Devlin said, 'A bad joke, that.'

'But why should I be joking?' Cussane asked him. 'You know what my brief was all those years ago, Liam? You know what Maslovsky told me my task was? To create chaos, disorder, fear and uncertainty in the West. I've helped keep the Irish conflict going, by hitting counter-productive targets, causing great harm on occasion to both Catholic and Protestant causes; IRA, UVF, I've pulled everyone in. But here.' He held up the newspaper with the photo of Pope John Paul on the front page. 'How about this for the most counter-productive target of all time? Would they like that in Moscow?' He nodded to Tanya. 'You must know Maslovsky well enough by now. Would it please him, do you think?'

'You're mad,' she whispered.

'Perhaps.' He tossed a length of cord across to her. Tie his wrists behind his back. No tricks, Liam.'

He stood well back, covering them with the Stechkin. There was little for Devlin to do except submit. The girl tied

his hands awkwardly. Cussane pushed him down on his face beside the fire.

'Lie down beside him,' he told Tanya.

He pulled her arms behind her and tied her hands securely, then her ankles. Then he checked Devlin's wrists and tied his ankles also.

'So, you're not going to kill us?' Devlin said.

'Why should I?'

Cussane stood up, walked across the room, and with one swift jerk, pulled the telephone wire out of the wall.

'Where are you going?'

'Canterbury,' Cussane said. 'Eventually, that is.'

'Canterbury?'

'That's where the Pope will be on Sat.u.r.day. They'll all be there. The cardinals, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince Charles. I know these things, Liam. I run the press office at the Secretariat, remember.'

'All right, let's be sensible,' Devlin said. 'You'll never get near him. The last thing the Brits want is the Pope dead on their hands. They'll have security at Canterbury that would make even the Kremlin sit up and take notice.'

'A real challenge,' Cussane said calmly.

'For G.o.d's sake, Harry, shoot the Pope. To what end?'

'Why not?' Cussane shrugged. 'Because he's there. Because I've nowhere else to go. If I've got to die, I might as well go down doing something spectacular.' He smiled down. 'And you can always try and stop me, Liam, you and McGuiness and Ferguson and his people in London. Even the KGB would move heaven and earth to stop me if they could. It would certainly leave them with a lot of explaining to do.'

Devlin exploded. 'Is that all it is to you, Harry? A game?'

'The only one in town,' Cussane said. 'For years, I've been manipulated by other people. A regular puppet on a string. This time, I'm in charge. It should be an interesting change.'

He moved away and Devlin heard the French window open and close. There was silence. Tanya said, 'He's gone.'

Devlin nodded and struggled into a sitting position. He forced his wrists against the cord, but was wasting his time and knew it.

Tanya said, 'Liam, do you think he means it? About the Pope?'

'Yes,"' Devlin said grimly. 'I believe he does.'

Once at his cottage, Cussane worked quickly and methodically. From a small safe hidden behind books in his study he took his Irish pa.s.sport in his usual ident.i.ty. There were also two British ones in different names. In one he was still a priest, in another a journalist. There was also two thousand pounds in notes of varying sizes, English not Irish.

He got a canvas holdall from his wardrobe of a type favoured by army officers and opened it. There was a board panel in the bottom which he pressed open. Inside he placed most of the money, the false pa.s.sports, a Walther PPK with a Carswell silencer and several additional clips of ammunition, a block of plastic explosive, and two timing pencils. As an afterthought, he got a couple of Army field dressing packs from the bathroom cupboard and some morphine ampoules and put them in also. Like the soldier he thought himself tobe, he had to be ready for anything. He replaced the panel, rolled up one of his black ca.s.socks and placed it in the bottom of the bag. A couple of shirts and what he thought of as civilian ties, socks, toilet articles. His prayer book went in as a reflex habit as did the other things. The Host in the silver pyx, the holy oils. As a priest it had been second nature to travel with them for years now.

He went downstairs to the hall and pulled on his black raincoat, then took one of the two black felt hats from the hall cupboard and went into the study. Inside the crown of the hat he had sewn two plastic clips. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a.38 Smith and Wesson revolver with a two inch barrel. It fitted snugly into the clips and he put the hat into his holdall. The Stechkin he put in the pocket of his raincoat.

