'So?'

'It's just the same in the UK. MI5 and MI6 have their own dark secrets and they not only hate each other, but also Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Unit and Military Intelligence. For proof of that, you'll find two interesting entries in the file, one American, the other Brit.'

'And what do they refer to?'

'There's a man called Blake Johnson at the White House, around fifty, a Vietnam veteran, lawyer, ex-FBI. He's Director of the General Affairs Department at the White House. Because it's downstairs, it's known as the Basement. It's one of the most closely guarded secrets of the administration, passed from one President to another. It's totally separate from the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service. Answers only to the President. The whispers are so faint people don't believe it exists.'

'But it does?'

'Oh, yes, and the British Prime Minister has his own version. It's there in the file. Brigadier Charles Ferguson runs it.'

'Charles Ferguson? But I've known him for yean.'

'Well, I don't know what you thought he was, but his outfit is known in the trade as the Prime Minister's private army. It's given the IRA a bad time for years. Ferguson has a sizeable setup at the Ministry of Defence and is responsible only to the PM, which is why the other intelligence outfits loathe him. His nght hand is an ex-IRA enforcer named Sean Dillon; his left, a Detective Chief Inspector named Hannah Bernstein, granddaughter of a rabbi, if you can believe it. Quite a bunch, huh?'

'But what has this to do with anything?'

'Simply, that the Secret Intelligence Service didn't want Ferguson and company involved, because Ferguson might have told the Prime Minister, and Ferguson has a private contact with Blake Johnson, which meant the President would have been informed and SIS couldn't have that.'

'So what happened?'

'SIS started to send the White House mild and useless information and disinformation. There was no way of implicating the members of the Sons of Erin. And then the file was lost.' He reached for the folder and held it up. 'Except for my copy. I don't know why I took it at the time. Self-disgust, I suppose. Now, I think you should have it.'