynch drank deeply and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Pat O’Riordan appeared at his elbow. ‘You looked like you enjoyed that, all right, Dermott.’

Lynch grinned and winked at O’Riordan. ‘You’ll be taking a pint yourself?’

O’Riordan watched the blonde girl play her accordion. ‘She’s a fine looking girl, sure enough.’

‘Bit stringy for me,’ said Lynch as he caught the barman’s eye and pointed to his glass, indicating that he wanted another Guinness for O’Riordan. O’Riordan was married with four young children and Lynch knew he was devoted to his family, but he liked to pretend that he had a roving eye. O’Riordan’s Guinness arrived and he sipped it appreciatively. The fiddler and the pipe-player joined the accordion player in a rebel song that had several of the drinkers tapping their feet and singing along. The two men listened to the music for a while, enjoying the atmosphere of the pub, the well-being that came from knowing that they were among friends. Lynch drained his glass and ordered two more drinks. While they waited for the Guinness to settle, O’Riordan slipped Lynch a piece of paper. ‘That’s your man,’ said O’Riordan. ‘He’s based at Dublin Airport. His brother is in the Kesh doing a five-stretch, he’s been told to expect a visit from you.’

There were two telephone numbers on the piece of paper, a home number and one at the man’s place of work. ‘I’ll drive down tomorrow morning,’ said Lynch.

The rebel song came to an end amid rapturous applause and stamping of feet. ‘Not tomorrow you won’t,’ said O’Riordan. ‘There’s a wee job McCormack wants you to do for him.’

Lynch sighed. ‘Not another capping?’

O’Riordan shook his head. ‘Bigger, Dermott. Much bigger.’

Mike Cramer sat on the bed, his back against the wall. On his lap lay the file on the first killing which had been attributed to the assassin. It had taken place in Miami, almost exactly two years earlier. A Colombian drugs baron had been sitting in a nightclub with his two seventeen-year-old girlfriends, sniffing cocaine and drinking champagne. Three bodyguards had been sitting at an adjacent table. The file contained photographs of the aftermath: the three bodyguards sprawled on the purple carpet, their guns still in their holsters, the drugs baron still sitting upright, a third eye in the middle of his forehead, blood all over his shirt.

More than two hundred people had been in the nightclub and there were almost as many versions of what had happened. Even the drug dealer’s blondes differed on the colours of the Hawaiian shirt the assassin was wearing and the type of gun he was carrying. One of the girls thought it was an automatic, the other said it was a.357 Magnum. Cramer figured that their descriptions were useless. He doubted if either of the girls knew anything about guns, and in a dark nightclub with everyone screaming and panicking there was little chance of them being able to describe the weapon accurately.

The killer had been on the dancefloor, dancing alone, and he’d walked towards the bar, waiting until he was right next to the table where the bodyguards were sitting before pulling his gun out. Leaving aside what the girls had said, Cramer reckoned that it would have been a small pistol, something that could easily be concealed. According to the Medical Examiner’s report it had been a 9mm calibre, but that only narrowed down the number of possibilities, it didn’t even come close to identifying the weapon.

Using a 9mm for the hit made sense, it was standard issue to anti-terrorist groups around the world. Its main drawback was its tendency to go right through the target. Unlike a.22, which would spin and tumble, ripping through internal organs and blood vessels, a 9mm would pass through a human body unless it struck bone, leading to potential problems in hostage situations. The SAS used Splat frangible rounds, bullets made of a mixture of polymer and non-lead metal which were guaranteed to break up on impact, but which were also capable of passing through cover first. The killer had used a form of accelerated energy transfer rounds with plastic cores, which would spin on contact, mimicking the action and massive tissue damage of a.22. Cramer wasn’t sure why the killer had bothered — the nature of the bullet made little difference in a point-blank shot to the face.

In all, the assassin had fired nine shots. One each for the three bodyguards, two for the drugs dealer, then two more into the chest of one of the bodyguards who’d been trying to pull his own gun out despite being shot in the throat. On the way out of the nightclub the assassin had been challenged by one of the tuxedoed doormen and he’d shot him twice. Nine bullets. Definitely not a revolver.

