‘You’ll have immediate contact, of course, whenever you need it,’ Ferris said, and pulled his valise from under the seat in front. He meant I could signal any one of his people in the environment and talk to them, tell them what I wanted, pine veneer and simple handles, nothing fancy, joke.

  Draughty out here on the tarmac. Ferris had phoned from the plane for a chopper to stand by for our arrival in Miami and take us to the shuttle pad by the Yacht Club because the timing had been tight and it was now 11:43 and we didn’t know how long Cambridge would be able to keep von Brinkerhoff there.

  A Customs and Immigration man was waiting for us and we stood there showing papers with our hair all over the place and then he said everything was okay and we got into the Hughes 300.

  Lift-off, 11:48.

  ‘Croder will be following on,’ Ferris said, ‘and he’ll be available for a meeting with Cambridge if she seems amenable,’ A tuft of his thin straw-coloured hair still sticking up. ‘At this stage anything can happen, and with a bit of luck she might be ready to give us the whole thing and we can wrap up the mission.’

  Keeping things cheerful, you understand, knows his job, Ferris.

  Down at 11:57, lowering across the masts in the marina, heeling a little as the pilot brought most of the power off and turned through the last few degrees and then settled her carefully on the skids. A nice enough building, the Yacht Club, as you’d imagine, pale red brick and white window frames, pillared portico and wide green lawns, people standing outside on the balconies with drinks in their hands, the women in long colourful dresses, I’m not, if you want to know, particularly keen on parties because you can’t hear what people are saying with all the noise and that wouldn’t matter so much but you’ve got to put in some kind of answer here and there for the sake of politesse, Ferris opening the door and dropping onto the pad and waiting for me, a last-minute rush of apprehension as I followed him, ducking under the rotors and already seeing some of them not far away, some of his people, one of them the man who’d got me into that cab on the quay when the shed had caught fire two days ago, good people, well trained, a comfort, yes.

  I swung the door of the chopper shut and turned round and faced the building and blew the cover they’d been giving me since they’d taken me off the tug last night, blew it to the winds. The Mafia had got a contract out on me and Toufexis’s people had been given my photograph and there’d be some of them here tonight and I felt the sudden air-rush and the bloody thing droning into the skull and then it was over and I was back in control.

  ‘Eighteen men,’ Ferris said, ‘your own little army,’ and touched my elbow and turned away and I walked along the tiled path between the massed geraniums, not hurrying because I was here now and the party was far from over by the look of things, a crowd of black polished limousines in the car park on my left with chauffeurs standing around and two of our people near the wrought iron gates. I didn’t know exactly what orders Croder had given for tonight but he wouldn’t have put this amount of support in the field just to keep things jolly, so I suppose he’d told them to watch for a gun hand moving and make a killing drop in time to protect me. They’d carry official bodyguard licences to keep the fuss down when the police wanted to know what was happening: this was routine Bureau procedure.

  Skin beginning to itch because the warmth of the night was heating up the Teflon I was wearing under the dinner-jacket, people crossing the portico on their way to the car park, only half a dozen police officers standing around so I suppose Senator Judd had already left: it was midnight. If he’d still been here there would have been fifty of them.

  But there were a great many other people also standing around, most of them in blue serge suits. There would be a lot of high-echelon guests here tonight, targets for political activists and weirdos.

  ‘Hi! Can I help you?’

  Brilliant smile, a small corsage of carnations, one bare shoulder, Florida chic.

  ‘There should be an invitation here for me. Richard Keyes.’

  The name for the face in the photograph. They would know my name too. Shortening the odds, yes, on the other hand ‘Sure, Mr Keyes, I have it right here. I’m sorry you missed the Senator.’

  ‘Was he good?’

  ‘O-h-h-h …’ with her eyes shining, rolling to heaven, every hormone in her slim preened body lining up to vote for Golden Boy.

  On the other hand, it wouldn’t be easy in a crowd this big to squeeze off a shot and get clear with all those chauffeurs and police officers and bodyguards standing around, and less easy still to pump out some rapid fire from an Uzi: that would attract even more attention and they wouldn’t reach the car before the police dropped them with a fusillade. Seek comfort, my good friend, seek comfort where ye may.

  ‘Enjoy what there is left, Mr Keyes.’

  The smile shimmering, the corsage quivering slightly to the body language, what there is left of what, my little darling, you mean my life?

  ‘Champagne, sir?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Cutting quite a dash in my borrowed plumage, glass in hand, the truth of the matter concealed beneath silk lapels, the Teflon itching on the skin, proof against anything up to armour-piercing grade, but if they were professionals they’d go for the head.

  YOU’LL MAKE IT, MATHIESON! strung out in huge gold letters on a banner across the podium where the band was playing, a dozen couples still on the dance floor, their shoes brushing through coloured streamers, two waiters on their knees picking at the carpet where a glass had fallen and smashed, three Japanese talking together by one of the tall white-framed windows, and Erica Cambridge.

  ‘Well hello, Mr Keyes.’

