The Glory Boys

ELEVEN

From behind the driving wheel Elkin watched Mackowicz emerge from the doorway of the flats carrying the professor's case, and a few steps behind him came Sokarev and his wife. He saw the scientist kiss his wife hard on both cheeks and cling to her for several seconds before breaking away and almost run to the car door Mackowicz had opened for him. She stood and waved long after the car had gone away up the road, but through his mirror Elkin could see that the passenger in the back never turned his head. The face behind was taut, stretched with emotion, that much Elkin could see before he settled into the long, winding road to Ben Gurion Airport.

There was little talk during the journey: Mackowicz tried several times to get conversation going, but was rebuffed by Sokarev. By the time they were through Kiryat Gat, nearly half-way there, he had given up and sat quietly beside Elkin, leaving the passenger to whatever thoughts with which he cared to occupy himself.

The two security men were not unused to this. It was frequent that men who required bodyguard protection should resent the presence of those sent to ensure their safety. If the man didn't want to talk then that was his concern, thought Mackowicz; he and Elkin had enough to concern themselves with.

They had been out of Israel on this duty before, but always in a bigger team, once with the then Prime Minister Golda Meir, when the detail had been nine men, once with Abba Eban in his days as Foreign Minister, when there had been four others. This was a different situation — just the two of them, which made their success or failure more dependent on the effectiveness of forces completely outside their control. In particular, when they had travelled with the Prime Minister they had been in sufficient numbers to organize a complete security screen around their charge.

They had not been obliged to rely on the departments of the countries they visited. But when they were simply a pair they would be forced to accept the guidance and knowledge of the British police. It was not the way they liked to operate.

Their selection for the task of watching over the small, stout man who slumped across the back seat of the car was no accident. Both were expert shots with hand guns, and both were thorough and painstaking. When the threat had become known they had been the two obvious choices.

The Head of the Protection Division of the Foreign Ministry had had no doubts that among the men under his control Mackowicz and Elkin were the most efficient and professional. They travelled light, just two canvas bags in the boot alongside the professor's larger bag. They contained a few changes of clothes, while the suits they wore in the car would see them through the public functions. In one bag were the files, marked 'secret', that contained all the available Israeli intelligence information on the threat, and a complete dossier on Sokarev from his blood group to details of his family and his financial arrangements. In the other bag, wrapped in shirts, were the personal two-way radios that would be modified to the wavelengths of the Israeli embassy by the resident communications and wireless expert, and the issued firearms.

They had left at seven and turned into the driveway of the airport seventy-five minutes later, which left them a little over an hour before take-off. Sokarev could sense that the two men in the front of the car understood his hostility to them. He was dominated by feelings of isolation and loneliness, and an inability to communicate with the two men with him. They were so much younger, so assured. There was nothing to talk to them about, no mutual point of sympathy. Killers, he decided: so how different were they to the men who awaited him — if the fears were true? Cloaked in legality, given the seal of approval, how much were they separated from the terrorists? Both groups killed from a sense of duty, both acted without hesitation, ferret-fast. He recognized that he was afraid of the men he had been given as travel companions.

Only the gun could give him confidence, his own gun, the unused Mauser, and that was a step into their world, one with which he could never sympathize, barely understand.

It rested in his coat pocket, beside his spectacle case, awkward, forcing out the material of the jacket, the single magazine in his inside breast pocket placed within the fold of his wallet.

The baggage check took half an hour. Thirty minutes of shuffling the cases forward inch by inch as he stood behind a crocodile of blue-rinsed lady tourists who even at that early stage of the morning were strident in their retelling of alimony suits, lost husbands and necessary hysterecto-mies. He was surprised he was not taken through a side door and spared the routine, but neither Mackowicz nor Elkin made any move to suggest that that were possible.

When they came to the young man in the orange jerkin who was searching the cases it was only Sokarev's that was opened. When it had been checked, closed again, and scribbled on with chalk his bodyguards produced their identity cards, exchanged a quiet word with the airport security man, and were allowed on their way to the ticket desk. Sokarev felt the indignity, near-humiliation of it.

