Touch the Devil

‘And wiser, sir?’

‘That’s it, Harry, learn to laugh at yourself. A priceless asset. During the post-war period Devlin was a professor at a mid-Western college in America. He returned to Ulster briefly during the border war of the late fifties. Went back again during the civil rights disturbances of nineteen sixty-nine. One of the original architects of the Provisional IRA. As I said earlier, he never approved of the bombing campaign. In nineteen seventy-five, increasingly disillusioned, he officially retired from the movement. A living legend, whatever that trite phrase means. Since nineteen seventy-six, against considerable opposition from some quarters, he’s held a post as additional professor in the English Faculty at his old University, Trinity College.’

Ferguson pushed back his chair and they got up to go. ‘And he and Brosnan were friends?’ Fox asked.

‘I think you could say that. I also think what happened to Brosnan in France was a sort of final straw for Devlin. Still.’ He stood in the entrance looking across the dingy carpark and waved to his driver. ‘All right, Harry, let’s press on to Hereford.’

Barry was working at the maps in his apartment, soon after breakfast, when there was a discreet knock at the door. He opened it to admit Romanov.

‘How about the passports?’ Barry demanded.

‘No problem. Go to the usual place at ten o’clock for the photos. The passports will be ready this afternoon. Is there anything else you need?’

‘Yes, documentation for the Jersey route. That’s the way I’ll go. French tourist on holiday.’

‘No problem,’ Romanov told him.

Once in Jersey, he would be on British soil and able to take an internal flight to a selection of airports on the British mainland where customs and immigration procedures were considerably less strict than they would have been landing at London Heathrow.

‘If I collect the package Wednesday afternoon, you must be prepared to take delivery that night,’ Barry said. ‘Preferably a trawler, say fifteen miles off the coast.’

‘And how will you rendezvous?’

‘We’ll get whoever your people in London find to work for me, to arrange a boat. A good forty-foot deep-sea launch will do to operate somewhere out of this area.’ He tapped the map. ‘Somewhere on the coast opposite the Isle of Man. South of Ravenglass.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll leave for St Malo tonight, cross to Jersey tomorrow, using the French passport. There’s a British Airways flight to Manchester from Jersey at midday. I’ll meet your London contact man the following day on the pier at Morecambe at noon. That’s a seaside resort on the coast below the Lake District. He’ll recognise me from the photograph you keep on file at the KGB office at your London Embassy, I’m sure.’

Romanov looked down at the map. ‘Frank, if this comes off, it will be the biggest coup of my career. Are you sure? Are you really sure?’

‘That you’ll be a hero of the Soviet Union decorated by old Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself?’ Barry clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Nikolai, old son. A piece of cake.’

4 (#u34de0702-34ff-53ad-8c88-fc6d8e712fe1)

The 22nd Regiment, Special Air Service, is what the military refer to as an élite unit. Someone once remarked that they were the nearest thing the British Army has to the SS. A sour tribute to the unit’s astonishing success in counter-insurgency operations and urban guerrilla warfare, areas in which the SAS are undoubtedly world experts with thirty years’ experience gained in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo, the deserts of Southern Arabia and the Oman, the green country-side of South Armagh, the back streets of Belfast. It accepts only volunteers, soldiers already serving with other units. Its selection procedure is so demanding, both physically and mentally, that only five per cent of those applying are accepted.

The office of the commanding officer of 22nd SAS at Bradbury Lines Barracks in Hereford was neat and functional, if rather spartan. Most surprising was the CO himself, young for a half-colonel with a keen intelligent face, bronzed from much exposure to desert sun. The medal ribbons above his pocket included the Military Cross. He sat there, leaning back in his seat, listening intently.

When Ferguson had finished speaking the colonel nodded ‘Very interesting.’

‘But can it be done?’ Ferguson asked.

The colonel smiled slightly. ‘Oh, yes, Brigadier, no trouble at all as far as I can see. The sort of thing my chaps are doing in South Armagh all the time. Tony Villiers is the man for this one, I think.’ He flicked his intercom. ‘Captain Villiers, quick as you like, and we’ll have tea for three while we’re waiting.’

The tea was excellent, the conversation mainly army gossip. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before there was a knock at the door and a young man of twenty-six or seven entered. At some time or other his nose had been broken, probably in the boxing ring from the look of him. He wore a black track suit but the most surprising feature about him was his hair which was black and tangled and almost shoulder length.

‘Sorry about the delay, sir, I was on the track.’

‘That’s okay, Tony. I’d like you to meet Brigadier Ferguson and Captain Fox.’

‘Gentlemen.’ Villiers nodded.

‘Brigadier Ferguson is from DI5, Tony. He has a job of the kind to which we are particularly suited. Top priority. Seemed to me it could be your department.’