Tomorrow's ghost

Not good. Bad.

'They also say the moment we start clearing people from outside the Library, we start playing O'Leary's game. And I agree with them there. But by the grace of God, because that fool of a porter moved it, we know there isn't a trembler in it. So pick it up, Fitzgibbon.'' Pause. 'Over.'

She knew she had to do it at once, or she would never do it. That was what he intended, too.

Two steps.

She picked it up.

It was heavy.

'I've picked it up - sir. Over.'

'Good. Now put it down again - gently.' Pause. 'Over.'

Ming vases. Dresden china. Nitro-glycerine.

'Sir.' Croak. 'Over.'

'That's very good, Fitzgibbon. Now you know you can pick it up. Because we can't move a bomb-handling team in there - if I'm right he'll be watching that place like a hawk, and he can blow it any time he likes. But we can do what he won't be expecting: in a few minutes from now, when I'm good and ready, you're going to carry that briefcase out of there, Fitzgibbon.'

Frances closed her eyes.

'We can't move the people. I can only delay the Chancellor's party so long - are you listening, Fitzgibbon? Over!'

The sodding briefcase was imprinted on her retina. She opened her eyes and looked at all the other cases.

'Spare me the details.' Jargon. 'Over.'

'I want you to understand what you're doing.

You've got the best chance of carrying it out. You're new here , they haven't had time to spot you - you've never been on an Irish job. You're wearing an academic gown, and you have a perfect right to carry a briefcase. Take some of the papers out of one of the other cases - and some books, and carry them too. Look like a student.'

It was beginning to make some sort of sense, she just wished someone else was going to do it. But, undeniably. Sergeant Ballard did not look like a student.

'Professor Crowe will be waiting for you at the door, Ballard's getting him. By then he will know what's happening. Let him see you off the premises. Don't hurry - gawp around like the rest of them out there ... then walk to your right, and bear right as you reach the corner of the building - Crowe will direct you. There's a wide open space, with a few trees and shrubs in it, and then there's a big pond in the hollow - it's a duck-pond, you'll hear the ducks quacking ... Put it down on the edge of the pond and leave it -

that's all you have to do.'

All? 'Have you got that? Just talk to Professor Crowe - as though you were one of his students.

Act naturally.'

Act naturally - don't scream and run. Just talk to Professor Crowe about Ronald and the eucatastrophic endings of fairy stories.

'Colonel Crowe will be waiting for you - Professor Crowe. Over.'

Colonel Crowe? Well, there was a once-upon-a-time, thought Frances.

'I repeat. Professor Crowe will be waiting for you. Have you got that, Mrs Fitzgibbon? Over.'

There was a suggestion of steel in that last Have you got that^ which in turn suggested to Frances that the soldier inside Colonel Butler would not have thought twice about giving James Cable or Paul Mitchell the same orders, but was still only half convinced that Mrs Fitzgibbon could be trusted with a bag of laundry, never mind a briefcase. But that he was giving her the benefit of the doubt because he had no other choice.

'Loud and clear, Colonel Butler. Over.' Grunt. 'Leave the button on receive. Out.'

* * *

Silence.

But they must surely be running out of time now, with the original six minutes long gone. And the longer they waited, the more likely it was that O'Leary would smell a rat.

She looked down at the briefcase.

How heavy was heavy?

Five pounds? Ten pounds? Twenty pounds?

Not that it would matter to her because, at the range of one yard, half a pound would be sufficient to spread her all over the cloakroom.

But it would be more than that: it would be calculated to blow the brick wall against which it had been placed into ten thousand lethal fragments in the entrance foyer on the other side of it. By which time, of course, she would already have been dissolved into unidentifiable fragments herself.

The silence began to ring in her ears. There were small sounds in the distance beyond the ringing, but she couldn't distinguish them. It almost seemed to her that the very sight of the briefcase had a muffling effect on her hearing; that somehow, just as noise spread out from an exploding bomb, so silence was spread by a bomb before it exploded.

And yet when it did explode she wouldn't hear it: she would be dead before the sound reached her brain. There would be no brain to receive the message. No brain, no ears, no Frances.