Tommy was suspicious of Healy for no other reason than he was not a member. Tommy didn’t have a friend in the world who was not a militant pro-Republican, a member of the Irish Republican Army. Although Healy was Irish Catholic, he was just a hired hand and that made him untrustworthy. If he cared about the cause he would not be taking money. Healy could have been forced to do the job, but experience had taught the organisation that it was far more effective to steal the money to pay for the professional than to steal the professional and threaten him to work for his life. They needed Healy, reputed to be the best in the whole of Ireland at what he did, to be on best form for this job.

Tommy was right to think Healy didn’t give a damn about the cause, but Healy had no love for the Brits either, not after what they had done to him. He had only one true lifelong love - solving puzzles. The more complicated they were the greater the challenge and the purer the high if he succeeded in cracking them. He should have been born fifty years earlier. He would have given anything to be a code breaker in the Second World War. He knew everything there was to know about Ultra and the breaking of the German, Japanese and Italian codes. Mathematics and psychology had been the primary skills then; now it was as much about knowing computers and electronics. But Healy had made sure he had kept up to date in that field too. If he had not screwed up all those years ago he could have ended up working for MI6 or possibly even the CIA. But now those ambitions were dead and buried for ever.The irony was that his childhood dream could now be fulfilled only by working for the other side, thugs and morons like these.Terrorists. He had worked for several organisations over the years: Libyans, Palestinians and Iranians. They were pretty much all the same as far as he was concerned. Some were just a bit more insane than others. The jobs were nothing to brag about but at least he made a living doing what he enjoyed and that, surely, was the important thing.

Tommy listened to the unidentifiable sounds coming over the speakers and watched Healy as he concentrated on every transmission and scribbled notes into a large notebook.‘Why do you listen to that if you can’t understand a word?’ he asked.

‘I may not be able to understand a single word, but there’s a lot of information to be gained,’ Healy replied as if talking to a child.

‘Like what?’ Tommy asked, lighting a new cigarette with his old one.

Healy would normally prefer not to get into a conversation with any person who had a single digit IQ, as this one obviously had, but when it came to his work he could talk about it to anyone who would listen. ‘Well, there’s tone for one,’ he said. ‘You can hear urgency, or lack of it. You can sometimes tell if it’s just casual communication or if it’s important, such as an operation. And you can tell, more or less, how many people are on the network. That’s quite a lot of useful information in the right hands.’

Tommy stared at Healy unconvinced. ‘Sounds like a load of bollocks to me.’

‘Which is why you only get to operate that nice big wheel in the front of the van and I get to play with all these little ones in the back,’ Healy said with a genuine enough smile. Healy had long since got used to spending his time with thickoes; wherever he worked he always had a driver or bodyguard and it was too much to expect anyone from that stratum to have any intelligence.

Healy first arrived on the scene in the seventies, a cocky, arrogant genius, bragging he could crack any code if he was given the time and equipment and volunteering his services to the IRA. That was in the days before secure scrambled communications. The IRA was willing to take a chance on him and gave him the money, the time and the place in which to prove himself: Belfast. He was as good as his word and within a year had successfully cracked the codes used by Britain’s most elite Northern Ireland undercover group, compiling lists of vehicles, number plates, photographs of operatives and the codes for every important location in the province. In the back of Healy’s mind he knew there was a good chance he would get caught eventually. In fact, as the prison psychologist said, from the start he really wanted to be caught because he craved the acknowledgement of his genius. After he was arrested he was all too ready to crow to the British, offering to show them how to prevent against any such future technical invasions. Didn’t the Americans employ German geniuses after the Second World War? How naïve he was to think they would forgive him, let alone ask him to join them. He never got over the shock of the public trial and the ten-year jail sentence. He was released after six years, a marked man and with any hope of a career in Western intelligence in tatters. If there was any solace he might gain from his circumstances, it was that it was due to his success in breaking the British military codes that the new secure communication system he was listening to at that moment had been introduced.

Another garbled transmission came from the speakers. Healy frowned as he concentrated on it. Then he smiled, nodding in recognition and self-satisfaction as he jotted something down on a piece of paper. Tommy leaned over to read what Healy had written.

