“A debatable point,” Dillon said. “Let’s say I’m Irish and leave it at that.” He swallowed some more champagne. “Who dropped me in it? Wegner or Schmidt?” He frowned. “No, of course not. Just a couple of do-gooders. Tomic. It would be Tomic, am I right?”

“A good Serb.” Branko poured a little more champagne. “How on earth did you get into this, a man like you?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“I’ll be honest, Mr. Dillon. I knew you were coming, but no more than that.”

“I was in Vienna for a few days to sample a little opera. I’m partial to Mozart. Bumped into a man I’d had dealings with over the years in the bar during the first interval. Told me he’d been approached by this organization who needed a little help, but were short on money.”

“Ah, I see now.” Branko nodded. “A good deed in a naughty world as Shakespeare put it? All those poor little children crying out for help? The cruel Serbs.”

“God help me, Major, but you have a way with the words.”

“A sea change for a man like you I would have thought.” Branko opened the file. “Sean Dillon, born Belfast, went to live in London when you were a boy, father a widower. A student of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at eighteen, even acted with the National Theatre. Your father returned to Belfast in 1971 and was killed by British paratroopers.”

“You are well informed.”

“You joined the Provisional IRA, trained in Libya courtesy of Colonel Qaddafi and never looked back.” Branko turned a page. “You finally broke with the IRA. Some disagreement as to strategy.”

“Bunch of old women.” Dillon reached across and helped himself to more Krug.

“Beirut, the PLO, even the KGB. You really do believe in spreading your services around.” Branko laughed suddenly in a kind of amazement. “The underwater attack on those two Palestinian gunboats in Beirut in 1990. You were responsible for that? But that was for the Israelis.”