Elkin saw the chin jutting out and the thin-lipped anger of his mouth, and said — not with pomposity but a degree of kindness — it's routine, Professor Sokarev. It's nothing personal about you. All passengers are searched. All, that is, except us. We carry papers and equipment. Perhaps it would not be suitable for those to be seen by others standing in a line. So we go through. If it is of comfort to you we are all searched when we leave Heathrow.'

Sokarev fumbled for a reply, unnerved by the accuracy with which the other had interpreted his thoughts.

From the ticket desk the three of them walked toward the staircase that led to the departure lounge. Sokarev noticed now that Mackowicz was to his right, Elkin to the left. Not out of my own country, and already they have taken up their positions, he thought, leading me like a prisoner under escort. They dwarfed him, eyes already watchful and rotating through an arc. Elkin's jacket was buttoned, and Sokarev could see the bulging shape of a strap-fastened holster. They went through passport control, the official barely looking up as he flicked through the passports, stamped them and handed them back.

Elkin said, 'You have to go through the body search now, Professor. We again are excused that. We will collect you on the far side.'

In front was a long row of curtain-fronted cubicles where from time to time a young man or woman, also in an orange jerkin, would appear. Like a whore waiting for trade, thought Sokarev. And the next customer would step inside and the curtain would be drawn back. Once a man, swarthy in complexion, was led back out of the cubicle, his face betraying self-consciousness as he walked in his stockinged feet, the security man behind him holding his shoes outstretched, as they went to the counter that contained the X-ray equipment.

It was the embarrassment on the face of the victim that jolted Sokarev's mind to the weight in his pocket. It was a situation he had not considered. He had not thought out how he would carry the Mauser on board the aircraft; he had vaguely presumed that his escorts would be with him, and would see it as a fait accompli, looked pained for a moment, perhaps have shrugged, and allowed him to carry on. The curtain was opened again, the man gestured him to come forward.

He stood with his legs apart and arms outstretched shoulder high. There was fear now. Fear of discovery. The fear that comes to a small boy caught stealing, found playing truant away from school. The hands started at his collars, feeling under the material, tested the area under his armpits, loitered for a moment on the shape of his wallet in the breast pocket. Sokarev thought he was going to be sick. He watched as the wallet was taken out and opened. The magazine lay there, pristine, unbelonging among his papers. The security man stiffened, set his face, muscles tensed on the top of his wrists.

'Do you have a pistol to go with this ammunition?' said the security man evenly.

Sokarev nodded, in the pocket,' he said, still keeping his hands out. The hands found the Mauser there, with-drew it sharply. There was a moment when the security man's eyes were off him as he checked the breech of the pistol, assuring himself it was not loaded.

'I am Professor David Sokarev. I am a nuclear scientist.

My work is at Dimona. My flight is to Europe… ' Waves of wretchedness overcame him, and his voice tailed away.

His eyes were now fixed on the floor, not caring to see the keen gaze of the man who stood close to him in the cubicle.

When he had collected himself sufficiently he went on, his speech barely audible. 'There are two men from the Foreign Ministry travelling with me. They are to guard me. They are waiting on the far side. I had not told them that I was taking the weapon.'

Ten minutes after they had taken Sokarev to the offices of the security department of the airport Mackowicz was shown in. His face was controlled, betraying no emotion, and he spoke in a huddle with the senior officer there. He never looked once at the Mauser that lay on the desk, the single rectangular magazine beside it. Whatever business was conducted Sokarev took no part in it. Then Mackowicz walked to the door, opened it and waited for the scientist to go through. When they were alone in the concourse Mackowicz said, it was unwise of you to try to take the gun through. There is an important thing that we must now establish. Neither my colleague or myself would consider ourselves fit to make judgements on your work, at which you are an expert. We expect that you would treat us with similar generosity. We do not expect you to make judgements on security matters. If you have no confidence in Elkin and myself you are at liberty, as you have been since we got to Dimona, to telephone to Jerusalem and explain your objections to our superiors.'

The voice scythed through Sokarev's defences. He shook his head, staggered now by his own stupidity.

'I am sorry,' he said, it has been a great strain, since you came to see me.'

