produced as the bricks and mortar they surrounded themselves with. And their visitors, they also were from the depths of mediocrity, without identity — totally irrelevant without the guns and the grenades. The only things of significance about them were their rifles and the explosives.
But that to Jimmy was muscle, that was the core of terrorism. It was this power that lifted the nonentity on to the pedestal he sought. Jimmy had heard that in a lecture in the department, had listened — which was rare — and agreed. Behind him was the Home Secretary, arms either akimbo or flattened against his backside as he looked solemnly at the tarmac and heard out the Assistant Commissioner. Only one reason he's here, thought Jimmy, the hardware. Doesn't matter how screwed up are the little bastards with their hands on it, the hardware brings the big men out. To all of them standing round the house with their guns and their dogs and their truncheons McCoy and the Arab were just pictures, two-dimensional, black and white. Not to Jimmy. Jimmy had seen them, seen the character of their faces, the shape of their mouths, the slouch of their movements. And Jimmy had tried to kill them that evening, counted himself unlucky that he hadn't.
It tied them together, Jimmy and McCoy and the Arab, in a perverse but brutal liaison. And they had seen him, twenty yards away, and there had been the rifle fire and the thrown grenade. So they knew each other, understood the stake money. When he looked away from the house Jimmy could see the SAS men making their preparations.
But these were outsiders, not a part of it till little more than an hour earlier when their helicopter had lifted off from the far west.
Jimmy walked across the road to where the army officer stood, concentrating on his note-book. He tapped the other man's shoulder and pushed forward his identity card. The officer glanced at it, and acknowledged him by diverting his gaze to Jimmy's eyes. He's impatient, the bastard.
'Jimmy's the name. From the Security Services.'
'George Martin, Captain.'
'I've been on this one. Full time. Since the flap started.
I'd like to go along with you.'
There was a faint smile at the extremes of Martin's mouth. Not quite as tall as Jimmy, looking up at him.
Unsettling, unhelpful, difficult to communicate. Jimmy went on, 'I'd like to go into the house with you. I know what they both look like, could be of use to you.'
The smile broadened. 'Sorry, father, no passengers this time round. If you want to come and identify them after there'll be no problem.'
'Don't give me the father crap…'
'Arid don't get in my way. We've work, and no time… '
'Listen,' said Jimmy, face close to the soldier's. 'I'm in the protection team. Right beside Sokarev, the Israeli, this evening, appointed to guard him.'
'You're a touch off course then. Nobody told us he'd joined the party in there. I'd have thought your best place was at the hotel holding your baby's hand. Must be looking for a bit of a lullaby after the hoop you put him through tonight.'
Your cool's going, Jimmy. Double fast, like it always does with these uptight swine, if it hadn't been for me he'd be in the morgue now. And when you get in there you'll find one of the bastards half-dead with my bullet in him…'
'Come to the wrong chap, then. It's the Birthday Honours you're looking for. I don't hand medals out. Right now I'm busy, got my hands full, and no one goes in alongside my team. Understood?'
'You stupid bastard,' said Jimmy.
The captain smiled again, almost a laugh, and walked away.
It took Jimmy some minutes to find Jones. He was in a group among men of equal status, discussing the problems that confronted them. How to introduce before the scheduled dawn attack the fish-eyed visual surveillance lens that would arrive in a few hours from London, the merits of the various audio-electronic devices that were available, the question of news releases. Jones was rarely in such company, unfamiliar with the bright excitement his companions felt at whiling their evening away waiting for whatever disaster or success the morning might bring. He felt his years shackled to the desk had cheated him of something he vaguely saw as precious. Too much time on paperwork, while the knowledge of the techniques that dominated the world of his new companions was denied him. That he was accepted among them pleased him, but he recognized it was not because of his contribution but through his rank and title. And then Jimmy was at his side, pulling at his coat, just as he was in mid-sentence, and drawing him away. Jones saw the warning signs, noticed the blink in Jimmy's left upper eyelid, knew it from years back. And Jimmy launched off: 'Bloody army, bloody pigs.
I've been with this one right the way through, did you well tonight, bloody well, and now I want to go in there and finish the bloody thing, and that little prig, the bloody army man, treats me like I'm out for some bloody Cook's Tour. All patronizing and 'Come in when we've finished' and that crap.'
'What do you want to go in for, Jimmy?' said Jones.
'To finish the bloody thing, finish what started this evening.'
'Be in at the killing, right? That's what you want?'
'Right first time. I bloody started and… ' it's not a quota job, Jimmy-boy. You don't need notches on your pension book. What's the matter, short this year on your numbers? You're not a policeman. You haven't got to get twenty traffic bookings a month to hold down a reputation.'
'You mean you're not going to tell them to count me in?' There was doubt in his voice. Jones had always backed him in the past. Why different now?
'Of course I'm not. What do you expect me to say? I've got a man on my books who's a bit short of stiffs this month. Comes out in a rash if he doesn't nab a couple each thirty days. Snap out of it, Jimmy. You've had your scene tonight, done well. You should be off home, and in your pit by now and sleeping so you're not a zombie tomorrow when God knows what happens.'
'Straight bloody heave, then?' if you see it that way, Jimmy, that's your problem. But do us all a favour and shove back to town so you're not knackered in the morning.'
'I thought there'd be some bloody clout from you,'
Jimmy was shouting, his words carrying across the still of the night, loud enough for those who could not avoid hearing to shuffle their feet and cough.
Jimmy swung on his heel and walked through the rope cordon, side-stepped the newspaper and television photographers, past the sightseers who would wait till there was any action of any sort at whatever advanced hour. He walked down the hill toward the town. There would be a taxi rank there and then there would be the hotel close to the flat where the night porter would fix him up with a half bottle. As he went he wondered about the life and times inside Number 2.5. He thought of McCoy with the hole in him, and of the Arab. Pictured the faces as he'd seen them in the glare of his headlights the moment before he'd fired. Wondered how they'd cope when the military came in. Wanted to be there, missing his bloody treat, and God he'd deserved the party. The tin that he kicked in his frustration careered clumsily and raucously down the road in front of him.
She knew that if she moved McCoy would wake. It was awkward, half-propped on one arm, and lying across the narrow width of the bed, with the weight of his shoulder and his head flattened against her stomach. His sleep was light, punctuated by convulsions when he twisted his body over from right to left, felt the pain, and swung back on to the undamaged arm. The wound through the upper chest was near to her head and it oozed strange and unknown fluids that showed in the half-light as opaque dribblings.
Sometimes she turned her eyes away from the hole and its debris, but then her imagination took over and besieged her more fearfully than the reality. Nightmarishly she could see the stunted column of lead striking the softness of the skin, could feel the splitting and carving of the tissues and wonder at the sensation of the fragments making their uninterrupted passage in the void beneath the flesh. And he had said it would all happen again. Had told her that they would come. Policemen with rifles, more bullets, bursting through the door, kicking their way across the tiny floor-space, brushing aside the white-wood and wicker chair on which she had laid his stained jacket and shirt and undervest. And what would he do when they came? His rifle was half under his legs, still held close to the trigger guard by the left hand. So small, and beside its shallow length the grenades, miniaturized. They didn't have the scale and size for her to believe in them as killing weapons. Too sparse, too insignificant. But when they came, when the police came, he would try to fire, try to pull the absurd circular pin on the grenade. And they would
