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of the IRA. But when they set up INLA, their own secret militia, and sent out a recruitment agent to persuade him to join, he was intrigued by their agenda. They wanted not just a United Ireland, but a United Socialist Ireland , one in which the spoils and wealth would be shared out among the poor and not just hoarded by the rich. In their methods, they were not so different from the IRA, they believed in using a mixture of violence against British soldiers and bombings of public houses and shopping centres on the British mainland. But their broader and more future-oriented agenda appealed to the revolutionary in Murphy. So he joined the Irish National Liberation army, coming in with the rank of lieutenant because of his experience in the IRA.
    He noted, when they first introduced themselves, that they didn ’ t use the word "republican" in their name. The recruitment agent told him that this was because they didn ’ t want to cause confusion in America with the Republican party. But he suspected that another reason was subconsciously involved. It had finally dawned on them that republicanism versus monarchy wasn ’ t really the issue: it was freedom versus tyranny. After all, Oliver Cromwell, their historical arch-enemy, had also been a republican, he was the man who had overthrown King Charles the First and had him beheaded. Yet he had crushed the fighting spirit of the proud sons and daughters of Ireland with the same savagery and brutality as the most arrogant of kings.
    Murphy ’ s own baptism of fire was well in the past. But he nevertheless felt that tinge of apprehension that preceded every mission. Each mission was new and there were always things that could go wrong.
    His previous bombings had all been directed against soldiers in the six counties of Northern Ireland . They entailed placing huge 200-500 pound bombs by the roadside and detonating them when British soldiers drove by in armoured trucks or troop carriers. For reasons of frugality, the British government preferred not to buy troop carriers made of the strongest armour plating available and opted instead for a compromise between price and strength that offered their soldiers very little protection against the huge roadside bombs of the IRA.
    These bombs were made from nitrogen-based explosives rather than Semtex, supplied in the form of animal droppings by the local farmers who in many cases sympathized with their cause and their methods. This was the oldest explosive of all, the one that the Chinese had invented a thousand years ago.
    The danger with these bombs was that unlike, the smaller Semtex bombs, they were relatively unstable. Also they were to be radio-detonated and it only took one hobbyist with a remote-controlled aeroplane to send the delivery man to an early martyrdom. The usual precaution was to sweep the frequency band with a radio receiver and survey the area visually before inserting the blasting cap and arming the device. But an undetected hobbyist could still break the radio silence before the delivery man got clear.
    With Semtex bombs it was different. The explosive was somewhat more stable than urea/nitrate-based explosive and the bombs were detonated either by a timer or mercury switch rather than a radio-controlled pulse and blasting cap. He had activated the timer in the car and now had less than twenty five minutes to place them and get clear.
    Placing bombs in a shopping centre is not easy. In addition to the security cameras, there is a dearth of places to plant bombs. For security reasons, there were no garbage bins and even if he could get an attendant ’ s uniform, he could hardly plant a bomb in one of the flower pots in front of the hundreds of shoppers milling about. He could plant it in a toilet tank but it would cause minimal damage in both material and human terms.
    It used to be possible to plant small incendiary devices in the pockets of clothes. But now the clothes retailers sewed up the pockets of their display