The Marching Season

of the operations, yet each was edgy. They realized there was no turning back now.
    "How are your men?" Blake asked Gavin Spencer.
    "They're ready for more," Spencer said. He had the powerful
    32 Daniel Silva
    body of a dockworker and the disheveled air of a playwright. His black hair was shot with gray, and a thick forelock was forever falling across a pair of intense blue eyes. Like Blake, he had served in the British army and had been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force. "But obviously they're a wee bit concerned about the timing mechanisms on the detonators."
    Blake lit a cigarette and rubbed his eyes. It had been his decision to sacrifice the bombers in Dublin and London by manipulating the timing mechanisms on the bombs. His reasoning was as simple as it was Machiavellian. He was nose-to-nose with the British intelligence and security establishment, one of the most ruthless and efficient in Europe. The Ulster Freedom Brigade needed to survive if it was to carry on its campaign of violence. If either bomber had fallen into the hands of the police, the Brigade would be in serious danger.
    "Blame it on the bomb makers," Blake said. "Tell them we're new at this game. The IRA has its own engineering department, dedicated to nothing except building better bombs. But even the IRA makes mistakes. When they broke the cease-fire in 'ninety-six, their first bombs malfunctioned. They were out of practice."
    "I'll tell my men," Gavin Spencer said. "They'll believe us once, but if it happens again they'll be suspicious. If we're going to win this fight we need men who are willing to pull the trigger and plant the bomb."
    Blake started to speak, but there was a soft knock at the door of the cubicle, and he stopped himself as he got up to open the door. The barman entered and handed Blake a bag of sandwiches.
    "And what about Bates?" Blake asked, when the barman was gone.
    "We may have a problem," Rebecca Wells said.
    Blake and Spencer looked at the woman. She was tall and fit,
    The Marching Season 33
    and the bulky woolen sweater could not conceal her square shoulders. Black hair fell about her face and neck, framing wide cheekbones. Her eyes were oval and the color of an overcast winter sky. Like many women in Northern Ireland, she had become a widow too young. Her husband had worked in the intelligence section of the UVF until an IRA gunman assassinated him in West Belfast. Rebecca had been pregnant at the time. She miscarried that night. After her recovery she joined the UVF and picked up the threads of her husband's work. She quit the UVF when it agreed to a cease-fire, and a few months later she secretly joined forces with Kyle Blake.
    If anyone deserved credit for the assassination of Eamonn Dillon, it was Rebecca Wells. She had patiently developed a source inside Sinn Fein headquarters on the Falls Road, a rather unattractive young woman who worked on the clerical staff. Rebecca had befriended her, taken her for drinks, introduced her to men. After several months the relationship began to bear fruit. The girl inadvertently fed Rebecca a steady stream of information on Sinn Fein and its senior officers: strategies, internal disputes, personal habits, sexual tastes, movements, and security. Rebecca gave this information to Gavin Spencer, who then planned Dillon's murder.
    "The police have put together a photo-kit sketch of him," she said. "Every officer in the province is carrying one in his pocket. We can't move him again until things cool off."
    "Things are never going to cool off, Rebecca," Blake said.
    "The longer he stays in hiding, the better the chances are that he'll be found," she said. "And if he's found, we're in serious trouble."
    Blake looked at Gavin Spencer. "Where's Bates now?"
    34 Daniel Silva
    The man in the fieldstone barn outside Hillsborough had been moved a half-dozen times since the killing of Eamonn Dillon on the Falls Road. He had been permitted no radio, for fear the British army's elite intelligence eavesdropping units might pick up the sound. He had been permitted no stove, for fear the army's infrared sensors might detect any unusual source of heat. His bed was a brick-hard folding army cot with a blanket rough as steel wool; the green oilskin jacket he had worn during the assassination served as a pillow. He survived on dry goods—biscuits, crackers, cookies, nuts—and canned meats. Cigarette smoking was permitted, though he was to be careful not to set fire to the hay. He pissed and