JACK HIGGINS

TOUCH THE DEVIL

Contents

Title Page Publisher’s Note Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen About the Author Also by Jack Higgins Copyright About the Publisher

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

TOUCH THE DEVIL was first published in the UK by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd in 1982 and in 1983 by Pan Books, but has been out of print for some years.

In 2008, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back TOUCH THE DEVIL for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.

For Margaret Hewitt

Between two groups of men that want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds. I see no remedy except force … It seems to me that every society rests on the death of men.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Vietnam 1968

PROLOGUE

The Medevac helicopter drifted across the delta at a thousand feet, her escort a Huey Cobra gunship keeping station to the left. Rain threatened, the clouds over the jungle in the far distance heavy with it, and thunder rumbled on the distant horizon.

Inside the Medevac, Anne-Marie Audin sat in a corner, eyes closed, her back supported by a case of medical supplies. She was a small, olive-skinned girl with black hair razor-cut close to the skull, a concession to the living conditions of the Vietnam war front. She wore a camouflage jump jacket, unzipped at the front, a khaki bush shirt and pants tucked into French paratroopers’ boots. The most interesting features were the cameras, two Nikons strung around her neck by leather straps; the pouches of the jump jacket contained, not ammunition, but a variety of lenses and dozens of packets of 35 millimetre film.

The young medic squatting beside the negro Crew Chief gazed at her in frank admiration. The first two buttons of the khaki bush shirt were undone, giving a hint, no more, of the firm breasts rising and falling gently as she slept.

‘A long time since I saw anything like that,’ he said. ‘A real lady.’

‘And then some, boy.’ The Crew Chief passed him a cigarette. ‘There’s nowhere that girl hasn’t been. She even jumped with the 503rd Paras at Katum last year. You name it, she’s done it. Life magazine did an article on her six or seven months back. She’s from Paris, would you believe that? And from the kind of family that owns a large slice of the Bank of France.’

The boy’s eyes widened in amazement. ‘Then what in the hell is she doing here?’

The Crew Chief grinned. ‘Don’t ask me, kid. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.’

‘Have you a cigarette? I seem to have run out,’ Anne-Marie said.

Her eyes were greener than anything he had ever seen, the Crew Chief realised that as he tossed a pack across to her. ‘Keep them.’

She shook one out and lit it with an old brass lighter fashioned from a bullet, then closed her eyes again, the cigarette lax in her fingers. The boy had been right, of course. What was she doing here, the girl who had everything? A grandfather who doted on her, one of the richest and most powerful industrialists in France. A father who had survived Indo-China only to die in Algeria, an infantry colonel, five times decorated, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. An authentic hero and just as dead.

Her mother had never recovered from the shock, had died in a car crash near Nice two years later. The thought often crossed Anne-Marie’s mind that perhaps it had been a deliberate turn of the wheel which had taken the Porsche over the edge of that mountain road that night.

Poor little rich girl. Her mouth twisted in a derisory smile, her eyes still closed. The houses, the villas, the servants, the good English schools, and then the Sorbonne; a year of that stifling academic atmosphere had been enough. Not forgetting the affairs, of course, and the brief flirtation with drugs.

It was the camera which had saved her. From her first Kodak at the age of eight, she had had an instinctive genius for photography, which had developed over the years into what her grandfather described as Anne-Marie’s little hobby.

After the Sorbonne, she had made it more than that. Had apprenticed herself to one of the finest fashion photographers in Paris for six months, had then joined Paris-Match as a staff photographer. Her reputation had soared astonishingly within one short year, but it was not enough – not nearly enough – and when she asked to be assigned to Vietnam, they had laughed at her.

So, she had resigned, turned freelance and in a final confrontation with her grandfather, had forced from him a promise to use all his formidable political power to obtain for her the necessary credentials from the Department of Defense. It was a new Anne-Marie he had seen that day: a girl filled with a single-minded ruthlessness which had surprised him. And yet had also filled him with reluctant admiration. Six months, he had said. Six months only, and she had promised, knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that she would break that promise.

Which she did, for when her time was up, it was too late to turn back. She was famous, her material used by every major magazine in Europe and America. Time, Paris-Match, Life, had all clamoured for the exclusive services of this mad French girl who had jumped with the paratroopers at Katum. The girl for whom no assignment was too rough or too dangerous.

Whatever it was she was looking for, she discovered what war was about, at least in Vietnam. No set-piece battles. No trumpets in the wind, no distant drum to stir the heart. It was savage street fighting in Saigon during the Tet offensive. It was the swamps of the Mekong Delta, the jungles of the central highlands. The leg ulcers that ate their way through the bone like acid, leaving scars which would never go away.

Which brought her to today. A morning spent waiting in the rain at Pleikic trying to arrange transportation to Din To until she’d managed to thumb a lift in the Medevac. God, but she was tired – more tired than she had ever been in her life. It occurred to her, that perhaps she’d reached the end of something. She frowned slightly. And then the Crew Chief called out sharply.

He was hanging in the open doorway, pointing to where a flame had soared into the sky a few hundred yards to the east. The Medevac swung towards it and started to go down, followed by the Huey Cobra gunship.

Anne-Marie was on her feet and standing beside the Crew Chief, peering out. There was the burnt-out wreck of a helicopter in a corner of a paddy field, several bodies sprawled beside it. The man who waved frantically from the dyke was in American uniform.

The Medevac went on down, her escort circling warily, and Anne-Marie locked a lens into place on one of her Nikons and started to take pictures one after the other, braced against the Crew Chief’s shoulder.

He turned his head to smile at her once and then, when they were no more than thirty feet up, she realised, with a strange kind of detachment, that the face she was focusing on below was Vietnamese, not American. A couple of heavy machine guns opened up from the jungle fifty yards away and at that range they couldn’t miss.

The Crew Chief didn’t stand a chance, standing in the open door. Bullets hammered into him, punching him back against Anne-Marie who was hurled against the medical supplies. She pushed him to one side and got to one knee. The young medic was huddled in the corner, clutching a bloody arm and as another solid burst of machine gun fire raked the cockpit, she heard the pilot cry out.

She lurched forward, grabbing at a strut for support; at the same moment the aircraft lifted violently and she was thrown out through the open door to fall into the mud and water of the paddy field. The Medevac bucked twenty or thirty feet up in the air, veered sharply to the left and exploded in a great ball of fire, burning fuel and debris scattering like shrapnel.

Anne-Marie managed to stand, plastered with mud, and found herself facing the man on the dyke in American uniform who, she could see now, was very definitely Vietnamese. The rifle he pointed at her was a Russian AK47. Further along the dyke, half a dozen Vietcong in straw hats and black pyjamas climbed from the ditch and moved towards her.

The Huey Cobra swept in, its heavy machine guns kicking dirt along the dyke, driving the Vietcong backwards into the ditch. Anne-Marie glanced up and the gunship hovered; then forty or fifty North Vietnamese regular troops in khaki uniforms appeared from the jungle on the far side of the paddy field and started to fire at the gunship with everything they had. The gunship moved towards them, loosing off its rocket pods, and the Vietnamese beat a hasty retreat back into the jungle. The gunship turned and flew away to the south for perhaps a quarter of a mile, then proceeded to fly around the entire area in a slow circle.

Anne-Marie crouched against the dyke, trying to catch her breath, then stood up slowly. It was very quiet and she looked about her at the carnage, the burnt-out helicopter, the bodies partially covered by mud and water. There was nothing, only desolation on every hand, a great bank of reeds thirty or forty yards away. She was alone at a point of maximum danger in her life, could be saved only by the reinforcements the Huey Cobra would undoubtedly have radioed for. Until then, there was really only one thing she could do.

The Nikons around her neck were plastered with mud. She took another lens from one of the pouches in her jump jacket, and opened a fresh pack of film. She started taking pictures, moving knee-deep through the water, bodies swirling around her, feeling cold, dispassionate, totally detached. And then she turned and found three Vietcong standing fifteen or twenty yards away.

There was a moment of perfect stillness, the grave, oriental faces totally without expression. The one in the centre, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, raised his AK47 and took aim carefully and just as carefully, Anne-Marie raised her Nikon. Death, she thought. The last picture of all. A beautiful boy in black pyjamas. Above their heads, the sky rumbled its thunder, rain falling in a great solid downpour, and there was a cry, high through the rain, strangely familiar. The cry of the Samurai, unafraid and facing fearful odds.

The Vietcong started to turn. Behind them a man erupted from the tall reeds, plunging towards them in a kind of slow motion. Khaki sweatband around his head, camouflage jump jacket festooned with grenades, the M16 rifle in his hands already firing, mouth wide in that savage cry.

She swung the camera in a reflex, kept on filming as he fired from the hip, knocking out one, then two, the M16 emptying as he reached the boy who still fired stubbornly, wide to one side. The butt of the M16 swung in a bone-crushing arc, the boy went down. Her rescuer didn’t even bother to reload, simply grabbed her hand, turned and started to plough back towards the reeds, churning water.

There were voices behind them on the dyke now and more shooting. It was as if she were kicked in the left leg, no more than that, and she went down again. He turned, ramming a clip into the M16, raking the dyke with fire, and he was laughing, that was the terrible thing as she tried to stand and looked up at him. When he reached down and pulled her up, she was aware of an energy, an elemental force such as she had never known. And then she was on her feet and they were into the safety of the reeds.

He had her up on a small mudbank out of the water as he sliced open her khaki pants with a knife and checked the wound.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘Straight through. M1 from the look of it. An AK would have fragmented the bone.’

He expertly strapped a field dressing around the wound, broke open a morphine ampoule and jabbed it into her. ‘You’re going to need that. A gunshot wound never hurts at first. Too much shock. The pain comes later.’

‘First-hand experience?’

He smiled wryly. ‘You could say that. I’d give you a cigarette, but I’ve lost my lighter.’

‘I’ve got one.’

He opened a tin of cigarettes, put two in his mouth and closed the tin carefully. She handed him the brass lighter. He lit the cigarettes, placed one between her lips and examined the lighter closely.

‘7.62mm Russian. Now that is interesting.’

‘My father’s. In August, ’44 he saved a German paratroop colonel who was about to be shot by partisans. The colonel gave him the lighter as a memento. He was killed in Algiers,’ she said. ‘My father. After surviving this place.’

‘There’s irony for you.’ He handed the lighter back to her. She shook her head and for some reason she couldn’t possibly explain, said, ‘No, keep it.’

