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days it's wiser."   He led the way out of the bar and along the glass-walled corridor to the
elevator.   They got out on the top
floor.   Günther nodded at two
plainclothes security guards and opened the door with a key.   Three were two more men inside, automatic
weapons at the ready.   Günther ushered
Fitzduane into the adjoining room.
    Colonel Shane
Kilmara, security adviser to the Taoiseach — the Irish prime minister — and
commander of the Rangers, the special Irish antiterrorist force, rose to meet
him.   A buffet lunch was spread out on a
table to one side.
    "I didn't
realize smoked salmon needed so much protection," said Fitzduane.
    "It's the
company it keeps," answered Kilmara.

     
    *           *           *           *           *
     
    Whenever
Ireland
's
idiosyncratic climate and the Celtic mentality of many of its natives began to
get him down, Kilmara had only to reflect on how he had ended up in his present
position to induce a frisson of well-being.
    Kilmara had
been successful militarily in the Congo, and the saving of most of the hostages
at Konina had been hailed as a classic surgical strike by the world press; but
the bottom line had a political flavor, and back in cold, damp Ireland Kilmara
was court-martialed — and found guilty.   He did not dispute the finding.   He had initiated the Konina strike against orders, and eighteen of his
men had been killed.
    On the credit
side of the ledger, the operation had been a success.   More than seven hundred lives had been saved,
and world public opinion had been overwhelmingly favorable, so he did dispute
whether charges should have been brought at all.   Many others, including the officers judging
him at his court-martial, felt the same way, but the verdict, once the court
was convened, was inevitable.   The sentence
was not.   It could have involved a
dishonorable discharge and imprisonment or even the extreme penalty.   It did not.   The members of the court demonstrated their view that the institution of
such proceedings against one of their own was ill judged and motivated by
political malice by settling for the minimum penalty; a severe reprimand.
    Kilmara could
have stayed on in the army, since most of his peers regarded the verdict as
technical, but a more serious shock was to follow.   Under the guise of economy measures, the
elite airborne battalion he had selected and trained to such a peak of perfection   was disbanded.
    Although both
the court-martial and the disbanding of Kilmara's command were publicized as
being strictly military decisions made by the chief of staff and his officers,
Kilmara was under no illusions as to where they actually originated or what he
could do about them.   He assessed the
situation pragmatically.   For the moment
he was outgunned.   There was nothing he
could do.   His antagonist was none other
than one Joseph Patrick Delaney, Minister for Defense.
    " It's realpolitik," said Kilmara to a disappointed chief
of staff when he resigned.   Two days
later he left
Ireland
.
    Many in the
Irish establishment — political and civil — were not unhappy at Kilmara's
departure.   He had been outspoken and
abrasive about conditions in the army and had an unacceptably high profile in
the media.   His very military success had
made him into a greater threat.   The
establishment in conservative
Ireland
was fiercely opposed to change.   It was
glad to see the back of the outspoken colonel and was confident her would never
return in an official capacity.   Any
alternative was unthinkable.
    It was assumed
by his colleagues in the cabinet that the minister's active hostility toward
Kilmara was merely the normal conservative's dislike of the outspoken maverick,
leavened by a not-unnatural jealousy of the military man's success — and as
such it was understood.   They were right,
up to a point.   However, the real reason
Joseph Patrick Delaney wanted Kilmara discredited