Her again. Tony winced each time he said it, as if assigning the child a gender made her more real, their plan more violent.

‘Bombs aren’t an exact fucking science, Hugh!’

‘Keep your voice down and pull yourself together. It’ll happen when the kid’s not there, if we can manage it.’

‘I think we should stop.’

‘Do you? You think we should all be held hostage to the whims of your conscience.’

‘This is wrong.’

‘So was blinding a kid. Shot her in the face with a plastic bullet. Why is his child more important than that one?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I can’t… It’s not right. She’s just a kid.’

Tony realised how weak his argument sounded, but could not articulate his thoughts and feelings. He realised that it was his fault that only now was the extent of what they were planning really registering with him. But he could not admit that he’d been involved so far without giving any thought to what the final consequences might be.

Duggan seemed to sense he was struggling to explain himself. ‘Look,’ he said, his tone reasoned. ‘I understand your concerns. I do. And we’ll try to make sure she’s not anywhere near it.’

It. Tony felt his breath catch, his chest tighten, the room seemingly growing smaller around he where he stood. He felt trapped.

‘We’ll try,’ Duggan repeated. ‘But if she gets caught up in it by accident, that’s just collateral damage. It’s an unfortunate side effect of war. Just like your Danny didn’t ask to be run over like a dog on his way home from the game.’

Tony slumped against the wall. ‘You need to count me out.’

‘You’re out, everyone’s out,’ Duggan said. ‘You know that. And you’ll have to answer for it.’

‘I don’t want to be involved any more, Hugh.’

‘You’re already involved. You gave me the mercury for that attack a while back. That was you as much as me.’

‘But that was different.’

‘How?’

‘He deserved it, did he not?’

‘Why? You don’t know whether he deserved it. You’d not seen him, didn’t know him. Maybe he had kids.’

‘Did he?’

‘Would it matter?’

‘Did he?’ Tony repeated.

‘You’re already involved,’ Duggan said. ‘You need to hold your nerve and see this through. It’ll be over by the weekend. Then, you can go on your merry way. But we’ve trusted you up until now. That’s how this works. You walk, we all have to walk. And a lot of people are going to be very unhappy about that.’

Tony felt he was going to be sick. He stood, shaking the jittering from his legs.

‘Promise you’ll not hurt the kid.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Duggan agreed. ‘That’s all I can promise.’