The Glory Boys

'You always say that,' Jimmy said.

Would he cover?… Would he, hell. But it was a form of words. Means not a bloody thing, Jimmy thought – what they feel they have to say. And if the balloon filled up, what price immunity then? In the courts like every other bugger, and double-fast.

'What I need, Jimmy,' Jones went on, ignoring him, best way with Jimmy. 'What I need is the very clear knowledge that I will be informed of every movement Sokarev makes.

I don't want it via the Israeli embassy, I don't want it via Scotland Yard, I want it from you.' if everyone is twisting their knickers at this rate, why isn't the visit called off?'

'God alone knows. If anybody else does they haven't thought fit to tell me. The Israelis have known for some days of the risk, they haven't opted for cancellation.'

Jimmy left it there. He could see the other man was close to the end of his patience, not ready for a gentle chat on the theoretical.

Jones said: 'I'll circulate your name to the Israelis and to the Special Branch, and have it backed by the Home Office. You'll need some time to work through the papers.

Tomorrow I'll want you with me when I see the Israelis.

They'll want to run the whole bloody thing. The DG is mildly anxious it doesn't happen that way. You'll need some weapon practice – fix that for the morning. You'd better get back to your place now and pick up some clothes. Fairclough, Duggan and I are sleeping in. You'd better join us. You can have Helen's room.'

As Jimmy walked through the outer office he stopped beside Helen's table.

'Unlucky again tonight, sweetheart. We're all kipping on the job.'

NINE

After they left the university building McCoy drove across the artery of Tottenham Court Road, and in the maze of side streets behind the Middlesex Hospital found a small Indian restaurant. They spent a long time over the meal.

They talked over the abstract background of their lives -the Irishman mostly, with Famy listening, while they picked and pulled at the chapatis, toyed with the rice and the sauces and meats, and fractured the popadums into tiny lasting pieces. And then they took coffee, and after that more beer, as the evening went by.

McCoy talked of Crossmaglen and Cullyhanna. He spoke of the sharply-rising hills, with the farms that barely supported life, of the large families, of the economic hardship. He told of the fierce independence of the people who lived there, how they had transferred their old enmity of such everyday figures as the customs men and the tax collector to the soldiers of the British army. He related the story of Mick McVerry, killed in the attack on Keady police station, how they had placed nine gunmen round the building, and a rocket launcher, and how McVerry had been shot down as he planted the bomb against the building that when it went off had left a complete wing demolished. He'd been in the 'Kesh' then himself, he said, otherwise he would have been there. Famy had raised his eyes inquiringly when McCoy mentioned the Kesh, and the Irishman launched into his stories of the prison where he had been held – how they, the prisoners, ran the premises. How they held their courts, and punished those they deemed guilty. How they organized their escape committees, dug their tunnels, worked their switches with visitors. How they held their weapons and explosives classes. How they jeered the Governor as he made his rounds. How they rioted and how they went on hunger strike. How they dominated Catholic opinion in the province outside the wire.

Famy had listened, uncomprehending and disbelieving.

He tried to suggest that this was something the Israelis would never have tolerated behind the high yellow walls of the maximum security prison at Ramie, where they held the fedayeen. There were so many things McCoy said that amazed Famy. No penalties against the families and property of those arrested on terrorist charges. Detailed fire control orders for individual soldiers. A piece of paper that gave each soldier the circumstances in which he could shoot. A hundred paratroopers locked up in Crossmaglen police station whose food and ammunition came only by helicopter because it was too dangerous to drive lorries there – too many culvert bombs on the roads, too many control wires in the ditches. But what astonished him most of all was that McCoy was there sitting across the table.

'Why, when they had caught you, when you had done these things, why did they release you?'

And McCoy had just smiled, and laughed, and known it was not possible to explain the gestures of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to a man whose knowledge of guerrilla warfare was based on that fought against an enemy as hard and intransigent as the Israelis.