‘As my memento?’

‘Memento mori,’ she said. ‘We’ll never get out of this place alive.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. That Cobra’s still on station. I’d say the cavalry should arrive within the next twenty minutes, just like Stage Six at MGM. In the nick of time. I’d better let them know they’re not wasting it.’

He took a flare pistol from a side pouch and fired a red flare high into the sky.

‘Couldn’t that be the Vietcong playing games again?’

‘Not really.’ He fired another red flare, then a green. ‘Colours of the day.’

Her leg was just starting to hurt. She said, ‘So now they know where we are, the Vietcong, I mean.’

‘They already did.’

‘And will they come?’

‘I should imagine so.’

He wiped the M16 clean with a rag and she raised the Nikon and focused it. As she discovered later, he was twenty-three and just under six feet in height with good shoulders, the dark hair held back by the sweatband giving him the look of some sixteenth century bravo. The skin was stretched tightly over Celtic cheekbones and a stubble of beard covered the hollow cheeks and strongly pointed chin. But it was the eyes which were the most remarkable feature, grey, like water over a stone, calm, expressionless, holding their own secrets.

‘What are you?’ she said.

‘Airborne Rangers. Sergeant Martin Brosnan.’

‘What happened here?’

‘A bad foul-up is what happened. Those clever little peasants, half our size, who we were supposed to walk all over, caught us very much as they caught you. We were on our way to Din To after being picked up from a routine patrol. Fourteen of us plus the crew. Now there’s only me for certain. Maybe a few out there still alive.’

She took several more pictures and he frowned. ‘You can’t stop, can you, just like the guy said in the article he wrote about you in Life last year. It’s obsessional. Christ, you were actually going to take a picture of that kid as he was about to shoot you.’

She lowered the Nikon. ‘You know who I am?’

He smiled. ‘How many women photographers have made the cover of Time magazine?’

He lit another cigarette and passed it to her. There was something about the voice which puzzled her.

‘Brosnan,’ she said. ‘I’m not familiar with that name.’

‘Irish,’ he said. ‘Well, County Kerry to be exact. You’ll seldom find it anywhere else in Ireland.’

‘Frankly, I thought you sounded English.’

He looked at her in mock horror, ‘My father would turn in his grave and my mother, God bless her, would forget she was a lady and spit in your eye. Good Irish-American, Boston variety. The Brosnans came over during the famine a long time ago, all Protestants, would you believe? My mother was born in Dublin herself. A good Catholic and could never forgive my father for not raising me the same.’

He was talking to keep her mind off the situation, she knew that and liked him for it. ‘And the accent?’ she said.

‘Oh, that’s part acquired by way of the right prep school, Andover in my case, and the right university, of course.’

‘Let me guess. Yale?’

‘My family have always gone there, but I decided to give Princeton a chance. It was good enough for Scott Fitzgerald and I’d pretensions to being a writer myself. Majored in English last year.’

‘So,’ she said, ‘What’s a spoiled preppy brat doing in Vietnam, serving in the ranks in the toughest outfit in the Army?’

‘I often ask myself that,’ Brosnan said. ‘I was going to carry straight on and do my doctorate and then I found Harry, our gardener, crying in the conservatory one day. When I asked him what was wrong, he apologised and said he’d just heard his son, Joe, had been killed in Nam.’ Brosnan wasn’t smiling now. ‘But the real trouble was that there’d been another son called Elie, killed in the Delta the year before.’

There was a heavy silence, the rain flooded down. ‘Then what?’

‘My mother had him in and gave him a thousand dollars. I remember it well because the cashmere and silk jacket I was wearing at the time had cost me eight hundred in Savile Row on a London trip the year before. And he was so damn grateful.’

He shook his head and Anne-Marie said softly, ‘So, you made the big gesture.’

‘He made me feel ashamed, and when I feel, I act. I’m a very existentialist person.’

He smiled again and she said, ‘And how have you found it?’

‘Nam?’ He shrugged. ‘Hell without a map.’

‘But you’ve enjoyed it? You have an aptitude for killing, I think.’ He had stopped smiling, the grey eyes watchful. She carried on, ‘You must excuse me, my friend, but faces you see, are my business.’

‘I’m not so sure about liking it,’ he said. ‘I’m damned good at it, I know that. Out here you have to be if the fellow coming at you has a gun in his hand and you want to get home for Christmas.’

There was silence, a long silence, and then he added, ‘I. know one thing, I’ve had enough. My time’s up in January and that can’t come soon enough for me. Remember what Eliot said about the passage we didn’t take towards the door we never opened into the rose garden? Well, from now on, I’m going to open every door in sight.’

The morphine was really working now. The pain had gone, but also her senses had lost their sharpness. ‘Then what?’ she said. ‘Back to Princeton for that doctorate?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. I’ve changed too much for that. I’m going to go to Dublin, Trinity College. Peace, tranquillity. Look up my roots. I speak a fair amount of Irish, something my mother drummed into me as a kid.’

‘And before that?’ she said. ‘No girl waiting back home?’

‘No more than eighteen or twenty, but I’d rather be sitting at one of those pavement cafes on the Champs Elysée sipping Pernod and you in one of those Paris frocks.’

‘And rain, my friend.’ Anne-Marie closed her eyes drowsily. ‘An absolute necessity. So that we may smell the damp chestnut trees,’ she explained. ‘An indispensable part of the Paris experience.’

‘If you say so,’ he said, and his hands tightened on the M16 as there was a stirring in the reeds close by.

‘Oh, but I do, Martin Brosnan.’ Her voice was very sleepy now. ‘It would give me infinite pleasure to show you.’

‘That’s a date then,’ he said softly and came up on one knee crouching, firing into the reeds.

There was a cry of anguish and then a long burst in reply and something punched Brosnan high in the left side of the chest and he went over backwards across the girl.

She stirred feebly and he came up, firing one-handed at the man who charged through the reeds, that smile on his face again, and as the M16 emptied, he hurled it into the face of the last man, drawing his combat knife, probing for the heart up under the ribs as they went down together.

He lay in the mud for quite some time, holding the Vietcong against him, waiting for him to die and suddenly, two Skyraiders swooped overhead and half a dozen gunships moved in out of the rain, line astern.

Brosnan got up awkwardly and lifted Anne-Marie in his arms, grimacing against the pain. He started to wade through the reeds towards the open paddy field.

‘I told you the cavalry would arrive.’

She opened her eyes. ‘In the nick of time? And then what?’

He grinned. ‘One thing’s for sure. After this, it can only get better.’

Paris 1979

1

A cold wind lifted across the Seine and dashed rain against the windows of the all-night cafe by the bridge. It was a small, sad place, half a dozen tables and chairs, no more, usually much frequented by prostitutes. But not on a night like this.

The barman leaned on the zinc-topped counter reading a newspaper. Jack Corder sat at a table by the window, the only customer, a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties. His jeans, worn leather jacket and cloth cap gave him the look of a night porter at the fish market up the street, which he very definitely was not.

Barry had said eleven-thirty so Corder had arrived at eleven, just to be on the safe side. Now, it was half-past midnight. Not that he was worried. Where Frank Barry was concerned, you never knew where you were, but then, that was all part of the technique.

Corder lit a cigarette and called, ‘Black coffee and another cognac.’

The barman nodded, pushed the newspaper to one side and at that moment the telephone behind the bar started to ring. He answered it at once, then turned enquiringly.

‘Your name is Corder?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It would seem there is a taxi waiting for you on the corner.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘You still wish the coffee and the cognac, Monsieur?’

‘The cognac only, I think.’

Corder shivered for no accountable reason and took the cognac down in one quick swallow. ‘It’s cold even for November.’

The barman shrugged. ‘On a night like this, even the poules stay home.’

‘Sensible girls.’

Corder pushed a note across the table and went out. The wind dashed rain in his face and he turned up the collar of his jacket, ran to the old Renault taxi waiting on the corner, wrenched open the rear door and got in. It moved away instantly and he sank back against the seat. They turned across the bridge and the lights in their heavy glass globes made him think of Oxford with a strange sense of déjà vu.

Twelve years of my life, he thought. What would I have been now? Fellow of Balliol? Possibly even a professor at some rather less interesting university? Instead … But that kind of thinking did no good – no good at all.

The driver was an old man, badly in need of a shave, and Corder was aware of the eyes watching him in the driving mirror. Not a word was said as they drove through darkness and rain, moving through a maze of back streets, finally turning into a wharf in the dock area and braking to a halt outside a warehouse. A small light illuminated a sign which read Renoir & Sons – Importers. The taxi driver sat there without a word. Corder got out, closing the door behind him, and the Renault drove away.

It was very quiet, only the lapping of the water in the basin where dozens of barges were moored. Rain hammered down, silver in the light of the sign. There was a small judas gate in the main entrance. When Corder tried the handle it opened instantly and he stepped inside.

The warehouse was crammed with bales and packing cases of every description. It was dark, but there was a light at the far end and he moved towards it. A man sat at a trestle table beneath a naked bulb. There was a map spread across the table in front of him, a briefcase beside it, and he was making notes in a small, leather-bound diary.

‘Hello, Frank,’ Corder said.

Frank Barry looked up. ‘Ah, there you are, Jack. Sorry to mess you about.’

The voice was good public school English with just a hint of an Ulster inflection here and there. He leaned back in the chair. His blond hair curled crisply, making him look considerably younger than his forty-eight years, and the black Burberry trenchcoat gave him a curiously elegant appearance. A handsome, lean-faced man with one side of his mouth hooked into a slight perpetual half-smile, as if permanently amused by the world and its inhabitants.

‘Something big?’ Corder asked.

‘You could say that. Did you know the British Foreign Secretary was visiting the President at the moment?’

‘Lord Carrington?’ Corder frowned. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Neither does anyone else. All very hush-hush. The new Tory government trying to cement the entente cordiale which has been more than bruised of late years. Not that it will do any good. Giscard d’Estaing will always put France top of his list, no matter what the situation. Their final meeting in the morning is taking place at a villa at Rigny.’ He stabbed at the map on the table with his finger. ‘Here, about forty miles from Paris.’

‘So?’ Corder said.

‘He leaves at noon by car for Vezelay. There’s an airforce emergency field there from where the RAF will be waiting to whisk him back to good old England, to all intents and purposes as if he’s never been away.’

‘So where’s all this leading?’