'We are responsible for your security. We have the right to demand your full co-operation. There will be no repetitions of this situation. Not when you are in our care.'

Sokarev's head was down on his chest as he shambled after his captor towards the lounge seat where Elkin sat.

The three men sat in total silence till the flight was called, the guards reading newspapers, the professor staring emptily through the windows and out on to the tarmac. He felt he wanted to discard the whole journey, go home to his wife and to his laboratory and shut out for ever the nightmare world of guns, searches and terrorists. When the flight was called Mackowicz was up first, athletically rising on to the balls of his feet, then he bent down and took the professor's arm and helped him out of the low leather seat.

Elkin said, 'I think we should remember, Professor, that we are going to be together for some time now. Whatever has happened is in the past. It should not linger on.' And he smiled. Sokarev attempted again an apology, but Elkin shook his head. it is in the past. Forgotten.'

They walked together down the steps, and past the young soldier who wore an automatic rifle slung across his shoulders, and out into the blazing heat of an August morning in Israel. The sun beat into Sokarev's eyes, causing him to pull the lids together to keep out the very brightness that sprang up at him from the tarmac. Away to the front, acting as a giant reflector, was the 747 Boeing jet, its white underbelly and roof gleaming in the harsh light. There is no going back now, thought the scientist.

There is no escape. Whatever happens now it is out of my control.

Sokarev mounted the steps to the plane. Mackowicz and Elkin were a pace behind him.

Along the corridor from the control room, and high in the Scotland Yard tower block, they had taken over the main lecture theatre for the Monday briefing of all those detectives and senior uniformed officers involved in the hunt for McCoy and his colleague and in the protection of David Sokarev.

Jimmy sat at the back, far behind the rows of neatly-clipped necks, looking down on the proceedings. If anyone had turned to watch him they would have detected a faintly bored, disinterested face — that of a man who has been through it all before. Not that Jimmy ever felt totally at ease in the company of policemen. And they didn't react well to the presence alongside them of what was virtually a freelance operator, unconditioned to their code of discipline and their rule books.

The details read out concerning the timings and locations of the visit failed to hold his attention. A big man in uniform did the talking. Like evidence in a dangerous driving case, thought Jimmy. Solid, monotonous, dull.

Never make it on the stage, you won't, brother. Drawing on the blackboard isn't much better. All those lovely coloured chalks. How they adore it, like dressing up for the pantomime. Green lines and red circles and blue crosses.

What a way to go to war. Has McCoy got a big map, does he stick his finger in it like bloody Rommel? Can't fight these bastards with maps and diagrams, old soldier.

Looks good, sounds good, doesn't work that way. There's only one place you'll get Master McCoy and his little friend, and that's beside Sokarev. That's the only place those bastards will show. Wasting your time with all the motorcades and all the escort riders. Doesn't happen there.

Happens when he's on the pavement or at the speech.

Stands to reason, if you're planning a show like this for a dozen weeks, you're not going to risk everything on the off-chance you might manage a pot shot during a caval-cade. And when the old drone had finished, time then to get up to the university, and have a look, and come back via the hotel, and still have some minutes to spare before the plane arrived. Should have done the reconnaissance yesterday, Jimmy-lad, not been in that boozer half the afternoon. Should have given the place the look-over, not a thing that ought to be done in a hurry. Should have been thought out, Jimmy.

He knew it, didn't have to argue the toss about it, and comforted himself only with the thought that he would be close to Sokarev. Human wall, and no pension rights. But perhaps it was a safe old number, for all that. Whoever heard of the bodyguard catching it? JFK, RFK, right down to Faisal; all had the detail round them, who lived to file the reports on what went wrong, and still had time to go to the funeral.

Forty men in the room, all of them brass, and how many taking orders… another three hundred, four hundred?

And they're just two. What real chance have they got?

That was where Jimmy's thoughts came to a stop. Below him, pinned to the side of the blackboard, were the pictures, McCoy's and the man whose name they still searched for. Nasty, rough bastards, Jimmy said to himself, very hard, very serious people. And what do we have against them? This crowd, dragged in from murder inquiries, bank robberies and demonstrations on Sunday afternoons in Trafalgar Square. His eye rolled around the room. Many of the officers were taking notes, all listened intently, following the speaker as he took them slowly through the maps and diagrams. If these two bastards decide to come in close, thought Jimmy, then this lot'll find themselves in a different league. They'll wish they'd never got out of bed.

