At the Holland Park safe house in London, Major Giles Roper sat in a track suit in his wheelchair, his shoulder-length hair tied with a ribbon, pulling it back from his bomb-ravaged face, as he listened to Harry Miller describe the visit to the White House. Roper lit a cigarette and poured a whisky as he listened.

'Good old Sean. No one could ever accuse him of lacking confidence.'

'Have you come up with anything else?' Miller asked. 'I can't say that I have, and I've gone over the audio tapes again and again. What you all listened to is still what I've got.' 'So what happens now?'

'I'm not sure. The rumours of British-born Muslims fighting for the Taliban are now confirmed. What the government can do about it is another matter.'

'Not very much, I imagine. The government is wary about stirring things up with the Muslim population.'

'So we'll all go to hell in a handcart together,' Harry Miller told him. 'But first, what do we do about Shamrock?'

'That's a different matter,' Dillon put in from the plane, 'and quite simple. We find him quickly, shoot him, and pass him over to the disposal men.'

'Ah, if only life were that easy,' Roper said.

'We know a lot about him already. The clues are there,' Dillon said. 'He obviously has military experience.'

'So what are you going to do? Go to the army list and pore over thousands of names going back ten, twenty or even thirty years? What would you be looking for?'

'You're right, but I won't be doing that. I've a strong feeling that going back to the scene of the crime might be the way.'

'To Mirbat?' Roper was aghast. 'Don't be a bloody fool, Sean. If the Taliban got you, they'd feed you to the dogs.'

'I'm sure they would, but I was thinking of Warrenpoint. I have a feeling that there might be some answer for me there. I was born in County Down myself, you know, at Collyban, no more than a dozen miles from the area.'