'Don't you worry about them, Paleface. Soon as we is a little bit further up the road I'm going to give you some directions. Take you up a few dark Tuscaloosan alleyways. You do like I tell you and we'll be fine. Fed-free and back on route to the money in no time.'

A little way ahead a turquoise-blue Chevrolet Camaro and a white 78 Ford Mustang suddenly pulled out in front of Danny, causing him to brake hard.

'Man, you get some asshole drivers, don't you,' said Sly. 'I ought to shoot their fucking tyres out. Teach them a lesson.'

For the next half a mile or so the Camaro and the Mustang drove alongside each other, blocking the road and preventing anyone from overtaking.

'You think it's right they give inbreds a fucking licence? GO HOME AND FUCK YOUR SISTER YOU GODDAMN RETARD. GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY,' screamed Sly.

Eventually the Mustang pulled over and allowed Danny to accelerate past. But no sooner had he done so than the Mustang moved back and blocked the road again. Bo-Bo started flashing the Camaro to pull over and let him pass as well.

Danny tapped lightly on his brake pedal three times then pushed his foot hard on the accelerator. He glanced in his rear-view mirror again to see if the Mustang and the Camaro were keeping up. They were right on his tail. All three cars started to pull away from the queue of traffic that had built up behind them.

'Hey asshole, slow down, we just about to hang a right,' said Sly.

The Oldsmobile that Bo-Bo was driving had nearly caught up with the group when the Camaro and the Mustang suddenly slammed on their brakes. Danny heard the screeching of tyres and the sound of the Oldsmobile careering headlong into the back of the Mustang.

At precisely the same moment Danny stamped down on the brake pedal and simultaneously yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The Cadillac's front end dipped violently and the car spun almost 180 degrees before shuddering to a halt. There was no time for Sly to brace himself. He tumbled across the back seat and slammed into the rear passenger door the impact knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving him gasping for breath. His gun had fallen to the floor and slid under the passenger seat in front. As he made a grab for the Glock the rear passenger door flew open and Sly looked up to see Danny McGuire standing over him, pointing a Walther PPK directly at him.

'Fuck you, Paleface,' wheezed Sly.

Danny shot Sly Rivera four times. Double-tap to the head double-tap to the chest all at point-blank range. There was no need to check if he was dead. He reached in and dragged the limp, lifeless body across the back seat and out onto the freeway.

Two men wearing black, full-face balaclavas suddenly emerged from the Camaro and Mustang, and started sprinting along the freeway towards the Cadillac. Both of them were armed with Ingram M10 sub-machine guns. Danny quickly climbed back into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition. But the car wouldn't start: the engine was flooded. He tried again, this time without touching the accelerator pedal. The starter motor whined in protest as it cranked over and over, but still didn't catch.

The two figures were nearly at the car.

Suddenly the engine caught, and a dark cloud of exhaust fumes blew out from behind the car. At the same moment the back doors flew open and Ardel and Hud clambered in. 'There's gristle and all kinds of shit on these seats, man,' said Ardel as he pulled the balaclava off over his head.

Danny floored the accelerator pedal and the Cadillac screeched off down the empty freeway.

'Didn't know you were bringing a passenger, Mr O's bro. What happened? He say something to upset you?'

'He called you two "inbreds", because of the way you were driving,' replied Danny.

'Did he now?' said Ardel. 'Asshole got what was coming to him then.'

Bo-Bo limped from the wreckage of the Oldsmobile over to the sidewalk and sat down. He was badly dazed from the impact of his head striking the dashboard at over seventy miles an hour, and there was blood streaming down his face from a deep gash on his forehead. Through clouds of billowing smoke and radiator steam he could just make out Danny's Cadillac disappearing over the crest of the freeway's shimmering horizon.

The blast of a horn made Bo-Bo turn.

There was little the driver of the tanker truck carrying three thousand gallons of gasoline could do to stop the freightliner careering into the wreckage piled up on the freeway. He'd noticed too late that the traffic up ahead was at a standstill.

Bo-Bo lifted his arms in a pathetic attempt to shield his face from the searing heat of the explosion.

Hud turned to look back at the rising column of smoke on the freeway. 'Man, when you pull a stunt you go all out. We got fireworks and all kinds of shit thrown in.'