The big jet had swung out over the sea, deep and distant beneath them. Sokarev saw the beach at Herzliya, could make out the people on the sand who looked up at the wallowing giant as it surged toward its cruising altitude.

Four and a half hours would take them to London, thirty-one-thousand feet and a cruising speed of six hundred miles an hour, hurtling across the Mediterranean, then the Italian coast and the huge expanse of France before the descent and the shore-line of Britain.

Elkin sat beside the window, his charge beside him, and then Mackowicz in the aisle seat. Sokarev dozed till Mackowicz's voice overrode the hazy thoughts he was entertaining, and he opened his eyes. The man talking to his guard was like a replica, thought the scientist. Same assurance, strength, poise and ease of movement. And wearing the same heavy jacket, even in the sweat-making atmosphere of the cabin, to hide his gun from the sensibilities of the passengers.

Mackowicz turned to Sokarev. 'We used to work together, this layabout, Elkin and I. Then he took the easy life. He just flies with the airline. Logs more hours than the pilots.'

Sokarev said, 'I did not know that you people were on board…'

'Two, sometimes four. Always two. We have no option.

The orders are very clear. Our planes are not to fly to Arab countries. If there is a hi-jack attempt all you can do is shoot, and hope.'

'And the pressurization, what if that is broken?'

'The pilot will dive. He will try and throw the terrorist off balance. He will also attempt to get below ten thousand feet. If he is unsuccessful and there is a fracture then there is a disaster — nothing he can do. So he falls for two reasons: to get below the pressurization problem but also to confuse the man or woman, give us time to act. It has all been practised.'

'And the passengers, what of them?' asked Sokarev, impatience in his voice. if they are Israelis they will understand. If they are not

… then they use another airline.'

'But the guns you have. The moment you fire you will puncture the fuselage.'

'The bullets are restricted velocity. You need have no fears, Professor, it has all been worked out.'

So they were at war. Even in the womb-like casing of the airliner they were in a state of conflict. Not great armies, just tiny fragments of platoons. But just as lethal, just as capable of inflicting misery as the big battalions.

Sokarev reflected that the front line was now under two hours away. It might be in a car on a three-lane motorway into the capital, it might be the pavement outside a hotel, it might be a lecture hall packed with distinguished academics. It was a new war as unfamiliar to him as it was commonplace to the men who now rested, their eyes closed, mouths sagging in relaxation, on either side of his seat.

Jones was a long time staring down at the twin pictures that lay on his cluttered desk. They'd found their way to the top of the pile of files and maps of central London, and the plan of the university complex and the surrounding streets. He supposed he was expected to loathe the pair, have a great and consuming hatred of them, but it never worked that way. Before they'd pushed him into 'Middle East' he'd laboured for a dozen years on the Soviet Bloc (Czechoslo-vakia) desk — where the then DG said the real work was done. Not hard to remember the attache, trade of some description, that they'd picked up after months of trailing and surveillance. Was reckoned to have been a big man -

'incalculable damage to the national interest' was what the judge had said — but he hadn't seemed that formidable in the interview room of the police station they'd taken him to after the lift. Rather ordinary, more anxious that someone should give him a cigarette than anything else. Hadn't said anything, of course, just smiled at their questions in an apologetic way, embarrassed that they had to play such games. The Section had used a major manpower quota to track him, classified it as a 'priority' operation, and Jones was one of those closely involved. Afterwards it was just anti-climax, unimportant, devoid of stimulus.

He wondered how much different he'd find McCoy and his friend, whether they'd be any more fearsome face to face than the quiet little man from Prague. McCoy was easier to evaluate; his photograph had been taken in custody and his eyes and mouth showed all the aggressiveness of a trapped man. But the other picture, that was the one that held Jones's interest. Quite a pleasant mouth the Photofit and the artist had given him, and eyes that were large and not set with fear. Hard to see him as something special, something to be exterminated, because the threat he carried was so contagious. Didn't look like the rabid fox he was categorized as. Just a boy, really, and nothing in his features to betray his potential.

