Some people were moving one of the theatrical flats and adjusting the lights. A man was kicking cables clear and using duct tape. Another monitor screen came live with a tight head shot of the woman at the desk and the camera pulled back. The girl who’d been eating the sandwich loaded the TelePrompTer and checked it and stood away, not looking at the woman at the desk but just waiting. Others were standing back, one of them twisting a rubber band round and round his fingers. There was no sound now.

  ‘Bennie, is that your stuff hanging there?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll —’

  ‘For God’s sake put it somewhere else, it’s distracting me. Jeff, are we ready?’

  ‘When you are.’

  ‘All right, let’s go.’

  A flood of light, no movement anywhere until her eyes had reacted to the glare, then her head tilted to look straight up at the TelePrompTer and the red lamp came on at the main camera and she flashed a brief, brilliant smile.

  ‘Good-evening. I’m Erica Cambridge, and these are my views. Yesterday in New Hampshire it looked as if Senator Mathieson Judd was for the first time pandering to the dictates of those on his campaign staff who have been trying to persuade him to “throw in a little healthy theatricality”, as Josh Weinberg of The Post has put it, to counterbalance the Republican candidate’s serious and perhaps solemn approach to the matter in hand. But in my view, ladies and gentlemen, the matter in hand is indeed serious and indeed solemn, nothing less than the task of your goodselves, the people, of choosing the man who will become one of the two - and I say this advisedly - one of the two most powerful statesmen on this planet.’

  Pause, a glance to the papers on the desk to give weight to the silence, the violet eyes lifting again. ‘And Senator Judd himself knows the seriousness and the solemnity of this occasion, and had more than once declared himself categorically disinterested in cheapening his respect and regard for the electorate. So what happened yesterday in New Hampshire was not rehearsed, was not premeditated. It was real. Some of you were there, I believe. You saw the little boy with the childishly-lettered placard on his chest, reading I HAVE AIDS BUT IT’S OKAY TO HUG ME. You saw Mathieson Judd’s instinctive move towards him in the crowd, brushing aside his bodyguards. You saw him hug that little boy, and if you were close enough you saw the sudden springing of tears on that man’s face as he stood with his arms around his small, suffering fellow-American for those few seconds of amazing grace.’

  And again a pause, but this time her eyes remained on the TelePrompTer. ‘I do not think, ladies and gentlemen, that I need to translate that scene into the banality of mere words for you. Allow me to say only that those who consider Senator Judd a figure of almost majestic dedication to the serious and solemn business of leadership, those who consider him as no more than an intellectual devoid of feeling, should now rejoice in the knowledge that he is also a man of heart. And it is this, above all, that we must have in the White House - a man who will not only lead this nation with the high skills of management and statesmanship, but a man graced with humanity.’

  Her eyes on the TelePrompTer for two seconds, three; then she looked down and shuffled the papers.

  ‘Haven’t seen you around here before, Mr Keyes.’

  Faint smell of sweat.

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  He’d come in quietly a minute ago and I’d checked his reflection in the glass panel without looking up. Thick-bodied, bland-faced, moved like a cat. Sitting beside me now, been working out somewhere and hadn’t had time for a shower.

  ‘You’re not surprised?’

  I wished he’d go away. ‘But Governor Anderson’s theme —’ Erica Cambridge on the monitor screen - ‘is that there’s so much wrong with America after the Republican four-year term —’

  ‘Mr Keyes?’

  He didn’t know me; he’d read the name on my lapel pass.

  ‘If you want to talk to me you’ll have to do it when Miss Cambridge has finished.’

  ‘ — Whereas Senator Judd’s theme is reassuring. The country is in good shape —’

  I could have read this for myself. Word for word.

  The chill came creeping, hadn’t expected it. I’d been trying to think it was all over now, done with, the subliminal infiltration of my mind.

  ‘I have to check up. Are you with the crew?’

  He was nothing to do with the studio. He was probably her bodyguard. Blue suit, black shoes, rubber soles.

  ‘ — to consolidate the gains that have been made under the present administration.’

  Word for word.

  I remembered Ferris, leaning across the desk, talking to the psychiatrist, Purdom watching me from his chair, Upjohn switching off the recorder.

  Then Ferris had turned to me. Do you know how long you spoke for?

  No.

  Nineteen minutes, with no interruption. Do you know what you were talking about?

  Yes. Anderson’s campaign theme. And Judd’s.

  I sat for a long time watching the woman with the violet eyes, listening to the words she spoke, the words that I had spoken before.

  When had she thought of them, written them?

  The man had gone out.

  ‘ — is to thank you for letting me be with you this evening. I’m Erica Cambridge, and these are my views.’

  Brilliant smile, hold, fade, credits.

  I waited until most of the people had left the main studio; then I went in there.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The bodyguard hadn’t followed me in. Either I’d cooled him off or he didn’t want to start anything that could bring Cambridge down on him for being stupid: for all he knew I could be the head of the studio.

  ‘My name is Richard Keyes.’

  ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  Getting her long slim snakeskin bag, checking her watch, swinging towards a door - ‘Bennie?’

  ‘You want me?’ Voice off.

  ‘Where did you put the transcripts?’

  ‘I sent them for copying.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘He’s doing them tonight. They’ll —’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, I need the originals to take home.’

  His face in the doorway, patient, enduring, ‘I sent them ten minutes ago, Erica, and they’ll be back here practically now.’

  ‘Next time, Bennie, get it right.’

  She picked up one of the phones on the desk, remembered me and said: ‘You can make an appointment through my secretary.’

  I said, ‘We need to talk tonight.’

  ‘I don’t know you. Please leave.’

  She dialled, and I went to the main door. ‘George Proctor sends his regards.’

  The bodyguard was waiting for her outside and she came past him and caught up with me at the elevator. ‘Who?’

  ‘I haven’t time,’ I said, ‘to make appointments.’

  She wasn’t biting her lip but it looked like that. Her make-up girl had taken off the heavy studio masque and fluffed the gel out of her hair and she looked younger and more human. ‘How much time do you have?’

  ‘We’ll play it by ear.’

  ‘I need to make one short call, okay?’ Turned to the man in the blue serge. ‘Is the car there?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Go down and wait.’

  It was 11:40 when we came out of the building into the street and got into the limousine.

  She leaned across the small marble-topped table. ‘When did you see him last?’

  Ferris had told his people to check on the second most frequent number on George Proctor’s telephone bills and it had been unlisted but they’d got around it through contacts and the name they’d come up with was Erica Cambridge.

  ‘Two nights ago.’

  She looked away. ‘Was he with anyone?’

  I think she regretted it immediately but of course it was too late.

  ‘Yes.’

  She’d learned already, and just went on watching the people. ‘Has he contacted you since then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you contacted him?’

  ‘No. He’s missing.’

  I was watching her carefully and there was a lot of reaction in the eyes as she brought them back to me and looked down, too late again. ‘You can’t say someone’s missing when you saw them so recently.’

  ‘He took everything with him.’

  ‘I see.’ She straightened up, pulling the white silk stole round her bare shoulders. ‘Have you been here before?’

  I suppose I’d looked interested in the environment, which was true enough: two of the Bureau people had come in here soon after we had and taken up station near the doors. I didn’t recognise anyone else but that didn’t mean I was safe. I hadn’t seen the marksman on the quay or anyone else in his cell and they could be in here now, sitting with a coffee, playing the juke box, using one of the payphones.

  ‘No,’ I told her. Hadn’t been here before. The neon sign outside had said Kruger Drug.

  ‘It’s rather like Schwarb’s Pharmacy,’ she said, ‘on the Strip in LA, but that’s gone now. This was just a drugstore at first but it stayed open all night so people came in here for company - night-club types looking for something different, late-night workers, actors, that kind of crowd. Now there’s just everyone - Cuban traders, cops, drug dealers, the survivors of family fights, you name it. Coffee?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They have nineteen different kinds.’

  She waved to someone and the brilliant smile flashed and died again, leaving the nerves showing just under the skin. It could have been because of her job, or her temperament; I didn’t know anything about her, except that she might know where Proctor was.

  That remains your immediate objective. Ferris.

  Not really. My immediate objective was to stay on my feet and run through this town while they watched me, followed me, waiting to see if there were anything left inside my head, any traces of the subliminal material that had been put in there, waiting to see if the worm were still in the apple, eating its way through.

  Waiting over there by the doors.

  Sat here feeling the chill but I’d have to get used to it for Christ’s sake, deal with it. Find Proctor and the rest would take care of itself. Proctor had been turned and gone to ground and for all I knew he’d been the principal who’d set me up for the kill down there on the quay.

  ‘Hi, Dorothy.’ The smile flashed again.

  She liked being seen, came in here, probably, to be seen, but at the same time wanted privacy, which was why she’d chosen this table right in the corner and put her bodyguard close enough to fend off anyone she didn’t want to see.

  ‘I liked your show,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. Which of the nineteen?’

  ‘What? Oh. Whatever you’re having.’

  The girl went away with the order. ‘I had to tape it because there’s a meeting tomorrow evening with the Senator’s campaign manager and I’m invited.’

  The presence of her bodyguard two tables away would not, of course, do me any good if anything started; nor would the presence of the two Bureau people. The whole town had become a red sector two days after the mission had begun running and that put me at great risk but there hasn’t been a single operation in the Bureau records that didn’t go through the end-phase with the executive working on the very edge of extinction: it’s the nature of the trade; and there was the obvious possibility that if I could find Proctor at some time during the last hours of this night I could turn him in for interrogation and give them a chance to shut down the board for Barracuda if they could get him to break.

  ‘That little scene,’ I said, ‘in New Hampshire. Was it true?’

  She looked down. ‘In this business, truth is what you make it. That’s the only way to play. Who else was there, that night?’

  ‘With Proctor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A friend, just leaving.’

  ‘A woman.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yes. I think they’d been having a row.’ As a gesture.

  ‘And she doesn’t know where he’s gone?’