‘Mary? Who’s Mary?’

‘It’s a voice,’ Healy replied. ‘Listen to the transmissions long enough and you start to recognise different voices.That was Mary. I’m certain it was. She’s been with the detachment almost a year now.’

‘How do you know her name is Mary?’ asked Tommy, looking confused.

‘I don’t.That’s just the name I’ve given her.’ Healy adjusted some controls on his panel. ‘And by the signal strength I’d say she was getting closer.’ He then checked his watch, curious about something. ‘There’s one element missing,’ he said, more to himself.

‘What’s that?’ asked Tommy.

‘I’d have thought it would be up by now. A bit slow. Which is good, I suppose.’

‘What’s slow?’ Tommy asked, a little annoyed at being ignored.

Healy looked at him as if just remembering Tommy was in the van with him. ‘The helicopter,’ he said.

He opened the passenger door of the sleek four-seater, dumped his bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat, and looked toward the Air Corps buildings. The pilot casually stepped out, wearing the standard green one-piece flying suit, a helmet and pulling on his tight leather gloves. Stratton took off his jacket, removed a shoulder holster from his bag and pulled it on, clipping the tail to his trouser belt. The pilot did not acknowledge Stratton as he walked around the other side of the cab and climbed in with the urgency of someone preparing for a Sunday drive. Stratton had a problem with him already.

‘Do you know what an op Kuttuc is?’ Stratton asked.

The pilot was a young, cocky lieutenant fly-boy with a condescending smile he reserved specifically for those he considered to be of an inferior class. He had placed Stratton in that category the moment he laid eyes on him.

‘Yes,’ he replied. It was one of those long, irritating ‘yeses’ that went up at the end, suggesting the question was childishly obvious. ‘One of your chaps has been kidnapped,’ he said as if he had been watching too many old Brit war movies. Stratton watched him climb in.The man was digging his own grave, completely ignorant of it.

Stratton checked his pistol and slid it into his holster. ‘This kite should’ve been turning over by the time I got here.’

‘I was here as soon as I got the word,’ the pilot replied tiredly.

‘You’re the standby pilot, right?’ Stratton asked.

‘Obviously,’ the pilot said as he flicked switches and pushed buttons in the order on his checklist.

‘That means you standby in your kit, helmet at your side, and when the bell goes you sprint like the Battle of Britain.’

The pilot continued checking his instruments, ignoring Stratton. Stratton reached over and took his arm in a vice grip. ‘Do you understand?’

The pilot stopped and looked at him, quite horrified by the physical contact.

‘Now get this fucking thing airborne,’ Stratton continued, releasing the pilot’s arm to pull on his heavy jacket.

The pilot continued to check off instruments, glancing at Stratton, unbalanced by his attitude. He was certain Stratton was not an officer and no matter what the urgency he had no right to talk to him in that manner, let alone physically grab him. He decided not to make an immediate issue of it as there obviously was some urgency, but he would certainly bring it up with his CO when they got back. He couldn’t give a fig if this ruffian was from Special Forces. Long hair and dirty clothes did not give him the authority to be insolent.

The pilot started the engines while Stratton climbed inside and pulled his door closed. Stratton fastened his seatbelt web, pulled on his headset and plugged the giro-steady device attached to the rifle into the power source on the instrument panel. He placed a full magazine into the magazine breach, rested the end of the barrel on top of the instrument panel and pulled back the cocking leaver, loading the weapon loudly. The pilot glanced at him and the rifle, aware the rifle should have been loaded outside the helicopter and in the sandbagged loading bay as standing orders demanded. He wondered why these people acted as if they could break any rule that suited them.

‘We’ll do ’im no good if we kill ourselves!’ he shouted.

The way Aggy saw it they had no choice. She was not about to give up trying and if she went any slower she might as well stop.

‘Crossroads!’ Ed suddenly screamed.

She tore right through it without slowing or even looking either way.

‘Fookin’ ’ell,’ Ed exclaimed. ‘This is fookin’ mad!’

‘That was blue six,’ she said, trying to sound as calm as she could. Ed only had eyes for the road. ‘Blue six, towards green three. Tell ’em!’ she shouted.

