The Glory Boys

The Under Secretary bridled. 'You must understand that I was passing on a request from my Minister.'

The Ambassador smiled, without friendship, puckered his eyes fractionally, and said, 'And I will pass on to my Minister that the British Government will be providing – what was the word you used? – yes, "adequate protection". Perhaps you should know, since it seems you have not been informed, that while we have been discussing the suitability of the visit the security attache at my embassy has been talking with the relevant people on your side on the very question of Professor Sokarev's safety. At times like this, Under Secretary, it is liaison that is needed.'

He turned on his heel and made his own way out of the room.

In the early afternoon McCoy took Famy from the house and to the car parked fifty yards up the road on the far side.

'I didn't bring it down to the station last night,' he said, it's nicked – stolen – and that's too public a place to leave it lying around. It's all right in a street like this, half the bloody motors here have separated from their log books.'

It was a two-door Ford Escort, painted green and unscratched, 'M' registration. 'I got it over in Wembley, that's on the far side of London, out in the suburbs, night before last. Goes okay, though it's a bit small.'

Famy looked at the car, disinterested, and waited for the passenger door to be opened for him. Soon they were heading past Islington Green and stopping at the lights, indicator clicking, ready to turn right down the Pentonville Road and then into the main university complex. And as they drove McCoy realized the extent to which he was involved. It had begun simply, and without complications; providing back-up, assistance. The shooting in France had changed that, and ensured that if he carried on with the enterprise it would be as an equal partner.

There's no bloody help from this bastard, he thought to himself. Talks in spasms, then goes silent, just gazes into bloody eternity, like no one else exists. Doesn't give a damn whether we come out of it or not. A different war, the hedgerow actions that he had perfected among the fields of South Armagh. Political assassination… something that his Active Service Unit had never contemplated.

A soldier or a policeman, or a local Proddy councillor, that was different. That was attrition.

This was a totally new concept to him; a killing on such a grand scale that the shock waves would fill the world headlines for a week. It was one thing to drop a Para, to blow a Woolworths, to take out a policeman, but this…

And he was being drawn into it, he recognized that, and thought even now that the point of retreat was already lost. He was experienced, had known the tension of guerrilla combat in the hills round Crossmaglen, had fired the cumbersome RPG 7 rocket launcher at the tin-fenced, screened and barricaded police station on the edge of his town, had given orders, had had men follow him. And yet this other man who had known none of this was directing him, controlling him – and had outstretched him in commitment.

Perhaps it was the hate. He'd heard of it, read about it, the simple hatred the Palestinian hard-men felt for the Israelis, and he knew he couldn't match it. Even in the cage at Long Kesh when he had paced beside the interior perimeter wire and watched the camouflaged uniformed soldiers in their watch-towers, traversing their machine-guns, and jeering down at the men below, even then he could not hate to the exclusion of all else. When these people blasted their hostages, threw their grenades without hesitation, without remorse, into cinemas, they put themselves beyond the reach of McCoy's understanding. His men could never do that. There had to be a purpose to killing. Every victim ought to know why he would die at McCoy's hand. But just for the sake of it, just for the gesture… that was not enough.

At the bottom of the Euston Road, in the last lap to the university, he asked, 'Why this man? Why Sokarev?'

There was no urgency in the reply. Famy said, 'Three times the Arabs fought the Israelis and were shamed. At their Yom Kippur we fought them again and surprised them with our technique and with our bravery, but we did not win. The next time we fight we will do better, and the time after that we will have greater success. One time in the future we will have them close to defeat. Then they will have no option, then they will threaten their ultimate weapon. They will tell the world of their bomb, how they will use it to survive. Sokarev is an architect of that bomb.

To us he represents a symbol of what would be their last throw in desperation. We feel if we kill Sokarev we have demonstrated that we fear nothing from them. If we can eliminate a man so much at the centre of their whole basis of national survival then we have achieved a great victory.'

'There'll be others, others who know as much as this one man,' said McCoy.