‘Here.’ Barry tapped the map again. ‘St Etienne, fifteen miles from Rigny, which consists of a petrol station and a roadside cafe at present closed. A perfect spot.’

‘For what?’

‘To hit the bugger as he passes through. One car, four CRS escorts on motorbikes. No problem that I can see.’

Corder was conscious of the cold now eating deep into his bones. ‘You’re joking. We’d never get away with it. I mean, a thing like this needs preparation, split second timing.’

‘All taken care of,’ Barry said cheerfully. ‘You should know me by now, Jack. I always prefer people who are working for wages. Thorough-going fanatics like yourself – honest Marxists who believe in the cause – you take it all too seriously and that tends to cloud your thinking. You can’t beat the professional touch.’

The Ulster accent was more in evidence now, all part of a deliberate exercise in charm.

‘Who have you got?’ Corder asked.

‘Three hoods from Marseilles on the run from the Union Corse after the wrong kind of underworld killing. One of them has his girl with him. They’ll do anything in return for the right price, four false passports and tickets to the Argentine.’

Corder stared down at the map. ‘So how does it happen?’

‘Simple. As I said, the cafe is closed. That only leaves the proprietor and his wife in the garage. They’ll be taken care of and my men will be in position, dressed as mechanics, from twelve-fifteen, working on a car on the forecourt.’

Corder shook his head. ‘From what I can see, the convoy will be passing at a fairly high speed at that point. Remember what happened at Petit-Clamart when Bastien Thiry and his boys tried to ambush General de Gaulle? Even with machine guns at point-blank range they didn’t do any good because the old man’s car just kept on going. A second is all you get and away.’

‘So what we have to do is stop the car,’ Barry said.

‘Impossible. These days those VIP drivers are trained for just this kind of situation. From what I can see on the map, it’s a straight road giving a good view long before he gets there. Block it with a vehicle or anything else and they’ll simply turn round and get the hell out of there.’ He shook his head. ‘He won’t stop, Frank, that driver, and there’s no way you can make him.’

‘Oh, yes, there is,’ Barry said. ‘Which is where the girl I mentioned comes into the picture. At the appropriate moment, she tries to cross the road from the garage pushing a pram. She stumbles, the pram runs away from her into the road.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Corder said.

‘Am I? It worked for the Red Army Faction a couple of years back when they snatched Schleyer, the head of the German Industries Federation in Cologne.’ Barry smiled. ‘You see, Jack, human nature being what it is, I think that I can positively guarantee that when that driver sees a runaway pram in his path he’ll do only one thing. Swerve to avoid it and come to a dead halt.’

Which was true. Had to be. Corder nodded. ‘Put that way, I suppose you’re right.’

‘I always am, old son.’ He opened the briefcase and took out a hand transceiver. ‘This is for you. There’s a side road on a hill covered by an apple orchard which overlooks the chateau at Rigny nicely. I want you there by eleven o’clock in the morning. You’ll find a Peugeot estate car in the yard outside, keys in the lock. Use that.’

‘Then what?’

‘The moment you see Carrington making preparations to leave, you call in on the transceiver, Channel 42. You say: This is Red calling. The package is about to be delivered. I’ll say: Green here. The package will be collected. Then you get to hell out of there. I want you at St Etienne before Carrington arrives.’

‘Will you be there?’

Barry looked surprised. ‘And where else would I be?’ He smiled. ‘I was a National Service second lieutenant with the Ulster Rifles in Korea in 1950, Jack. You didn’t know that, did you? But I’ll tell you one thing. When my lads went over the top, I was always in front.’

‘With a swagger stick in one hand?’

‘And now you’re thinking of the Somme,’ Barry laughed gently. ‘I killed an awful lot of Maoists out there, Jack, which is ironic, considering my present circumstances.’ He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Anyway, you’d best be off. A decent night’s sleep and no booze. You’ll need a clear head for what you must do tomorrow.’ He glanced at his watch and laughed. ‘Correction – today.’

Corder weighed the transceiver in his hand, then slipped it into his pocket. ‘I’ll say good-night then.’

His footsteps echoed in the lofty warehouse as he walked to the entrance, opened the judas and stepped out. It was still raining as he moved into the yard at the side of the building. The Peugeot was parked by the main entrance, the key in the lock as Barry had indicated. Corder drove away, his palms sweating, slipping on the wheel, stomach churning.

Kill Carrington, one of the most decent and humane of politicians. My God, what would the bastard come up with next? But no, that question didn’t need an answer, because now Barry was very definitely finished. This was it. What Corder had been waiting for for more than a year.

He found what he was looking for a moment later, a small all-night cafe on the corner of one of the main boulevards into the city. There was a public telephone in a glass booth inside. He ordered coffee, then bought the necessary tokens from the barman and went into the booth, closing the door. His fingers were shaking as he carefully dialled the London code number and then the number following.

The Security Service in Great Britain, more correctly known as Directorate General of the Security Service, DI5, does not officially exist as far as the law is concerned although it does, in fact occupy a large white and red brick building near the Hilton Hotel. It was that establishment which Jack Corder was calling now; more specifically, an office known as Group Four which was manned twenty-four hours a day.

The ’phone was lifted and an anonymous voice said, ‘Say who you are.’

‘Lysander. I must speak with Brigadier Ferguson at once. Priority One. No denial possible.’

‘Your present number?’ He dictated it carefully. The voice said, ‘If security clearance confirmed, you will be called.’

The ’phone went dead. Corder pushed open the booth door and went to the bar. There was a man in a blue suit asleep on a chair in the corner, mouth gaping. Otherwise the place was empty.

The barman pushed the coffee across. ‘You want something to eat? A ham sandwich perhaps?’

‘Why not?’ Corder said. ‘I’m waiting for a call.’

The barman turned to the stove and Corder spooned sugar into his coffee. All calls to DI5 were automatically recorded. At this moment the computer would be matching his voice print on file against the tape of his call. Ferguson would probably be at home in bed. They would ring him, give him the number. Ten minutes in all.

But he was wrong, for it needed no more than five and as he took his first bite into the sandwich, the ’phone rang. He squeezed into the booth, closed the door and picked up the receiver.

‘Lysander here.’

‘Ferguson.’ The voice was plummy, a little over-done, rather like the ageing actor in a second-rate touring company who wants to make sure they can hear him at the back of the theatre. ‘It’s been a long time, Jack. Priority One, I understand.’

‘Frank Barry, sir, out in the open at last.’

Ferguson’s voice sharpened. ‘Now that is interesting.’

‘Lord Carrington, sir. He’s visiting President Giscard d’Estaing at the moment?’

There was a slight pause. Ferguson said, ‘No one’s supposed to know that officially.’

‘Frank Barry does.’

‘Not good, Jack, not good at all. I think you’d better explain.’

Which Corder did, speaking in low urgent tones. Five minutes later, he emerged from the booth and went to the counter.

‘Your sandwich, Monsieur – it has gone cold. You want another?’

‘What an excellent idea,’ Corder said. ‘And I’ll have a cognac while I’m waiting.’

He lit a cigarette and sat back on the bar stool, smiling for the first time that night.

In his flat in Cavendish Square, Brigadier Charles Ferguson stood beside the bed, pulling on his dressing gown as he listened to the tape recording he had just taken of his conversation with Corder. He was a large, kindly-looking man and distinctly overweight with rumpled grey hair and a double chin. There was nothing military about him at all and the half-moon spectacles he put on to consult a small pocket book gave him the air of a minor professor. He was, in fact, as ruthless as Cesare Borgia and totally without scruples when it came to his country’s interest.

There was a tap at the door and his manservant, an ex-Ghurkha naik, peered in, tying the belt of a dressing gown about his waist.

‘Sorry, Kim, work to be done.’ Ferguson said. ‘Lots of tea, bacon and eggs to follow. I won’t be going back to bed.’

The little Ghurkha withdrew and Ferguson went into the sitting room, stirred the fire in the Adam fireplace, poured himself a large brandy, sat down by the telephone and dialled a number in Paris.

The French Security Service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre Espionnage, the SDECE, is divided into five sections and many departments. The most interesting is certainly Section Five, most commonly known as the Action Service, the department which more than any other had been responsible for the smashing of the OAS. It was the number of Service Five which Ferguson dialled now.

He said, ‘Ferguson here, DI5. Colonel Guyon, if you please.’ He frowned impatiently. ‘Well, of course he’s at home in bed. So was I. I’ve only rung you to establish credentials. Tell him to call me back on this number.’ He dictated it quickly. ‘Most urgent. Priority One.’

He put down the ’phone and Kim entered with bacon and eggs, bread, butter and marmalade on a silver tray. ‘Delicious,’ Ferguson said, as the little Ghurkha placed a small table before him. ‘Breakfast at two-thirty in the morning. What a capital idea. We should do this more often.’

As he tucked a napkin around his neck the ’phone rang. He picked it up instantly. ‘Ah, Pierre,’ he said in rapid and excellent French. ‘I’ve got something for you. Very nasty indeed. You won’t be pleased, so listen carefully.’

In the warehouse, it was quiet after Jack Corder had left. Barry walked to the entrance and locked the judas gate. He paused to light a cigarette and as he turned, a man emerged from the shadows and perched himself on the edge of the table.

Nikolai Romanov was fifty years of age and for ten of them had been a cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Paris. His dark suit was Savile Row, as was the blue overcoat which fitted him to perfection. He was handsome enough in a slightly decadent way, with a face like Oscar Wilde or Nero himself and a mane of silver hair which made him look more like a distinguished actor than what he was, which was a Colonel in the KGB.

‘I’m not too sure about that one, Frank,’ he said in excellent English.

‘I’m not too sure about anyone,’ Barry said, ‘including you, old son, but for what it’s worth, Jack Corder’s a dedicated Marxist.’

‘Oh dear,’ Romanov said. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’

‘He tried to join the British Communist Party when he was an undergraduate at Oxford years ago. It was suggested that someone like him could do more good by keeping his mouth shut and joining the Labour Party, which he did. Trade Union Organiser for six years, then he blotted his copybook by losing his cool during a miners’ strike three or four years ago and assaulting a policeman in the picket line with a pickaxe handle. Put him in hospital for six weeks.’

‘And Corder?’

‘Two years in gaol. The Union wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole after that. Deep down inside, those lads are as conservative as Margaret Thatcher when it comes to being British. Jack came over here when he got out and involved himself with an anarchist group well to the left of the French Communist Party which is where I picked him up. Anyway, why should you worry, or has the Disinformation Department of the KGB changed its aims?’

