[ Part Two of a Trilogy ]
The American president is strategizing to position himself for re-election. He needs a cause with which to identify and emerge as omnipotent. Solving the conflict between the UK / Protestant Northern Ireland and the IRA would position him for the Nobel Peace Prize and guarantee his re-election.
To gain the highest degree of favor, he decides (based on upper echelon advice from the Pentagon) to remove a particularly thorny problem, an IRA leader who has been so successful against Britain’s interests. The President leans on a trusted general to produce the army’s best black ops sniper / assassin – Colonel Daniel Riley.
Riley is dispatched to Dublin to eliminate Michael Burke but chaos builds upon chaos before he can complete his assignment. In the turmoil that ensues he comes face-to-face with Burke and slowly he learns that Burke is not the problem. By teaming with Burke and several others it becomes apparent that it is the British government that is behind the bombings and assassinations. Jeremy Smythe, late of the British SAS, a hulking bulwark of a thug is the “hammer” used by the Director General of Britain’s MI5, Admiral Hornaway to systematically conduct a campaign of terror in Ireland and even against their own citizens in London so as to be able to lay blame at the feet of the IRA.
The conflict culminates on the occasion of the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday. Riley, Burke and Cronin intercept Smythe and his hired assassin, a former Russian Spetnaz killer. The shot intended for the Queen Mother flies errantly and strikes a young, popular princess, killing her.
After the Irishmen are able to take down the British assassins they pledge to find out where the order for this kill actually came from, how high it would reach.