Ed found the send button and pushed it.

Tommy ditched his cigarette, craned forward and scanned the empty lane.

The pilot nodded. Got that, he said to himself. Whatever happened to ‘sir’?

‘When I give you an instruction, you say understood, or otherwise if you didn’t. If you say nothing, I don’t know if you’ve heard or understood.’

The pilot sighed. ‘Understood,’ he said, making an attempt to convey to Stratton he was not merely a taxi driver.

Stratton pressed a button on the headset cable. ‘Whisky one, airborne.’

In the ops room, Graham pushed the transmission button on the desk. ‘Whisky one is airborne,’ he confirmed. ‘One three kilo still has from blue six towards green three.’

‘Blue six to green three, understood,’ Stratton said. ‘Any tracking located? I’m too far to pick up anything yet.’

‘No. We won’t have anything else in the area to pick up the signal before you get there anyway,’ Graham said. ‘It’s gonna be up to you.’

‘Roger that,’ Stratton said as he pulled out his map book and studied it.

The Gazelle flew at three hundred feet as it left the land to cross the cold, grey waters of Lough Neagh. Stratton looked below to the water then at the pilot with irritation.

‘How long’ve you been flying, pal?’ Stratton asked.

‘It’s Lieutenant Blane to you. Not pal, understood?’ the pilot said, becoming very vexed indeed.

‘I asked you how long’ve you been flying?’

‘Long enough.’

‘Then get your nose down, drop to ten feet above the water and red line this fucking crate. There’s easily another twenty knots in her right above the water.’

‘Now don’t you start telling me how to fly too!’

‘They teach you ground effect in school?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got a team-mate right now being driven to his funeral and we’re his only hope.’

‘It’s dangerous to get too low over these waters.The winds are treacherous.’

Stratton cut him off and talked into the radio. ‘Whisky one, I’ve got a chicken shit pilot here. Can you put Mike on.’

There was a silent pause, then, ‘Wait one,’ came Graham’s voice.

After another short pause Mike’s refined voice came over the air. ‘This is the CO of Camelot. Can you hear me Lieutenant . . . Blane, is it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the pilot replied, suddenly a little cautious.

‘I’ll make this brief and easily digestible. There are only a handful of people between myself and God in this chain of command. If you don’t do exactly what the man beside you tells you, and that includes flying underwater if he asks, I promise I will use my considerable power to see you are court-marshalled for disobeying a direct order from me and therefore the Commander-in-Chief. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the pilot replied, already going red in the face.

‘Out,’ Mike finished.

Stratton looked at the pilot for the real confirmation that he fully understood. ‘Well?’ he said.

The pilot could not believe this was happening to him. He had only been in the province two months. So far, all he had been required to do was ferry senior officers to various barracks and carry out the occasional spy in the sky job for one of this lot. Like the rest of his colleagues, he knew the gang from the ‘funny farm’ were at the sharp end of intelligence gathering, but he regarded them as overrated and that they fancied themselves a bit too much. However, he was also aware they had a lot of clout and that he would be a toilet roll in a napalm fight if he so much as squeaked a word of dissent at them. He firmed his grip on the joystick and pitch controls, dropped the nose and accelerated toward the lapping water.

Graham lowered the handset from his mouth as Mike stepped in from the intelligence cell, reading a file. ‘A tad over the top,’ he said without looking up from his file. ‘And I would never put myself before God . . . Tell Stratton to head for Aughnacloy.’

The two standby bleeps smirked at Graham and received a wink back from him as he picked up the handset. ‘Whisky one,’ he said into it. ‘Head for black seven.’

‘Black seven,’ Stratton said, his voice, mixed with the thud of the helicopter rotors, boomed over the speakers.

‘That your helicopter?’ Tommy asked, his eyes fixed up the lane.

‘Very good. That was the helicopter. But I refer to the voice,’ Healy said as he adjusted some dials. ‘It was a man’s voice.’

‘You know his voice too, do you?’ asked Tommy, somewhat sceptically.

‘Oh, yes. I call him Achilles.’

‘That’s a grand name you’ve given him.’