Many 9mm handguns held eight or nine in the clip, but Cramer doubted if the killer would have gone into a place as crowded as the nightclub and fired off all his shots. He’d have wanted the security of something in reserve. A second clip wasn’t out of the question, but changing clips would take time and he’d be vulnerable during the changeover. Cramer’s weapon of choice would have been the Browning Hi-Power, effective up to forty feet and with thirteen rounds in the magazine, but he figured the killer had used something like a SIG-Sauer P226, which held fifteen cartridges. It was only a guess because he knew there were literally dozens of other possibilities: Heckler amp; Koch of Germany made a thirteen-shot 9mm handgun, the P7A13; the French had the MAB P15 with a fifteen-shot magazine; the Italians had the Beretta Model 92 series with magazines ranging from eight to fifteen; the Czechs had the fifteen-shot CZ 9mm Model 75; the Austrians had the Glock, made from lightweight polymer and available with fifteen, seventeen and nineteen round magazines. Most European countries had factories churning out large capacity 9mm handguns, and tens of thousands found their way to the States, legally or otherwise.

Cramer massaged the bridge of his nose and blinked his eyes. Even if the killer had a favourite weapon, and even if he could identify it, the knowledge wouldn’t do him any good. By the time Cramer was staring down the barrel of whatever gun it was the killer was using, it would be too late. Bang. One bullet in the face. Bang. The second in the heart. Then nothing but darkness.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. ‘Come in, Mrs Elliott,’ he said, closing the file and dropping it onto the bed. He recognised her knock, two taps in quick succession, like the double tap in the Killing House.

Mrs Elliott carried a tray into the room and put it down on a chair by the bed. ‘A snack for you, Mr Cramer,’ she said. ‘Hot milk and ham sandwiches.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Elliott. You shouldn’t have bothered.’ Most of the food she brought up to his room ended up being flushed down the toilet, though he usually drank the milk. Her glance barely passed over the bottle of Famous Grouse but Cramer could sense her disapproval.

‘It’s no bother, Mr Cramer,’ she said, and disappeared out of the door, her dress cracking like a sail in the wind.

Cramer poured a double measure of whisky into the milk and sipped it as he picked up the file again. Cramer wondered what significance there was in the fact that the Miami assassination had been the first. The only links between all the killings in the files that Cramer had read were the handgun and the placing of the two shots. The Miami assassination had been quick and efficient, as if the killer knew exactly what he was doing. Cramer wondered if he’d actually killed before, but using a different method so that the deaths hadn’t been included in the investigation. The killing seemed too professional to have been a first. Perhaps he’d killed in many different ways before focusing on his preferred method?

There was also the question of how the killer had been hired in the first place. Becoming a contract killer wasn’t like setting out to be a doctor or an accountant — you couldn’t simply move into an office and put a sign on your door. Contract killers had to have a track record, they had to prove that they could kill and get away with it, and they had to prove that they could be trusted. Cramer had heard of former soldiers and mercenaries who’d become contract killers, but generally such assassins were Mob-trained, career criminals who had served their apprenticeships before becoming fully-fledged killers. Killers didn’t just appear from nowhere. There were skills to be acquired, techniques to be mastered. Cramer knew, because he was a killer, and he’d been trained by the best.

He dropped the file on the floor and picked up the next one. It was several times thicker than the Miami file, and as Cramer flicked through it, he soon realised why. The victim had been a British Member of Parliament, a Scot earmarked for a ministerial post who had been a close friend of the Prime Minister. Cramer vaguely remembered reading about the assassination, but at the time he’d been more concerned about the pain in his guts and the grim faces of the Spanish doctors. He scanned the police reports. The killer had been dressed as a motorcycle cop and had flagged down the MP’s official Rover as it drove away from a newly-opened semiconductor plant. The killer had calmly waited for the driver to wind down his window, then he’d shot the MP’s minder in the shoulder and killed the MP with two shots, one to the face, one to the heart. The descriptions provided by the injured bodyguard and the driver were worse than useless — the killer had kept his full-face helmet on, the tinted visor down, and he’d been wearing black leather gloves. Medium height, medium build.

Strathclyde Police had started a preliminary investigation but a team of Special Branch officers were sent up from the Metropolitan Police to take over. Despite the heavyweights, the investigation stalled. A burnt-out motorcycle was discovered in a field outside Carlisle a few days later, but it provided no forensic evidence.

Cramer read a memo from Special Branch to the Security Service requesting possible motives for the assassination and the reply, sent two days later, was noncommittal. The MP was married with two teenage children, had no known sexual liaisons outside the marriage, was a lawyer by profession and had no controversial business interests.

