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understands the IRA. I've recommended you."
    Dismay rose like bile in his gorge. "Research facility? Are you fobbing me off with an assignment to guard a bunch of ruddy scientists?"
    Ogilvie grinned. "Pegged it straight off, didn't you? I know what you're thinking and you're not far wrong. This business has shaken you, lad, whether you admit it or don't, and frankly, I can't afford to send anyone up there who's not already sick-listed. We're short-handed until we can bring in replacements. You can't function on the streets with a partially rehabilitated knee and a broken wrist, but you're certainly up to handling this little job. Think of it as a holiday, if you like. Or call it a belated birthday present from your colonel. I think," he added with a quirk of the lips, "you'll rather fancy the research site."
    "Oh?"
    The colonel chuckled. "You hale from the Highlands, don't you?"
    "Stirling, actually," he nodded, "gateway to the Highlands. Straddles the only mountain pass between the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands." Stirling Castle, whose walls overlooked seven major battlefields, including Robert the Bruce's resounding victory over England's Edward II at Bannockburn, was legendary in the annals of Scottish history. And if legend were to be trusted, even King Arthur had understood its strategic value, wresting a much older fortress on the site from a Saxon army. "My ancestors go back a ways," he added with a wry twist of the lips. "There've been Stirlings in Stirling since time immemorial."
    "That's grand, then. You'll be familiar with the countryside and the locals will trust you as one of their own. It's a delicate situation, calls for a man good with people. I've half a dozen other men sick-listed that I might've recommended for this job, but they haven't either the people skills or the Scots background we want. You're the man for it, no mistake. Study the file on your way up," Ogilvie added, handing over a sealed manila envelope. "Your train leaves for Edinburgh in two hours, the best transportation I could manage on short notice, since you're in no shape to be driving, and I can't commandeer military transport for one man. Wouldn't send the message we want, anyway. We're not taking them over, at the lab, we're protecting them. You'll be met by a car from the research site when you reach Edinburgh. Stop in and say hello to your family for a few days, when the job's done. You've earned that much, at least."
    "Yes, sir," he said, trying to conceal the glum disappointment settling over him. Sent packing to stand watch over a gaggle of scientists... "Thank you, sir," he added unhappily, finishing the scotch and accepting the envelope with his new orders.
    Ogilvie just grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
    Two hours later, he had limped aboard the train, found his seat, and rumbled northward through a wet English morning, heading home for an assignment no SAS man in his right mind would have volunteered for.
Bloody holiday, my arse,
he thought uncharitably, scanning the dossier on the so-called research facility.
What in hell's the IRA thinking, to be interested in a crackpot scheme like this?
Come to that, what was the Home Secretary's Office thinking, to be funding such a thing?
Time travel,
no less. Bloody lot of nonsense and a frightful waste of taxpayers' money.
    They hit a delay on the line when the train was forced to stop while crews worked to clear wet leaves from the rails. The weight of trains crushed the leaves into a gluelike sludge so slick trains had literally slid through stations, on occasion, unable to brake and ending derailed with passengers injured. The bane of British rail travel, thousands of pounds of fallen leaves every year required work crews to strip the rails by hand with sandpaper and cleaning solvents. Accustomed to military transport, Stirling had forgotten how frustrating such delays could be, particularly when he was tired and hurting.
    They finally jerked into motion again, houses and