The Glory Boys

Spread across his desk, occasionally breaking off to pencil a few words on a pad, he scanned the files that had been left for him to digest, his eyes only a few inches from the paper. There was monumental concentration, head quite still, seeking for flaws in the arguments, high spots in the information. He believed totally in paperwork, required it to be short and explicit, but demanded all relevant facts to be set out in the files. He had hooked his coat over the end of his chair and undone the top button of his shirt, while his tweed tie hung down loose at the neck. He smoked incessantly, non-tipped and one of the strong brands, drawing deeply till there was hardly enough of the rolled paper left for him to hold without him burning his fingers.

Promptly at eight-thirty came the knock at his door, and Jones, followed by Fairclough and Duggan, came into the bright first-floor office. The DG gestured to them to pull up chairs and continued to read the last pages of the file on Ciaran McCoy. The section heads made a half-moon as they sat down on the far side of the desk, and waited for him to finish. The office was bare, but not to the point of being Spartan: there was a picture of the Queen – the Annigoni print; a water colour of a bowl of fruit; a table littered with yesterday's newspapers; wall-to-wall carpets (as his position decreed); and heavy plain curtains drawn back to let in the sunlight. Not much to gaze at, but they all felt the after-effects from the night just past, and none was in the mood for day-dreaming or staring at irrelevancies.

When he had finished the DG closed the McCoy file, piling it neatly with the others. He threw an eye quickly over the notes he had made, and then looked at the three men facing him. He could see their tiredness. A short meeting was required.

'There's not much time, gentlemen,' he started. Voice calm, easy, fluent from his Welsh background. 'Our guest here on Monday night, his public appearance on Tuesday, and the flight out undecided between Wednesday and Thursday. We can probably ensure that he goes on Wednesday. On what we have at our disposal the threat seems real enough. There is one factor we should consider before recommendations are made to the Home Office. If this were simply an IRA affair saturation protection would probably see us through. They tend to like to make it home all in one piece, so if they see the odds placed heavily against them they like to try again when conditions are more auspicious. But there's the added factor of the Middle East involvement. Different people, different philosophy, more prepared to go with the target. If the other half of the team is Arab – Palestinian – then we must accept he is prepared to die along with our scientist friend. It makes the operation of protection infinitely more complicated.

The suicide killer always has things stacked in his favour.

It means for us that we have to widen the number of people involved, and mount a much wider screen than I would otherwise advocate. That means police, uniformed and CID. Thoughts, gentlemen?'

Duggan spoke. 'This McCoy is a hard operator. Given them a long chase across the water, but he's on strange ground here. It's reasonable to suggest he'll need a safe house, somewhere he can hole up with the other man. He has two alternatives. He can go in with the usual crowd.

Provo supporters, that lot. On the other hand he can go elsewhere, somewhere right outside the norm. The only line we have on that could be some connection with his sister. She's no longer in London, back in the Republic, but she went through a spell in a commune, one of those in North London, but drifting. McCoy was reported as disapproving, but it could have given him the contact.'

'Half the raids the Special Branch mount are aimed at communes,' said the DG. it's a good suggestion, but it'll take time to check out, and that's one for the police.'

'Presuming that the Palestinian has joined up with McCoy – and we have to believe that from the rendezvous call,' said Fairclough,' – then we can just about guarantee that he's dependent on McCoy for his accommodation, and probably for the guns too. We've had the French report in overnight, and no firearms were found in the car, the one that was shot up and burned out. If the third lad made it away from the car there's little chance he could have carried the necessary firearms, explosives or whatever for three men. And it makes sense that the Arabs would provide the attack team, the Provisionals what local knowledge they needed.' it's strange they should have chosen McCoy, then. No history, no past form of operations in London or anywhere else outside his little patch. But with his associations no problem with firearms if he wanted them – plenty of access, could all be fixed. No problem there.' The DG was thinking aloud, picking his words carefully and slowly.