‘No,’ Romanov said. ‘Chaos is still our business, Frank, and we need to create as much as possible in the Western world. Chaos, disorder, fear and uncertainty, which is why we employ people like you.’

‘You haven’t left much out, have you?’ Barry said cheerfully.

Romanov looked down at the map. ‘Is this going to work?’

‘Come on, now, Nikolai,’ Barry said. ‘You don’t really want Carrington shot dead on a French country road, do you? Very counterproductive, just like the IRA shooting the Queen. Too much to lose, so it isn’t worth it.’

Romanov looked bewildered. ‘What game are you playing now?’

‘Oh, you know me,’ Barry said, ‘the game’s the thing,’ and added briskly, ‘I’ll still take the cash, by the way. Chaos, disorder, fear and uncertainty. I’ll do my best to see you get your money’s-worth.’

Romanov hesitated, then took a large manilla envelope from his pocket and pushed it across. Barry dropped it into the briefcase along with the map.

‘Shall we?’

He led the way to the entrance and unlocked the judas gate. A flurry of wind tossed rain into their faces. Romanov shivered and turned up his collar.

‘When I was fourteen years old in nineteen forty-three, I joined a partisan group in the Ukraine. I was with them two years. It was simpler then. We were fighting Nazis. We knew where we were. But now?’

‘A different world,’ Barry said.

‘And one in which you, my friend, don’t even believe in your own country.’

‘Ulster?’ Barry laughed harshly. ‘I gave up on that mess a long time ago. As someone once said, there’s nothing worse than a collection of ignorant people with legitimate grievances. Now let’s get to hell out of here.’

The apples in the orchard on the hill above Rigny should have been picked weeks before, were already over-ripe, and the air was heavy with the smell of them, warm in the unexpected noon-day sun.

Jack Corder lay in the long grass, a pair of Zeiss binoculars beside him, and watched the villa below. It was a pleasant house, built in the eighteenth century from the look of it with a broad flight of steps leading up to the portico over the main entrance.

There were four cars in the courtyard, at least a dozen CRS police waiting beside their motor cycles and uniformed gendarmes at the gate. Nothing too ostentatious. The President was known to imitate General de Gaulle in that respect and hated fuss.

For a while, Corder was a boy again lying in long grass by the River Wharfe, the bridge below him, good Yorkshire sheep scattered across the meadow on the other side. Sixteen years old with a girl beside him whose name he couldn’t even remember, and life had seemed to have an infinite possibility to it. He felt an aching longing to be back, for everything in between to be just a dream, and then the President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, stepped out of the house below, followed by the British Foreign Secretary.

The two men stood in the portico flanked by their aides as Corder focused his binoculars.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘One man with a decent rifle is all it would take to knock out both of them.’

The President shook the Foreign Secretary’s hand. No formal embrace. That was not his style. Lord Carrington went down the steps and was ushered into the black Citroen.

Corder’s throat was dry. He took the transceiver from his pocket, pressed the channel button and said urgently. ‘This is Red calling. This is Red calling. The package is about to be delivered.’

A second later he heard Barry’s reply, cool, detached. ‘Green here. The package will be collected.’

Carrington’s car was moving towards the entrance followed by four CRS motorcyclists, just as Barry had promised and Corder jumped to his feet, turned and ran through the orchard to where he had left the Peugeot. He had plenty of time to reach the main road before the convoy and the moment he turned on to it, he put his foot down, pushing the Peugeot up to seventy-five.

His palms were sweating again, his throat dry, and he lit a cigarette one-handed. He didn’t know what was going to happen at St Etienne, that was the trouble. Probably CRS riot cops descending in droves, shooting everything that moved which could include him. But he had to turn up; had no other choice, for if he didn’t, Barry, being Barry, would smell an instant rat, call the thing off and disappear into the blue as he had done so many times before.

He was close to St Etienne now, no more than two or three miles to go, when it happened. As he passed a side turning, a CRS motorcyclist emerged and came after him, a sinister figure in crash helmet and goggles and dark, caped coat. He pulled alongside and waved him down and Corder pulled in to the edge of the road. Was this Ferguson’s way of keeping him out of it?

The CRS man pulled in front, got off his heavy BMW machine and pushed it on its stand. He walked towards the Peugeot, a gloved finger hooked into the trigger guard of the MAT49 machine carbine slung across his chest. He stood looking down at Corder, anonymous in the dark goggles, then pushed them up.

‘A slight change of plan, old son.’ Frank Barry grinned. ‘I lead, you follow.’

‘You’ve called it off?’ Corder demanded in astonishment.

Barry looked mildly surprised. ‘Jesus, no, why should I do a thing like that?’

He got back on the BMW and drove away. Corder followed him, totally lost now, not knowing what to do for the best. For a moment Corder fingered the butt of the Walther PPK he carried, not that there was much joy there. He’d never shot anyone in his life. It was unlikely that he could start now.

About a mile outside St Etienne, Barry turned into a narrow country lane and Corder followed, climbing up between high hedgerows past a small farm. There was a grove of trees on the brow of a green hill and Barry waved him down and turned into them. He pushed the BMW up on its stand and Corder joined him.

‘Look, what’s going on, Frank?’

‘Did I ever tell you about my grandmother on my mother’s side, Jack? Whenever she got a terrible headache there’d be a thunder-storm within the hour. Now with me, it’s different. I only get a headache when I smell stinking fish and I’ve got a real blinder at the moment.’

Corder went cold. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nice view from up here.’ Barry walked through the trees and indicated St Etienne spread neatly below like a child’s model. The garage and forecourt were on one side of the road, the cafe and carpark on the other.

He took some binoculars from the pocket of his raincoat and passed them across. ‘Have a look. I have a feeling it may be a bit more interesting to sit this one out.’

Corder focused the binoculars on the fore-court of the garage. Two of the men, wearing yellow overalls, worked on the engine of a car. The third waiting in the glass office beside the petrol pumps talking to the girl who stood at the door with the pram, wearing a scarlet headscarf, woollen jumper and neat skirt.

‘Any sign of the car?’ Barry demanded.

Corder swung the binoculars to examine the road. ‘No, but there’s a truck coming.’

‘Is there, now? That’s interesting.’

The truck was of the trailer type, an eight-wheeler with high green canvas sides. As it entered the village, it slowed and turned into the carpark. The driver, a tall man in khaki overalls jumped down from the cab and strolled to the cafe door.

Barry took the binoculars from Corder and focused them on the truck. ‘Bouvier Brothers, Long Distant Transport, Paris and Marseilles.’

‘He’ll move on when he finds the cafe’s closed,’ Corder said.

‘Pigs might fly, old son,’ Frank Barry told him, ‘But I doubt it.’

There was a sudden firestorm from inside the truck at that moment, machine gun fire raking the entire forecourt area, shattering the glass of the office, driving the girl back over the pram, cutting down the two gunmen working on the car, riddling its fuel tank, petrol spilling on to the concrete. It was the work of an instant, no more, there was a flicker of flame as petrol ignited and then the tank exploded in a ball of fire, pieces of wreckage flying high in the air. The holocaust was complete and at least twenty CRS riot police in uniform leapt from the rear of the truck and ran across the road.

‘Efficient,’ Barry said calmly. ‘You’ve got to give the buggers that.’

Corder licked dry lips nervously and his left hand went into the pocket of his leather jacket, groping for the butt of the Walther.

‘What could have gone wrong?’

‘One of those bastards from Marseilles must have had a big mouth,’ Barry said. ‘And if word got back to the Union Corse …’ He shrugged, ‘Thieving’s one thing, politics is another. They’d inform without a second’s hesitation.’ He clapped Corder on the shoulder. ‘But we’d better get out of this. Just follow my tail, like you did before. Nobody is likely to stop us when they see me escorting you.’

He pushed the BMW off its stand and rode away. Corder followed. The whole thing was like a bad dream and he could still see, vivid as any image on the cinema screen, the body of the girl, bouncing back across the pram in a hail of machine gun fire. And Barry had expected it. Expected it, and yet he had still let those poor sods go through with it.

He followed the BMW closely, through narrow country lanes, twisting and turning. They met no one and then, a good ten miles on the other side of St Etienne, came to a small garage and cafe at the side of the road. Barry turned in beside the cafe and braked to a halt. As Corder joined him, he was taking a canvas grip from one of the side panniers.

‘I know this place,’ he said. ‘There’s a wash room at the back. I’m going to change. We’ll leave the BMW here and carry on in the Peugeot.’

He went round to the rear before Corder could reply and the young woman in the glass office beside the petrol pumps emerged and approached him. She was perhaps twenty-five with a flat, pleasant face, and wore a man’s tweed jacket that was too large for her.

‘Petrol, monsieur?’

‘Is there a telephone?’ Corder asked.

‘In the cafe, monsieur, but it’s not open for business. I’m the only one here today.’

‘I must use it. It’s very urgent.’ He pushed a hundred franc note at her. ‘Just give me some tokens. You keep the rest.’

She shrugged, went into her office and opened the till. She came back with the tokens. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said.

The cafe wasn’t much: a few tables and chairs, a counter with bottles of beer and mineral water and rows of glasses ranged behind, a door which obviously led to the kitchen. The telephone was on the wall, a directory hanging beside it.

The girl said, ‘Look, seeing I’m here I’ll make some coffee. Okay?’

‘Fine,’ Corder told her.

She disappeared into the kitchen and he quickly checked in the directory to find the district number to link him with the international line. His fingers were shaking as he dialled the area code for London followed by the DI5 number.

He didn’t even have time to pray. The receiver was lifted at the other end and a woman’s voice this time, the day operator, said, ‘Say who you are.’

‘Lysander,’ Corder said urgently. ‘Clear line please. I must speak to Brigadier Ferguson at once. Total Priority.’

Ferguson’s voice cut in instantly, almost as if he’d been listening in. ‘Jack, what is it?’

‘Total cock-up, sir. Barry smelt a rat, so he and I stayed out of things. The rest of the team were knocked out by CRS police.’

‘You’ve got clean away, presumably.’

‘Yes.’

‘And does he suspect you?’

‘No – he thinks it’s down to one of those Marseilles hoods speaking out of turn.’

