“Yes, Michael, your handlers speak very highly of you and you were in the British army, which is good and although, um, unfortunately you were asked to leave Her Majesty’s employ rather prematurely, you completed a reconnaissance course and received some special operations training.”

“I failed that recon course, and the special ops course ended with me in the brig for assaulting a civilian,” I said blithely.

Samantha was not to be put off.

“That’s neither here nor there. The fact is you were in the army, which is good, and you were also a low-level gangster in Belfast, which is even better. And you worked for the Irish mob in America, which is best of all. You could be an ideal person to infiltrate the Sons of Cuchulainn for us. Dan Connolly of the FBI says that you’re one of the best that he’s ever seen. Proficient, merciless, bold, surprisingly disciplined.”

“You talked to Dan, huh? Nice of him to sell me down the river.”

“No, no, Dan was very complimentary… Michael, I have to tell you, I’m going out on something of a limb here. Dropping everything, flying to Spain, talking to you. But now that I’ve met you I honestly think you could be the one to do this job for us. To infiltrate this cell and gather information and help put them away before they ruin everything. If they manage to do a bombing campaign in America, the Protestant terrorists will have to respond, the IRA will have to reply to that, and oh my goodness the whole cease-fire and all our hard work will be jolly well up the spout.”

“How jolly sad,” I said, irritated enough to take the piss.

“And naturally if you did do this for us, we would convince the Spanish government to drop all charges against you,”

Samantha said with a satisfied wee grin. She sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, blocking the crotch shot.

I also smiled. Who the hell did they think they were dealing with? Did they think I was some eejit Paddy just off the bloody boat?