The Security Service did however point out that the MP had helped organise a campaign to stop an American oil company developing two huge offshore oilfields for Iran. The company had been about to sign the billion-dollar contract when the MP raised the matter in the House of Commons. The British had been pressing the Russian Government not to supply the Iranians with nuclear reactors, and the MP made a stirring speech complaining that it was unfair to ask the Russians to stop trading with Iran at a time when the Americans were about to help the country develop its oil resources. The State Department stepped in and the deal was blocked. ‘It is possible,’ the Security Service memo concluded, ‘that the assassination was revenge for the blocked contract.’ Cramer smiled thinly. The memo didn’t say whether the Iranians or the oil company might have paid for the hit. The way big business operated these days, it could have been either.

There was a sheaf of correspondence between Special Branch and the FBI, exchanging information on hired assassins who might be prepared to kill such a high-profile target, but it was clear that the investigation was going nowhere. A memo from Special Branch to the Prime Minister’s office some three months after the killing suggested as much. The Prime Minister hadn’t replied to the Special Branch memo; instead he had written a seven word memo to the Colonel. ‘Immediate action required. Report directly to me.’ The unsigned memo explained something that had been troubling Cramer ever since he had started working his way through the stack of files. Cramer had wondered why the Colonel and the SAS should be leading the hunt for a paid assassin, especially one who appeared to be most active in the United States. Now the answer was clear; it wasn’t just to prevent further killings. The Prime Minister had taken it personally. He wanted revenge for a dead friend.

The mist came rolling off the hills around Crossmaglen, a cold, damp fog that chilled Lynch to the bone. He shivered and looked over at O’Riordan. ‘Nice day for it,’ he said.

‘I don’t suppose a city boy like you gets up before dawn much,’ said O’Riordan. He was wearing a green waterproof jacket, a floppy tweed hat and green Wellington boots. Had it not been for the Kalashnikov he was cradling in his arms, he would have looked every inch the gentleman farmer.

‘Forecast was for sun,’ said Lynch, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

O’Riordan pulled a face. ‘You can’t forecast the weather here,’ he said. ‘It changes from one minute to the next. You should have worn a waterproof jacket, right enough.’

‘Yeah, now you tell me.’ Lynch had put on a black leather jacket with a sheepskin collar which was already wet through, and blue denim jeans which were soaking up the damp like a sponge. Beads of dew speckled his beard and moustache, and water trickled down the back of his neck in rivulets.

The two men stood by O’Riordan’s Landrover which they’d parked under a chestnut tree, but it provided little in the way of shelter, as the moisture was all around them like a shroud. Lynch looked at his wristwatch. It was just before five. O’Riordan was right, he rarely got out of bed before ten and he disliked mornings, with a vengeance.

Davie and Paulie Quinn jumped down from the back of a mud-splattered truck a short distance away, then reached inside and pulled out large spades.

‘Think we should help them?’ asked O’Riordan.

Lynch grinned. ‘The exercise will do them good,’ he said.

‘Didn’t you tell them to bring gloves? They’ll have blisters the size of golfballs by the time they’ve finished.’

‘Slipped my mind,’ said Lynch. He sat down on the bumper of O’Riordan’s Landrover and groaned. ‘God, I hate mornings,’ he said.

Davie walked over, his spade over his shoulder. ‘Okay?’ he asked cheerfully.

O’Riordan stood with his back to the tree and counted off twenty paces. He raked his heel through the damp earth. ‘Here there be treasure, me hearties,’ he growled.

‘How deep is it?’ asked Paulie as he joined his brother.

‘Six feet. Maybe a bit more. Put your backs into it, boys. We haven’t got all day.’

As the brothers began to dig, O’Riordan went back to Lynch. Lynch looked at his wristwatch again.

‘We’ll be okay,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Half an hour, then fifteen minutes to load up, fifteen minutes to refill the hole. We’ll be away in an hour.’

‘I just don’t like being exposed, that’s all.’ He squinted up at the reddening sky. Birds were already starting to greet the approaching dawn.

O’Riordan leant his assault rifle against the vehicle and ducked his head through the driver’s side window. He took out a Thermos flask. ‘Coffee?’

Lynch nodded and O’Riordan poured steaming black coffee into two plastic mugs. Paulie Quinn looked over at them but O’Riordan nodded at the hole. ‘Keep digging, son.’

Mike Cramer lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He was thinking about death. His own death. Cramer wasn’t scared of dying. The act was usually less painful and stressful than what led up to it. Death could often be a welcome release, an escape from pain, a way out. His right hand stroked the raised scar across his stomach as he remembered how he’d been so sure that he was dying as he lay on the floor of the Lynx helicopter, his trousers soaked with blood, his entrails in his hands.