  ‘I haven’t asked her. I don’t know where she lives.’

  The bodyguard stood up suddenly, turning two women away. In speech at a distance the vowels stand out better than the consonants, and when we’d come in here I’d heard ameidge from several tables, and now there was au-oh-ah from one of the women, with small moans of disappointment.

  The guard sat down again.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want,’ she said without looking at me, ‘to find George Proctor, very much.’

  ‘So do I. Perhaps we can help each other. If you want to tell me the places where he used to go, I can have them checked out.’ It wasn’t necessarily a thin chance. Proctor was a top-echelon executive and he knew how to go to ground without leaving a trace, but he could be operating as part of a cell or part of a whole network and he’d have to keep in contact and that would be where I could find him: by catching a stray signal, tripping on a wire, crossing a courier line and working inwards from there.

  I knew one thing: it could be fatal to underestimate Proctor. Monck, briefing me in Nassau three days ago: What it does concern is the upcoming American election, in which of course Senator Mathieson Judd is actively engaged. It also concerns the balance of power between East and West as it exists at the present time, which is precariously. Let me put it this way. If the extent of things proves as far-reaching as we’ve begun to believe, I shall find it difficult to sleep soundly in my bed.

  Proctor had been turned and gone over to the Soviets and for all we knew he could be at the very centre of the opposition network, the centre of an organisation that had moved in on me the instant they felt I was a danger - the instant when I’d telephoned Proctor to say I wanted to see him. They’d searched my room and tagged me through the streets and put me in the cross hairs and infiltrated my brain within hours of my arrival in Miami. Whoever Proctor was operating for now, they were important, perhaps international, even multi-national, and he would have a major role to play.

  ‘I can tell you,’ Erica Cambridge said, ‘the places where he used to go, yes, but I doubt if you’ll find him there.’

  ‘We could find traces. That’s all we need.’

  ‘I think I should tell you —’ a moment of hesitation, but she decided to go on - ‘I think I should, tell you that my need to find that man isn’t … personal.’

  She was looking down again; she did it a lot. I said, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, in spite of my asking you —’ she left it.

  Asking me about the woman.

  ‘If it’s not personal,’ I said, ‘it’s political?’

  ‘In the United States of America within ten days of the presidential election, the way a dog scratches a flea is political. But with George Proctor -‘ hesitation again - ‘it’s something even more than political. There’s something going on that -‘ this time she broke off and her eyes became wary. ‘Mr Keyes - did I get your name right? - I don’t have the slightest idea who you are or what you were doing in the Newsbreak studios.’

  ‘I’m looking for George Proctor.’

  ‘Sure, but a minute ago you said that “we” could perhaps find traces of him.’

  ‘My organisation.’

  ‘There’s no deal, Mr Keyes.’ Her eyes were hard now. ‘Unless you’re prepared to name names.’

  ‘I may do that later,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

  Her head turned to look at the bodyguard, then back to me. ‘I have to go soon, Mr Keyes. I come here sometimes to - you know - unwind, be by myself.’

  I didn’t get up. ‘You won’t find him,’ I said, ‘by yourself.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Not immediately. Not for a day or two. But we’ll find him.’

  ‘Then why did you come to me?’

  ‘Because you might have helped us to find him sooner. If we pooled our information we’d shorten the time. We’d rather not wait two days, but it won’t be more than that. You’ll need longer, and you may be too late.’

  Looking down, running a fingertip round and round the rim of the little espresso cup, her breath quickening, the lift and fall of her breasts under the white silk catching the light from overhead, a vibration in her that I half-caught through the senses, half-felt across the space between us at the small round table, an emanation from her etheric body, from her nerves.

  Then she looked up, and I caught a touch of fear. ‘Only two days?’

  ‘No more than that.’

  ‘When you find him, what will you do?’

  ‘We’ll get him out of the country, very fast.’

  Watching me steadily, the fright still there. ‘It’s - important for me to see him first.’

  ‘We couldn’t allow that.’

  Looking away now, trapped. I waited.

  ‘Hi, Erica!’

  A woman waving, the bodyguard on his feet and turning for instructions, Cambridge giving a quick little shake of her head.

  It was going to be all right but I put three dollar bills onto the check as a gesture.

  ‘It would be very helpful to you,’ Cambridge said, leaning closer, ‘if you let me see him before he leaves. I have a great deal of information on him.’

  ‘Then give it to me now and you’ll see him before he leaves. That’s guaranteed. I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do.’ Stood up, buttoned my jacket.

  ‘Mr Keyes, is your “organisation” the British government?’

  ‘I would have thought it was rather clear. Proctor’s a British national. But look, get in touch with me some time tomorrow, if you want to - though I’m not easy to reach. We —’

  ‘May I see some kind of ID?’

  I chose the card with the Foreign Office crest and dropped it onto the table and she looked at it carefully.

  ‘May I keep this?’

  ‘By all means.’

  Took a purse out of her snakeskin bag, put the card away. ‘It’s difficult to talk to you if you’re standing up.’