She slid a sheet of paper across the table. ‘You’re booked on half a dozen flights out of Belfast this evening,’ she said. ‘Or you can drive and take the ferry.’

‘The car stays here,’ said Shepherd. ‘And there’s a good chance they’ll be watching the airport and the ferry terminal. I’ll take the train to Dublin and fly from there.’

‘I’ll make the reservations,’ she said. ‘I’ll text you the booking references.’

Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’ve tossed the phone and the Sim card,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy my own ticket.’

‘You’re angry,’ she said, and it was a statement and not a question.

‘Damn right I’m angry,’ he said. ‘My life is on the line, here, Charlie. Everyone in that warehouse saw me shoot those guys.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘This isn’t about apologies, it’s about the mother of all cock-ups. The whole point of me going undercover is that I go in and out with no one knowing what’s happened. I gather intel, but someone else clears up the shit.’

‘Spider, you’re not telling me anything that I don’t already know.’

‘I think it needs spelling out, Charlie. I shot two members of the Real IRA. They know what I look like.’

‘But they don’t know who you are.’

‘That’s not the point,’ snapped Shepherd. ‘The point is that they know what I did and if I ever cross paths with them again . . .’ He threw up his hands in disgust. ‘Bloody amateurs.’

‘We can make sure that you never work in the Province again.’

‘And what if they come looking for me, Charlie? What are you going to do? Put me in the witness protection programme? I spent more than three months in Ireland, I must have been caught a thousand times on CCTV. If they have access to any of the cameras then they’ll have my picture.’

‘Your legend was watertight. If they do go looking for you they’ll be looking in the wrong place. They think you’re an American, remember?’

‘They’re not stupid, Charlie. They’ll know that the Americans wouldn’t put one of their own people undercover in Northern Ireland.’

‘But they won’t know who you are or where to look for you.’

‘We shouldn’t even be in this position,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was blown, Charlie. My cover was blown to smithereens mid-operation. That’s never happened before.’ He sighed and shook his head contemptuously. ‘How the hell could something like that happen, Charlie? How could MI5 and Special Branch be on the same case and not know?’

‘Because we were coming at it from different directions,’ said Button. ‘Special Branch had an operative undercover in the cell, you were getting close to the Operations Director. They knew what the target was, but for whatever reason didn’t share that intel.’