In the kitchen Frank Barry, listening on the extension, smiled, anonymous in the dark goggles. The girl lay on the floor at his feet, blood oozing from an ugly cut in her temple where he had clubbed her with his pistol. He left the receiver hanging on its cord, took a Carswell Silencer from his pocket, and screwed it on to the barrel of his pistol as he walked into the cafe.

Corder was still talking in a low urgent voice. ‘No, I don’t know how much more I can take, that’s the trouble.’

Barry said softly, ‘Jack!’

Corder swung round and Barry shot him twice through the heart, slamming him back. He bounced off the wall and fell to the floor on his face.

The receiver dangled on the end of its cord. Barry picked it up and said, ‘That you, Ferguson, old son? Frank Barry here. If you want Corder back, you’d better send a box for him to Cafe Rosco, St Julien.’

‘You bastard,’ Charles Ferguson said.

‘It’s been said before.’

Barry replaced the receiver and went out, whistling softly as he unscrewed the silencer. He slipped the pistol back into its holster, pushed the BMW off its stand and rode away.

2

It was raining on the following morning when Ferguson’s car dropped him outside Number Ten Downing Street, ten minutes early for his eleven o’clock appointment with the Prime Minister. His driver moved away instantly and Ferguson crossed the pavement to the entrance. In spite of the rain, there was the usual small crowd of sightseers on the other side of the road, mainly tourists, kept in place by a couple of police constables. Another stood in his usual place by the door, not much protection for the best-known address in England, the seat of political power as well as the Prime Minister’s private residence, but that didn’t mean a thing, as Ferguson well knew. There were others, more inconspicuously attired, situated at certain strategic points in the area, ready to swarm in at the first hint of trouble.

The policeman saluted and the door was opened, even before Ferguson reached it. He passed inside.

The young man who greeted him said, ‘Brigadier Ferguson? This way, sir.’

There was the hum of activity from the Press Room on the right as he crossed the entrance hall and entered the corridor leading to the rear of the house and the Cabinet Room.

The main staircase to the first floor was lined with portraits of previous Prime Ministers: Peel, Wellington, Disraeli, Gladstone. Ferguson always felt an acute sense of history as he mounted those stairs, although this was the first time he had done so to meet the present Prime Minister. The first time he had had to explain himself to a woman, and a damn clever woman, if it came to that. Definitely a new experience. But did anything change? How many attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria? And Disraeli and Gladstone had both had their hands full of Fenians, dynamiters and anarchists with their bombs, at one time or another.

On the top corridor the young man knocked on a door, opened it and ushered Ferguson inside. ‘Brigadier Ferguson, Prime Minister,’ he said and left, closing the door behind him.

The study was more elegant now than Ferguson remembered it, with pale green walls, gold curtains and comfortable furniture in perfect taste. But nothing was more elegant in the entire room than the woman behind the desk. The blue suit with the froth of white lace at the throat perfectly offset the blonde hair. An elegant, handsome woman of the world, and yet the eyes, when she glanced up at Ferguson from the paper she was reading, were hard and intelligent.

‘I’ve had a personal assurance from the French President this morning that this whole wretched business will be hushed up. It never happened. You understand me?’

‘Perfectly, ma’am.’

She looked at the paper before her. ‘This agent of yours, Corder. If it hadn’t been for him …’ She gestured to a chair. ‘Sit down, Brigadier. Tell me about him.’

‘We recruited Jack Corder some twelve years ago when he was still an undergraduate at Balliol. The route he chose was to immerse himself totally in left wing politics. We often hear of moles within our intelligence service working for the Russians, ma’am. Jack was the other side of the coin. He endured prison sentences twice for his apparent militancy. Afterwards, I transferred him to the European terrorist scene. Frank Barry was his most important assignment.’

She nodded. ‘I’ve already spoken to the Director General of DI5. He tells me that as long ago as nineteen seventy-two, one of my predecessors authorised the setting up within DI5 of a section known as Group Four which has powers, held directly from the Prime Minister, to co-ordinate the handling of all cases of terrorism, subversion and the like.’

‘That is correct, Prime Minister.’

‘With you in charge, Brigadier?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

There was a longish pause while she stared down at the paper thoughtfully. Ferguson cleared his throat. ‘Naturally, if you would prefer to initiate some change, I will offer my resignation without hesitation.’

‘If I want it, I’ll ask for it. Brigadier,’ she said sharply. ‘But you can’t expect me to have much faith in the activities of your section when one of the chief ministers of the Crown comes within an inch of assassination. Now tell me about this man, Barry? Why is he so important, and more to the point, how does he remain so elusive?’

‘A brilliant madman, ma’am. A genius in his own way. As important to the international terrorist scene as Carlos, but not so familiar to the public.’

‘And why is that?’

‘A question of his personal psychology. Many terrorists, take some of those involved with the Baader-Meinhoff gang, for example, have a craving for public display. They want people to know not only who they are, but that they can make fools of the police and intelligence departments they confront, any time they wish. Barry doesn’t seem to have a need for that kind of publicity, and as it suits our purposes best to give him none, he has remained an unknown quantity as far as the public is concerned.’

‘What about his personal background?’

‘I’m afraid it couldn’t be worse from the point of view of media sensationalism. He is an Ulsterman by birth. Held a commission as a National Service second-lieutenant with the Ulster Rifles. Served in Korea. Excellent record in the field, I might add. He’s a Protestant. His uncle is an Irish Peer, Lord Stramore. Much involved in Orange politics for most of his life, but now in ailing health. Barry is his heir.’

‘Good God,’ the Prime Minister said.

‘During the early years of the Irish Troubles, Barry professed to be a Republican. As usual, he did his own thing. Organised a group called the Sons of Erin, which gave us tremendous problems in the Province. Repudiated totally by the Provisional IRA. In nineteen seventy-two, when Group Four was first set up, I managed to penetrate Barry’s organisation with an agent of mine, a Major Vaughan. The upshot of that little affair was that Barry was badly wounded. That he lived at all was only due to the skill of the surgeons of the Military Wing of the Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He escaped, ma’am. Not even capable of walking, according to his doctors, but walk he did, right out of the hospital, dressed as a porter. Turned up in Dublin within twenty-four hours. We couldn’t touch him there, of course. He was in and out of hospital there and in Switzerland for more than a year.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘Since then, ma’am, he has in some cases to our certain knowledge, and in others to the best of our belief, been responsible for at least fifteen assassinations and a number of bombing incidents. His touch is distinctive and unmistakable, and political commitment seems to be the least of his considerations. A résumé of his activities during the past few years will explain what I mean. In nineteen seventy-three he assassinated the General in command of Spanish Military Intelligence in the Basque country. Responsibility was claimed by the Basque Nationalist Movement, ETA.’

‘Go on.’

‘On the other hand, he was also responsible for the murder of General Hans Grosch during a visit to Munich in nineteen seventy-five. A source of considerable embarrassment to the West German Government. Grosch held a post roughly equivalent to my own in the East German Ministry for State Security. So, as you can see, ma’am, on the one hand Barry kills a Fascist, on the other, a Communist.’

‘You’re saying he has no politics?’

‘None at all.’ Ferguson took a sheet from his briefcase and passed it across. ‘A list of the jobs we think he’s been concerned with. As you can see, his victims have been from every part of the political scene.’

The Prime Minister read the list slowly and frowned. ‘Are you saying then that he works for whoever will pay him?’

‘No, ma’am, I think it’s more subtle than that. Everything he does falls into a pattern, in that it causes maximum damage wherever it happens. For instance, he kills a Spanish diplomat visiting Paris in nineteen seventy-seven – a Fascist. The French government have to react appropriately and within twenty-four hours, every left-wing agitator in Paris is in police hands. Not only Communists, but Socialists. The Socialist Party didn’t like that, which meant the Unions also didn’t like it. Result, unrest amongst the workers, strikes, disruption.’

She paused suddenly lower down his list and glanced up, her face bleak. ‘You mention here a possible involvement in the Mountbatten assassination?’

‘We’ve the best of reasons for believing his advice was sought.’

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It does if one considers his known links with the KGB. I believe that most of the incidents he has been responsible for were commissioned by the KGB, even the assassination of those supposed to be their friends, with the sole purpose of causing the maximum amount of disruption possible in the West.’

‘But Barry is no Marxist?’

‘Frank Barry, ma’am, isn’t anything. Oh, he’ll take their money, I’m sure of that, but he’ll do what he does for the hell of it. I suppose the psychiatrists would have fancy terms to describe his mental condition. Psychopath would only be the start. I’m not really interested. I just want to see him dead.’

The Prime Minister passed the list back to him. ‘Then get on with it, Brigadier.’

Ferguson took the list from her as she pressed a buzzer on her desk. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Department Four has the power – total authority from this office so it would seem. Use it, man. I’m not going to tell you how to do your own job, you’re too good at it. I’ve read your record. The only thing I will say is that it seems obvious to me you must put everything on one side and concentrate all your activities on Barry.’

Ferguson got to his feet and slipped the paper back in his briefcase. ‘Very well, Prime Minister.’

The door opened behind him and the young secretary appeared. The Prime Minister picked up her pen and returned to work as Ferguson moved to the door and was ushered out.

* * *

Ferguson usually preferred to work from his Cavendish Square flat. He was sitting by the fire drinking tea and toasting crumpets on a long brass fork when Kim opened the door and ushered in Harry Fox.

‘Ah, there you are, Harry. Got what I wanted?’

‘Yes, sir, every last piece of paper in the file on Frank Barry.’

Fox was thirty, a slim elegant young man who wore a Guards tie, not surprising in someone who until two years previously had been an acting-Captain in the Blues. The neat leather glove which he wore permanently on his left hand concealed the fact that he had lost the original in a bomb explosion during his third tour of duty in Belfast. He had been Ferguson’s assistant for just over a year.

‘What exactly are we looking for, sir?’

‘I’m not sure, Harry. Jack Corder was the third man I’ve put up against Frank Barry and two out of the three have ended up in a box. We’ve got to come up with something different, that’s all I know for certain.’

‘You’re right, sir. Takes a thief to catch a thief, I suppose.’

Ferguson paused in the act of spearing another crumpet on his fork. ‘What did you say?’

‘Jack Grand of Special Branch was telling me the other day they put one of their men into Parkhurst Prison, posing as a convict. He was attacked within two days and badly injured. I suppose the truth is most crooks can spot a copper a mile away. Frank Barry will be the same, if you think about it. He’d smell a rat in almost anyone you tried to infiltrate into his kind of action.’

‘You could be right,’ Ferguson said. ‘Start reading through those files, aloud, if you please.’