It had taken maybe twenty minutes for the chopper to reach the hospital in Belfast and he’d been conscious for every second. Two troopers had tried to stem the bleeding but they hadn’t known what to do about his guts, other than to cover the wound with a field dressing. There had been surprisingly little pain, and that had been why Cramer was so sure that he was dying.

He closed his eyes and shuddered as he remembered how Mick Newmarch had died. Death for Mick hadn’t been easy, but then Mary Hennessy hadn’t intended it to be. She’d used bolt-cutters on his fingers and a red-hot poker to cauterise the wounds so that he wouldn’t bleed to death. She’d tortured him for hours like a cat toying with a mouse, then she’d castrated him and watched him bleed to death. It had been Cramer’s turn then, his turn to be tied to the kitchen table in the isolated farmhouse, to be interrogated while armed IRA men stood outside. He remembered how she’d scowled as she’d heard the men shout that they had to go, that the SAS were on their way, and he remembered the way she’d smiled as she’d shown him the knife, letting it glint under the fluorescent lights before stabbing him in the stomach and cutting him wide open. ‘Die, you bastard,’ she’d whispered as the blood had flowed, then she’d left without a backward look. But Cramer hadn’t died. The troopers had bundled him into the chopper and sat with him, urging him to stay conscious as they flew to the city, then the doctors had put him back together again, patched him up as best they could. Six months later he’d left the regiment. A booze-up in the Paludrine Club — the SAS bar at the Stirling Lines barracks in Hereford — a couple of paragraphs in Mars and Minerva, the regimental magazine, and back to Civvy Street. Yesterday’s man.

No, death held no fear for Mike Cramer. Not any more. He’d stared death in the face and he had been prepared to embrace it with open arms. Now it was only the manner of his death that concerned him. And the Colonel had given him a way, a way to die with honour. In battle.

Seth Reed popped the last piece of black pudding in his mouth and chewed with relish. Reed’s nine-year-old son, Mark, screwed up his face. ‘Dad, how can you? That’s pig’s blood you’re eating!’

Reed sat back in his chair and patted his ample stomach. ‘Yup. And it was dee-licious.’

‘Yuck.’ The boy was still halfway through eating his breakfast, and Reed pointed at the rasher of bacon and half a sausage that remained on his plate.

‘What do you think that is?’ he asked.

‘Bacon.’

‘Pig. That’s what it is.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not pig’s blood.’

Kimberlee Reed’s spoonful of cereal came to a sudden halt on its way to her mouth as she glared at her husband and son. ‘Guys, can we please give it a rest?’

‘He started it,’ said Reed, pointing at Mark.

‘Did not.’

‘Did too.’

Kimberlee sighed and shook her head. ‘You two are impossible. I don’t know which of you is worse.’

Reed and his son pointed at each other. ‘He is,’ they said in unison.

The landlady, a tall, stick-thin woman with her greying hair tied back in a tight bun, appeared in the doorway, a pot of coffee in her hands. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Perfect, Mrs McGregor,’ said Kimberlee.

‘More coffee?’

Kimberlee flashed her little girl smile. ‘Do you have any decaff?’ she asked.

Mrs McGregor shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, dear. What about a nice cup of tea?’

‘Decaffeinated tea?’

Mrs McGregor shook her head again as she refilled Reed’s cup. ‘We don’t get much call for it, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s okay. Orange juice will be fine.’

Mrs McGregor refilled the coffee cups of the family sitting at the next table and bustled out of the dining room.

‘Are we ready to go?’ asked Kimberlee.

Reed drained his cup and smacked his lips. His son finished his orange juice and mimicked his father’s actions. ‘Sure,’ said Reed. ‘Why don’t you get the check while I get the bags?’

There was a bellpush in the entrance hall and Kimberlee pressed it while her husband went upstairs. Mrs McGregor came out of the kitchen, drying her hands. Kimberlee gave her the money for the night’s bed and breakfast and the notes disappeared underneath Mrs McGregor’s apron like a rabbit bolting into its burrow. ‘So where are you going to next, dear?’ she asked.

‘Waterford, in the south,’ said Kimberlee. ‘We’re going to look around the crystal factory. I want to buy some champagne glasses.’

‘That’ll be nice, you make sure you drive carefully now.’

‘Oh, Seth’ll be driving, Mrs McGregor. We couldn’t get an automatic and I can’t handle a stick shift. Not with my left hand.’

