The Janus Web

A hotel is bombed in Belfast. An Italian statesman, Aldo Moro, is kidnapped in Rome. The connection between two such widely separated events is the IRA's expert on improvised explosive devices, Tony Keegan. Keegan, the presumed bomber of the Belfast hotel, was on his way to Rome to meet members of the Red Brigades, the presumed kidnappers of Aldo Moro, when he is captured by British agents and held incommunicado in London. MI6 sees a chance to help the Italian secret service: send an agent to Rome to infiltrate the Red Brigades by pretending to be Tony Keegan. Enter Ross Macrory. He had earlier worked in the Rome station for three years; he knows the city, speaks Italian, and more importantly he has an Ulster accent. What appears to be a standard mission for Macrory turns perilous when he finds himself in a Red Brigades 'safe house' in Rome, surrounded by potentially dangerous Janus characters, playing double roles. Whom can he trust? The wealthy Italian entrepreneur, the unconventional communist handyman, the agent from the Italian secret service, the English travel agent, the enigmatic young Irish-Italian woman who sat beside him on the plane from Belfast and turns up in the Red Brigades safe house as a guest of the wealthy entrepreneur. Alone in a terrorist stronghold, with no allies he can be sure of, Macrory's mission veers off in a perilous direction different from that in which it had been planned to go. He finds himself entangled in a widening web of duplicity and international intrigue whose strands extend far beyond the borders of Italy, caught up in the turmoil of the 'Years of Lead.' (275 words)