They were at it for six hours, only Kim disturbing them from time to time to replenish the tea and coffee. It was dark when Ferguson got up and stretched and waved to the window.

‘I’d like to know where the bastard is now.’

Fox said, ‘The photos on him are a bit sparse, sir. Nothing since nineteen seventy-two. The earliest seems to be this one taken from a Paris-Match article done by some woman journalist in nineteen seventy-one. Who are the other two with him? Devlin, is it? Liam Devlin and Martin Brosnan.’

Ferguson crossed the room with surprising speed for a man of his bulk and took the news clipping from him. ‘My God, Liam Devlin – and Brosnan. I’d forgotten they’d had dealings with Barry, it’s so long ago.’

‘But who were they, sir?’

‘Oh, a couple of anachronisms from the early days of the Irish Troubles. Before the worst of the bombings and the butchery. The kind of men who thought it was still nineteen twenty-one with Michael Collins carrying the flag for Ireland. Gallant guerrillas up against the might of the British Empire, Flying Columns, action by night.’

‘I think I saw the movie once, sir,’ Fox said.

‘There was a man called Sean McEoin, a Flying Column leader who later became a General in the Free State Army. In nineteen twenty-one, he was surrounded by Black and Tans in a cottage near his own village. There were women and children inside so McEoin ran out in the open with a gun in each hand and shot his way through the police cordon. Devlin and Brosnan are the same kind of idiots.’

‘I can’t say I came up against anyone like that during my time in Ulster,’ Fox said, feelingly.

‘No, well it’s as well to remember that the IRA, like the British Army or any other institution, consists of a wide range of human beings. Still, you cut along now. I want to give this some think time.’

Fox left. Ferguson poured himself a brandy and went and stood at the window, looking down into the square, thinking, with regret, of Jack Corder and the others he had sent against Barry.

‘Somewhere,’ he said softly, ‘that bastard is still laughing at me.’

Barry, at that precise moment, was doing roughly what Ferguson was: standing at a window with a large cognac in his hand. In his case, the apartment was in Paris and the view was of the Seine. There was a discreet tap at the door and when he opened it on the chain, Romanov was outside.

‘Well?’ Barry demanded as the Russian entered.

‘Considerable Service Five activity, Frank. They know you were behind the whole affair so they’re leaving no stone unturned to find you, with full assistance from British Intelligence on this one, I might add. Your Brigadier Ferguson and Colonel Guyon of Service Five are old friends.’

‘Well, that makes a change. I didn’t think DI5 and the French Intelligence Service were on speaking terms. How can you be sure that Ferguson and Guyon are such good pals, or have you an informer in Guyon’s department?’

‘Anything is possible,’ Romanov told him.

Barry was surprised and showed it. ‘You’re kidding. I thought British Intelligence had cleaned out all its moles by now. Your man certainly didn’t do me any good. What about Corder? I had to find out about him for myself.’

‘To be honest, Frank, at the moment we’re only getting peripheral information, but we expect that to improve.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Barry said. ‘You’d expect DI5 to check its employees’ credentials right back to the womb.’

‘Perhaps they do, Frank. But in this case it wouldn’t do them any good.’

‘One good thing. At least there’s no one left who can finger me at the moment, except you, of course, old son.’

Romanov’s smile was forced. ‘On the whole, I think it would be sensible if you dropped out of sight for a while.’

‘And where would you suggest?’

‘England.’

Barry laughed. ‘Well, it’s a novel enough idea. The last place they’d expect. Would you have somewhere specific in mind?’

‘The Lake District.’

‘They say it’s lovely at this time of the year.’ Barry poured himself another cognac. ‘All right, Nikolai, let’s be having it.’

The Russian opened his briefcase and took out a selection of maps. ‘It’s painfully simple. The balance of power as regards ground forces in Europe is hugely in our favour, mainly because we would be able to put at least four thousand more tanks in the field than the NATO forces.’

‘So?’

‘The West Germans have come up with a rather brilliant new weapon. Light enough to be carried by any infantry section. When fired, its pod releases twelve rockets simultaneously. Imagine them as missiles in miniature. Heat seeking, of course. Any one of these rockets is capable of knocking out our largest tank.’

‘Jesus,’ Barry said. ‘You’d wonder how they lost the war. What’ll they come up with next?’

‘We’ve tried every way possible to get hold of one, but so far, we’ve failed. We must have one, Frank.’

‘So, where do I come into it?’

Romanov started to unfold the maps. ‘I’ve had a report today of a rather interesting development. The Germans intend to demonstrate this weapon to the British and others at the British Army Rocket Proving Ground near Wast Water in the Lake District, next Thursday. There’s a team of Germans taking one over on Wednesday. An officer and six men. There’s a disused RAF base at Brisingham which is only twenty miles from the Proving Ground. They’ll land there to be taken the rest of the way by truck.’

‘Interesting.’ Barry opened the maps right across the table.

‘Frank, pull this off for me and it would be worth half a million.’

Barry didn’t seem to hear him. ‘I’d need ground support. Someone I could rely on in the general area of things. A thorough-going crook preferably. Could your people in London arrange that?’

‘Anything, Frank.’

‘And more maps. English Ordnance Survey maps. I want to know that area like the back of my hand.’

‘I’ll have them round to you in the morning.’

‘Tonight,’ Barry said. ‘I’ll also need fake passports. One British, one French and one American, just to vary things. Details like who I am, I’ll leave to your experts.’

‘All right,’ Romanov said.

‘And keep the SDECE off my back. Tell them I’ve been in Turkey or gone to the Argentine.’

Since the Sapphire scandal, the intelligence networks of most Western countries had had a rather poor opinion of the French Intelligence Service, believing it to be penetrated by the KGB, which it was – certainly enough for Romanov to be able to agree to Barry’s request.

‘And one more thing,’ Barry added as Romanov opened the door. ‘A banking account in my English identity for fifty thousand pounds’ working capital.’ He smiled softly. ‘And it’ll cost you a million, Nikolai. This one will cost you a million.’

Romanov shrugged. ‘Frank, just get it for us and you can name your own price, I promise you.’

He went out and Barry locked and chained the door, then returned to the table, sat down at the maps and started to give the whole thing some thought.

Back in London, Harry Fox was just about to step into the shower when his ’phone rang. He cursed, pulled a towel around him and went to answer it.

‘Harry, Ferguson here. You know what you said earlier about setting a thief to catch a thief. You’ve given me a very interesting idea. Go to the office and bring me Martin Brosnan’s file. You might as well bring Devlin’s while you’re at it.’

Fox glanced at his watch. ‘You mean in the morning, sir?’

‘I mean now, damn you!’

Ferguson slammed down his ’phone and Fox replaced his receiver and checked his watch. It was just after two a.m. He sighed, returned to the bathroom and started to dress.

3

‘Martin Aodh Brosnan,’ Ferguson said. ‘The Aodh is Gaelic for Hugh, if you’re interested, after his maternal grandfather, a well-known Dublin Union leader in his day.’

The fire was burning well. It was four o’clock in the morning and Harry Fox felt unaccountably alive, except for the hand, of course, which ached a little as if it were still there. That always happened under stress.

‘According to the file he was born in Boston in nineteen forty-five, sir, of Irish-American parentage. His great, great-grandfather emigrated from Kerry during the famine. Made the family fortune out of shipping during the second half of the nineteenth century, since when they’ve never looked back. Oil, construction, chemical plants – you name it. And very social register.’ Fox frowned and looked up. ‘A Protestant. That’s astonishing.’

‘Why?’ Ferguson said. ‘A lot of prejudice against the Catholics in America in the old days. Probably one of his ancestors changed sides. He’s hardly the first Protestant to want a United Ireland. What about Wolfe Tone? He started it all. And the man who came closest to getting it from the British Government of his day, Charles Stewart Parnell, was another.’

‘According to this, Brosnan’s mother is a Catholic.’

‘Unremittingly so. Mass four times a week. Born in Dublin. Met her husband when she was a student at Boston University. He’s been dead for some years. She rules the family empire with a rod of iron. I believe the only human being she has never been able to bend to her will is her son.’

‘He did all the right things, it seems. Very Ivy League stuff. Top prep school, Andover. Took a degree in English literature at Princeton.’

‘Majored,’ Ferguson corrected him.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Majored in English, that’s what our American friends say.’

Fox shrugged and returned to the file. ‘Then in nineteen sixty-six he volunteered for Vietnam. Airborne Rangers and Special Services. And in the ranks, sir, that’s the puzzling thing.’

‘A very important point, that, Harry.’

Ferguson poured himself more tea. ‘Vietnam was never exactly a popular issue in America. If you were at University or College, it was possible to avoid the draft, which was exactly what most young men with Brosnan’s background did. He could have continued to avoid service by staying on at University and taking a doctorate. He didn’t. What’s the word that’s so popular these days, Harry, macho? Maybe that had something to do with it? Perhaps he felt less of a man because he’d avoided it for so long. In the end, the important thing is that he went.’

‘And to some purpose, sir.’ Fox whistled. ‘Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star with Oak Leaves, Vietnamese Cross of Valor.’ He frowned. ‘And the Legion of Honour. How in the hell did the French get involved?’

Ferguson stood up and walked to the window. ‘An interesting one, that. His last flamboyant gesture. He saved the neck of a famous French war photographer, a woman, would you believe it, name of Anne-Marie Audin. Some ambush or other. She pops up in the story again. The photo from the Paris-Match article, remember, with Brosnan, Liam Devlin and Frank Barry? The good Mademoiselle Audin took that, amongst others. She wrote the same story for Life Magazine and got a Pulitzer Prize for it. A behind-the-scenes look at the Irish struggle. Went down very well in Boston.’

Fox reached for the next file. ‘But how in the hell did he move on from that to the IRA?’

‘Wildly illogical, but beautifully simple,’ Ferguson turned and walked back to the fire. ‘I’ll shorthand it for you and save you some time. On leaving the army, Brosnan went to Trinity College, Dublin, to work for that doctorate we mentioned. In August, nineteen sixty-nine, he was visiting an old Catholic uncle on his mother’s side, a priest-in-charge of a Church on the Falls Road in Belfast. When did you first visit that fair city, Harry?’

‘Nineteen seventy-six, sir.’

