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'And that stirred my mind, so I put it through the computer.' Fox had a file tucked under his arm and now he opened it. 'The first five killings on the list all involved a witness being forced at gunpoint to take that sort of capsule. First time it occurs is nineteen seventy-five in Omagh.'

Ferguson examined the list and looked up. 'But on two occasions, the victims were Catholics. I accept your argument that the same killer was involved, but it makes a nonsense of your theory that the purpose in killing Baum was to make the PIRA look bad.'

'Stay with it a little longer, sir, please. Description of the killer in each case is identical. Black balaclava and dark anorak. Always uses a Walther PPK. On three occasions was known to escape by motorcycle from the scene of the crime.'

'So?'

'I fed all those details into the computer separately, sir. Any killings where motorcycles were involved. Cross-referencing with use of a Walther, not necessarily the same gun, of course. Also cross-referencing with the description of the individual.'

'And you got a result?'

'I got a result all right, sir.' Fox produced not one sheet, but two. 'At least thirty probable killings since nineteen seventy-five, all linked to the factors I've mentioned. There are another ten possibles.'

Ferguson scanned the lists quickly. 'Dear God!' he whispered. 'Catholic and Protestant alike. I don't understand.'

'You might if you consider the victims, sir. In all cases where the Provisionals claimed responsibility, the target was counter-productive, leaving them looking very bad indeed.'

'And the same where Protestant extremist organizations were involved?'

'True, sir, although the PIRA are more involved than anyone else. Another thing, if you consider the dates when the killings took place, it's usually when things were either quiet or getting better or when some political initiative was taking place. One of the possible cases when our man might have been involved goes back as far as July 1972, when, as you know, a delegation from the IRA met William Whitelaw secretly here in London.'

'That's right,' Ferguson said. 'There was a ceasefire. A genuine chance for peace.'

'Broken because someone started shooting on the Lenadoon estate in Belfast and that's all it took to start the pot boiling again.'

Ferguson sat there, staring down at the lists, his face expressionless. After a while, he said, 'So what you're saying is that somewhere over there is one mad individual dedicated to keeping the whole rotten mess turning over.'

'Exactly, except that I don't think he's mad. It seems to me he's simply following sound Marxist-Leninist principles where urban revolution is concerned. Chaos, disorder, fear. All those factors essential to the breakdown of any kind of orderly government.'

'With the IRA taking the brunt of the smear campaign?'

'Which makes it less and less likely that the Protestants will ever come to a political agreement with them, or our own government, for that matter.'

'And ensures that the struggle continues year after year and a solution always recedes before us.' Ferguson nodded slowly. 'An interesting theory, Harry, and you believe it?'

He looked up enquiringly. Fox shrugged. 'The facts were all there in the computer. We never asked the right questions, that's all. If we had, the pattern would have emerged earlier. It's been there a long time, sir.'

'Yes, I think you could very well be right.' Ferguson sat brooding for a little while longer.

Fox said gently, 'He exists, sir. He is a fact, I'm sure of it. And there's something else. Something that could go a long way to explaining the whole thing.'

'All right, tell me the worst.'

Fox took a further sheet from the file. 'When you were in Washington the other week, Tony Villiers came back from the Oman.'

'Yes, I heard something of his adventures there.'

'In his debriefing, Tony tells an interesting story concerning a Russian Jewish dissident named Viktor Levin whom he brought out with him. A fascinating