Ardel sat nodding in agreement, then a thought struck him. 'The owner of that Camaro is going to be pissed when he sees what happened to his car on the news.'

A few minutes later the Cadillac turned off County Road 88 and stopped on the corner of Sherwood Drive. Danny jumped out and Ardel climbed over from the back seat to take his place.

'We're going to pick you up here in exactly twenty minutes, Mr O's bro,' said Hud winding down the rear window. 'Did you get a can of gas?'

Danny nodded. 'It's in the boot.'

'The what?'

'The trunk,' said Danny.

'We'll be driving a G-series Chevy van: it's red. Be waiting for you right here once we torched the Cadillac. I'm glad we don't know what the hell you is up to: makes it more exciting.'

Danny watched them drive off, then sprinted across County Road 88 and Jack Warner Parkway, and disappeared into the tall pines on the other side of the road.

Word of the freeway pile-up had not yet reached the partygoers on board the Bama Belle. A sumptuous buffet with platters of Cajun shrimp and smoked crab and great salvers of barbecue ribs and locally caught fish were being passed round by serving staff, with the guests encouraged to fill their plates. Hernando De Garza was standing near the prow of the boat holding a glass of Lynch Bages in one hand and a Cohiba in the other making small talk with the Mayor of Tuscaloosa and his wife. The party had been organised to celebrate the signing of a contract between De Garza's construction company and the Mayor's office to develop a large area of land next to the University of Tuscaloosa. There was never any doubt that De Garza would get the contract: not when he was paying close to $100,000 a year into the Mayor's personal bank account.

A few of the guests noticed the column of grey smoke rising from behind the trees that shielded the river from the freeway, but no one thought anything of it. When the Mayor started yet another story with 'Oh I must tell you this one, it's a scream,' De Garza considered stubbing his cigar out in the fat fucker's eye. As he stood there listening with a fixed grin on his face he suddenly remembered the piece of paper that Danny McGuire had passed to him. It was supposed to have the address of where they were going to meet written on it. De Garza switched his cigar to his other hand and pulled the folded scrap of paper from his jacket pocket and opened it out. As he stared at it his brow furrowed.

'Are you all right?' asked the Mayor, breaking off from his story.

De Garza stared back at him with a vacant expression.

There was only one word, written in block capitals.

'HELL'.

The shot when it came was like the sound of a champagne cork being popped. Those who turned round saw De Garza lurch forward and fall to the floor. The Mayor heard a strange whistling noise just before De Garza's throat exploded in front of him, spraying the Mayor and his wife with shattered fragments of spine and blood from his severed jugular vein. The high-velocity hollow-point would have sliced his head clean off had De Garza not shifted his weight on to his right foot a split second before the impact. The scrap of paper he had been holding fluttered from his hand and landed without causing a ripple on the cold black surface of the river. As the water soaked into the paper the ink started to separate from it. It danced and swirled in unison with a droplet of De Garza's blood as it drifted along with the current.

The shot had been fired from exactly 720 metres away almost half a mile and had killed him instantly.

'Friend says he can land you at a small airstrip close to New York, but you gonna have to make your own way in from there. It's only a single-engine crate, but it'll get you where you're going,' said Ardel. The bright-red G-series Chevrolet van was cruising along Rice Mine Road heading for Tuscaloosa's regional airport. 'Got a present for you, Mr O's bro,' said Hud, handing Danny a small brown envelope. 'Got your passports, your airline tickets and a card from me an Ardel wishing you a safe journey home.'

Chapter 39.

Glasgow Thursday morning

The aeroplane was on its final approach into Glasgow International Airport. In less than ten minutes Sean McGuire would be landing in Scotland. From there it was a short bus ride to the coastal town of Troon, then a ferry crossing that would take no more than a few hours.

The time had passed without incident. The hardest part of the journey so far had been the train ride from Birmingham Alabama to New York's Penn station. The only option available to Sean had been to buy a seat in coach. He was on the train for the best part of twenty-two hours and in that time had managed to get just a few hours of fitful sleep. The rest of the train ride was spent staring out of the window at the relentless American countryside.

But the last few days' travelling were nothing: his real journey home had taken over eight years. Now as the plane's wheels screeched along the tarmac Sean could feel a growing sense of unease.

There was so much he wanted to say to his mother and to his wife: things he needed to explain. He'd tried to document the years he'd spent away and his reason for leaving by writing a sort of diary: more a random series of notes than a fully formed explanation. But rereading some of the passages on the long flight across the Atlantic had only highlighted how inadequate they were.