‘He’s someone you wouldn’t like to cross swords with in a hurry.’

‘That a fact?’ Tommy said contemptuously.

‘I’ve heard his voice only a handful of occasions. On two of them someone died . . . two of yours.’

Healy hit a replay button on a tape recorder and played back Stratton’s last transmission a couple of times.The garbled sounds echoed through the van. ‘Yes, that’s Achilles all right.’

Tommy glanced over at Healy, disliking him even more following his reference to the dead as ‘yours’ and not ‘ours’. A car zoomed down the lane like a jet, passing in front of the van from right to left, the tail wind rocking the lower branches of the trees that reached over the road.

‘That was Sean,’ Tommy said quickly.

‘Mary is not all that far behind,’ said Healy.

Tommy started the engine and craned to look back up the road in the direction the car had come from. He tapped the steering wheel with his fingers, a little nervous about this next phase, but anxious all the same to get it done.

He suddenly saw Aggy’s car no more than a couple hundred metres away, the bushes whipping in its wake. ‘Here she is,’ he said as he put the engine into first gear and nudged forward a little, the nose of the van just poking from the small clearing in the wood. He needed to time his move perfectly. He could not afford for her to ram him and put him out of action. His orders were to get away and over the border as soon as possible. More to the point, he had to get Healy and his equipment back into the south.

When Aggy’s car was eighty yards away Tommy gunned the van forward and forced the creaky old vehicle on to the lane to show her his rear. Healy watched anxiously out of the dirty back window as Aggy’s car slammed on the brakes but continued to close at a rapid rate of knots, fishtailing in the narrow lane. He grabbed hold of the seat in case she hit them.

It was obvious to Aggy and Ed the instant they saw the van pull out that this chase was over for them. The instantaneous subconscious question for Aggy was: how badly was it over? Ed already foresaw the absolute worst.Aggy’s mind raced to process what little information she had. Her hands turned the wheel just enough so as not to cause them to roll immediately. They missed the back of the van on Ed’s side by inches and headed at an angle for the hedge.The slight verge served as a ramp to tip the front up and the car left the lane. It hit the hedge halfway up, punching out a chunk of it and shattering the headlights as they sailed through. The car was airborne for a few seconds before nosing hard into a freshly ploughed field. The frame bent on contact and the windscreen cracked all over. Aggy locked her arms on the steering wheel and rocked like a crash dummy on contact with the earth, her face enveloped in the airbag. The rear wheels hit earth and the car slid sideways for a short distance, shuddering over the ruts to finally come to a steaming stop.

Healy looked back at the car as they drove down the lane. He watched it until they were out of sight. ‘Bye bye, Mary,’ he said.

Tommy glanced at him and shook his head.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

‘Fuck off . . . Don’t speak to me for a moment, okay?’

She accepted he needed some release time and checked all about them through the windows. There was no sign of anyone. She felt for her gun. It was still in her shoulder holster.

‘How come my fuckin’ airbag didn’t go off?’ Ed finally asked.

‘You don’t have one on your side. That’s where they put the radio scrambler.’

‘Fuckin’ brilliant,’ he said.

She pressed the button below the seat. ‘Zero alpha, this is one three kilo, check?’

‘Zero alpha, send,’ came Graham’s voice from the ops room.

‘We’re out of it,’ she said. The words came out like a pathetic confession of failure for all to hear.

Water from the Neagh sprayed the bubble glass as the helicopter roared across the lake barely five feet above it. Land the other side was in sight, but they were still too far to know if Spinks had played his ace card, the only card he probably had left.

‘Nice and easy,’ he said. ‘Let’s not draw any attention.’

Sean was annoyed with the obvious advice. He took the constant flow of petty orders as a show of nerves on Brennan’s part, not what he expected from a man who was as hard and experienced as he was reputed to be. Sean drove into the town and before heading up the steep hill toward the city centre he turned into a housing estate.

‘There it is,’ said Brennan. ‘Pull in behind.’

Sean slowed the car and parked behind a van in the quiet street. Brennan leaned closer to Spinks’s face with his pistol shoved in his stomach and made his words as clear and murderous as possible.

