If the various accounts of the Patten report published in the past 48 hours are to be believed, the Belfast Agreement might very well be doomed.
Suddenly, starkly, the consequence of all those missed deadlines is laid before us. Even when the process crash-landed in July, there was faint hope that some good might come of it. It seemed possible the further delay might enable David Trimble to draw some of the inevitable poison in the debate over policing - and make his decision on the executive with some of unionism's worst fears unrealised, and some of republicanism's more extravagant expectations disappointed.
Now, it seems, the combination of the Mitchell review and the Patten report - coming hard-on-the-heels of Mo Mowlam's ruling on the state of the IRA ceasefire - could prove lethal.
The Ulster Unionists are no less enraged than the DUP by what they consider to be Dr Mowlam's licence to the IRA to murder. It is hard to see them entering government with Sinn Fein on the back of a report from Mr Patten they now seem convinced will lead to "vigilantism by the back door" and the full-scale "cantonisation" of policing across Northern Ireland.
The prospect painted in the past two days is enough to terrify the most liberal of unionists. Consider the impact on the internal unionist debate as members of the newly-named Northern Ireland Police Service step out on Border patrol alongside the gardai - each indistinguishable from the other in their blue uniforms - while nationalist-controlled councils across the North raise their own extra police services from local "security" companies.
Even as they prepare their "massive campaign" for the rejection of Patten, most senior unionist politicians seem resigned to the abolition of the royal title and the consequent emblematic changes.
Their fire, instead, is primarily directed at the reported plan to enable "local governing boards" to contract out services to outside organisations. Ken Maginnis clearly believes this will open the door (and be intended to open the door) to "two-tier policing" and direct paramilitary involvement in local police functions.
Responding to Wednesday's Belfast Telegraph report, the following day in the Daily Telegraph, Prof Henry Patterson said the most worrying aspect "for more thoughtful unionists" lay in the idea of a revamped police authority or board sharing its power within a wholly new "regionalised" structure. This, he said, raised the spectre of the integration into the state of existing networks of paramilitary violence.
If it came to pass, he painted the (for unionists) nightmare scenario in which "Sinn Fein would be in the unique position of having its hand on the control of a multiplicity of police forces, ranging from the all-Northern Ireland replacement of the RUC, to the knee-capping squads of the IRA, to the new more politically correct and recently de-hooded members of `community justice tribunals'."
But will it come to pass? Is this really where policing in Northern Ireland is headed, or would the unionists, like the rest of us, be wise to heed the advice of the SDLP's Alex Atwood and wait to see the actual Patten plan?
Is it credible that Mr Patten - in the minds of many the best prime minister Britain never had, and himself a former Northern Ireland minister - would think to put the forces of lawful authority on an equal footing with those who have fought and murdered them for 30 years?
Is it believable that Patten - a devout Catholic with a finely developed sense of moral purpose in politics and public life - thinks his mission to leave the residents of Northern Ireland's housing estates to the mercies of the practitioners of paramilitary "punishment attacks" and summary exclusion orders?
Is it conceivable that Patten thinks to allow those who have terrorised their own communities to trade in their balaclavas for police uniforms? To erode the authority of the Chief Constable and destroy the integrity of a unitary police force, effectively repartitioning Northern Ireland in the process? To do all this, and expect that David Trimble would survive to deliver his side of the Belfast Agreement?
For there, surely, is the nub of the matter. Patten is part of the Belfast Agreement. One unionist activist expressed himself somewhat surprised by this yesterday.
Given the demeanour of some of his political representatives, his surprise was hardly surprising, but the uncomfortable fact for David Trimble and his pro-agreement colleagues is that they handed the policing problem to Patten, implicitly accepting that it was a problem and one beyond the capacity of the politicians themselves to resolve. Mr Trimble's balancing comfort, surely, is that the Patten proposals will be predicated on the successful implementation of the Belfast Agreement and will presume continuing unionist support for it.
Not the least of the "democratic deficit" during the long years of direct rule has been the Secretary of State's control over appointments to the Northern Ireland Police Authority - and the fact that the Irish Government, through the Anglo-Irish Agreement, enjoyed the right to be consulted on the life-and-death issues affecting the people of the North not available to their own representatives.
Post-devolution, it would seem logical (if not inevitable) that Patten would seek to redress this deficit, by making the elective component the predominant one in the replacement police authority or board. This would be wholly consistent with the British government's declared willingness "in principle" to eventually devolve policing and justice issues to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
There, if such it is, lies the sting in the tail, because Sinn Fein's potential entry to influence lies not at some local government backdoor, but at the front door of Stormont. The "inclusivity" principle was not an invention of Chris Patten. In plain terms, it is hard to see how the Ulster Unionist leader can adjudge Sinn Fein acceptable partners in government and then seek to deny them a place in a newly-constituted police authority.
To Dr Paisley and his fellow rejectionists the very prospect is anathema - reason enough to bring the entire agreement crashing to the ground. As Mr Trimble's moment of decision draws ever closer, Dr Paisley has no difficulty in seeing that Patten and the agreement are, to borrow a phrase, "two sides of the same coin".