For the moment Sean had to put rlaith and his mother to the back of his mind. Their reunion would have to wait.

There was some business to take care of first.

The small queue inside the terminal building moved quickly. When Sean got to the front he handed over his passport. The customs officer looked at the photograph then back at Sean.

'Is this supposed to be you?' he said with a broad Glaswegian accent.

'It's me before I discovered alcohol,' replied Sean with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

'You here for a visit or just passing through?'

'Heading home,' replied Sean, 'for a decent pint of Guinness.'

'Did you pack an umbrella?'

'It's not raining again is it?' said Sean, playing the game. 'You know that's why everyone in Ireland's name begins with "Mac" . . . to remind you not to leave home without one.'

The officer smiled and handed back the passport. 'Safe home, Mr Leonard.'

'I hope so,' replied Sean.

Sean booked a room in the hotel next to the airport and after a few beers and a hot shower slept until the following morning. After a quick breakfast he caught a taxi to Troon on the west coast of Scotland. Four days after leaving Tuscaloosa Sean found himself standing on the top deck of a P&O ferry being blasted by the wind and rain that swept and blustered across the heaving Irish Sea. The sight of the ragged green coast of Ireland standing proud of the water caught Sean unexpectedly in the back of his throat. The cold streams of rain running down his face could easily have been mistaken for tears.

Eventually the large ferry manoeuvred noisily into position alongside the quay at Larne until the lines could be thrown and the boat secured to the huge brass capstans on the quayside. The retaining door at the back of the boat slowly descended till it touched the concrete ramp leading on to the dock.

Cars started to appear from the bowels of the boat and passengers disembarked in straggly lines into the red-brick customs hall. The sight of soldiers in their combat greens arms folded across their chests cradling sub-machine guns reminded Sean that he was re-entering the war zone: the sobering reality was that the hardest part of the journey was still to come.

Chapter 40.

Greyabbey, Northern Ireland Friday early evening

Frank Thompson walked across the compound to where the black Saab 900 was parked and crouched down. Force of habit made him check underneath the car for explosives before getting in. The Saab was sitting in the grounds of the Castlereagh security complex surrounded by a twelve-foot-high perimeter wall and protected by heavily armed officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The chances of anyone being able to plant a bomb in or around the vehicle were less than zero, but there was always that nagging doubt.

He drove round to the front of the building and waited for one of the sentries to open the large reinforced gates that guarded the entrance to the headquarters of Special Branch. The four-storey red-brick building to his rear was in two sections that sat almost end to end, with one wing situated just behind the other and connected by a short corridor on each level. It looked like a bland, badly designed office block, but the clearly visible fortifications and array of aerials and transmitter masts gave some small hint of its fearsome reputation.

The large steel gates swung open, allowing Frank to pass through and out onto Alexander Road. A hundred yards further on he stopped at the junction with Ladas Drive and took a few moments to decide which route he should follow home tonight. As the head of Special Branch he was a target: he'd seen with his own eyes the 'wish-list' of political figures and serving officers of both the RUC and Special Branch whom the IRA wanted to assassinate. The name Frank Thompson was high up amongst some senior politicians.

Frank left the office at a different time every night, he never drove home the same way on two consecutive evenings and as an added precaution he and his fellow officers shared a pool of different vehicles so that even the car he was driving changed from one day to the next. All the cars were fairly basic models that had been modified with bulletproof glass and armour plating. The downside was that the extra weight made them unwieldy and difficult to drive, and because the engines had to be supercharged to cope with the extra load they would often run out of petrol.

Frank switched on the radio and tuned in to Larry Gogan on RTe 2fm, 'cominatcha'. The soaring vocals of Billy Mackenzie, lead singer of The Associates, came blasting out of the speakers. 'White car in Germany' it made Frank smile. He'd far rather be driving a white car in Germany than a black Saab in Belfast. Frank turned the music up.

