The Marching Season

to the north, Wilde to the south.
    By 4 A.M. both men were exhausted, soaked to the skin, and bitterly cold. Yeats had been trained by the British army and was better prepared, mentally and physically, for a night on a freezing hillside. Wilde was not; he had grown up in the Shankill of West Belfast, and his experience had been on the streets, not in the field. In the final minutes before the attack, he wondered whether he could go forward. Hypothermia had set in; his hands and feet were numb, yet no longer felt the cold. He was shivering violently, and he feared he wouldn't be able to fire his gun when the time came.
    At 5 A.M. both gunmen were in position. Yeats, lying on his stomach behind a large tree, watched the SAS man. He was sitting in a blind, covered with sprigs of brush and small tree limbs. Yeats took out his gun, a Walther 9-millimeter semiautomatic with a silencer fitted into the barrel. Wilde carried the same weapon. Both men knew they were going to be heavily outgunned by their opponents. If they were to survive the encounter, they would have to make their first shots count.
    Yeats rose to one knee suddenly and began firing. The silenced Walther made almost no sound. The first shots struck the SAS man in the torso with a dull thud and knocked him backward. By the sound of it the SAS man was wearing a vest, which meant he was almost certainly still alive.
    Yeats scrambled to his feet and rushed forward through the darkness. When he was a few feet away the SAS man sat up suddenly and fired. His weapon was silenced too, and the only sound it made was a faint metallic clicking.
    Yeats threw himself to the ground, and the shots sailed harmlessly over his head, splintering trees. Yeats rolled and came to
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    rest on his stomach, arms outstretched, the Walther in his hands. He took aim and squeezed the trigger twice rapidly, just as the army had taught him. The shots struck the SAS man in the face. He fell to the ground, dead.
    Yeats rushed forward, tore the automatic rifle from the grasp of the dead SAS man, and ran to the spot where he knew the E4 men were hiding.
    Wilde had an easier time of things. The SAS man that he was assigned to kill had reacted to the sound of bodies rustling the heather. He rose, pivoted quickly in several directions, then ran to the assistance of his comrade. Wilde stepped from behind a tree as the SAS man moved past him. He leveled the gun at the back of his head and fired. The soldier's arms opened wide and he fell forward. Wilde grabbed the dead man's gun and raced forward, following Yeats through the trees.
    The two E4 men—Marks and Sparks—were hidden in their blind, concealed by camouflage tarpaulins, tree limbs, and undergrowth. Marks was just coming awake. Yeats shot him several times through his sleeping bag. Sparks, who was on duty, was reaching for a small automatic. Wilde shot him through the heart.
    It was just after five o'clock as Gavin Spencer sped through the village of Cranagh, then along the narrow B-road toward the farmhouse. He pulled into the muddy drive and shut down the engine. He walked to the back of the house through the darkness, picking his way through broken crates and old rusting farm equipment. He spotted them a moment later, descending the hillside in the rain. Spencer stood in the yard, hands in his pockets, as the two men crossed the pasture. For a moment he would have done anything to trade places with them; then he saw their
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    wet, soiled clothing and the haunted look in their eyes, and he knew there was nothing to celebrate.
    "It's done," the one called Wilde said simply.
    "How many?" Spencer asked.
    "Four."
    Yeats tossed a rifle toward Spencer in the darkness. Spencer deftly pulled his hands from his pockets and caught the rifle before it struck him in the chest.
    "There's a souvenir for you," Yeats said. "The rifle of a dead SAS man."
    Spencer pulled back the slider on the weapon, chambering a round.
    "Anything left in this one?"
    "He never got off a fuckin' shot," Wilde said.
    "Get in the car," Spencer told them. "I'll be along in a minute."
    Spencer carried the gun across the yard and let himself into the house. Sam Dalton, the older of the two brothers, was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and smoking nervously. He wore blue warm-up trousers, moccasins, and a woolen pullover sweater. His face was unshaven, his eyes heavy with sleep.
    "What the fuck's going on out there, Gavin?" he