IT WAS precisely one minute after midnight on Wednesday morning that the final and decisive overture began. Twenty minutes later former US Senator; George Mitchell took the chair at the peace talks to begin the task he had come for.
The huddle of press in the Portakabins outside the barbed wire surrounding Castle Buildings had no way of knowing of the dramatic turn events were taking inside.
The few delegates who emerged late in the evening had all reported that the situation remained deadlocked. The prospect was that negotiations would continue for several more hours.
But a few minutes before midnight, Mr John Taylor had hinted at imminent developments. "I think it will probably reach a conclusion in the early hours of the morning," he said, claiming that, the UUP had taken the initiative to try and breach the impasse.
He was studiously coy in replying to the barrage of questions as to whether Senator Mitchell was about to assume his intended post. "You must wait and see as to who is in the chair and what powers that person has," he insisted.
Pressed about his own earlier barbed personal comments on Mr Mitchell, he could not resist giving a little more: "I'm not saying he's going to be appointed. What I am saying is that a Serb with no powers is acceptable."
The news that the logjam had in fact been shattered was brought out first, not by government officials, but by the PUP spokesman, Mr Billy Hutchinson, who came out to the gates at 12.35 a.m.
Senator Mitchell had entered the talks chamber and was about the invite the delegations, in turn, their commitment to the Mitchell principles, he reported.
"He's now just taken the chair," said Mr Hutchinson. "The Progressive Unionist Party supported that the whole way through, along with the Ulster Democratic Party and the rest. He's taken up the chair, and the procedures and the powers that he has will be decided afterwards."
The end of the two day deadlock had come with extraordinary swiftness. There were rumours in the last few hours that the pressure was on. It was going to be make or break night, all or nothing.
Nobody could confirm that a formal ultimatum had been issued, but the signals were that the British government side was adamant that Mr Mitchell had to be in the chair that night, or everything was over.
The document circulated to the delegations at a minute past midnight contained the formula that resolved the impasse. It can be called the "Possible Approach"; document, from its title - "A Possible Approach Resolving Procedural Difficulties".
It had been drafted by the British government side, and represented a "tweaking" or reworking of the two governments' joint proposal earlier in the day that Mr Mitchell should first assume the chair and that his powers and procedures would then be negotiated - and decided by a sub committee of the delegates.
Nobody could say why Mr David Trimble had finally assented to the formula. But the Rev Ian Paisley claimed the UUP leader - who is due to travel to the US next week - had been told that every door in America would be closed against him unless he acceded to Mr Mitchell's chairmanship.
Mr Trimble himself strongly defended his actions when he emerged to the glare of television lights.
"We have succeeded bin obtaining what was my primary goal in approaching the difficulties at the beginning of this, namely to regain control of the process for the Northern Ireland parties," said Mr Trimble.
He called on the DUP and the UK Unionists to re enter the negotiations on what the role of the talks chairman should be - "I call on those parties to come and join us and to accept our leadership in this matter."
Mr Trimble insisted that the talks guidelines which the two governments had been "trying to impose on us" were now set to one side. Mr Taylor claimed that he had sealed the deal with the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen: "She agreed that we would start with a clean slate."
As the clock passed 1 a.m., the delegation leaders began to emerge in quick succession, each one mobbed by the press, and the jigsaw began to fit together.
When the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, had informed the delegates that he was about to hand over the chairmanship to Mr Mitchell, Mr Robert McCartney had led his UK Unionist Party team out of the room.
Some DUMP delegates also left at that point, but Dr Paisley remained on briefly to make a strong protest statement in the presence of the new chairman.
Dr Paisley indicated that he had discovered the developing plot by accident. He had gone to Mr Trimble's room to see him, and when he opened the door he had been confronted "by the entire Irish Government delegation".
On his way out, the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, fielded a query as to whether Mr Mitchell's powers had been "neutered". "Not in any way whatever," Mr Hume declared.
Mr Hume said he hoped the agreement would increase the prospects of an IPA ceasefire, which would allow Sinn Fein to join the talks. He pledged to do everything in his power to restore the ceasefire.