He groaned. Marple from London, which meant full uniform. He dressed quickly, taking it from the dry-cleaning bag, grateful it hadn’t been worn. It looked rather good when he checked himself in the mirror, and the ribbons for Ireland and the Military Cross set things off nicely. He adjusted his cap, nodded to himself, took a military trench coat from the wardrobe, and went out.

He had his own vehicle on allocation, a Ford pickup painted khaki green. It was parked in the officers’ sector in the corner of the old schoolyard. Vehicles there were never locked in case of emergencies, and the gate sentries were deemed security enough. He opened the driver’s seat, tossed his trench coat into the rear, and got behind the wheel.

He reached the gate and slowed as the sentry stepped out, raising the bar. “You know Jean Murray, don’t you, Fletcher? I thought I saw her earlier.”

“You did, Captain, but she wasn’t around for long and left again. In fact, I think that’s her over there in the church doorway.”

Roper was aware of a sudden chill, drove out slowly toward the other side of the road, and saw her standing there, soaked to the skin, hair plastered to her skull. She was like a corpse walking.

The moment she saw him, she started down the steps. He pulled up at the curb and lowered his window. “What are you doing here, Jean?”

“I wanted to give you a present.” She produced a black plastic control unit about nine inches long. “The Howler, Captain. Kenny did finish it, but this isn’t your present. That’s under the passenger seat, and remember, the Howler has two faces. It can switch on as well as switch off.”

She laughed, and it was like no laugh Giles Roper had ever heard in his life, and as he scrabbled under the seat, pulling out the white plastic shopping bag he found there, the world became an infinity of white blinding light, no pain, not at that moment, simply enormous energy as the explosion took him into the eye of the storm.

SO JEAN MURRAY died, killed instantly, just another bomber, a statistic of those terrible years, and the Howler, the Holy Grail, the ultimate answer to the bomb, died with her. Her final act of mad revenge started Giles Roper on a road that encompassed dozens of operations, a time of incredible pain and suffering, and yet it was also a journey of self-discovery and real achievement, as he became one of the most significant figures in the world of cyberspace.

He never disclosed what took place on that last night in Belfast. To the authorities, Jean Murray had just been another bomber, and over the years Roper had come to terms with her and was no longer disturbed by the memory. After all, what she and her brother had intended for him was kidnap, torture, and murder. What they had given him, unintentionally, was the wheelchair and the new life that had brought him.

The George Cross had come afterward, although it was a year and a half before he could face the Queen for her to pin it on. By then, his mother had died, and his wife, totally unable to cope, had moved on, pleaded for a quiet divorce, even with all her Catholic conviction, and finally married a much older man.

Roper was now an indispensable part of Ferguson’s security group, spending most of his time at the Holland Park safe house in front of his computer screens, frequently racked with pain that responded only to whiskey and cigarettes, his comfort food, sleeping only in fits and starts and mainly in his wheelchair. Indomitable, as Dillon once said, himself alone, a force of nature.

LONDON

4

At ten-thirty on the morning following his late-night conversation with Svetlana Kelly, Roper, accompanied by Monica, was delivered to the side entrance in the mews beside Chamber Court off Belsize Avenue. Roper was off-loaded, and a CCTV camera beside an ironbound gate in the high wall scanned them.

A voice, not Svetlana’s, said through the speaker, “Would that be Major Roper and Lady Starling?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Doyle told her.

“I’m Katya Zorin, Svetlana’s companion. The gate will open now. Tell them to follow the path inside, and it will bring them round to the conservatory.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” The gate buzzed and opened. Doyle said, “I’ll wait. I’ve got a couple of newspapers.”

Roper went through into a quiet, ordered world of rhododendron bushes, poplars and cypress trees, a weeping willow. Not much color around, but it was, after all, February. The path was York stone, but expertly laid so that the going was smooth. They approached a fountain in granite stone, moved on to the large Victorian house, and there was the terrace of the conservatory. A glass door stood open and Katya Zorin waited.

Roper had looked her up. She was forty and unmarried, born in Brighton to a Russian immigrant who had married an English woman. A senior lecturer at the Slade, where she taught painting, she was a successful portrait painter and had even had the Queen Mother sit for her. She also had a considerable reputation in the theater as a set designer.

She had cropped hair, a kind of Ingrid Bergman look, and wore khaki overalls. “It’s lovely to meet you.” Her handshake was firm. “Just follow me.”

She led the way into a delightful conservatory that was a sort of miniature Kew, crammed with plants of every description. Internal folding doors were open, disclosing a large drawing room, fashioned in period Victorian splendor, but Svetlana Kelly sat in the center of the conservatory in a high wicker chair, a curved wicker table before her, two wicker chairs on the other side of it, obviously waiting for them.

Monica had been well prepared by Roper. In a way, she felt she knew them already.

“My dear Lady Starling, how nice to meet you. Katya and I looked you up on the Internet. Brains and beauty, such a wonderful combination.”

“And such good bone structure.” Katya actually put a hand under Monica’s chin. “I must do a drawing, at least.”

Svetlana said, “And Major Roper. A true hero, a noble man.”

“Yes,” said Katya. “Now, please let me apologize. I must run off to the Slade for a seminar, so if you would accompany me, Lady Starling, I will show you the kitchen, and if there’s anything you’d like-coffee, tea, something stronger-I’m sure you won’t be shy about helping yourselves. We don’t keep a maid.”

“Of course.” Monica wasn’t in the least put out. “Anything I can do.”

Katya kissed Svetlana on the forehead. “Later, you may tell me all about whatever it is. Now I must go.”

She and Monica went out. There was a sideboard loaded with drinks and glasses. “Have a drink, my dear. What is your pleasure?” asked Svetlana.

“Scotch whiskey in large quantities, I’m afraid.”

“Which helps with the pain? You have had so many years of it that many drugs have lost their ability to cope, I imagine.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“I’m a sensitive, my dear, I know the most intimate things about people. God blessed me as a child. Two gifts. To act-my abiding joy, my passion-and to heal. Come close.” He eased the chair around and she took his face in her hands. “You have the pain in your head, am I right?”

“Always.”

“My hands are cool.”

“Very.”

“Now my fingers on each side of your temples.” The surge of heat was profound enough to shock him, and the usual tension subsided. “See, I told you so. Now go and get your whiskey and a vodka for me.”

He went to the sideboard, poured the drinks, and brought them back. She raised her glass. “To life, my dear.”

They tossed it down, and Monica returned. “Katya’s coming back. We got as far as her Mini Cooper, and her mobile rang. It was the Slade canceling her seminar, a water pipe had burst or something. Anyway, I’m glad. I must say I like her enormously.”