“There was a shoot-out at Drumore Place. I don’t know. You must take me there.”

“Jesus, woman, you’re in no fit state to go anywhere. There’s blood on your face. You must have taken a hell of a battering.”

“I must find out what’s happened to Major Ashimov. I must.”

And it was Kelly he was worried about. After all, if Kelly was still around, there was the IRA to consider.

He patted her shoulder. “I’ve got the Land Rover at the top of the steps. I’ll take you now.”

Yuri Ashimov knew none of this, for he was unconscious, facedown at Drumore Place, not dead, in spite of the two bullets Billy Salter had pumped into him, thanks to the nylon-and-titanium vest he’d been wearing beneath his shirt. An invention of the Wilkinson Sword Company, it was efficient enough to block even a.44 bullet. On the other hand, the shock to the cardiovascular system usually caused unconsciousness for a while.

Lying there, he stirred and groaned, moved a little and pulled himself up. He shook his head to clear it, remembering firing his pistol at Dillon, knocking the AK from his hands, thinking he’d got the bastard and then the shot catching his shoulder, spinning him round, and his last memory, Billy Salter’s face as he’d fired the heart shot. There was a chair nearby; he reached for it, pulled himself up and sat down. He heard a footfall and one of Kelly’s men, Toby McGuire, appeared in the archway.

“What happened to you?” Ashimov asked harshly.

“I was waiting in the summerhouse. Somebody jumped me. Knocked me out with a rifle stock.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Kelly’s dead and O’Neill. I was up and around when Dillon and the other guy came out on the terrace. I kept out of the way, but I heard what they were saying.”

“And what was that?”

Toby McGuire took a deep, shuddering breath and told him about the Kathleen and what had happened.

Ashimov sat there thinking about it. “So that’s what he said about Major Novikova? If she wasn’t willing to take the risks, she shouldn’t have joined?”