‘We’re now going to change vehicles. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you, you Pink bastard. If you make a fuss and lark about, it won’t matter because we own this street, but I’ll batter the livin’ shite outta ya anyway for not doing what you’re told. Understand?’

Spinks nodded.

‘I was ordered to deliver you alive. No one said anything about bits of you bein’ missing, okay?’

Spinks believed him.

‘Pull yer trousers on,’ Brennan said.

Spinks shuffled on his back and pulled up his trousers and clipped them together. He tried to fasten the zip but it was broken.

‘Don’t worry about your shoes and socks. We’ll get you a nice pair of comfy slippers when we get to the hotel,’ Brennan said with a grin. ‘Nice and slowly now.The driver’s going to get out, open your door, and I’ll follow you out.’

Spinks pulled his shirt closed to cover his exposed chest and stomach. Brennan nodded to Sean, who opened his door and climbed out. He looked around and up and down the street. The windowless wall of the building behind him was covered with drawings of Republican flags and slogans. There was a handful of people about, someone returning from shopping, an old woman walking a dog, a couple of housewives chatting over garden fences, children kicking a football the far end of the street. Sean opened the rear passenger door.

‘Nice and easy,’ Brennan reminded Spinks.

As Spinks started to sit up he felt spasms of pain in several parts of his body, damage caused from the ride and where Brennan had roughed him up. He supported himself on his arms, pushing himself upright so he could drag his legs around and move them out the door ahead of him. His right hand slipped off the seat and into the boot where it touched something metallic jammed under the seat.The stun grenade. Spinks stalled for a second, his mind flying through the possibilities. He knew it was a slender chance, but he also knew that if he ended up wherever this thug was taking him it was the only one he had. There was still the ace to play, but he couldn’t use that while this bastard kept so close an eye on him. This might give him the opportunity to play that last card, if he could only get to it.When the kidnap scenario had been discussed in training all the emphasis was placed on avoidance. Once the operative was in the enemy’s clutches it was pretty much accepted the game was to all intents over. ‘Take your chances early,’ was the advice they always gave.

‘Move it,’ Brennan said impatiently, prodding Spinks with the gun.

Spinks lost hope at the sight of the gun barrel and decided the idea was suicide. He let his hand leave the grenade as he squeezed his legs past the back of the front seats. But, suddenly, he felt like a drowning man letting go of his lifebelt. He knew he had to take the risk. He had absolutely nothing to lose. He pushed his feet round to the door and fell back to let his hand find the grenade once again. It was jammed under the seat, but the right way around. He could feel the ring. He slipped his finger in through it, but then Brennan grabbed him viciously by the throat.

‘Move your bloody arse!’ he growled, his spittle hitting Spinks in the face.

The threat only served to remind Spinks how much he had to go for it now. He knew they were in Dungannon. He had recognised the town immediately.This monster grew only stronger the closer they got to the South. ‘I said move it!’

Brennan released Spinks who pulled himself upright. As he did so he pulled the ring clean from the stun grenade. There was a distinct and audible ‘ching’, a metallic sound he knew well but which, he hoped, Brennan and Sean would not. It was the actuating arm flying off under released pressure from the detonation spring, which in turn allowed the plunger to strike the cap that would start the sequence.

The explosions were rapid and immediate, noisy and bright, like a giant firecracker, dozens of bangs in succession, non-injurious but frighteningly loud, with particles of blinding, burning magnesium to add to the effect.The smoke and cacophony filled the car, one of the small charges going off inches from Brennan’s face. Brennan jerked back in immediate fear, dropping his gun to cover himself. The weapon designed to create instant confusion had done its job perfectly.

Spinks pushed out of the car and, crouching low, his bare feet hit the ground. He rolled forward and shouldered Sean backwards, throwing him to the pavement, then mustering all his grit and determination he ran with every ounce of strength he could pull from his legs. He slammed one bare foot in front of the other, ignoring the pain as the soft skin on the soles of his feet were slashed open in the first few paces. He was moving, but, it seemed, hardly at all as if he was running through molasses. The explosions behind him would not last long. Five or six seconds perhaps.

He turned off the pavement, ducked between the van and the car, and ran on to the street.