Helen came in, no knock, walked across the room and peered past his shoulder at the pictures.

'Those the clever pair, causing all the fuss?'

'Those are the ones.'

'And you've set the big, bad Jimmy loose after them?'

'Slipped his collar, right.'

'And how good are they, compared with our Jimmy-boy?'

'They'll do all right. They'll give him a good run, he won't have to worry about that. He'll get his full out of them.'

'And then they'll send him home in one piece?'

'Probably,' Jones said. Before she went back to the outer office he saw the whiteness of her cheeks. Should have taken it more gently. But it was the one point that nagged at him, worrying at his composure as to whether Jimmy would beat these two at the close quarters where he was certain they would meet. It was difficult to believe in the danger if he stared at the face with the close mesh of curled hair the police artist and the eye-witnesses had given to it.

To find the real man he had to go to the file, and that was still sparse and without flesh to hang on the skeleton information they had so far accumulated.

He took a drawing pin from his desk drawer and used it to hang the Arab's picture on the wall beside his filing cabinet. Where he could see it at any time he wanted, where he could study it, learn from it, understand it.

The effect on McCoy was less violent than on Famy. The Arab looked with ill-concealed horror at the pictures blazoned across the front pages of the papers. They were standing outside a small newsagent's shop in South West London beside a bus stop where they hoped to board the transport they needed to return to the inner suburbs. The pictures had been blown-up hugely, and in the squat popular papers covered half the front page. There were banner headlines, screaming at them across the pavement:

'The Killers', 'The Most Wanted Men in Britain', 'Have You Seen These Men?'

'Don't bloody gawp at them,' hissed McCoy in Famy's ear. it was that note-book. The one that we left behind, that is where they have taken it from,' said Famy.

'Bullshit. They'll have talked in the commune. Got my name there. That's a Northern Ireland picture of me, taken when I was nicked. They've got an artist to do yours from all the descriptions. It's not particularly good, yours.' it is sufficient for them to discard many men. They have given a height, and a weight, the general detail. Not adequate for a positive identification, but enough to come close. And they have the clothes, the trousers and shirt that we still wear… '

'Get back, can't you? There's no place better for anyone to spot you than if you're pressed tight up against the damn thing.'

'They have no name on me,' Famy said, as he moved away from the shop front and the two men resumed their position at the back of the queue.

Famy felt the uncertainty again that had dogged him throughout his first hours in London. It should not have been happening in this way. They should have been safe and secure in the house, not needing to venture out, dependent on the Irishman for their supplies. There was to have been no question of them hanging about in crowded streets; orders had been specific on that point. Every time a man or woman or child turned to him he imagined the dawning of recognition, and he shuffled his feet, attempting, badly, to maintain a casual, relaxed front. How do people make the recognition? he wondered. How can they translate something so distant from their lives as a wanted picture in a newspaper into the flesh-and-blood beside them on the street? It's a difficult and long step to take, Famy told himself. It would take great certainty, requiring a person to peer again and again to convince himself he were right, and that there was more than similarity with a picture he had merely glanced at.

To McCoy it was a less awesome experience. He was accustomed to having his picture in the front pocket of the bottle-green RUC uniforms and the camouflage tunics of British soldiers. He was familiar with life on the run, avoiding capture under the very eyes of men who had studied his features. But he realized a fundamental danger in their present position. The newspapers put two men together, identified them as a partnership, and that was how they were travelling, in tandem, linked to each other.

But isolated, moving as loners, how much safer they would be. It was turning over in his mind when the single-decker green bus pulled in at the stop, and the queue moved forward. They must separate, but where to? It was easy enough for him, but what to do with the Arab? Couldn't have him wandering the streets solo, insecure and liable to panic. So what to do with him? There was no immediate answer, only a vague plan, slowly taking shape.

