Hughes could sense that Adams was manoeuvring politically, though he had no inkling of the nascent peace process. He still thought of himself as a soldier, and Adams, who had always been political, was now an actual politician. There were places in Belfast where hard men congregated, and Hughes could go and sit and be accepted among such men, but Adams could not, because even before his rote denials of IRA membership, he had never been perceived as much of a soldier.
