Bingo! Bellow thought. "That counts for something, Tim. As a matter of fact, it counts for a lot. You know, the war will be over soon. They're going to make peace finally, and when that happens, well, there's going to be an amnesty for most of the fighters. So you have some hope. You all do," Paul told the other three, who were watching and listening… and wavering, as their leader was. They had to know that all was lost. Surrounded, their leader captured, this could only end in one of two ways, with their deaths or their imprisonment. Escape was not a practical possibility, and they knew that the attempt to move their hostages to a bus would only expose them to certain death in a new and different way.
"Tim?"
"Yes?" He looked up from his smoke.
"If you set your weapons down on the floor, you have my word that you will not be hurt in any way."
"And go to prison?" Defiance and anger in the reply.
"Timothy, you can get out of prison someday. You cannot get out of death. Please think about that. For God's sake, I'm a physician," Bellow reminded him. "I don't like seeing people die."
Timothy O'Neil turned to look at his comrades. All eyes were downcast. Even the Barry twins showed no particular defiance.
"Guys, if you haven't hurt anyone today, then, yes. you will go to prison, but someday you'll have a good chance to get out when the amnesty is promulgated. Otherwise, you die for nothing at all, Not for your country. They don't make heroes out of people who kill civilians," he reminded them once again. Keep repeating, Bellow thought. Keep drumming it in. "Killing soldiers, yes, that's something soldiers do, but not murdering innocent people. You will die for nothing at all-or you will live, and be free again someday. It's up to you, guys. You have the guns. But there isn't going to be a bus. You will not escape, and you have six people you can kill, sure, but what does that get for you, except a trip to hell? Call it a day, Timothy," he concluded, wondering if some Catholic nun in grade school had addressed him that way.
It wasn't quite that easy for Tim O'Neil. The idea of imprisonment in a cage with common criminals, having his family come to visit him there like an animal in a zoo, gave him chills… but he'd known that this was a possibility for years, and though he preferred the mental image of heroic death, a blazing gun in his hand firing at the enemies of his country, this American doctor had spoken the truth. There was no glory in murdering six English civilians. No songs would be written and sung about this exploit, no pints hoisted to his name in the pubs of Ulster… and what was left to him was inglorious death… life, in prison or not, was preferable to that sort of death.
Timothy Dennis O'Neil turned to look at his fellow PIRA soldiers and saw the same expression that they saw on his face. Without a spoken agreement, they all nodded. O'Neil safed his rifle and set it on the floor. The others did the same.
Bellow walked over to them to shake their hands.
"Six to Vega, move in now!" Clark called, seeing the picture on the small black-and-white screen.
Oso Vega moved quickly around the corner, his MP-10 up in his hands. There they were, standing with the doc. Tomlinson and Bates pushed them, not too roughly, against the wall. The former covered them while the latter patted them down. Seconds later, two uniformed policemen came in with handcuffs and, to the amazement of the soldiers, read them their legal rights. And just that easily and quietly, this days fighting was over.
The day hadn't ended for Dr. Bellow. Without so much as a drink of water for his dry throat, he hopped into a green-painted British Army truck for the trip back to Hereford. It hadn't ended for those left behind either.
"Hey, baby," Ding said. He'd finally found his wife outside the hospital, surrounded by a ring of SAS troopers.
Patsy ran the ten steps to him and hugged her husband as tightly as her swollen abdomen allowed.
"You okay?"
She nodded, tears in her eyes. "You?"
"I'm fine. It was a little exciting there for a while-and we have some people down, but everything's under control now."
"One of them-somebody killed him, and-"