Reed struggled back down the stairs, a suitcase in either hand and a travel bag hanging on one shoulder. Kimberlee looked at him anxiously. He’d had a minor heart attack the previous year, and while the hospital had given him the all-clear she still worried whenever he exerted himself. The high-cholesterol fried breakfast wouldn’t have helped his arteries, either, and he was drinking too much coffee. She reached out to take one of the suitcases, but he shook his head. ‘Honey, I can manage.’

The family said goodbye to the landlady and then Kimberlee and Mark followed Reed down the path to their parked car. He loaded the cases into the boot and five minutes later they were on the A29, heading south. It was an almost 160 mile drive to Waterford but they were in no rush and Reed decided to drive on the back roads so that they could enjoy the lush countryside, a far cry from their home in Phoenix, Arizona.

They’d been driving for less than half an hour when Mark announced that he wanted to use the bathroom.

‘A bathroom?’ said Kimberlee, looking over her shoulder. ‘This is Ireland, honey, not the Interstate. There are no pitstops here.’

‘Mom. .’ Mark whined.

‘If he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go,’ said Reed.

‘Can’t you wait a while, honey?’ asked Kimberlee. Mark jogged up and down in his seat and pressed his legs together. ‘I guess not,’ muttered Kimberlee. She picked up a folded map from the dashboard. ‘Dundalk is the nearest town, Seth. Can we make a detour?’

‘Mom. .’ pleaded Mark from the back.

‘Honey, please,’ said Kimberlee. ‘Just wait a while, can’t you?’

Mark shook his head and Kimberlee sighed. She put the map back on the dashboard and patted her husband on the thigh. ‘We’ll have to stop.’

‘Here?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘How’s it going, lads?’ Lynch called. He could only see the tops of the heads of Paulie and Davie Quinn as they shovelled wet soil out of the hole. When he didn’t get an answer he walked across the field and stood looking down at the two boys. They were sweating and breathing heavily but to their credit they were digging as quickly as when they’d first started. ‘How’s it going?’ he repeated.

Davie Quinn looked up and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘It’s okay,’ he panted.

Paulie Quinn attacked the soil with his spade and used his foot to drive it deeper. ‘Best start taking it easy, Paulie,’ said Lynch.

‘I’m all right,’ said Paulie, heaving the soil out of the hole with a grunt.

‘Aye, you might be, it’s the Semtex I’m worried about.’

Paulie stopped digging. He stared at the soil underfoot, then up at Lynch. ‘Semtex?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Lynch laconically. ‘You know, the stuff that goes bang.’

Paulie looked at Davie. ‘Yez didn’t say anything about no Semtex,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know,’ said his brother. ‘But it doesn’t make any difference, does it?’

Paulie frowned. ‘I guess not.’ He tapped the ground gingerly with the end of his spade.

‘You’ll be okay, lads,’ said Lynch, who didn’t want to take the joke too far. He wanted to be out of the field as quickly as possible. ‘I wouldn’t be standing here if it was dangerous, now would I?’

Davie grinned and started digging again. Paulie followed his example, but he was still a lot less vigorous than before. Lynch watched. O’Riordan came up behind him, still cradling his Kalashnikov.

Davie’s spade hit something plastic. Paulie flinched as if he’d been struck and Lynch smiled at the boy’s discomfort. ‘Pass me up the spades, lads,’ he said. ‘Then scrape away the soil with your hands.’

The boys did as they were told. They dug away with their hands like dogs in search of a bone. After several minutes of digging they came across a large rubbish bin, sealed in plastic. Lynch looked at O’Riordan. ‘That’s ammunition,’ he said. ‘Armour-piercing cartridges for the M60s.’

Lynch nodded. ‘Okay, lads. Pass that here.’

The Quinn brothers heaved the bin up and Lynch and O’Riordan dragged it out of the hole.

The boys went back to digging. They unearthed two more large packages, long and thin and wrapped in thick polythene. ‘The M60s,’ said O’Riordan.

‘Them too,’ said Lynch.

Lynch and O’Riordan carried the three bulky parcels over to the truck and loaded them into the back while Davie and Paulie carried on digging. ‘Any idea what McCormack is planning to do with this?’ asked Lynch.

‘Bury it somewhere else, I suppose,’ said O’Riordan. ‘He wants to keep the good stuff and hand the old stuff over to the army.’

Lynch wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘So it looks as if we’re demilitarising when all we’re doing is throwing out our junk.’

‘It’s just public relations, Dermott, you know that. It makes Dublin and London look good, it’s a photo opportunity for the army, and we get rid of gear that would probably blow up in our faces anyway. Seems like a hell of a good deal for everyone. The Prods are doing it, too.’

