Yeah, Simpson thought, that’s how he’d do it. The bombing, the betrayal, the SAS operation on the front, along with the girl’s picture. Inside, backgrounders on the bombing campaign and the SAS, biogs of the bombers and lots of political reaction. A great story, just a pity that it hadn’t happened on a Saturday night. The two pictures of Woody looked up at Simpson. Simpson shook his head sadly. ‘Well, Woody, you finally made the front page,’ he said to himself. He gathered the papers up and took them home to read in detail.

The call to attend the meeting in Whitehall came as Bromley was reading the morning papers at his breakfast table. The bombing of the jet was on the front of every paper, along with a graphic account of the SAS operation against the bombers in Wapping. From the amount of detail in the reports it was obvious that Ministry of Defence press officers had been hard at work pushing the Government line. There was no mention of The Chinaman in any of the stories. His life, and death, would remain a secret for ever. Another basic fact missing from all of the stories was how the authorities had managed to locate the active service unit. Intelligence, was the nearest thing to an explanation. The press officers knew exactly how to handle the Press, to spoonfeed them with more information than they could handle so that they’d forget to ask the basic questions.

He put his jacket on, kissed his wife on the cheek and went out to the garage to check the underside of his car. He peered through the driver’s window to check that the onboard detection device showed that his car hadn’t been tampered with and when he was satisfied he took several steps backwards and clicked a small remote-control device that started the car automatically. Only when he was satisfied that his car was safe did he unlock the door and get in. The safety precautions were second nature to him, and had been long before the car-bomb deaths of Airey Neave and Ian Gow.

The early morning phone call meant that he’d have to completely reschedule his day, but a call from the Co-ordinator of Intelligence and Security took precedence over everything else. The Co-ordinator answered to only two higher authorities – the Prime Minister and the Permanent Secretaries Committee on the Intelligence Services. His main role in life was to ensure that all the different intelligence agencies worked together, an uphill struggle at the best of times.