He was trying not to think about work. The prospect of sitting at home by the fire with a large glass of red in one hand and a book in the other had just about carried him through the day. The break-in and subsequent removal of the files on republican informers now referred to in the office as the 'tout rout list' was having a far wider impact in the media than he had hoped. Every newspaper in Ireland and most of the broadsheets on the mainland had covered the story and all of them had an opinion. There were various theories as to who the perpetrators were, ranging from the loyalist UDA and UVF, to the republican IRA and INLA. The British government's tactics, of creating a smokescreen so dense that it was impossible to tell which way was up and which was down, had worked. In a war where even people fighting on the same side didn't trust each other and prejudice was ingrained it was very easy to manipulate the truth to suit whatever agenda most satisfied the politics of the day. Frank's job was to fan the flames whilst steering the interested parties away from the real story: that the British government had run out of money to finance the Informers' Protection Fund and it was therefore easier, and cheaper, to hand them over to the very people they were informing on to dispose of: expediency at its simplest and most cruel.

The effect in the short term would be to make Frank's job a lot more difficult. Informers were easily groomed. They all had a certain characteristic that made them want to keep talking, informing on their comrades, spying on their neighbours. They would justify their actions by saying it was for the greater good they were trying to shorten the length of the conflict but really they were in it for themselves. Insecure characters with massively inflated egos: most of them had nothing else going on in their lives. Informing gave them a sense of importance.

Not any more.

Frank pressed the lighter on the dashboard and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes: he was back up to twenty a day already. He inhaled as much smoke as his lungs could take and frowned as he glanced down at the folder sitting to his left on the passenger seat. Sheena had looked apologetic when she'd handed it to him. Not because of its contents, but because it was too late in the day and Frank was on his way home. 'First-draft report on the four SAS personnel that were murdered out at that cottage. D'you want me say you'd already left?' she had asked. 'No. I'll take it with me and have a read at home,' Frank had replied. 'It's classified, sir: not supposed to leave the building.' Frank had given her one of his looks and said nothing more.

He'd scanned the report briefly as he made his way downstairs and out towards the car park. Only one thing made him stop. Danny McGuire's name was mentioned on several occasions as a possible suspect and Frank suddenly realised that this might be the reason McGuire had unexpectedly disappeared. The close-surveillance team that had been tracking his movements for weeks reported that McGuire had vanished into thin air.

Frank put Danny McGuire top of his 'wishlist'.

It was only when he pulled up at the traffic lights on the corner of Castlereagh Road and Knock Road fifteen minutes later that he first noticed the dark blue VW Golf three cars behind. Something in his subconscious had made him aware of the car just after he'd left the compound, but now he felt certain it posed a threat. When the lights changed to green, Frank cancelled his indicators and instead of turning right drove straight on. The Volkswagen did the same. Traffic at this time of night was heavy, so Frank made a detour round Shandon Park and up through the Tullycarnet estate, all the time watching the VW in his rear-view mirror. It could be a coincidence, but Frank's training told him that coincidences in his line of work usually resulted in someone getting killed. Frank checked the petrol gauge. There was just under a quarter of a tank left: enough to get home, but not enough to get himself out of trouble if he suddenly had to put his foot down.

'Bollocks,' said Frank quietly to himself. DI Holden was the last person to use the car and should have filled the tank: those were the rules.

Frank pulled his Beretta from the side holster under his jacket and placed it next to the light-brown folder on the passenger's seat. The only problem he could see was that he'd have to wind down the window, or get out of the vehicle, in order to return fire: the windows were bulletproof. One of his colleagues had forgotten; he'd made the mistake of trying to shoot through the glass. The only injuries sustained had been self-inflicted. A bullet from his own weapon had ricocheted round the car before embedding itself in his thigh.

Frank decided to head onto the Upper Newtonards Road. It in turn, led to the Portaferry Road, which had a single carriageway that ran along the eastern shore of Strangford Lough. If he were being followed it would be obvious. Also due to the amount of oncoming traffic on the narrow road it would be more difficult for someone to drive alongside and take a shot at him.

All the cars were fitted with an open-line communication system that gave him direct contact with an operator back at Castlereagh. Frank wanted to be sure before he called it in.

Ten minutes later the car was still behind him. Frank had identified the driver as being a male in his early thirties and had also memorised the car's number plate. The traffic had started to thin out and the Portaferry Road was unusually quiet, but so far the guy had made no attempt to overtake. He'd also made no attempt to hide. He was either incompetent or which now seemed more likely a civilian on his way home from work. Frank picked up the small handset and pressed the talk button.

'Anyone there?'

The built-in speakers hissed and crackled briefly before someone spoke.