  Slight, cool-looking in a sheer white silk gown with a lame belt, lame shoes, her violet eyes watching me as the smile was flashed on for the occasion.

  ‘You look stunning,’ in fact, did.

  Thank you. Did you just get here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you come alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you didn’t see Mathieson.’

  ‘I heard he was very good.’

  ‘He’s —’ looking away, looking back - ‘I have a lot to tell you. Why don’t we go outside where it’s quieter?’

  ‘It’s like a Turkish bath out there.’ I led her towards the white moulded archways opposite the windows, giving my glass to a waiter. ‘I got here as soon as I could.’

  The slapping sound of a rotor cut across the music as another chopper landed. Croder will follow on, Ferris had said; or it could be picking up some of the guests.

  ‘Stylus couldn’t stay,’ Erica said. ‘He had to get back.’ We found a couch, blue linen with white rope trim, where it was quiet enough to talk. Someone had left a brocade bag.

  ‘Back to the Contessa?’ Stylus von Brinkerhoff.

  She looked at me sharply. ‘You’re well informed, Mr Keyes.’

  ‘My first name is Richard. I’m sorry I missed him.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘You said you had a lot to tell me.’

  ‘Ma’am, is this your bag?’

  ‘Oh my God, I’ve been frantic. Thank you so very - you’re Erica Cambridge! I just love your show!’

  “Thank you.’

  ‘Well I’m - interrupting.’

  ‘How is Proctor?’ I asked her when the woman had gone.

  She looked surprised again, wary. One can’t always remember, but I think I’ve never seen a woman so frightened, beneath the maquillage, so close to some kind of brink. ‘I didn’t see him,’ she said.

  ‘But he’s on board the Contessa.’

  Reaction after reaction, and I began worrying that all she had to tell me was what we already knew.

  ‘I believe I mentioned, Mr - Richard, that I have no one I can really confide in, really trust. I - I suppose I’ve gone through life antagonising people; at least that’s my reputation. So why should I confide in you? Why should I trust you?’

  ‘No earthly reason. You don’t even know me.’

  ‘You’re not making it easy for yourself.’

  I was.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to trust me, Erica. There’s no obligation. But if you want my guarantee that I won’t divulge anything you have to tell me, without your permission, I can give you my word.’

  ‘How much is it worth? I’m sorry, that’s not very —’

  ‘It’s unbreakable. Would you be prepared to talk to my people?’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Officers of the British government.’

  Her hands were on the move again, as they’d been when we’d sat at the table in Kruger Drug. Correction: not frightened beneath the maquillage. Awed. Awed by what she knew, what she’d found out at 1330 West Riverside Way and on board the Contessa.

  ‘The British government,’ she said, ‘is involved. The entire world is involved. I —’

  ‘Look, if you’re willing to see my people, I can arrange it. You’d have more confidence in them than just one stranger. They’re much higher than I am.’

  It was a get-out but it was logical. If she was ready to talk to Ferris and Croder and Monck I could walk out of this thing and go home with a whole skin and let them put it down in the records, Mission completed, executive debriefed, because if this woman had the information we needed, that was exactly what I’d be doing - completing Barracuda. She was our new objective and I was close to handing her over.

  ‘Whether I agree to see your “people” or not, I’ve decided to go to the State Department.’ Running one violet-lacquered finger-nail along the white rope trim, unable to keep still. ‘It would then be for them to consult with the President, and for him to decide whether to summon our allied ambassadors. But I don’t know, Richard, this whole thing is —’ her hand brushing the air - ‘it’s so far-reaching. And this is what scares me - I want to help Senator Judd get into the White House and in fact I’m already helping him do that, but now that I’ve learned what I have, I don’t know if it isn’t the most dangerous thing I could do. For everyone. For the United States and the rest of the world.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I know he went thataway, Simon.’ Gusty laughter, much champagne. ‘He said the men’s room.’ Trotting past with uncertain feet, arm in arm. ‘But where is Nancy?’

  “Not in the men’s room, let us hope!’ More laughter.

  ‘There are some people I have to talk to, Richard, before I can leave. But not about this. Let’s meet on the front porch in fifteen minutes. We’ll go to my apartment and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. It’s actually on paper, duplicated. You know what I’m saying? A whole brief, do you understand?’

  The product. Mission completed.

  Unless it was a trap.

  I didn’t know how good an actress she was. I didn’t know if the fright in this woman, the feeling of awe, didn’t derive from the knowledge that she was about to do what they’d briefed her to do when she was on board the Contessa: lead a man to his death. Proctor had been there on that yacht. Let that be borne in mind, because yesterday he’d asked La Cosa Nostra to put out a contract on me, and they’d come so very close to a kill.

  Don’t go with her.

  You have a point.

  ‘I need to know a little more,’ I told her.

  ‘We can’t talk now. I asked you to come here to meet that man, not to discuss what I know. My apartment has a security guard, and you’ll be absolutely —’

  ‘I’m used to looking after my own security. That’s why I need to know more.’

