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me.”
    She cut in. “But I do. I attended a charity dinner for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital last year. You spoke from your wheelchair. You are the bomb-disposal expert, aren’t you? The Queen herself pinned the George Cross to your lapel. You’re a hero.”
    It was amazing the effect of that voice, so soft, like a breeze whispering through the leaves on an autumn evening. Roper’s throat turned dry, incredibly touched. It was like being a child again.
    He said in English, “You’re too kind.”
    “What can I do for you?”
    “May I come to see you tomorrow morning?”
    “For what reason?”
    “I’d like to discuss a matter affecting your nephew. I’d have a woman with me, a Cambridge don who has just met Alexander in New York.”
    “Major Roper, be honest with me. What is your interest in my nephew? You must know I haven’t seen him in nearly two decades.”
    To this woman, one could only tell the truth. Roper knew that nothing else would do. “I’m with the British Security Services.”
    There was a faint chuckle. “Ah, what they call a spook these days.”
    “Only on television.”
    “You intrigue me. Tell me of your companion.” Roper did. She said, “The lady sounds quite interesting. If you’re a spook, you know where I live.”
    “Chamber Court, Belsize Park.”
    “Quite right. My husband died ten years ago and left me well provided for. Here, I live in Victorian splendor supported by my dear friend and fellow Russian, Katya Zorin, who takes care of the house and me and manages to find time to teach painting at the Slade as well. I’ll see you at ten-thirty. Your chair will not prove a problem. The garden is walled, but the entrance in the side mews has a path that will give you access to French windows leading into a conservatory. I’ll be waiting.”
    “Thank you very much, Mrs. Kelly. I must say, you seem to be taking me totally on trust.”
    “You fascinated me at that luncheon. Your speech was excellent, but modest, and so afterward I looked you up on the Internet. It was all there. Belfast in 1991, the Portland Hotel, the huge bomb in the foyer. It took you nine hours to render it harmless. Nine hours on your own. How can I not take such a man on trust? I’ll see you in the morning.”
    It was quiet sitting there, staring up at his screens, and he put on some background music. Just like comfort food, only this was Cole Porter playing softly, just as it had been all those years ago in the Belfast safe house not far from the Royal Victoria Hospital. It was a long time ago, a hell of a long time ago, and he lit a cigarette and poured a Bushmills Irish whiskey for a change and remembered.

ROPER / BELFAST
    1991

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    R oper remembered that year well, and not just because of his nine hours dismantling the Portland Hotel bomb. There had also been the mortar attack on Number 10 Downing Street. The Gulf War had been at its height, and the target had been the War Cabinet meeting at ten a.m. on February 7—an audacious attack, and the missiles had landed in the garden, just narrowly missing the house. It bore all the hallmarks of a classic IRA operation, although nobody ever claimed responsibility for the attack.
    In Belfast, meanwhile, the war of the bomb continued remorselessly, and in spite of all the politicians could do, sectarian violence plowed on, people butchering each other in the name of religion, the British Army inured by twenty-two years to the Irish Troubles as a way of life.
    For Giles Roper, scientific interest in the field of weaponry and explosives had drawn him in even during his training days as an officer cadet at Sandhurst, and on graduation, it had led to an immediate posting to the Ordnance Corps. In ’ninety-one, he was entering his third year as a disposal officer, a captain in rank and several hundred explosive devices of one kind or another behind him.
    Most people didn’t realize that he was married. A summer affair with his second cousin, a