A thin, angular man with tinted glasses and slicked-back greying hair caught Hennessy’s eye with a wave of his hand. His name was Hugh McGrath, and his main job within the organisation was to liaise with the Libyans, providers of much of the organisation’s money and equipment.

‘Liam, you can’t be serious. The whole point of these stockpiles is that they remain untouched until we need them. Disturbing them unnecessarily risks drawing attention to them,’ he said.

Hennessy took his hands off the table and stood upright. He could understand his concern, McGrath had personally supervised the importation of much of the IRA’s ordnance and was all too well aware of what it had cost, in terms of hard cash and lives lost.

‘We’ll be careful, Hugh. We’ll be damned careful. But I think that a thorough examination of all our stockpiles will give us our best indication of who is behind the bombing campaign. I agree it’s a risk, but it is a calculated one. It’s a risk we must take, right enough.’

‘If you say so,’ said McGrath, but Hennessy could tell from his tone that he wasn’t convinced. He made a mental note to massage his ego after the meeting.

‘What I need from you all is a full list of all your ordnance stocks. And I mean every single one, authorised and non-authorised. I know that we all like to have a little something tucked away for a rainy day, but the list must be comprehensive. And alongside the contents of each stockpile I want the names of all the people who know its location.’

There were a few heavy sighs from his audience.

‘A list like that will be a very dangerous thing, Liam. In the wrong hands it could be fatal,’ said Sewell.

‘I know that. There will be only one copy, and I will have it. I will arrange for the stockpiles to be checked, and I will arrange for different teams to do the checking. Only I will know all the locations. And the men I get to visit the stockpiles will not be told why. If all goes to plan I will eventually know which have been tampered with, and then by cross-referencing the names I should be able to identify the common links. Now, if you don’t object, I suggest we compile the list as best we can. Any omissions can be made good later, but only directly to me.’

The men reached for their pens as Hennessy sat down again. He waited until the men had finished writing. It took several minutes until the last man replaced his ballpoint pen on the table. Hennessy asked for the written sheets to be passed to him and he placed them in a neat pile and then carefully folded it three ways and slipped the sheets into his inside pocket. He then asked them to tear off the top half dozen sheets from the pads and he gathered them together and screwed them up before dropping them into a wastepaper basket. He used a silver cigarette lighter to set the papers alight. He realised it looked a bit theatrical, but at least it proved that he was serious about secrecy.