They went back to the hole. Davie and Paulie had uncovered two more plastic bins and a polythene-covered chest. O’Riordan pointed at the chest. ‘That’s the Semtex,’ he said.

‘How long’s it been here?’ asked Lynch.

‘Three years,’ replied O’Riordan. ‘But it was moved around a lot before that and it’s well past its sell-by date. It got here in 1985 but it was sitting in a warehouse in Tripoli for God knows how long before that. McCormack wants it leaving here.’ He pointed at one of the plastic bins. ‘Those are handguns and ammunition and a few hand grenades. They stay.’ He pointed at the other bin. ‘Those are Belgian disposable mortars. They’re state-of-the-art, but McCormack wants them left here, too. They’ll be a trophy for the army, and it makes it look as if we’re serious about the ceasefire.’

O’Riordan peered into the hole. ‘There should be one more package,’ he said.

Davie got down on all fours and dug with his hands. After a few minutes he sat back on his heels. ‘Got it,’ he said triumphantly.

‘Now that,’ said O’Riordan, pointing at a polythene-wrapped parcel, ‘is something really special. It’s a 66mm M72 A2.’

Lynch sighed wearily. ‘I love it when you talk dirty,’ he said. ‘What the hell is it, Pat?’

‘A bazooka,’ grinned O’Riordan. ‘From the States. It’s a one-man, single-shot throwaway, it’s got a one kilo rocket that can blow a tank wide open.’

‘Jesus,’ said Lynch. ‘How many of those have we got?’

‘Just the one that I know about,’ said O’Riordan. ‘It was sent over as a sample shortly before the 1994 ceasefire. We were going to buy more but then the FBI got hold of our supplier.’ O’Riordan leaned over the hole. ‘Pass it up, Davie. And be careful.’

Davie handed the polythene-wrapped parcel up to O’Riordan, who cradled it tenderly in his arms.

Lynch held out his hand to Davie and pulled him out of the hole. They both helped Paulie out. ‘Right, lads. Now fill it in.’

The brothers were exhausted but they set to with a will, shovelling the wet earth back into the hole. Lynch went back to the truck where O’Riordan was placing the bazooka with the rest of the arms cache. ‘Can you handle it from here on?’ Lynch asked.

O’Riordan raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s on your mind?’ he asked.

‘I want to go to Dublin to see your man. He gets off work at noon.’

‘Yeah? Then what?’ asked O’Riordan. He threw a tarpaulin over the weapons.

‘Depends on what he tells me. If I can get a lead on that chopper, I want to go after Cramer.’

O’Riordan’s eyes narrowed and he clicked his tongue. ‘Remember what I said before. You’ll need to clear it first.’

‘I know.’

‘How are you going to get to Dublin?’

Lynch grinned. ‘I was hoping I could borrow the Landrover. You’ll be in the truck, right?’

O’Riordan chuckled. ‘You’ll do anything to avoid work, won’t you?’

‘Come on, Pat, it’s all downhill from now on. The hard work’s over. It’s not like it was in the old days — the border’s no barrier at all any more. You can do it with your eyes closed. And the Quinn boys can do all the carrying for you.’

O’Riordan climbed down out of the back of the truck. ‘Aye, go on then, you soft bastard.’

As Lynch was driving off in the Landrover, he saw Davie and Paulie shovel the last of the earth into the hole. Paulie threw down his spade and showed his palms to his elder brother, obviously complaining about his blisters.

The tailor arrived just as Cramer and the Colonel were finishing their breakfast, bustling into the room as if he was behind schedule. ‘Good morning, good morning,’ he said. He was carrying two large Samsonite suitcases and he grunted as he swung them onto the far end of the table which the two men were using.

‘Voila!’ he said, opening the cases with a flourish.

‘Voila?’ repeated Cramer, amused by the portly man’s enthusiasm.

The tailor paid him no attention and began dropping brown paper parcels onto the table. ‘Shirts, white, double cuffs. Shirts, polo. Underwear, boxers, a variety of colours. Socks, black. Ties, a selection, all silk of course.’

‘Of course,’ repeated Cramer.

‘Slacks, brown. Slacks, khaki. Slacks grey.’ He held up a paper bag like a conjurer producing a rabbit from his top hat. ‘Accessories. Belts, cufflinks, I took the liberty of including a selection of tie pins.’ The tailor looked at the Colonel. ‘I would prefer to make some adjustments to the suits and the overcoat if we have time,’ he said. ‘I could have them back here tomorrow morning. It’s not essential but. .’ He gave a small shrug.

