“Carroll, listen to what we've just found. You're not going to believe it, I'll wager. There's been an incredible turn. The IRA… the IRA has just contacted us… They want a meeting set up with you in Belfast. You specifically. They're in the game now, too. The Russians seem to be out.”

“In what way? How are the provos involved, Perry?”

Blood was suddenly pounding in Carroll's forehead. Green Band came at you hard, then they pulled away just as fast. They came at you-then they disappeared again. They were like cardsharps. Carroll was assailed by the same exasperating thought as before-they're still playing games. He sighed wearily.

Come to Florida, Mr. Carroll.

Go see Michel Chevron, Mr. Carroll.

And now the provos.

“They've come into some securities, some U.S. bonds. Over a billion American dollars' worth, according to the boyos… They listed names and serial numbers for us to check in New York. They check.”

“Hold on, wait a minute,” said Carroll. “The IRA has taken over all the stolen securities?”

“I don't know. They're definitely in possession of some stolen goods.”

“But how?”

“Who knows. They must have met with Green Band, maybe with François Monserrat's people. They're telling us as little as possible, of course.”

“Son of a bitch.” They'd come so far; they'd seemed so close to some kind of break in the Green Band puzzle. “All right, all right. We'll be back in touch as soon as we sort out some things here. Thanks for calling. We'll get back to you, Perry.”

Carroll slammed down the phone receiver. He glared across the hotel room at Chief Inspector Frazier, at Caitlin, whose eyes were now wide open and alert.

“Somehow the IRA has made a move into this thing. More chaos orchestrated by Green Band… It seems the provos want to talk about selling some securities back to us. Over a billion American dollars' worth. They know we're in London. How could they know?”

The question shrieked in Carroll's brain.

He couldn't answer it. He hadn't been able to answer it. What was the point of it all now? Something was deflating in him.

He wanted to sleep.

How could they know everything ahead of time? Who was keeping them informed?

The man called François Monserrat, who was wearing a black nylon anorak and a dark beret and who now walked with a pronounced limp, moved down Portobello Road in the west of London.

He passed through the open market for which this street was famous; now and then he would pause at this stall or that and examine an antique. There were some very fine pieces to be had here. There were also some obvious fakes.

You needed a good eye, a practiced eye, to tell the real article from the false. In the palm of his hand, he turned over a small jade lynx. He curled his fingers around it, squeezing hard… He was not a man who gave way to his emotions easily. But at any given moment an emotion could all too easily explode.

Like now.

Cold anger was coursing through Monserrat. If the lynx had been real, he would have squeezed the life out of it. He didn't like clever games, when they were played by someone else's rules.

Green Band had become a threat.

They said one thing. They did another.

They suggested important meetings. The meetings never took place.

They were phantoms. Monserrat had grudging admiration for them.

He set down the jade lynx and closed his eyes. He retreated into a dark, cool place in the deepest part of his mind. In this place he always had control. Nothing slipped away from him in that hidden recess.

This time, though, it failed him. He opened his eyes and the bustling market assaulted his senses.

Green Band was somewhere close by. What did they want?

Perhaps very soon, he would know.

Belfast, Ireland

They had to wait at the tiny, fastidious Regent Hotel in Belfast.

Arch Carroll tried to accept the helpless feeling that they had no control over anything that was happening. The Green Band strategy was working flawlessly.

Well-coordinated economic terror.

Massive psychological disorientation designed to create escalating chaos and worldwide terror.

Patrick Frazier kept up a cheery pep talk under the unusually trying circumstances. The British Special Branch man was almost tirelessly gung ho, but understated, too.

Frazier slid off his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes briskly. “You'll be outfitted with an internal transmitter, Caitlin. Absolute state of the art. Designed for the military. Armalite Corporation. You swallow the damn thing.”

“If we ever do meet up with them, Caitlin, you must verify that the securities are genuine,” Frazier said.

“If we ever meet up with them.”

Six more hours droned by in painful, slow waltztime. The only perceptible change was the morning sliding into afternoon, the day turning to the steel blue shades of the Northern Irish cityscape.

A red-haired serving girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, brought in steaming tea and hot Irish soda bread. Carroll, Frazier, and Caitlin ate nervously, more out of boredom than of anything else.

Carroll remembered to check in with Walter Trentkamp's office in New York. He left a message for Walter: “Naught, zero, bopkes, zip, goose egg… as in wild goose egg chase.”

Ten hours passed slowly in the Regent Hotel suite.

It was exactly like the night of December 4 in New York, when the final deadline for the bombing had passed.

From the fourth-floor window of the hotel suite, Carroll saw an antiquated bicycle bumping over the cobblestoned street. The man on the bike looked to be about seventy, and his thin frame didn't look as if it could survive the shuddering motions of the bike. Carroll leaned closer to the window.

The rider parked his bike almost directly below the hotel window.

“Could this be our contact?” Carroll asked in a hoarse voice.

Patrick Frazier moved to the window and studied the old man. “Doesn't look the terrorist type. That's a good sign. They never do in Belfast.”

The rider hobbled into the hotel, then disappeared from Carroll's sight.

“He's inside now.”

“Then we wait and see,” Patrick Frazier said, muttering to himself.

Carroll sighed. He looked toward Caitlin, who smiled bravely at him. How did she always stay so calm? The journey, the tension, the awful waiting. The sense, all around them, of imminent danger. Belfast, after all, was a fully declared war zone-a tragic city where innocent people died daily, pursuing confusing beliefs that had their roots in a conflict begun hundreds of years before.

Less than ninety seconds after he went in, the old man came marching out again. He rigidly climbed back on his bike. Immediately there came a solid rap on the hardwood door of the suite.

Caitlin opened the door with a sharp pull.

“An old man just delivered this message,” a young British detective crisply reported. He went to his commander, passing both Caitlin and Carroll without so much as a nod.

Patrick Frazier ripped open the envelope and read without any discernible expression. Finally his red-rimmed eyes peeked over the wrinkled note at Carroll. He seemed nervous and concerned.

He read the message aloud to Carroll and Caitlin: “There's no salutation or date… It reads as follows: ‘You are to send your representative with the proof of transfer of funds. Your representative is to be at Fox Cross Station, six miles northwest outside Belfast. That's the railroad. Be there at oh five forty-five. The precious securities will be safely waiting nearby… The messenger is to be Caitlin Dillon. No one else is acceptable to us. There will be no further contact.’”