  She looked hunted, glancing around her. ‘But in a public place like this —’

  ‘It’s very private, actually. There are no bugs in the walls. Give me the gist. I need to know how serious this thing is.’ Whether, in fact, it was serious enough to force me to take the risk of going to her apartment.

  She looked around her again, pressed, frightened. That was my impression. ‘All right,’ she said in a moment, ‘here it is.’ She moved back against the wall, against the big mural of sails heeling across a choppy sea with spindrift blowing, and said quickly and softly, ‘I told you there were plans, with Senator Judd as the prime mover, to buy America. I know more about it now. On board the Contessa there’s a faction calling itself the Trust, frighteningly powerful, awesomely influential in world affairs. It has people like Apostolos Simitis, the shipping magnate, Lord Joplyn of Eastleigh, who controls more than half the mineral deposits in South Africa, Takao Sakomoto, the leading industrialist in Japan. Maybe you haven’t heard of these men —’.

  ‘No —’

  ‘Then take it from me, they’re the puppet masters behind the scenes of international finance. People like Stylus von Brinkerhoff, the Swiss banker - the man I was hoping you could meet here tonight. They —’ she broke off as someone came through the arches towards the rest rooms, passing within a dozen feet of us. In a moment - ‘My God, this is so dangerous, talking in a place like this. But you wanted the gist, and it’s this, Richard. These men plan to buy America - and sell it to the Soviets. In the declared interests of the final and permanent laying down of arms among nations, they propose the creation of a single world government, behind whose public throne they can exert their private power. And to meet the enormous demands of demographic reorganisation they envisage the setting of that throne to be in Moscow.’

  Watching me for my reaction, didn’t see anything. But my pulse was elevated: I could feel it. It was going to be worth it, then, worth going to her flat, taking the risk, because she couldn’t be making this up: it had the appalling ring of truth.

  ‘We’ll go there separately,’ I said.

  To my apartment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have the limo here. We can talk —’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘For the sake of security.’

  ‘Yours, or mine?’

  It seemed to worry her.

  ‘Both.’

  Mine, if this whole thing was a trap. Hers, if they put me in the cross hairs out there and missed, and hit her instead. It wasn’t a night for taking chances.

  ‘Okay. You have my address?’

  ‘You gave me your card.’

  She got up, straightening the lame belt. ‘I’ll be there inside of forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic. You’ll be alone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She left me.

  Setting me up.

  She’s setting you up.

  Probably.

  This is a trap, you know that.

  Probably.

  So don’t go there. Don’t be such a —

  Oh for Christ’s sake shut up. I know what I’m doing.

  It’s a trap, it’s a trap, it’s —

  Shuddup.

  Snivelling little bloody organism, scared of its own shadow, one of them over there by the french windows, he’d been there since I’d first come in, another one by the doors, talking to a girl, chatting her up, good cover, another one on the dance floor, engrossed, or seemingly engrossed until he saw my signal and said something at once to the girl and she laughed quickly so I imagine he’d said if he didn’t go and wring out a kidney soon there’d be an accident, because he was coming towards the men’s room and I went back through the archway and cut across him in the corridor, a small neat-looking man with glasses, never look at him twice unless you noticed his eyes, cold as the eyes of a reptile, the kind of man I like to see when they’re meant to be keeping me as far as possible from the slab in the morgue, stretched out under the shroud and stinking of formaldehyde, it’s a trap, oh for God’s sake bugger off.

  ‘Have you seen Lucas?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, but I’ve seen Baldwin. The way I want it is like this. She’s leaving here in about fifteen minutes and it’s going to take her another thirty to reach her flat. Here’s the address. I’m —’

  ‘I know the address.’

  ‘I’m going over there by the bar and wait until I see her leave. I want her tagged and I want you to see if she makes any kind of signal and if she does I want you to see who gets it and what he does, where he goes, if he —’

  ‘Normal routine,’ he said.

  Starchy bastard, as bad as Ferris, put on a pout when they think they’re being told how to do their job, but I liked that because only the real professionals have got that degree of pride and tonight I wanted real professionals about me, my good friend, not yonder Cassius.

  ‘Whatever happens, I’m going to follow her to her flat as if I didn’t know any better, and if you people find you’ve got a lot to deal with I want you to do exactly as much as you need to, including deadly force if you think I’m endangered - has C of S cleared you on this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What have you got for me out there? Something with smoked glass?’

  ‘A limo, yes.’

  ‘I’ll sit in the back. Providing —’

  ‘As long as you don’t tell Nancy, you know what I mean?’

  ‘She thinks you don’t sleep around?’

  ‘That’s exsh - exactly what she thinks.’

  Peals of restrained mirth, their voices fading.

  ‘Providing I reach her flat without any diversions, I want all the cover you can give me at the moment when I get out of the car. How many people are there outside her flat now?’

  ‘Four. Crosby, Mace —’

  ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘Following your limo, two cars behind. Black Honda coupe, Florida plates.’

  ‘All right, when you -‘ broke off to let him concentrate on the two men over there by the reception desk. He turned his head an inch and got a signal from the man standing by the curtains picking at his nails.