The Glory Boys

But it suited him well to be out of the rising sunlight, anonymous among the mass of people who belonged to the System. They would not be looking for him here. It was a place where he could rest, where his legs that ached and protested could relax, where he could doze and regain the sharpness of thought he must have by mid-afternoon.

The woman who served him at the long counter was surprised at the way his cup and saucer rattled as he carried them away from the cash machine. She put it down to nerves. Like half these Asians, she thought, scared out of their wits, and what do they have to do? Only clean out the loos and push a broom round. It amused her, gave a cherished feeling of superiority. But she was wrong. There was no fear in Famy now. That his hand shook was from the strain of carrying the bag for so many hours, fingers entwined around the plastic strap. But no fear, not now he was without the Irishman. And confidence is of critical value to the assassin. The killer has to believe in his prowess as much as his cause, must believe in his ability as much as the God-given right to exact retribution. Those who saw the unfamiliar face sitting at the clothless table by the window would have latched on to the great contentment on his features, the gentleness that comes from peace of mind and the patience to consume time. He was now a more dangerous and potentially lethal figure than at any time since he had landed in England. He had come to terms with his mission, and with its implications.

He was ready to kill.

He put three spoonfuls of sugar into the coffee, stirred it slowly and looked about him.

Along the Great West Road leading toward London from Windsor huge queues of traffic formed up behind the military convoy.

Land-Rovers front and rear, fifteen three-ton trucks, each carrying twenty soldiers. Alpha, Bravo and Headquarters Company. Grenadier Guards, long lines of battle honours stretching back into three hundred years of history. Thin red-line tunics of the ceremonial discarded for mottled camouflage denims, the uniform of urban guerrilla warfare of the streets of Northern Ireland. Four hundred men in all. FN rifles. General purpose machine-guns. Hand-held Carl Gustav rocket launchers. All there to protect one man from the hands of an equally solitary threat. Many times the resident Battalion at Windsor Barracks had practised on exercise their recent responsibilities of Heathrow security, but there was a tightness and silence about the men who sat on the slatted seats in the backs of the lorries. Never before had they been told the risk was real, confirmed.

Interspersed among the trucks were the armoured cars of two Hussar squadrons, Saladins with khaki cloth tied across the muzzle of the big gun, and the Saracen personnel carriers.

Police reinforcements were being mobilized from Divisional forces in the Metropolitan area. More would come from the rural Thames Valley strength. By nine in the morning the perimeter of the airport would be sealed, the concourses would be under guard, the tarmac patrolled.

Later the plans for the security of the El Al flight to Tel Aviv would be thrashed out in the squat police station on the far side of the tunnel where the various security forces would set up their control and communication posts.

The Prime Minister had rubber-stamped the guidance from Home Office and Defence. Saturation. Forces of such strength that the Arab would turn his back on his target, dismayed. Box the bastard out, deny him any chink of light, any opportunity to attack.

Through the window Famy saw the deployment. Little strung-out columns of troops. Rifles carried warily and diagonally across their bodies, letting the bustling civilians fan out and find a path to the side. Some were draped in the belts of machine-gun ammunition, worn in cross-over sashes. One man in each patrol hunched forward to compensate for the weight of the radio set perched high on his back. Among the conventional throb of the traffic he heard the piercing and complaining squeal of the big Rolls-Royce engines of the armoured cars, and saw the pedestrians out on the pavement pause and stare at them. All had read their morning papers, heard the radio news bulletins. They would wait for the five-minute call, for the show to begin. And all would stay for the curtain call. It amused Famy. One against so many. No one to share the footlights with him. After a while he became tired of watching the criss-cross motions of his enemy, and finished his coffee. He walked back to the counter, ordered a fresh cup, and with it a sandwich filled with dried and crumbling cheese and slices of over-ripe tomato.