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I didn't believe him, of course, not for a moment, but there didn't seem to be anything we could do about it. We went along the corridor, down the great stairway and out through the front door.

There was no sign of Norah and Barry marched us across the gravel drive to the patch of grass with a balustrade from which one could look down into the inlet below. He finally told us to halt and we turned to face him.

'Is this where we get it?' the Brigadier asked him.

'I'm afraid so,' Barry said. 'But then I thought you'd prefer to have it outdoors and it really is a splendid view, you must admit.'

The Land-Rover came round the corner and braked to a halt a few yards away. Norah Murphy sat behind the wheel looking at us, waiting for him to get on with it.

'And behold how the evil ones shall reap fire from heaven,' I called. 'That's what the good book says. You'll get yours, Norah, never fear.'

Frank Barry smiled and opened his mouth to make some last bon mot, I suppose, but the words were never uttered. The air was full of a strange metallic chattering, bullets shredding his jacket, blood spurting from a dozen places, sending him staggering side-ways in a mad, drunken dance of death, to fall head first over the balustrade and disappear from view.

Binnie Gallagher lurched down the steps, clutching the Sten, and started across the gravel drive towards the Land-Rover. Norah sat there staring at him, frozen, waiting for the axe to descend.

He paused a yard or two away, stood there swaying, then suddenly said contemptuously, 'Oh, get to hell out of that, why don't you? You're not worth spitting on.'

It took a moment for it to sink in and then she switched on the engine quickly and drove away, turning into the corkscrew road that led down to the inlet.

Binnie dropped the Sten and moved past me, grabbing at the balustrade to keep himself from falling. 'A hell of a view, I'll give the bastard that much.'

As he started to fall, I ran to catch him and we went down together. His sweater was soaked in blood, the face very pale. He said, 'It was fun while it lasted, Major. Sure and the two of us could wrap the whole British Army up between us in six months. Isn't that the fact?'

I nodded. 'It is surely.'

He smiled for the last time. 'Up the Republic, Simon Vaughan,' he cried, and then he died.

The Brigadier said, 'I'm sorry about this. You liked him, didn't you?'

'You could say that.'

He coughed awkwardly. 'What about the girl?'

'She isn't going anywhere. I immobilized the engine, just in case. There are only a few bars of gold on board anyway. It's going to take a Navy diver to get the rest. I'll show them where.'

He coughed again as if to clear his throat. 'It's beginning to look as if we owe you rather a lot. If there's anything I can do ...'

'I'll tell you one thing you are going to do,' I said. 'You're going to pull the right kind of strings in the Republic so that you and I take this boy here back to Stradballa, which, in case you don't know it, is the village in Kerry where my mother was born.'

'I see,' he said. 'I suppose it could be arranged.'

'Oh, you'll arrange it all right,' I told him, 'or I'll know the reason why. Just like you'll arrange for him to be buried next to my sainted uncle, Michael Fitzgerald. And we'll have a stone. The finest marble you can buy.'

'And what will it say on it?'

'Binnie Gallagher, Soldier of the Irish Republican Army. He died for Ireland.' I looked down at Binnie. 'He'd like that.'

I turned away and lit a cigarette. The sky was dark and grey, swollen with rain. It seemed set for the day.

I said, 'Do you think we've accomplished anything? Really and truly?'

'We've won a little more time, that's all. In the end that's what soldiers are for. The rest is up to the politicians.'

'God help us all, then.'

There was a slight pause and he said, 'Vaughan, I've got a confession to make. The night you were arrested in Greece running those guns. I'm afraid I arranged the