So, he was ready. He glanced once around the study of the cottage which had been his home for so long, then turned and went out. He crossed the yard to the garage, opened the door and switched on the light. His motorcycle stood beside the car, an old 3500: BSA in superb condition. He strapped his holdall on the rear, took the crash helmet from the peg on the wall and put it on.

When he kicked the starter, the engine roared into life at once. He sat there for a moment adjusting things, then he crossed himself and rode away. The sound of the engine faded into the distance and after a while there was only silence.

At that moment in Dublin, Martin McGuiness was watching one of his men put the receiver back on the phone rest.

'The line's dead, that's certain.'

'That seems more than a little strange to me, son,' McGuiness said. 'Let's pay Liam a visit, and let's drive fast.'

It took McGuiness and a couple of his men forty minutes to get there. He stood watching while his men released Devlin and the girl and shook his head.

'Christ, Liam, it would be funny seeing the great Liam Devlin trussed up like a chicken if it wasn't so b.l.o.o.d.y tragic. Tell me again? Tell me what it's about, then.'

He and Devlin went into the kitchen and Devlin filled him in on what had happened. When he was finished, McGuiness exploded. The cunning b.a.s.t.a.r.d. On the Falls Road in Belfast City they remember him as a saint, and him a sodding Russian agent pretending to be a priest.'

'I shouldn't think the Vatican will be exactly overjoyed,' Devlin told him.

'And you know what's worse? What really sticks in my throat? He's no f.u.c.king Russian at all. Jesus, Liam, his father died on an English gallows for the cause.' McGuiness was shaking with rage now. 'I'm going to have his b.a.l.l.s.'

'And how do you propose to do that?'

'You leave that to me. The Pope at Canterbury, is it? I'll close Ireland up so tight that not even a rat could find a hole to sneak out.'

He bustled out, calling to his men and was gone. Tanya came into the kitchen. She looked pale and tired. 'Now what happens?'

'You put on the kettle and we'll have a nice cup of tea. You know, they say that in the old days a messenger bearing bad news was usually executed. Thank G.o.d for the telephone. You'll excuse me for a few minutes while I go across the road and ring Ferguson.'

BALLYWALTER ON THE COAST just south of Dundalk Bay near Clogher Head could hardly be described as a port. A pub, a few houses, half-a-dozen fishing boats and the tiniest of harbours. It was a good hour and a half after Devlin's phone call to Ferguson that Cussane turned his BSA motorcycle into a wood on a hill overlooking the place. He pushed his machine up on its stand and went and looked down at Ballywalter, clear in the moonlight below, then he went back to the bike.and unstrapped his holdall and took out the black trilby which he put on his head instead of the crash helmet.

He started down the road, bag in hand. What he intended now was tricky, but clever if it worked. It was like chess really; trying to think not just one move, but three moves ahead. Certainly now was the time to see if all that information so carefully extracted from the dying Danny Malone would prove worthwhile.

Sean Deegan had been publican in Ballywalter for eleven years. It was hardly a full-time occupation in a village that boasted only forty-one men of the legal age to drink, which explained why he was also skipper of a forty-foot motor fishing boatMary Murphy. Added to this, on the illegal side of things, he was not only a member of the IRA, but very much on the active list, having only been released from Long Kesh prison in Ulster in February after serving three years' imprisonment for possession of illegal weapons. The fact that Deegan had personally killed two British soldiers in Derry had never been traced to him by the authorities.

His wife and two children were away visiting her mother

in Galway and he had closed the bar at eleven, intending fishing early. He was still awake when Cussane came down the street. He had been awakened from his bed by a phone call from one of McGuiness's men. Deegan offered an illegal way out of the country to the Isle of Man, a useful staging post for England. The description of Cussane which he had been given was brief and to the point.

Deegan had hardly put the phone down when there was a knock at the door. He opened it and found Cussane standing there. He knew at once who his nocturnal caller was, although the clerical collar and black hat and raincoat would have been enough in themselves.

'What can I do for you, Father?' Deegan asked, stepping back so that Cussane might come in.

They went into the small bar and Deegan stirred the fire. 'I got your name from a parishioner, Danny Malone,' Cussane said. 'My name is Daly, by the way.'