He switched off, and Miller said, "Sean, you were a top enforcer with the IRA and you never got your collar felt once. Do you really think this is some kind of IRA hit?"

"Not really. Most men of influence in the Provisional IRA are now serving in government and the community in one way or the other. Of course, there are splinter groups still in existence-that bunch called the Real IRA, and rumors that the Irish National Liberation Army still waits."

"INLA," Miller said. "The ones who probably killed Mountbatten and certainly assassinated Airey Neave coming out of the underground car park in the House of Commons."

"True," Dillon said. "And they were the great ones for using sleepers. Middle-class professional men, sometimes university educated, accountants, lawyers, even doctors. People think there's something new in the fact that Islamic terror is able to recruit from the professions, but the IRA was there long before them."

"Do you believe IRA sleepers still exist?" Miller asked.

"I guess we can't take the chance they don't. I'm going to call Clancy."

Clancy said, "This really raises the game," once they reached him. "I'm sitting at Blake's bedside now. I'll let you talk to him, but don't talk too long. By the way, we've established that Flynn's American passport was a first-class forgery."

Blake said, "That you, Sean?"

"It sure is, old stick," Dillon said.

"Clancy filled me in about Miller and me and some sort of possible IRA link with these prayer cards."

"And we've now discovered the same card in Ferguson's driver's wallet, and I hear the guy who tried to waste you, Flynn, had a false American passport."

Blake laughed weakly. "I'll tell you something funny about him, Sean. When I had him covered and told him to give up, he didn't say 'Fuck you.' He said 'Fug you.' I only ever heard that when I was in Northern Ireland."