TWO

"A strange man, Sean Dillon," Ferguson said. "I'd say that was an understatement, sir," Hannah Bernstein told him.

They were sitting in the rear of Ferguson's Daimler threading their way through the West End traffic.

"He was born in Belfast, but his mother died in childbirth. His father came to work in London, so the boy went to school here. Incredible talent for acting. He did a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and one or two roles at the National Theatre. He also has a flair for languages, everything from Irish to Russian."

"All very impressive, sir, but he still ended up shooting people for the Provisional IRA."

"Yes, well that was because his father, on a trip home to Belfast, got caught in some crossfire and was killed by a British Army patrol. Dillon took the oath, did a fast course on weaponry in Libya, and never looked back."

"Why the switch from the IRA to the international scene?"

"Disenchantment with the glorious cause. Dillon is a thoroughly ruthless man when he has to be. He's killed many times in his career, but the random bomb that kills women and children? Let's say that's not his style."

"Are you trying to tell me he actually has some notion of morality?"

Ferguson laughed. "Well he certainly never played favorites. Worked for the PLO, but also as an underwater specialist for the Israelis."

"For money, of course."

"Naturally. Our Sean does like the good things in life. The attempt to blow up Downing Street, that was for money. Saddam Hussein was behind that. And yet eighteen months later he flies a light plane loaded with medical supplies for children into Bosnia and no payment involved."

"What happened, did God speak down through the clouds to him or something?"

"Does it matter? The Serbs had him, and his prospects, to put it mildly, looked bleak. I did a deal with them which saved him from a firing squad. In return he came to work for me, slate wiped clean."

"Excuse me, sir, but that's a slate that will never wipe clean."

"My dear Chief Inspector, there are many occasions in this line of work when it's useful to be able to set a thief to catch one. If you are to continue to work for me, you'll have to get used to the idea." He peered out as they turned into Grafton Street. "Are you sure he's at this place?"

"So they tell me, sir. His favorite restaurant."

"Excellent," Ferguson said. "I could do with a bite to eat myself." • • • Sean Dillon sat in the upstairs bar of Mulligan's Irish Restaurant and worked his way through a dozen oysters and half a bottle of Krug champagne to help things along as he read the evening paper. He was a small man, no more than five-feet-five, with hair so fair that it was almost white. He wore dark cord jeans, an old black leather flying jacket, a white scarf at his throat. The eyes were his strangest feature, like water over a stone, clear, no color, and there was a permanent, slight ironic quirk to the corner of his mouth, the look of a man who no longer took life too seriously.

"So there you are," Charles Ferguson said and Dillon glanced up and groaned. "No place to hide, not tonight. I'll have a dozen of those and a pint of Guinness."

A young waitress standing by had heard. Dillon said to her in Irish, "A fine lordly Englishman, a colleen, but his mother, God rest her, was Irish, so give him what he wants."

The girl gave him a smile of true devotion and went away. Ferguson sat down and Dillon looked up at Hannah Bernstein. "And who might you be, girl?"

"This is Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, Special Branch, my new assistant, and I don't want you corrupting her. Now where's my Guinness?"

It was then that she received her first shock, for as Dillon stood, he smiled, and it was like no smile she had ever seen before, warm and immensely charming, changing his personality completely. She had come here wanting to dislike this man, but now…

He took her hand. "And what would a nice Jewish girl like you be doing in such bad company? Will you have a glass of champagne?"

"I don't think so, I'm on duty." She was slightly uncertain now and took a seat.

Dillon went to the bar, returned with another glass, and poured Krug into it. "When you're tired of champagne, you're tired of life."

"What a load of cobblers," she said, but took the glass.

Ferguson roared with laughter. "Beware this one, Dillon. She ran across a hoodlum emerging from a supermarket with a sawed-off shotgun last year. Unfortunately for him she was working the American Embassy detail that week and had a Smith and Wesson in her handbag."

"So you convinced him of his wicked ways?" Dillon said.

She nodded. "Something like that."

Ferguson's Guinness and oysters appeared. "We've got trouble, Dillon, bad trouble. Tell him, Chief Inspector."

Which she did in a few brief sentences. When she was finished, Dillon took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with an old-fashioned Zippo lighter.

"So what do you think?" she asked.

"Well, all we know for certain is that Billy Quigley is dead."

"But he did manage to speak to the Brigadier," Hannah said. "Which surely means Ahern will abort the mission."

"Why should he?" Dillon said. "You've got nothing except the word that he intends to try and blow up the President sometime tomorrow. Where? When? Have you even the slightest idea, and I'll bet his schedule is extensive!"

"It certainly is," Ferguson said. "Downing Street in the morning with the P.M. and the Israeli Prime Minister. Cocktail party on a river steamer tomorrow night and most things in between."

"None of which he's willing to cancel?"

"I'm afraid not." Ferguson shook his head. "I've already had a call from Downing Street. The President refuses to change a thing."

Hannah Bernstein said, "Do you know Ahern personally?"

"Oh, yes," Dillon told her. "He tried to kill me a couple of times and then we met for face-to-face negotiations during a truce in Derry."

"And his girlfriend?"

Dillon shook his head. "Whatever else Norah Bell is, she isn't that. Sex isn't her bag. She was just an ordinary working-class girl until her family was obliterated by an IRA bomb. These days she'd kill the Pope if she could."

"And Ahern?"

"He's a strange one. It's always been like a game to him. He's a brilliant manipulator. I recall his favorite saying. That he didn't like his left hand to know what his right hand was doing."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Ferguson demanded.

"Just that nothing's ever what it seems with Ahern."

There was a small silence, then Ferguson said, "Everyone is on this case. We've got them pumping out a not very good photo of the man himself."

"And an even more inferior one of the girl," Hannah Bernstein said.

Ferguson swallowed an oyster. "Any ideas on finding him?"

"As a matter of fact, I have," Dillon said. "There's a Protestant pub in Kilburn, the William of Orange. I could have words there."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ferguson swallowed his last oyster and stood up. "Let's go."

The William of Orange in Kilburn had a surprising look of Belfast about it with the fresco of King William victorious at the Battle of the Boyne on the whitewashed wall at one side. It could have been any Orange pub in the Shankhill.

"You wouldn't exactly fit in at the bar, you two," Dillon said as he sat in the back of the Daimler. "I need to speak to a man called Paddy Driscoll."

"What is he, UVF?" Ferguson asked.

"Let's say he's a fund-raiser. Wait here. I'm going 'round the back."

"Go with him, Chief Inspector," Ferguson ordered.

Dillon sighed. "All right, Brigadier, but I'm in charge."

Ferguson nodded. "Do as he says."

Dillon got out and started along the pavement. "Are you carrying?" he asked.