McGurk looked stunned. “It can’t be.”

“Oh yes it can, old son,” Dillon told him, bringing up the Browning and firing through the open door, knocking McGurk on his back, then swinging and shooting the man beside him through the head.

The man at the wheel of the Rover pulled forward, drew a pistol and fired through the open passenger window, then put his head down and took off. Dillon fired twice at him, shattering the rear window, but the Rover turned the corner and was gone.

There was quiet, except for the steady splashing of the rain. Dillon walked round to the two men he had shot and examined them. They were both dead. There was a burst of Armalite fire from somewhere above. As he ducked, an engine roared and the motorcycle he had noticed earlier passed him, sliding sideways on the cobbles.

As it came to a halt, he saw the black-suited rider raise some sort of weapon. He recognized the distinctive muted crack of a silenced AK- 47. A man fell from a platform high up in a warehouse on the other side of the street and bounced on the pavement. The rider raised an arm in a kind of salute and rode off.

Dillon stood there for only a moment, then got in behind the wheel of his car and drove away, leaving the carnage behind him.

He parked near the warehouse with the sign Murphy & Son, where he had first met Daley. As he turned the corner, he saw the Rover at the curb. The big man, Jack Mullin, was standing by the Judas gate, peering inside. As Dillon watched, Mullin went into the warehouse.

Dillon followed, opening the gate cautiously, the Browning ready. He could hear Jack Mullin’s agitated voice. “He’s dead, Curtis, shot twice in the back.”

Dillon moved quickly toward the office, the door of which stood open. He was almost there when Mullin turned and saw him. “It’s Friar,” he said and reached inside his coat.

Dillon shot him, knocking him back against the desk. He slumped to the floor and Daley got to his feet, total panic on his face.

“No Daniel Quinn,” Dillon told him. “Naughty, that, and you made another mistake. It’s not Barry Friar, it’s Sean Dillon.”

“Dear God!” Daley said.

“So let’s get down to business. Quinn – where is he?”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s more than my life is worth.”

“I see.” Dillon nodded. “All right, I want you to watch something.” He reached and pulled Mullin up a little. The big man moaned. “Are you watching?” Dillon asked and shot him through the heart.

“No, for God’s sake no!” Daley cried.

“You want to live, then you’ll tell me where Quinn is.”

“He’s on his way to Beirut,” Daley gabbled. “ Francis Callaghan’s been there for a while setting up a deal. Some Arab group called The Party of God and the KGB are going to start supplying us.”

“With arms?”

Daley shook his head. “Plutonium. Daniel says we’ll be able to cause the biggest bang Ireland ’s ever seen. Really show those Fenian bastards we mean business.”

“I see. And where does all this take place?”

“I don’t know.” Dillon raised the Browning and Daley screamed. “It’s the truth, I swear it. Daniel said he’d be in touch. All I know is Callaghan is staying at a hotel called Al Bustan.”

He was obviously telling the truth. Dillon said, “There, that wasn’t too hard, old son, was it?”

He raised the Browning very quickly and shot him between the eyes, tumbling him back out of the chair, then he turned and walked away.

No more than a mile away from Garth Dock where the shootings had taken place, the motorcycle turned into a narrow side street and entered a yard, driving straight into an open garage. Professor Tom Curry closed and barred the gate to the street, then went into the garage. The black-clad rider pushed the motorcycle up on its stand, then turned and took off the helmet.

Grace Browning smiled, pale and excited. “Quite a night. A good job. I was there.”

She unzipped her leather jacket and took out the AK-47, butt folded.

“What happened?” Curry asked.

“They’d set him up. Quite a man, our Mr. Dillon. He killed two and shot up the second car. They had an extra man up on a platform with an Armalite. He tried to shoot Dillon, I shot him. End of story, so I cleared off.”

She was taking off the leathers as she spoke, revealing jeans and a jumper. She draped the leathers over the motorcycle.

“Just leave everything,” Curry told her. “Belov’s people will clear up.”

“You’ve got my bag?”

“Sure.” He handed her a hold-all and she opened it and took out a light raincoat.

“The car’s parked not too far away in the main road,” he told her as he opened the side gate and left the yard.

“Do we claim credit for January 30 on this?” Curry asked.

“Well, we’re entitled to one, so why not the lot? Somehow I don’t think Dillon and the Prime Minister’s private army would be happy to go public.”

“Right. I’ll phone the news desk at the Belfast Telegraph.”

“Good.” She checked her watch. “Just after seven. We’ll have to hurry. Curtain up at eight.”

The Lear Jet with two RAF pilots at the controls climbed steadily after lifting from Aldergrove, leveling off at thirty thousand feet. Hannah Bernstein sat on one side of the aisle facing Dillon, who sat on the other. He found the drawer containing the bar box, the thermos of hot water. He made coffee for her and tea for himself, then took a miniature of Scotch from the selection of drinks provided and poured it into his tea. He drank it slowly and lit a cigarette.

All this had been done in silence. Now he spoke. “You haven’t said much.”

“It’s a lot to take in. Plutonium? Do they mean it?”

“It’s been available on the black market in Russia for a while now. It was always only a matter of time before some terrorist group or other had a go.”

“God help us all.” She sighed. “Anyway, how about you? Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Who do you think it was on the motorcycle?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, but they saved my bacon, as we used to say in County Down.”

“I wonder what gave you away?”

“Oh, that was me. I told Daley I’d known of Quinn when he was on the run in Londonderry, but Quinn used an alias there. Frank Kelly. I wanted to draw their fire.”

She shook her head. “You’re quite mad, and this man Mullin and Curtis Daley. Did you have to kill them?”

“It’s the business we’re in, girl dear. Twenty-five years of war.”

“And for many of those years you fought for the IRA yourself.”

“True. I wasn’t much more than a boy when my father was killed by British soldiers. Joining made sense to me then, but the years go by, Hannah, long, weary years of slaughter, and to what end? That was then and this is now. Something clicked in my head one day. Put it any way you want.” He found himself another miniature of Scotch. “As for Daley, three months ago he and Quinn stopped a truckload of Catholic roadworkers at Glasshill. Lined them up on the edge of a ditch, all twelve of them, and machine-gunned them.”

“So an eye for an eye?”

He smiled gently. “Straight out of the Old Testament. I’d have thought a nice Jewish girl like you would have approved.” He reached for the phone. “And now I’d better report in on the secure line. Ferguson always likes to hear bad news as soon as possible.”

It was no more than an hour and a half later that Ferguson was ushered into the Prime Minister’s study at Downing Street. Simon Carter and Rupert Lang were already seated.

“You used words like urgent and gravest national importance, Brigadier, so what have you got for us?” John Major demanded.

So Ferguson told them in finest detail. When he was finished, there was silence. It was Rupert Lang who spoke first.

“How extraordinary that January 30 have claimed responsibility.”