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had to be done?
    Well; however it felt , he was bound to remember it, he thought, for the rest of his life. As it turned out, he was completely wrong about this. Something distracted him, and he never considered the matter again in his life - which is to say, he was distracted from the question for at least another thirty seconds.
    Dermot squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped in horror; he gawped at the gun as if its barrel had suddenly sprouted a black flag with the word “Bang!” on it. Had it jammed? No. After all the disasters he had tried to plan against, it had to be the one he had never imagined himself stupid enough to cause. Aidan and Ciaran, yes, but not him. He had forgotten to release the safety catch.
    Magee was frozen an instant longer, as if he couldn’t believe his luck; then he dashed forward, throwing himself at Dermot, not in the least intimidated by Dermot’s back-up team for the very good reason that (who knows why?) they were nowhere to be seen.
    Dermot was still fumbling with the catch when the world turned white. His last thought before he was swatted aside like an insect by a wall of air harder than stone was exasperation with Aidan and Ciaran for not telling him they had changed the plan yet again; they were blowing the peeler up after all.
    Dermot Reilly’s bit of Ulster sizzled nicely.
     
    *****
     
    As the bus pulled over to the Oxford Street stop, Morris Whitcomb roused himself from semi-somnolence to get up and move to the door before the crowd of debarking commuters trapped him in his seat. He was quick enough to be only a few places away from the head of the queue when the bus stopped; and stepping off, he walked briskly so as to be one of the first to the kerbside at the pedestrian crossing. He hated being in the middle of that silent, monomaniacal mob which marched on staring grim-facedly at the ground when it wasn’t watching the traffic; he always imagined that if he tripped over something and fell down they would walk right over him, and not being able to see the kerbstone made him feel insecure.
    He stopped abruptly, so that the people behind him, not fully alert at that time of the morning, almost walked into him. No-one had quite enough energy for active impatience, but they frowned at him as they went by. He didn’t care. He was suddenly fed up with the whole routine. Why was he rushing? The pedestrian crossing lights would be red. They were always red. He would have to stand and wait while they all came and crowded around him anyway, thoughtlessly shoving their way forward and making him feel that the only thing preventing him from being tipped off the pavement and into the path of the rush hour traffic was the extra purchase he gained on the kerb by curling up his toes. Then there would be another race up to the lights beyond the courthouse, which would also be red. What was the point?
    On a whim, he turned right and went towards the subway that led to Ann Street. Only two or three other people were going this direction, and it felt oddly relaxing, as he went down the subway stairs, to hear the noise of the traffic fading to a dull rumble overhead and being replaced by quick, light footsteps echoing along the tunnel.
    He was about halfway along when he was dazzled by something as bright as if a camera flashgun had gone off right in his face. He gasped and staggered backwards, screwing his eyes shut tightly; the intensity of the light did not seem to diminish. Somewhere nearby, he could hear a woman giving a little squeal of distress, and someone else uttering oaths of pain and surprise. He felt a tingling, prickling sensation in his skin, even where it was not exposed. A ferocious blast of hot air began rushing past him.
    Then the world seemed to be filled with a roar that arrived with a thump and went on and on and on, a hundred times louder than the traffic had been, obliterating all other noises so completely that even as he was