Patrick Kelly, the boss of the construction firm, was even easier. He had a house in Ossining, with countryside all around. His habit was to rise at six in the morning and run five miles. She checked out his usual route, then caught him on the third morning, running with the hood of his track suit up against heavy rain. She stood under a tree as he approached, shot him twice in the heart, then removed the gold Rolex watch from his wrist and the chain from around his neck, again at Hedley's suggestion. A simple mugging, was all.

So, everything worked perfectly. She hadn't needed the pills as much, and Hedley, in spite of his doubts, had proved a rock. Am I truly wicked, she would ask herself, really evil? And then recalled reading that in Judaism, Jehovah was not personally responsible for many actions. He employed angels, an Angel of Death, for example.

Is that me? she asked herself. But needing justice, she could not be sorry. So she continued until that rainy night in Manhattan, when she waited for Senator Michael Cohan to come home from the Pierre and was sidetracked.

At the same time that Helen Lang was returning to the Plaza, consoling herself with the thought that she would get Cohan in London, other events were taking place there that would prove to have a profound influence not only on her, but on others she already knew.

A few hours after Lady Helen went to bed, Hannah Bernstein entered Charles Ferguson's office at the Ministry of Defence, Dillon behind her.

'Sorry to bother you, sir, but we've got a hot one.'

'Really?' He smiled. 'Tell me.'

She nodded to Dillon, who said, 'There's an old mate of mine, Tommy McGuire, Irish-American. Been into arms dealing for years. He was caught with a defective brake light in Kilburn last night, and a rather keen young woman probationer insisted on checking the boot of his car.'

'Surprise, surprise,' Hannah Bernstein said. 'Fifty pounds of Semtex and two AK47S.'

'How delicious,' Ferguson replied. 'With his record, which I'm sure he has, that should draw ten years.'

'Except for one thing,' Hannah told him. 'He says he wants a deal.'

'Really.'

'He says he can give us Jack Barry,' Dillon told him.

Ferguson went very still, frowning. 'Where is McGuire?' ' Wandsworth,' Hannah said, naming one of London 's bleaker prisons.

'Then let's go and see what he has to say,' and Charles Ferguson stood up.

Wandsworth Prison was one of the toughest in the country, what was known as a hard nick. Ferguson saw the governor and served him with the kind of warrant that made that good man sit up. No one was to see McGuire except those designated by Ferguson, not even Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist section, and certainly not anybody from Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland or the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Any deviation from such a ruling could have sent the governor himself to prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act.

Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Dillon waited in an interview room and a prison officer delivered McGuire and withdrew on Ferguson 's nod. McGuire almost had a fit when he saw Dillon.

'Jesus, Sean, it's you.'

'As ever was.' Dillon offered him a cigarette and said to the others, 'Tommy and I go back a long way. Beirut, Sicily, Paris.'

'IRA, of course,' Ferguson said.

'Not really. Tommy was never one for direct action, but if there was a pound or two in it, he could get you anything. Automatic weapons, Semtex, rocket launchers. Got away with a lot because of his Yank passport and the fact that he always acted as an agent for foreign arms firms. German, French.' He gave McGuire a light. 'Still fronting for old Jobert out of Marseilles, but then you would. He has the Union Corse protecting him.' He turned to Hannah. 'Worse than the Mafia, that lot.'

'I know who they are, Dillon.' She looked at McGuire with total contempt. 'Two AK47S and fifty pounds of Semtex were found in your car last night. Samples, I presume? Who were you going to see?'

'No, you've got it wrong,' McGuire told her. 'I mean, I didn't know they were there. I was told there would be a car waiting for me at Heathrow when I got in. The key under the mat. It must have been a setup.'

Ferguson said coldly, 'We'll leave now.'

'Okay, okay,' McGuire said. 'You were right about the stuff in the car being samples. They were from Jobert to Tim Pat Ryan. When I flew in, I phoned to arrange the meet and discovered he was dead.'

'Indeed he is,' Ferguson said. 'But there was some mention of Jack Barry.'

McGuire hesitated. 'Barry used Tim Pat Ryan as a front man in London. It was Ryan who fixed things up. I can give you Jack Barry. I swear it. Just listen.'

'Get on with it, then.'

Hannah said, 'So you know Jack Barry?'

'No. I've never met him.'

'Then why are you wasting our time?'

'Let me,' Dillon said and offered McGuire another cigarette. 'You've never met Jack Barry? That's good, because I have, and he'd cut your balls off for fun if you crossed him. Let me speculate. Jack inherited the Sons of Erin from dear old Frank Barry, alas no longer with us. The Sons of Erin would kill the Pope, which isn't surprising as our Jack is one of the few Protestants in the IRA. However, he's had a falling-out with Dublin, Sinn Fein and the peace process. Probably thinks they're a bunch of old women.'

'So I hear.'

'So let me speculate again. His source of arms from Dublin has dried up. However, there's family money in his background, he's rich in his own right, so he's dealing direct with Jobert.

Semtex, guns, whatever, and you're the middle man. Ryan was in London, but, alas, no more.'

'That's right,' McGuire said eagerly. 'I'm supposed to meet Barry in Belfast in three days.'

'Really?' Ferguson said. 'Where exactly?'

'I'm to book in at the Europa Hotel and wait. He'll send for me when he's ready.'

'Send for you where?' Hannah Bernstein asked.

'How the hell would I know? I've already told you, I've never even met the guy.'

The room went very still. Ferguson said, 'Is that really true?'

'Of course it is.'

Ferguson stood up. 'Serve the warrant on the prison governor, Chief Inspector. Deliver the prisoner to the Holland Park safe house.'

She pressed the bell and the prison officer entered. 'Take him back to his cell and get him ready to leave.'

McGuire said, 'Have we got a deal?' but the prison officer was already hauling him out.

Dillon said, 'Are you thinking what I am, you old bugger?'

'You must admit it would be a wonderful sting,' the Brigadier said. 'When is McGuire not McGuire? This could lead us directly to Barry and, oh, how I'd love to lay hands on that one.'

'There is one thing, sir,' Hannah Bernstein said. 'McGuire is an American and it's too easy to spot a phoney American accent. Who are we going to get to play him? We need someone who can pass as American and who can handle himself

Ferguson said, 'That's a good point. In fact, it would seem to me there's an American dimension to all this. I mean, the President wouldn't be too happy to find out in the middle of peace negotiations for Ireland that there was an American citizen trying to sell arms to one of the worst terrorists in the business.'

Dillon, devious as usual, was ahead of him. 'Are you suggesting that I speak to Blake Johnson?'

It was Hannah who said, 'Well, that's what the Basement is for, sir.'

'Who knows?' Dillon said. 'Blake might feel like a holiday in Ireland. Who better to play an American than an American – especially one who can shoot a fly at twenty paces?'

'Sometimes you really do get it right, Dillon.' Ferguson smiled. 'Now let's get out of this dreadful place.'

Blake Johnson was still a handsome man at fifty, and looked younger. A Marine at nineteen, he'd left Vietnam with a Silver Star, a Vietnamese Cross of Valor and two Purple Hearts. A law degree at the University of Georgia had taken him into the FBI. When President Jake Cazalet had been a Senator and subject to right-wing threats, Blake had managed to get to him when a police escort had lost him, shot two men trying to assassinate him, and taken a bullet himself.