The Colonel nodded. ‘Tomorrow will be fine.’

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the tailor. He produced a suit and held it out to Cramer.

Cramer nodded. ‘Looks great,’ he said.

The tailor tut-tutted impatiently. ‘Try it on, please,’ he said.

Cramer did as he was told, then stood stock still as the tailor fussed around him, making deft marks on the material with a piece of chalk and scribbling into his notebook. Cramer tried on the three suits, then the cashmere overcoat, and the tailor spirited them back into the cases.

‘So, I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow,’ the tailor said to the Colonel. He disappeared out of the dining hall as quickly as he’d appeared.

‘Does he do your suits?’ Cramer asked the Colonel.

‘I couldn’t afford his prices,’ said the Colonel with a tight smile.

Cramer refilled his tea from a large earthenware pot. Mrs Elliott brewed her tea in the army style, piping hot and strong, and for all he knew, with a dollop of bromide thrown in for good measure. ‘This guy I’m standing in for,’ he said. ‘When do I find out about him? I don’t even know who he is.’

‘One step at a time, Joker. First I want you to know what you’re up against.’

‘I think I’ve got a good idea.’

‘That’s as maybe, but I’d like you to read through all the files before we move on to the next stage. And there are a few more tests.’

‘Medical?’

‘No. I’m bringing in an instructor from Training Wing.’

‘Anyone I know?’

The Colonel smiled thinly. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been away a long time.’

Seth Reed brought the car to a halt by a gap in the hedgerow. He turned around and nodded at his son. ‘There you are,’ he said.

‘A field?’ said Mark, his face screwed up in disgust.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Reed. ‘Would you rather wait until we get to Dundalk?’

‘I can’t wait,’ said Mark, reaching for the door handle.

‘Watch out for the rats,’ warned Reed.

Mark’s hand froze in mid-air. ‘Rats?’

‘As big as cats. Mrs Mcgregor told us about them.’

Mark looked at his mother.

‘Your father’s joking,’ said Kimberlee. ‘It’s his sick sense of humour.’

Mark opened the car door and looked at the thick grass running along the hedgerow.

‘Go on, kiddo. I was joking.’

‘You’re sure?’ asked Mark, still not convinced.

‘Cross my heart.’

Mark slid out of the car and walked gingerly over the damp grass, through the gap in the hedge and into the field. ‘Shouldn’t you go with him?’ asked Kimberlee.

‘What? With rats as big as cats out there?’

‘I just thought. .’

‘Honey, this is Ireland. We’re in the middle of nowhere. He’s hardly likely to get mugged in a field, is he?’

Kimberlee pouted. Reed gave it a five full seconds before opening the door and following his son. He knew from experience that the pout was only the first weapon in his wife’s impressive armoury. It was always less painful to concede early on. ‘Thanks, honey,’ she called after him.

Davie Quinn crashed the truck into gear and bumped along the rutted track. Pat O’Riordan put a hand onto the dashboard to steady himself. ‘Easy, Davie,’ he said. ‘Take it slowly. We’re in no rush. Remember what we’ve got in the back.’

‘Okay. Sorry.’ Davie’s face reddened.

‘Just be grateful we don’t have the Semtex on board,’ said O’Riordan. He chuckled. ‘You okay back there, Paulie?’ he called.

Paulie Quinn was in the back, making sure that the weapons didn’t shift around too much. ‘Yeah. No problem.’

Davie guided the truck off the track and onto the narrow road that ran between the fields. O’Riordan looked at his watch. ‘Are we late?’ asked Davie, clearly anxious.

O’Riordan smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm. He was so eager to please that it was almost painful. ‘A bit, but nothing to worry about.’ O’Riordan wasn’t worried in the least about crossing the border into the South. Since the ceasefire all the roads linking the Republic with Northern Ireland had been reopened and the border posts dismantled. There were no longer any soldiers checking vehicles and it was now as easy to drive across the border as it was to drive from London to Manchester.

‘What happens to the stuff we left behind?’ asked Davie.

‘It’ll be called in after a few days. Give the weather a chance to obliterate the evidence. The organisation is preparing to hand over more than a dozen arms stockpiles to the authorities as a sign of good faith.’

‘But we hold on to the good stuff, right?’

O’Riordan winked. ‘You got it.’