People looked towards the noise, looked at Spinks, his jacket and shirt flapping open, his bare feet. Spinks kept running, hard as he could, gaining a precious yard with each step, arms beating the air. Yet more misfortune befell him when the clip holding his trousers together snapped and they started to slip. He grabbed them with both hands and kept on going, but it upset his rhythm, slowing him as the crotch dropped closer to his knees and shortened his stride. He pulled them up a few inches and speeded up again.

Then he felt something dig into his crotch, under his balls, something sharp. He knew what it was and suddenly feared losing it. He reached into his underpants, still running hard, his fingers digging beneath his testicles. He touched it. At that same instant something flew out of his body, out of his chest just below his left shoulder. It felt hot and it burned. It flew ahead of him. It was a length of blood. He felt a hard whack on his back, behind where his chest burned, a brutal thump, like a rock hitting him, or a hammer blow. His mind acknowledged a loud bang somewhere behind him, a boom.

The force of the blow toppled him forward. He tried to keep his feet under him as he tipped by increasing his stride but it was no use. His head dropped lower than his hips, the road suddenly all he could see, He released his trousers and reached out with his left hand, his right jammed awkwardly inside his underpants, but the hand crumpled on contact, unable to hold his falling weight. His face hit the tarmac and scraped along the rough surface, taking the flesh from his forehead, his nose, and gouging his lips and chin. His gut hit and he bounced a little and rolled on to his side and then his back. He skidded a few more feet then lay there, breathing hard, dazed, commanding his limbs to get going. They beat the air as if he were running, but he could not coordinate them, the ground gone from beneath them.

Suddenly arms grabbed him and he was rolled on to his front. A hand pulled him up by his hair, another grabbed his collar, choking him, while another grabbed one of his arms. He was dragged forward in this position, his toes scraping along the road, taking the skin off to the bone.

He reached the back of the van, its doors open. He was raised quickly up and inside, then dropped into something, a trunk, or large box. He looked at the blurred faces above him, but only for an instant before a lid came crashing down inches from his face and it went black. There were more bangs in quick succession as doors were shut, and then the vehicle’s engine started up.

Spinks lay, rocking, in a dark, confined space once again. His shoulder started to burn as if it were on fire. He let out a moan, then a cry for help. All he could hear was the engine and the whine from the axle beneath him. It was his worst nightmare come true. Every operative’s worst nightmare.The unthinkable was happening to him. He was the one. It did not seem possible, even as he lay there. They had talked about it, the recruits together, during breaks in training, or at night in their beds, and sometimes at the bar in the camp after a few beers. It was like a ghoulish fairytale, the kind of horror that could only happen to someone else.

Spinks started to cry. His life flashed in front of him, with plenty of time to see the details. Life was not so meaningless, even the old days, the boring pointless days of his youth. He wanted to live. And he would, for quite some time he expected. But every second of that would be horror. The stories of what they did to captives were unthinkable. If they could slowly torture to death one of their own, what would they do to him, a British spy, a hated undercover man?

Tears rolled off his face into his ears. His chest shook with painful heaves as his fear took hold. He scratched the top of his coffin. His nails broke. He didn’t care. He scratched and pushed with his feet as he cried. But it was no good. His coffin was too strong. He gave up the effort and just cried. He wallowed in his nightmare for a few moments more, and then even that was too exhausting to maintain. He eventually lay there, quietly, listening to his breathing above the sound of the engine. He moved a hand to touch the burning pain below his shoulder. It was wet. He felt under his shirt and found a small tender hole in his flesh. Images of his run and fall came back to him. He could see the scene more clearly now than when it happened. He was in Dungannon. They were still in the North. Then he remembered his ace.

Despite the intense pain in his chest, Spinks twisted himself in the confined space so that he could manoeuvre his arm down into his underpants and between his fatty legs. He reached under his balls to where it had moved and felt its hard plastic edge. Brennan had thoroughly searched for it but had stopped short of Spinks’s most dank nether regions. Had it remained where Spinks originally placed it, loosely in the front of his undies, Brennan might have found it when he pulled them down. He gripped the miniature transponder in his fingertips and carefully pulled it out.