McCoy bought the tickets from the bus driver, and they made their way to the back seats where they would be behind the other passengers, where their faces would suffer least exposure. Famy had the grip-bag, containing a selection of both their clothes, and the rifles, magazines and grenades. It was heavy, and the handle straps strained against the metal hoops that held them to the framework of the bag. His own case had been left in the boot of the Escort, packed with some of his own clothes, some of Famy's. The car itself was off the road in the woods that surrounded the Surrey town of Esher. It would be difficult to find, and he had prised off the number plates, throwing them far into the undergrowth. The ground had been hard, the tyre marks slight, and anyway they had brushed the ground with hazel saplings, leaving a light scuff covering the trail of the wheels.

As the bus made its way toward Hampton Court the two men sat in silence, McCoy working on his next move, Famy suffering from the tension of having seen the photograph and the drawings. By the time they had become locked in the traffic flow McCoy spoke, low and direct, talking from the side of his mouth and close to Famy's ear.

'We have to separate today. The danger lies in us being together.'

There was startled surprise on the other's face, the flash in the eyes that suggests the feeling of being betrayed.

McCoy saw it.

'There's nothing for you to worry about. But we have to be apart for today at least. There are eight more hours till darkness, when we should meet again.'

Famy turned his head, the tightly clamped lips giving warning of his suspicion. 'Where would I go? What do I do?' he said.

'I don't know yet. We can talk about it. But we have to get apart. The two of us together is too much of a risk.'

'We could have stayed with the car in the woods…'

McCoy cut into him, anxious lest he should lose control and sacrifice the initiative to the Arab. it would have been possible. But we could not take another car there, and we have to change motors. We have to get a car in the town. In the country they can block you too easily; it would be reported faster.'

Famy did not reply.

'Look, you silly bugger,' McCoy was talking quickly, urgently — 'I've told you I'm in this with you. You don't have to worry. I'm not bolting on you. It's a judgement I've made, and a necessary one. Am I going to ditch on you now? Think about it. After the girl, after taking you to the guns, am I going to bunk out?'

Famy nodded. He was exhausted from four nights without adequate sleep; there was no spirit in him for argument.

'Where do we get off?' the Arab asked.

'Further on there's a town — about another fifteen minutes. There's tubes and trains there, cinemas. Whatever you want.'

'And you, where will you go?'

Famy saw the hesitation, and had the ability to sense a lie.

'I'll just iose myself for a few hours,' McCoy said, 'till the night has gone. Till we can meet up and get a car.'

Again the Arab had no reply. A sense of loneliness and isolation welled up inside him. How far could he trust the Irishman? He was unsure now, certain there was a further reason for the split, certain that he was not being confided in. What could he do? On a bus, where ears would flap and quicken if he raised his voice? He was powerless.

Five stops later McCoy rose out of his seat and went down the length of the aisle. Famy took his cue and followed. Then they were out on the pavement, amid people who hurried past them, intent on their own business. The two men stood for a moment before McCoy saw a tea bar down the road and across the street, and began to walk toward it.

'Just round the corner and up the main street, that's where the cinemas are. There's one there that shows three films, separate theatres, all divided up. That'll lose you for some time, and it's dark in there, you'll be okay. We'll meet back in the tea bar. Eight o'clock. Now don't just walk around, get somewhere like the cinema and bloody-well stay there.'

Famy looked at him as they went in through the door of the cafe, quizzing McCoy with his eyes, searching for the truth of the other man's decision. He found no answer.

When McCoy left the grip-bag and its contents stayed with Famy. 'Safer with you,' he'd said, 'tucked under your legs in the cinema. Out of harm's way, better than me lugging them around.'

He ducked out into the sunlight, and vanished beyond the doorway, hurrying along the pavements, side-stepping to avoid the crowds of lunch-time shoppers. Free of the bugger, he thought to himself. Free at last without the nursemaid millstone round my neck and pulling down.

The relief at being on his own again flowed through him, a river that has broken a dam and finds again the dry stone bed, its expression rampant and without check. He was half-running when he reached the supermarket.

