Colonel Shane Kilmara, security adviser to the Taoiseach — the Irish prime minister — and commander of the Rangers, the special Irish antiterrorist force, rose to meet him. A buffet lunch was spread out on a table to one side.
"I didn't realize smoked salmon needed so much protection," said Fitzduane.
"It's the company it keeps," answered Kilmara.
* * * * *
Whenever Ireland's idiosyncratic climate and the Celtic mentality of many of its natives began to get him down, Kilmara had only to reflect on how he had ended up in his present position to induce a frisson of well-being.
Kilmara had been successful militarily in the Congo, and the saving of most of the hostages at Konina had been hailed as a classic surgical strike by the world press; but the bottom line had a political flavor, and back in cold, damp Ireland Kilmara was court-martialed — and found guilty. He did not dispute the finding. He had initiated the Konina strike against orders, and eighteen of his men had been killed.
On the credit side of the ledger, the operation had been a success. More than seven hundred lives had been saved, and world public opinion had been overwhelmingly favorable, so he did dispute whether charges should have been brought at all. Many others, including the officers judging him at his court-martial, felt the same way, but the verdict, once the court was convened, was inevitable. The sentence was not. It could have involved a dishonorable discharge and imprisonment or even the extreme penalty. It did not. The members of the court demonstrated their view that the institution of such proceedings against one of their own was ill judged and motivated by political malice by settling for the minimum penalty; a severe reprimand.
Kilmara could have stayed on in the army, since most of his peers regarded the verdict as technical, but a more serious shock was to follow. Under the guise of economy measures, the elite airborne battalion he had selected and trained to such a peak of perfection was disbanded.
Although both the court-martial and the disbanding of Kilmara's command were publicized as being strictly military decisions made by the chief of staff and his officers, Kilmara was under no illusions as to where they actually originated or what he could do about them. He assessed the situation pragmatically. For the moment he was outgunned. There was nothing he could do. His antagonist was none other than one Joseph Patrick Delaney, Minister for Defense.
"It's realpolitik," said Kilmara to a disappointed chief of staff when he resigned. Two days later he left Ireland.
Many in the Irish establishment — political and civil — were not unhappy at Kilmara's departure. He had been outspoken and abrasive about conditions in the army and had an unacceptably high profile in the media. His very military success had made him into a greater threat. The establishment in conservative Ireland was fiercely opposed to change. It was glad to see the back of the outspoken colonel and was confident her would never return in an official capacity. Any alternative was unthinkable.
It was assumed by his colleagues in the cabinet that the minister's active hostility toward Kilmara was merely the normal conservative's dislike of the outspoken maverick, leavened by a not-unnatural jealousy of the military man's success — and as such it was understood. They were right, up to a point. However, the real reason Joseph Patrick Delaney wanted Kilmara discredited was more serious and fundamental. Kilmara was a threat not just to the minister's professional ambitions but, if ever the soldier put certain information together, the politician's very life.
To put it simply, Delaney was a traitor. He had passed information about the plans and activities of Irish troops in the Congo to a connection in exchange for considerable sums of money, which had resulted in the frustration of some of the Airborne Rangers battalion's operations — and in the death and wounding of a number of men.
The minister had not set out to be a traitor. He had merely put his ambitions before his integrity, and circumstances had done the rest. The minister was convinced that Kilmara suspected what he had done — thought, ironically, he was wrong. Kilmara's undisguised contempt for him was based on no more than the typical soldier's dislike of a corrupt and opportunistic political master.
After his resignation from the Irish Army in the mid-sixties, Kilmara should have vanished from Irish official circles for good. But then, in the seventies, the specter of terrorism began to make itself felt. It had been largely confined to British-occupied Northern Ireland and to Continental Europe, but violence, unless checked, has a habit of spreading, and borders are notoriously leaky.
The Irish government was concerned and worried, but it was the assassination of Ambassador Ewart Biggs, ex-member of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, writer of thrillers — all of them banned by the Irish censors — and wearer of a black-tinted monocle, was appointed British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland. It was a controversial choice at best, and it was to end in tragedy.
On the morning of July 21, Ewart Biggs seated himself on the left-hand side of the backseat of his chauffeur-driven 4.2 liter Jaguar. He was to be driven from his residence in the Dublin suburb of Sandyford to the British Embassy near Ballsbridge. Behind the Jaguar drove an escort vehicle of the Irish Special Branch containing armed detectives.
A few hundred meters from the residence, the ambassador's car passed over a culvert stuffed with one hundred kilograms of commercial gelignite. The culvert bomb was detonated by command wire from a hundred meters away. The Jaguar was blasted up into the air and crashed back into the smoking crater. Ambassador Ewart Biggs and his secretary, Judith Cooke, were crushed to death.
The killings sent a cold shudder through the Irish political establishment. Whom might the terrorists kill next? Would the British start revenge bombings, and who might their targets be? It wasn't a cheerful scenario.
The Irish cabinet went into emergency session, and a special committee was set up to overhaul Irish internal security. It was decided to appoint a special security adviser to the Taoiseach. It was an obvious prerequisite that such an adviser be familiar with counterinsurgency on both an international and a national basis.
Discreet inquiries were made throughout Europe, the United States, and places much further afield. The replies were virtually unanimous. In the intervening decade, working with many of the West's most effective security and counterterrorist forces, Kilmara had consolidated his already formidable reputation. His contempt for most bureaucrats and politicians was well known. The cabinet committee was unhappy with the appointment, but having Kilmara around was preferable to being shredded by a terrorist mine. Just about.
Kilmara drove a hard bargain. It included an ironclad contract and a substantial — by Irish standards — budget. Ninety days after his appointment, as stipulated in his contract, Kilmara set up an elite special antiterrorist unit. He named it “the Rangers” after his now-disbanded airborne battalion. The entire unit numbered only sixty members. Some were drawn from the ranks of the army and the police. Many had been with Kilmara in the Congo. A number were seconded from other forces like the German GSG-9 and the French Gigene. There were others whose backgrounds were known only to Kilmara.
The performance of the Rangers exceeded expectations. Success did not mellow Kilmara. He remained cordially disliked — and, to an extent, feared — by much of the political establishment and, above all, by the present Taoiseach, a certain Joseph Patrick Delaney.