Ferguson nodded. ‘So much has happened, so much water under the bridge, that the first wild years of the Troubles must seem like ancient history to people like you. So many names, faces.’ He sighed and sat down. ‘During Brosnan’s visit, Orange mobs led by “B” Specials, an organisation now happily defunct, went on the rampage. They burnt down Brosnan’s uncle’s Church. In fact, the old man was so badly beaten he lost an eye.’

‘I see,’ Fox said soberly.

‘No you don’t, Harry. I had an agent once called Vaughan – Major Simon Vaughan. Won’t work for me now, but that’s another story. He really did see, because like Brosnan, he had an Irish mother. Oh, the IRA has its fair share of thugs and mad bombers and too many men like Frank Barry, perhaps, but it also has its Liam Devlins and its Martin Brosnans. Genuine idealists in the Pearse and Connolly and Michael Collins tradition. Whether you agree with them or not, men who believe passionately that they’re engaged in a struggle for which the stake is nothing less than the freedom of their country.’

Fox raised his gloved hand. ‘Sorry, sir, but I’ve seen women and kids run screaming from a bombing too many times to believe that one any more.’

‘Exactly,’ Ferguson said. ‘Men like Devlin and Brosnan want to be able to fight with clean hands and a little honour. Their tragedy is that in this kind of war that just is not possible.’

He got up again and paced the room restlessly. ‘You see, I can’t blame Brosnan for what happened in Belfast that night in August, ’sixty-nine. A handful of Republicans, no more than six in all led by Liam Devlin, took to the streets. They had three rifles, two revolvers and a rather antiquated Thompson sub-machine gun. Brosnan found himself caught up in the thick of it during the defence of the Church, and when one of them was shot dead at Devlin’s side, he picked up the man’s rifle instinctively. He was far and away the most experienced fighting man there, remember. From then on he was caught up in the IRA cause, Devlin’s right-hand man during the period Devlin was Chief of Staff in Ulster.’

‘Then what?’

‘During the first couple of years or so, it was fine. Men like Devlin and Brosnan were able to fight the good old-fashioned guerrilla kind of war that would have delighted Michael Collins’ heart. No bombs – they left that to men like Frank Barry. Taking on the army was the way Devlin saw it. He believed that was the way to gain world sympathy for the Cause. By the way, how would you feel if you were the General Officer commanding Northern Ireland, and you went into the private office of your headquarters at Lisburn one fine morning and found a rose on your desk?’

‘Good God.’

‘Yes, Brosnan loved that sort of nonsensical and foolhardy gesture. The rose was a play on his own name of course. Not only did he do it to the G.O.C., he also left one for the then Ulster Prime Minister and for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The implication was clear enough.’

‘He could have killed and didn’t.’

‘That’s right. Brosnan’s rose.’ Ferguson laughed. ‘We had to make it classified to keep it out of the papers, not that they’d have believed it. Who would?’

‘What happened later?’

‘All changed, didn’t it? An escalation of the worst kind of bloodshed, the bombers gained the ascendancy in the movement. Devlin became Chief Intelligence Officer in Dublin. Brosnan worked with him as a kind of roving aide.’

Reading on through the file, Fox said, ‘It says here he’s got Irish Nationality. How’s that, sir?’

‘Well, the American Government was not exactly delighted with his activities. Then in nineteen seventy-four, Devlin sent him to New York to execute an informer who’d been helped to seek refuge in America by the Ulster Constabulary after selling information which had led to the arrest of nearly every member of the North Belfast Brigade. Brosnan accomplished his task with his usual ruthless efficiency, got out of New York by the skin of his teeth. When the American State Department tried to extradite him, he claimed Irish Nationality, which he was entitled to do under Irish law because his mother was born there. If you’re interested, Harry, I could do the same. My grandmother was born in Cork.’

Fox quickly glanced through the rest of the file. ‘And then the French business.’

‘That’s right. Devlin sent him to France in nineteen seventy-five to negotiate an arms consignment. The middle man concerned turned out to be a police informer. When Brosnan arrived at a fishing village on the Brittany coast to take delivery, a large consignment of riot police was waiting for him. In the ensuing fracas, he wounded two and shot one dead, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Belle Isle.’

‘Belle Isle, sir?’

‘The French don’t have Devil’s Island any more, Harry. They just have Belle Isle. In the Mediterranean, of course, which sounds pleasanter, but it isn’t.’

Fox closed the files. ‘All right, sir, but where is all this getting us?’

‘Set a thief to catch a thief, Harry. You said it.’

Fox gazed at him in astonishment. ‘But he’s in prison, sir. You said so yourself.’

‘For the past four years,’ Ferguson said. ‘But what if we could do something about that?’

The internal ’phone rang and Ferguson went to it and picked it up. He nodded. ‘Fine. Tell him we’ll be straight down.’ He turned to Fox. ‘Right, Harry, grab your coat and let’s get moving. We haven’t got much time.’

He moved to the door and Fox followed him. ‘With respect, sir, where to?’

‘Bradbury Lines Barracks at Hereford, Harry. Headquarters of Twenty-second Special Air Service, to be precise. I’ll explain it on the way,’ and he hustled on through the door like a strong wind.

It was cold in the street outside, rain reflecting on the black asphalt, and as the big black Bentley pulled away, Harry Fox leaned back against the seat and buttoned his old cavalry overcoat one-handed. So many things circling in his mind, so much had happened and Brosnan simply wouldn’t go away, this man he had never met and yet felt he knew as intimately as a brother. He closed his eyes and wondered what Brosnan was doing now.

Belle Isle is a rock situated forty miles to the east of Marseilles and some ten miles from the coast. The fortress, an eighteenth century anachronism, seems to grow out of the very cliffs themselves, one of the grimmest sights in the whole of the Mediterranean. There is the fortress, there is the granite quarry, and there are some six hundred prisoners, political offenders or criminals of the most dangerous kind. Most of them are serving life sentences and, the French authorities taking the term seriously, most of them will die there. One thing is certain. No one has ever escaped from Belle Isle.

The reasons are simple. No vessel may approach closer than four miles and the designated clear area around the island is closely monitored by an excellent approach radar system. And Belle Isle has another highly efficient protection system provided by nature itself, a phenomenom known to local fishermen as the Mill Race, a ferocious ten knot current that churns the water into white foam on even a calm day. Hell on earth in a storm.

Martin Brosnan lay on his bed in a cell on the upper landing, reading, head pillowed on his hands. He was stripped to the waist, strong and muscular, his body toughened by hard labour in the granite quarry. There were the ugly puckered scars of two old bullet wounds in his left breast. His dark hair was too long, almost shoulder-length. In such matters the authorities were surprisingly civilised, as the books on the wooden shelf above the bed indicated.

The man on the opposite bed, tossed a pack of Gitanes across. ‘Have a smoke, Martin,’ he said in French.

He looked about sixty-five with very white hair and eyes a vivid blue in a wrinkled humorous face. His name was Jacques Savary, a Union Corse godfather and one of the most famous gangsters in Marseilles in his day. He had been a prisoner in Belle Isle since 1965, would remain there until he died, an unusual circumstance in one of his background for usually the Union Corse, the largest organised crime syndicate in France, was able to use its formidable influence with the judiciary to pull strings on behalf of members of Jacques Savary’s standing who found themselves in trouble.

But Savary was different. He had chosen to ally himself to the cause of the OAS. It has been said that Charles de Gaulle survived at least thirty attempts on his life, but he had never been closer to death than during the attack masterminded by Jacques Savary in March, 1965. The Union had at least saved him from execution, settling instead for a life sentence on Belle Isle, mistakenly assuming that his release could be arranged at some future date.

Rain lashed the window, the wind howled. Savary said, ‘What are you reading?’

‘Eliot,’ Brosnan told him. ‘“What we call the beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”’

‘The Four Quartets. “Little Gidding”,’ Savary said.

‘Good man,’ Brosnan told him. ‘See, all the benefits of an expensive education, Jacques, and you’re getting it for free.’

‘And you also, my friend, have learnt many things. Can you still open the door the way I showed you?’

Brosnan shrugged, swung his legs to the floor, picked up a spoon from his bedside locker and went to the door. The lock was covered by a steel plate and he quickly forced the handle of the spoon between the edge of the plate and the jamb. He worked it across for a few seconds, there was a click and he opened the door a few inches.

‘The same locks since eighteen fifty-two or something like that,’ Savary said.

‘So what, it doesn’t get me anywhere, only to the landing,’ Brosnan said. ‘I never told you this before, but I once worked out a way to get out. A little climbing, a certain amount of wading through the central sewage system and I could be outside. Found that out three years ago.’

Savary sat up, his face pale. ‘Then why have you never done anything about it?’

‘Because it gets you nothing. You’re still on the rock and nowhere to go.’

There was the sound of footsteps ascending the steel steps at the far end of the landing and Brosnan quickly closed the door and worked the spoon around again. There was a slight click and he hurried across to the bed and lay down.

The footsteps halted outside, a key turned in the lock, the door opened. The uniformed guard who looked in was an amiable looking man named Lebel with a heavy Walrus moustache. He wore an oilskin.

‘Stir it you two, I need your services.’

‘And what have we done to deserve the honour, Pierre?’ Savary demanded.

‘When I suffer, you suffer; you know I like you,’ Lebel said as they moved past him on to the landing. ‘The bastards have just given me the burial detail for the next month and you know the regulations. When they take their last swim, it must be at night.’

They paused for Lebel to unlock the door in the great steel mesh curtain at the end of the landing and Brosnan peered through it to the central hall below.

‘Who’s dead?’ Savary demanded.

Lebel looked at the paper in his hand. ‘67824 Bouvier. Served thirty-two years. Cancer of the bowel.’

It was a sobering enough thought to kill any further conversation as they descended to the hall and went over to the outer door where the judas gate was unlocked for them by another officer. They crossed the courtyard outside and climbed the steps to the mortuary.

It was a simple enough room with whitewashed walls, and lit by a single naked light. There were several well scrubbed wooden benches in a neat row. The corpse waited on one of them, strapped in a canvas body bag. An old convict in overalls that were too large for him, shoulders bent with age, scrubbed carbolic across the floor. He paused, leaning on his broom.

‘All ready for you, sir.’

Brosnan knew the form, had performed the task many times before. There was a simple wooden cart against one wall which he trundled across and he and Savary got the body on to it.

‘Right,’ Lebel said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘What about the chaplain?’ Savary demanded as they manoeuvred the cart down the steps.

‘Said he didn’t want one. An atheist.’