McCoy went inside, through the electrically-controlled glass sliding doors. The cash registers, a bank of them where the girls punched the keys and took the money, were at the far end. He took a basket, put a single bar of chocolate in it, something that would stave off the hurting pain of hunger, and walked down past the stacked counters and shelves to the queue that had formed for the privilege of paying. He watched the girl as she deftly handled the bags and packages and tins, eyes never on the customer she served, always on what she took from the wire baskets and put down on the flat surface beside her, while her hands played the numbers on the machine. Her face was set, expressionless, dedicated to the task of extracting the right money, giving the right change.

When he put the basket down the slim hand was there in an instant, pulling clear the chocolate, while the girl mouthed the amount that showed on her machine, as a tiny row of trading stamps reached out from the mechanism.

'Hello, Norah,' he said, very quietly, conscious of the people behind him bustling and impatient at being delayed.

She looked up at him. There was startled recognition, then fear, like a rabbit's because she was sitting down and he loomed above her. Taut, strained, wide eyes pierced into him. The will to say something but no voice.

'I have to see you.' He angled the words to give the stress of dependence, and waited for her to react.

'What are you doing here?' Bewilderment, but conspiracy also, hushed so that the words would carry no further than the two of them.

'I have to see you,' he repeated the words, only with greater insistence. 'Outside, make an excuse. I have to be with you this afternoon. I'll be outside and waiting.' He put down two ten-pence coins, the amount shown on the cash machine, took the chocolate and walked back out on to the street.

On the far side of the street he waited. Twenty minutes, perhaps, then she was there looking for a gap in the traffic.

Blouse and jeans instead of the overall she wore for her work. Just before she saw the opportunity to cross she looked across to where he stood. His smile was not returned, and then she was concentrating on the cars and the lorries.

He took her hand. Soft, small, fitting inside his fist. He kissed her without pressure on the side of the cheek, and felt her drag herself back from him.

'You didn't tell me inside there. What are you doing here?'

'I've come to see you.' Inadequate, need more than that.

'You've seen the picture. You're in the papers, on the telly.'

'I know.'

'Well, what have you come here for?'

'I wanted to see you, girl. I wanted to be with you. I wanted..' He did not finish. What could he tell her, that he had to get away from it? That he wasn't just a machine, a killing apparatus. That there was a need for a break, to get away from the awfulness of the running, from the concealment and the chase and the ultimate confrontation. There was a girl on the farm near Cully-hanna, and a place in the gorse and bracken on Mullyash Mountain where she would go with him and let him talk to her and love her and relax with her, till the sleep came and the understanding. Then he could go back to his war.

But how to tell the little shop girl from South West London that a man who fights must one time fall asleep in arms that hold no danger? That the time comes when the company of men is repulsive and rejected? Another day beside that bloody man and he'd come to loathe him, not through any fault of the Arab's. McCoy knew there was no fault in him. But it did not lessen the need to escape, and to exist again in the world which he had denied himself.

'I needed to talk to you, somewhere where we could be alone,' he said.

They walked together through the town and into the vast open expanse of the Royal Park. There were roads that cut across the landscape, leaving great segments of virgin ground covered by sprouting grass, and the delicate-shaped fronds of the bracken, where the sun shone down.

And there were woods where the birches and oaks filtered the light and cast a haze of shadow. It was as he had wanted. He had found what he sought.

They went deep into the bracken, along a path used only by the big red deer that scampered and leapt as they approached, making good their escape. He put his coat down on the broken stems and they sat together. There was no horizon beyond the immediate wall of green that surrounded them, hiding them from all eyes. McCoy sank on to his back, reaching up with his arms and pulling the girl down on to his chest. Her head rested underneath his chin, and against his mouth he could feel the strands of her hair, and there was a scent to them, freshly washed and clean. They lay there a long time, and his thoughts were of the hill farms, and the other girl who was dark and more heavily built and who comprehended the need for release that overwhelmed him, and of the buzzards that would circle and swoop above them across the hills of Armagh County.

It was Norah who broke the spell, it is you they are hunting? It was your picture on the TV that we saw?' Frightened, small voice, and his dreaming reply failed to take her fear away. it was me. I'm the one they're looking for. They're a long way behind me, and they won't find me.'

'But you killed a girl, strangled her, that's what it said.'