Seth Reed stood by the hedgerow as he waited for his son to finish going to the toilet. The South Armagh scenery was breathtaking: rolling hills, the forty-shades of green his travel agent had promised, even the cloying mist had an ethereal quality that softened the colours and gave the view the feel of a hastily-painted watercolour. It was hard to believe that until recently the area had been one of the most dangerous in the world, where British troops had to be ferried about in helicopters because they faced death and injury if they dared to venture on foot.

When his wife had first suggested they spend their vacation touring Ireland he’d been reluctant. Her family originally came from the Republic and she was keen to go back to her roots and to get a feel for the country her ancestors had left almost a century earlier, but Reed believed that it was still too early, that the peace had yet to prove that it was a lasting one. She’d pouted, and had talked the travel agent into calling him direct. The travel agent had been persuasive, he’d even joked that the Reeds would be safer in Ireland than virtually anywhere in the States, and that the biggest danger they’d face would be hangovers from the Guinness. Between them, Kimberlee and the travel agent had talked Reed into it, and after a week in the country Reed was glad that they’d come: there were relatively few tourists around, the roads were a joy to drive on, and the people were unfailingly friendly and welcoming. When he got back to the States, he was definitely going to recommend the Emerald Isle to his friends. A few spots of rain splattered on his jacket and when he looked up more fell on his face. ‘Come on, Mark,’ he called. ‘It’s raining.’

Mark appeared from behind a bush, wiping his hands on his knees.

‘Okay?’ said Reed.

‘Sure,’ said Mark. They went back to the car together. ‘Can I sit in the front, Dad?’

‘Ask your Mom.’

Kimberlee agreed. She climbed out of the car and got into the back while Reed started the engine. The only thing he’d disliked about the trip so far was the choice of rental car which the travel agent had booked. It was a four door but it wasn’t an automatic and it had none of the extras that Americans take for granted, such as airbags and air-conditioning.

Mark climbed into the seat vacated by his mother. Reed tried to get the windscreen wipers going but he pushed the wrong control lever and his turn indicator went on instead. He switched the turn indicator off and fumbled with the windscreen wiper lever as he accelerated. ‘Seatbelt, honey,’ chided Kimberlee behind him. ‘That goes for you too, Mark.’

Reed gripped the steering wheel with his right hand as he groped for the seatbelt buckle. The rain got suddenly heavier, obscuring his vision. He’d only put the windscreen wipers on intermittent, he realised.

‘Honey, you’re on the wrong side of the road,’ said Kimberlee.

Reed cursed himself under his breath. He was always forgetting that the Irish, like the Brits, insisted on driving on the left. He let go of the seatbelt buckle and reached for the windscreen wiper controls as he twisted the steering wheel to the right. The wipers came on, sweeping the water off the windscreen. It was only then that he saw the truck heading right for them. In the back, Kimberlee screamed.

O’Riordan didn’t see the white car until they were almost upon it, careering across the road as if the driver had lost control. Davie Quinn banged on the horn and slammed on his brakes, but O’Riordan felt the big truck start to slide on the wet tarmac. He grabbed for the steering wheel.

‘It’s okay, I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’ Davie shouted.

Despite Davie’s protests, O’Riordan could see that the truck was heading for the car. He pulled harder on the wheel, trying to get the truck over to the left, out of the car’s way. The road was narrow; there was barely enough space for the two vehicles even if they’d been driving perfectly straight. With the car in the middle of the road, a collision was inevitable.

O’Riordan saw the driver, a middle-aged man with greying hair, wrestling with his steering wheel. He glimpsed a child in the front passenger seat, his mouth open in terror. Then there was a dull crump and the car spun away to the right, the windscreen shattered.

Davie was shouting but O’Riordan couldn’t make out what he was saying as the offside wheels of the truck left the tarmac. Wet branches slapped across the windscreen and the truck tilted sharply to the left. The truck was half off the road and the tyres on the grass verge gripped harder than those on the wet tarmac, so the more Davie braked, the more the truck veered to the left. The steering wheel twisted out of Davie’s hands. O’Riordan felt his seatbelt dig into his chest and the truck bucked and reared and slammed through the hedge. O’Riordan pitched forward, his knees thumping into the dashboard, his arms flailing with the impact. Suddenly everything went still.

O’Riordan shook his head. The seatbelt was tight up against his neck making it hard to breathe, and he felt around for the buckle. He found it and unclipped the belt, gasping for air as the nylon strap went slack. He rubbed his throat and looked across at Davie, who was hunched forward over the steering wheel. O’Riordan shook him by the shoulder. ‘Davie?’ he said.