“Thank you, sir,” Mary said.

As they reached the door, Ferguson added, “I’ll give the old rogue a call, just to let him know you’re on your way,” and he reached for the phone.

As they went downstairs Brosnan said, “Thank God. At least I feel we’re doing something.”

“And I get to meet the great Liam Devlin at long last,” Mary said and led the way out to the limousine.

In the small café at the hotel, Dillon, Angel and Fahy sat at a corner table drinking tea. Fahy had the Ordnance Survey map partially open on his knee. “It’s extraordinary. The things they give away. Every detail.”

“Could it be done, Danny?”

“Oh, yes, no trouble. You remember that corner, Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall? That would be the place, slightly on an angle. I can see it in my mind’s eye. I can plot the distance from that corner to Number Ten exactly from this map.”

“You’re sure you’d clear the buildings in between?” Dillon said.

“Oh, yes. I’ve said before, Sean, ballistics is a matter of science.”

“But you can’t stop there,” Angel said. “We saw what happened to that man in the car. The police were on him in seconds.”

Dillon turned to Fahy. “Danny?”

“Well, that’s all you would need. Everything pre-timed, Angel. Press the right switch to activate the circuit, get out of the van and the mortars start firing within a minute. No policeman could act fast enough to stop it.”

“But what would happen to you?” she demanded.

It was Dillon who answered. “Just listen to this. We drive up from Cadge End one morning early, you, Danny, in the Ford transit, and Angel and me in the Morris van. We’ll have that BSA motorcycle in the back of that. Angel will park the Morris, like today, in the garage at the end of the road. We’ll have a duckboard in the back so I can run the BSA out.”

“And you’ll follow me, is that it?”

“I’ll be right up your tail. When we reach the corner of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall, you set your switch, get out of the Ford and jump straight on my pillion and we’ll be away. The War Cabinet meets every morning at ten. With luck we could get the lot.”

“Jesus, Sean, they’d never know what hit them.”

“Straight back to Bayswater to Angel waiting in the garage with the Morris, put the BSA in the back and away we go. We’ll be in Cadge End while they’re still trying to put the fires out.”

“It’s brilliant, Mr. Dillon,” Angel told him.

“Except for one thing,” Fahy said. “Without the bloody explosives, we don’t have any bloody bombs.”

“You leave that to me,” Dillon said. “I’ll get your explosives for you.” He stood up. “But I’ve got things to do. You two go back to Cadge End and wait. I’ll be in touch.”

“And when would that be, Sean?”

“Soon-very soon,” and Dillon smiled as they went out.

Tania was knocking at his door precisely at noon. He opened it and said, “You’ve got it?”

She had a briefcase in her right hand, opened it on the table to reveal the thirty thousand dollars he’d asked for.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll just need ten thousand to be going on with.”

“What will you do with the rest?”

“I’ll hand it in at the desk. They can keep your briefcase in the hotel safe.”

“You’ve worked something out, I can tell.” She looked excited. “What happened at this Cadge End place?”

So he told her and in detail, the entire plan. “What do you think?” he asked when he’d finished.

“Incredible. The coup of a lifetime. But what about the explosives? You’d need Semtex.”

“That’s all right. When I was operating in London in eighty-one I used to deal with a man who had access to Semtex.” He laughed. “In fact he had access to everything.”

“And who is this man? How can you be sure he’s still around?”

“A crook named Jack Harvey and he’s around all right. I looked him up.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“Amongst other things he has a funeral business in Whitechapel. I looked it up in the Yellow Pages and it’s still there. By the way, your Mini, I can still use it?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I’ll park it somewhere in the street. I want that garage free.”

He picked up his coat. “Come on, we’ll go and have a bite to eat and then I’ll go and see him.”

“You’ve read the file on Devlin, I suppose?” Brosnan asked Mary Tanner as they drove through the center of Dublin and crossed the River Liffey by St. George’s Quay and moved on out of the other side of the city, driven by a chauffeur in a limousine from the Embassy.

“Yes,” she said. “But is it all true? The story about his involvement with the German attempt to get Churchill in the war?”

“Oh, yes.”

“The same man who helped you break out of that French prison in nineteen seventy-nine?”

“That’s Devlin.”

“But, Martin, you said he claimed to be seventy. He must be older than that.”

“A few years is a minor detail where Liam Devlin is concerned. Let’s put it this way, you’re about to meet the most extraordinary man you’ve ever met in your life. Scholar, poet and gunman for the IRA.”

“The last part is no recommendation to me,” she said.

“I know,” he told her. “But never make the mistake of lumping Devlin in with the kind of rubbish the IRA employs these days.”

He retreated into himself, suddenly sombre, and the car continued out into the Irish countryside, leaving the city behind.

Kilrea Cottage, the place was called, on the outskirts of the village next to a convent. It was a period piece, single-storeyed with Gothic-looking gables and lead windows on either side of the porch. They sheltered in there from the light rain while Brosnan tugged an old-fashioned bell pull. There was the sound of footsteps, the door opened.

“Cead míle fáilte,” Liam Devlin said in Irish. “A hundred thousand welcomes,” and he flung his arms around Brosnan.

The interior of the house was very Victorian. Most of the furniture was mahogany, the wallpaper was a William Morris replica, but the paintings on the walls, all Atkinson Grimshaws, were real.

Liam Devlin came in from the kitchen with tea things on a tray. “My housekeeper comes mornings only. One of the good sisters from the convent next door. They need the money.”

Mary Tanner was totally astonished. She’d expected an old man and found herself faced with this ageless creature in black silk Italian shirt, black pullover, gray slacks in the latest fashionable cut. There was still considerable color in hair that had once been black and the face was pale, but she sensed that had always been so. The blue eyes were extraordinary, as was that perpetual ironic smile with which he seemed to laugh at himself as much as at the world.

“So, you work for Ferguson, girl?” he said to Mary as he poured the tea.

“That’s right.”

“That business in Derry the other year when you moved that car with the bomb. That was quite something.”

She felt herself flushing. “No big deal, Mr. Devlin, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“Oh, we can all see that on occasions; it’s the doing that counts.” He turned to Brosnan. “Anne-Marie. A bad business, son.”

“I want him, Liam,” Brosnan said.

“For yourself or for the general cause?” Devlin shook his head. “Push the personal thing to one side, Martin, or you’ll make mistakes, and that’s something you can’t afford to do with Sean Dillon.”

“Yes, I know,” Brosnan said. “I know.”

“So, he intends to take a crack at this John Major fella, the new Prime Minister?” Devlin said.

“And how do you think he’s likely to do that, Mr. Devlin?” Mary asked.

“Well, from what I hear about security at Ten Downing Street these days, I wouldn’t rate his chances of getting in very high.” He looked at Brosnan and grinned. “Mind you, Mary, my love, I remember a young fella of my acquaintance called Martin Brosnan who got into Number Ten posing as a waiter at a party not ten years ago. Left a rose on the Prime Minister’s desk. Of course, the office was held by a woman then.”