'What do you want me to say? What do you want me to pretend?' He rolled over on to his stomach, and leant on one bent elbow above her, his free hand in her hair, stroking, caressing it into shapes, it has nothing to do with your life. It is something separate. I won't tell you I didn't, and you wouldn't believe me if I did. There's nothing I can say, nothing you should know.'

His hand came down from her hair, and a fingernail flicked carelessly at the plastic buttons of her blouse, held by frail cotton to the material. He saw the tears coming, the tightening of the muscles close to her eyes and the reflection from the moisture that ran beside her nose, and found a track that skirted the fullness of her cheek and then was lost on the grass. He came down to her mouth and kissed her, and there was no room for her to back away. She felt her body pressed hard against the unevenness of the ground. And his hands began to go free, and search out the places they quested for. When they had unfastened the clasp behind her back and removed the soft protective covering on her breasts, she put her arms round his neck, and, sobbing, dragged his head close down beside her. She could not account for her actions, could not justify the tenderness with which she ran her hands over the harsh bristles below the hair at the back of his neck, could not reason why she flexed her legs slowly apart in the hope that his hand would find its way. When she opened her eyes his face was very close, and he kissed the lids, closing them, and there was just the darkness and the sensation and the knowledge that the hands were moving again, demanding ownership, seeking new territory. The button slipped loose at the waist of her jeans and she wriggled as his hands eased them below her knees, and still there was the darkness and the desperate requirement for him to move on. He lingered at the scarce-formed line that led down to the gentleness of the soft hair, and she moaned his name without sound into the roughened cheek joined to her own. When he came into her there was pain, and a power she had not known before, and she writhed and tried to escape. But there was only the thrashing, pinioning weight that held her, till at last he sagged, spent and exhausted.

Norah lay on the ground unmoving, the sun playing on her skin, the wind blowing its patterns, while the man beside her slept, his face with the quietness of a child's, the smoothness of his skin broken only by the tramlines worked by the nails of Doris Lang.

From the bank where he had changed a ten-pound travellers' cheque, Famy looked for the red cubicle he now identified as a telephone box. It took him fifteen mnutes and brought him back to the railway station he had walked past when seeking the bank. The bag was heavy, and it was with relief that he dropped it down on to the floor of the box. He closed the door behind him, and felt in his pocket for a two-pence piece. He had no difficulty remembering the number, nor the extension to ask for when the switchboard operator answered. As he had expected, the figures of the extension were given remotely and above the crackle of the connection.

'It's "Mushrooom" here,' Famy said.

There was a scuffling on the line, the sound he recognized as a receiver being placed against the material of a shirt or jacket, and indistinct words spoken into a void.

Clearing the room, thought Famy.

'What is it you wish to say?' the telephone was active again.

'I wanted to know whether there were further orders, whether there were new instructions.' Was that all he had telephoned to discover, when there was no chance of further orders? His tone echoed the hollowness of his request.

'Nothing has come through.'

Famy paused, waiting, wondering what to say. He could not speak of his desolation, his fears, of the horror of seeing his picture in the newspapers.

'Nothing at all? There is no word from home?' Perhaps the man at the embassy sensed something of his feelings, recognized the helplessness of the other.

'There is nothing, but that was not to be expected. It is the style of the leadership to allow a free hand in such matters. Your arrival has been communicated.' There was a sharp click on the line, and the sound for a moment was blanked out. In less than a second it returned, and Famy was able to hear the breathing, regular and unemotional, of the man he spoke to.

'There are difficulties?' it is so confused now. We have lost our place, because of the girl…'

The voice cut in, interrupting. 'There was a clicking noise on the line. We must not speak any more. Ring off, and move away. Do not stay near the telephone. Very briefly, is there anything else?'

Famy was confused. He had heard the noise, but had not interpreted it.

'The Irishman. I do not know at what stage I can trust him, whether I am better on my own. We have the guns now, but…' is there nothing of importance that you have to say? If not, ring off.'

… it is the Irishman. He said we must separate for today…'

'Ring off. And get away from the telephone box. Right away from it.'

The voice was at shouting pitch, and the line went dead, returning to its continual, miasmic purr. The urgency had at last communicated.

Famy picked up the bag and ran from the station hallway.