Savary was shocked. ‘Hell, everybody should be entitled to a priest when he goes.’ He glanced sideways at Brosnan. ‘You make sure they do things right for me.’

‘You won’t die, you old bastard,’ Brosnan said. ‘You’ll live for ever.’

The guard on duty at the gatehouse emerged to open the gates and they moved outside and followed the road, not down toward the harbour, but curving up to the left. It was hard work, pushing uphill. Finally, they came out on to a small plateau on the edge of the cliffs.

There was no moon and the rock dropped sheer, a good forty feet into the water. There was an impression of waves out there, broken water, white foam, and Brosnan could feel salt on his lips like the taste of freedom.

Behind them, Lebel switched on a light above a wooden door and unlocked it. ‘All right, let’s get the weights on him.’

The room was small with a wooden bench in the centre on which Brosnan and Savary placed the body. One of the walls was hung with a selection of oilskins and orange life jackets. The most interesting feature was the piles of heavy steel chain coiled neatly on the floor, each one in a different weight category according to a painted board on the wall behind it.

‘Right.’ Lebel consulted his document. ‘He weighed seven and a half stone at death. Christ, we can’t have that. He’ll float like a cork on that current.’ He turned to a sheet on the wall. ‘Ninety pounds of chain according to this. Get it on him.’

Brosnan took a chain from the correct pile and they proceeded to pass it through the loops specially provided for the purpose on the body bag.

‘I’ve often wondered why you make all this fuss over the weights, Pierre.’ Savary remarked. ‘The way you change it, according to the body weight?’

Lebel produced a pack of Gauloises and offered them one. ‘Simple. The Mill Race isn’t one current as most people imagine. It’s two. Stay on the surface, you’d end on the rocks at St Denise ten miles up the coast and bodies drifting in as regularly as that would scare old ladies walking the dog. But drop the body down to thirty fathoms, the current takes it out to sea. So, the weight factor is critical. Anyway, let’s get this over with.’

Brosnan and Savary carried the body between them to the edge of the cliff. They stood there for a moment and Savary said, ‘I tell you he should have a priest. This isn’t right.’

Lebel, his essential decency coming to the surface, removed his cap and said, ‘All right. Lord, into thy hands we commend the spirit of 67824 Jean Bouvier. He didn’t get much out of this life. Maybe you can do more for him in the next.’ He replaced his cap. ‘Okay, over with him.’

Brosnan and Savary swung a couple of times, then let go. The body turned over once, plunged into white foam below and disappeared. They stood staring down at the water.

Savary whispered, ‘The only way I’m ever going to get off this rock. I’m going to die here, Martin.’

There was desolation in his voice, total despair, and Brosnan put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Maybe – on the other hand, maybe not.’

Savary turned to stare at him, frowning, and Lebel closed and locked the door and switched off the light. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ and they turned and followed him back down the track, heads bowed against the rain.

At six a.m. Ferguson and Harry Fox were having breakfast in a truck drivers’ cafe on the A40 just outside Cheltenham. The bacon and eggs were the best Fox could remember enjoying since the Officers’ Mess at Combermere Barracks in Windsor. Ferguson was obviously just as impressed.

‘What about Devlin, sir?’

‘Remarkable man. Must be sixty-one now. An Ulsterman. County Down, I believe. Father executed during the Anglo-Irish war in nineteen twenty-one for serving in a flying column. Educated by Jesuits, took first class honours in English Literature at Trinity College. Scholar, writer, poet and highly dangerous gunman for the IRA during the thirties. Went to Spain in nineteen thirty-six. Served in the Washington Brigade against Franco. Captured by Italian troops and imprisoned in Spain until nineteen forty when the Abwehr had him freed and brought to Berlin to see if he could be of any use to German Intelligence.’

‘And was he, sir?’

‘The trouble was, from their point of view, he was a bad risk. Very anti-fascist, you see. The Abwehr’s Irish Section did use him once. They’d sent an agent to Ireland, a Captain Goertz. When he got stuck, they parachuted Devlin in to get him out for them. Unfortunately Goertz was caught and Devlin spent several months on the run before he managed to make it back to Berlin via Portugal. From then on, Ireland was a dead end as far as the Abwehr was concerned and Devlin took a job lecturing at the University of Berlin. Until the autumn of nineteen forty-three.’ Ferguson reached for the marmalade. ‘This really is very good. I think I’ll ask him for a jar.’

‘The autumn of nineteen forty-three,’ Fox said patiently.

‘How much do you know about the German attempt on Churchill’s life in November of that year, Harry?’

Fox laughed out loud. ‘Come on, sir, an old wives’ tale, that one.’ And then, continuing to watch Ferguson’s face, he stopped laughing. ‘Isn’t it, sir?’

‘Well, let’s assume it’s just a good story, Harry. The scenario would run something like this. Devlin, bored to tears at University of Berlin, is offered a job by the Abwehr. He’s to parachute into Ireland, then make his way to Norfolk to act as middle man between the most successful woman agent the Abwehr had in the entire war and a crack force of German paratroopers, led by a Colonel Kurt Steiner, the object of the exercise being to apprehend Churchill who was staying at a country house outside the village of Studley Constable.’

‘Go on, sir.’

‘All for nothing, of course. Wasn’t even Churchill, just a stand-in while the great man was going to Tehran. They died anyway, Steiner and his men. Well, all except one, and Devlin, with his usual Irish deviousness, got away.’

Harry Fox said in amazement, ‘You mean it’s all true, sir?’

‘A few years yet before those classified files are opened, Harry. You’ll have to wait and see.’

‘And Devlin worked for the Nazis? I don’t get it. I thought you said he was anti-fascist?’

‘Rather more complicated than that. I think if someone had suggested on our side that he should attempt to kidnap Adolf Hitler, he’d have thrown himself into the task with even greater enthusiasm. Very frequently in life we’re not playing the game, Harry. It’s playing us. You’ll learn that as you get older.’

‘And wiser, sir?’

‘That’s it, Harry, learn to laugh at yourself. A priceless asset. During the post-war period Devlin was a professor at a mid-Western college in America. He returned to Ulster briefly during the border war of the late fifties. Went back again during the civil rights disturbances of nineteen sixty-nine. One of the original architects of the Provisional IRA. As I said earlier, he never approved of the bombing campaign. In nineteen seventy-five, increasingly disillusioned, he officially retired from the movement. A living legend, whatever that trite phrase means. Since nineteen seventy-six, against considerable opposition from some quarters, he’s held a post as additional professor in the English Faculty at his old University, Trinity College.’

Ferguson pushed back his chair and they got up to go. ‘And he and Brosnan were friends?’ Fox asked.

‘I think you could say that. I also think what happened to Brosnan in France was a sort of final straw for Devlin. Still.’ He stood in the entrance looking across the dingy carpark and waved to his driver. ‘All right, Harry, let’s press on to Hereford.’

Barry was working at the maps in his apartment, soon after breakfast, when there was a discreet knock at the door. He opened it to admit Romanov.

‘How about the passports?’ Barry demanded.

‘No problem. Go to the usual place at ten o’clock for the photos. The passports will be ready this afternoon. Is there anything else you need?’

‘Yes, documentation for the Jersey route. That’s the way I’ll go. French tourist on holiday.’

‘No problem,’ Romanov told him.

Once in Jersey, he would be on British soil and able to take an internal flight to a selection of airports on the British mainland where customs and immigration procedures were considerably less strict than they would have been landing at London Heathrow.

‘If I collect the package Wednesday afternoon, you must be prepared to take delivery that night,’ Barry said. ‘Preferably a trawler, say fifteen miles off the coast.’

‘And how will you rendezvous?’

‘We’ll get whoever your people in London find to work for me, to arrange a boat. A good forty-foot deep-sea launch will do to operate somewhere out of this area.’ He tapped the map. ‘Somewhere on the coast opposite the Isle of Man. South of Ravenglass.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll leave for St Malo tonight, cross to Jersey tomorrow, using the French passport. There’s a British Airways flight to Manchester from Jersey at midday. I’ll meet your London contact man the following day on the pier at Morecambe at noon. That’s a seaside resort on the coast below the Lake District. He’ll recognise me from the photograph you keep on file at the KGB office at your London Embassy, I’m sure.’

Romanov looked down at the map. ‘Frank, if this comes off, it will be the biggest coup of my career. Are you sure? Are you really sure?’

‘That you’ll be a hero of the Soviet Union decorated by old Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself?’ Barry clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Nikolai, old son. A piece of cake.’

4

The 22nd Regiment, Special Air Service, is what the military refer to as an élite unit. Someone once remarked that they were the nearest thing the British Army has to the SS. A sour tribute to the unit’s astonishing success in counter-insurgency operations and urban guerrilla warfare, areas in which the SAS are undoubtedly world experts with thirty years’ experience gained in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo, the deserts of Southern Arabia and the Oman, the green country-side of South Armagh, the back streets of Belfast. It accepts only volunteers, soldiers already serving with other units. Its selection procedure is so demanding, both physically and mentally, that only five per cent of those applying are accepted.

The office of the commanding officer of 22nd SAS at Bradbury Lines Barracks in Hereford was neat and functional, if rather spartan. Most surprising was the CO himself, young for a half-colonel with a keen intelligent face, bronzed from much exposure to desert sun. The medal ribbons above his pocket included the Military Cross. He sat there, leaning back in his seat, listening intently.

When Ferguson had finished speaking the colonel nodded ‘Very interesting.’

‘But can it be done?’ Ferguson asked.

The colonel smiled slightly. ‘Oh, yes, Brigadier, no trouble at all as far as I can see. The sort of thing my chaps are doing in South Armagh all the time. Tony Villiers is the man for this one, I think.’ He flicked his intercom. ‘Captain Villiers, quick as you like, and we’ll have tea for three while we’re waiting.’

The tea was excellent, the conversation mainly army gossip. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before there was a knock at the door and a young man of twenty-six or seven entered. At some time or other his nose had been broken, probably in the boxing ring from the look of him. He wore a black track suit but the most surprising feature about him was his hair which was black and tangled and almost shoulder length.

‘Sorry about the delay, sir, I was on the track.’

‘That’s okay, Tony. I’d like you to meet Brigadier Ferguson and Captain Fox.’

‘Gentlemen.’ Villiers nodded.

‘Brigadier Ferguson is from DI5, Tony. He has a job of the kind to which we are particularly suited. Top priority. Seemed to me it could be your department.’

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