The truck was chugging blue diesel fumes, the tailboard down, and Dillon was about to climb aboard when he stopped and went rigid. Across the carpark, standing between two MPs, Malone was staring about him with a look of dazed bewilderment. Dillon pushed the others aside, growling in his throat to get at the yellow bastard, beat the holy shit out of him. Jimmy and Steve hauled him back. 'Cool it, Frank – let's just get the hell out of here.'

Dillon was ashen, trembling. 'Okay, okay…' He subsided, wiping his mouth. 'But one day I'll have him for this!'

Two scores to settle. The IRA and Malone. One day for certain, both of them. He'd never rest till it was done. Never.

Dillon stood, holding onto the swaying truck as it bumped over potholes to the road, seeing them lift the body bags, so very carefully and gently, and slide them into the military ambulance. And even when the truck turned and the sight was hidden from view, Dillon continued to stare out. Never.

FRANK DILLON

CHAPTER 3

Thin curtains of chill wintry drizzle swept over the gleaming drill square, neat gravel paths and sodden grass verges of Browning Barracks, Aldershot. Known as The Depot, this unlovely collection of flat-roofed, slab-sided buildings, resembling nothing more than an inner-city council estate, housed the three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment and units of Airborne Forces. Through the rain-streaked window of the Sergeants' Mess, lingering over his second cup of lukewarm coffee, Frank Dillon watched two truckloads of raw recruits just pulling in, 'Joe Crows' fresh from Civvy Street. Some of them would jack it in tomorrow, Dillon knew, others not last till the end of the week. As for the rest, they would go on to experience the joys of twelve weeks of mental and physical torture before they faced the ultimate test of 'P' Company – five days of sheer undiluted hell on earth.