Free The Chinaman by Stephen Leather Page B

television on a matte black stand, and underneath it was a video recorder. He took a videocassette off the table and slotted it into the recorder. The screen flickered and then there were shots of the Kensington bombing recorded from the BBC news. It was followed by a report of the Woolwich bombing, the explosion in Bank Tube station and the crop of car bombs that had killed or injured judges, police and army officers. Then the screen dissolved into black and white static and Hennessy bent down and switched the machine off.
    â€˜This must stop,’ said Hennessy quietly. He was not a man who needed to raise his voice or bang his fist on the table to make his anger felt. ‘Never in the history of the Cause have we been closer to getting a political solution. Look at South Africa. The Government there is now talking to the ANC and that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. The ANC’s acts of terrorism go way beyond anything the IRA has ever done. With the Americans withdrawing their troops from Europe and the opening up of Eastern Europe, this Government is finding it harder and harder to justify its armed presence in Northern Ireland. This Government is getting tired, politically and economically, and it is through the ballot-box and by lobbying in Westminster that this war will be won.’
    There were grumblings from several of the men at the table and Hennessy held up his hand to silence them. ‘I am not saying that we give up the struggle, nor that we release the pressure here. What I am saying is that it does us no good at all to take the conflict to the mainland. We have tried in the past and the backlash, both political and from the public, has done us more harm than good. That is why what is happening in England now is so detrimental to our cause.’
    A few of the men nodded in agreement, but Hennessy could see that others were still not convinced.
    â€˜We cannot succeed in our political struggle by using violence in English cities. It must stop. Which brings us to our second problem. Who in God’s name is behind this bombing campaign?’ He looked at the men around the table but was met with a wall of shaking heads. Over the previous four months Hennessy or one of his associates from the upper echelons of Sinn Fein had met with all of the top IRA organisers in Belfast and in Dublin in an attempt to identify the team behind the bombings. When they’d first been told that the terror campaign was an unsanctioned one they had been astonished – most had assumed that it had been ordered on a ‘need to know’ basis. It was inconceivable, they thought, that a campaign of such ferocity and technical sophistication could be masterminded from outside the organisation. The bombs were all variations of IRA designs and explosives, and whenever the bombers claimed responsibility they always gave the current identifying codeword, but as far as Hennessy could determine they were most definitely not acting under IRA authority. Unless one of the men around the table had been lying.
    He studied their faces, most of them in their fifties and sixties, hard men whose eyes looked back at him levelly. Most of them had killed, and the few who hadn’t had arranged or ordered assassinations, yet to the outsider they would have looked no more sinister than a group of pigeon fanciers gathered to discuss their annual show.
    â€˜After an extensive investigation, we have come to the conclusion that we are dealing with a rogue group, a group that we are sure must have been within the organisation until recently, who are now operating on their own,’ said Hennessy. He saw one or two frowns. ‘The fact that they know the codewords, even after they are changed, suggests that they still have connections, and high level connections at that. And the type of explosive devices would indicate that they are IRA trained. It could even be that they passed through one of the Libyan training