Crisis Four

CRISIS FOUR

Andy McNab

OCTOBER 30, 1979-APRIL 15, 1999

CRISIS FOUR

OCTOBER 16. 1995

The Syrians don't fuck around if they think you're invading their air space. Within minutes of crossing the border, your aircraft will be greeted by a three-ship intercept, flying so close you can wave at the pilots. They won't wave back; they've come to get a visual ID on you, and if they don't like what they see they'll hose you down with their air to-air missiles.

The same rule doesn't apply, of course, when friendly commercial aircraft blip onto their radar screens, and that was why our team of four had opted for this particular method of infiltration. If Damascus had had the slightest clue about what was about to happen aboard our British Airways flight from Delhi to London, their fighters would have been scrambled the moment the Boeing 747 left Saudi Arabian territory.

I was twisting and turning, trying to get comfortable, feeling jealous of all the people sitting upstairs behind the driver, probably on their fifth gin and tonic since take off, watching their second movie and tucking into their third helping ofboeufen croute.

Reg 1 was in front of me. Six feet two, and built like a brick shithouse, he was probably having an even worse time in the cramped conditions.

His curly black hair, going a bit gray at the sides, was all over the place. Like me, before I left in '93, he had been selected to do work for the intelligence and security services, including the sort of job for the U.S. that Congress would never sanction. I had done similar jobs myself while in the Regiment, but this was the first I'd been on since becoming a K. Given who we were going in against, none of us was giving odds on whether we'd get to do another.

I glanced across at Sarah, to my right in the semidarkness. Her eyes were closed, but even in the dim light I could see she wasn't looking her happiest. Maybe she just didn't like flying without complimentary champagne and slippers.

It had been a while since I'd last seen her, and the only thing about her that had changed was her hair. It was still very straight, almost Southeast Asian, though dark brown, not black. It had always been short, but she'd prepared for this operation by having it cut into a bob with a fringe.

She had strong, well-defined features, with large brown eyes above high cheekbones, a nose that was slightly too large, and a mouth that nearly always looked too serious. Sarah would not be troubled in her old age by laughter lines. When it was genuine, her smile was warm and friendly, but more often it appeared to be only going through the motions. And yet, just when you were thinking this, she'd find the oddest thing amusing and her nose would twitch, and her whole face would crease into a radiant, almost childlike, grin. At times like that she looked even more beautiful than usual maybe too beautiful. That was sometimes a danger in our line of work, as men could never resist a second glance, but at thirty-five years of age she had learned to use her looks to her advantage within the service. It made her even more of a bitch than most people thought she was.

It was no good, I couldn't get comfortable. We'd been on the aircraft for nearly fifteen hours and my body was starting to ache. I turned and tried the left side. I couldn't see Reg 2, but I knew he was to my left in the gloom somewhere. He was easy to distinguish from Reg 1, being the best part of a foot shorter and with hair that looked like a fistful of dark-blond wire wool. The only thing I knew about them apart from their zap numbers was that, like me, they had both been circumcised within the last three weeks and that, like mine, their underwear came from Tel Aviv. And that was all I wanted to know about them, or about Regs 3 to 6 who were already in-country, waiting for us even though one of them, Glen, was an old friend.

I found myself facing Sarah again. She was rubbing her eyes with her fists, like a sleepy child. I tried to doze off; thirty minutes later I was still kidding myself I was asleep when I got a kick on the back of my legs. It was Sarah.

I sat up in my sleeping bag and peered into the semidarkness. Three loadies (load masters) were moving around with orienteering lights attached to their heads, glowing a dim red so as not to destroy our night vision.

Each of them had an umbilical cord trailing from his face mask, and their hands moved instinctively to make sure it didn't get snagged or detached from the aircraft's oxygen supply.

I unzipped the bag and, even through my all-weather sniper suit, immediately felt the freezing cold in the unpressurized 747 cargo hold. None of the passengers or cabin crew would have known there were people down here, tucked away in the belly of the aircraft. Nor would our names have appeared anywhere on a manifest.

I folded the bag in half, leaving inside the two "aircrew bags" I'd filled during the flight--plastic bags with a one-way valve that you insert yourself into and piss away to your heart's content. I wondered how Sarah had been getting on. It was bad enough for me because my cock was still extremely sore, but it must be hard being female aircrew on a long flight with a device designed only for males--and the female commander of a deniable op. I put a Post-It on my mental bulletin board, reminding myself to ask her how she got around the problem. That was if we survived, of course, and were still on speaking terms.

I could never remember which was starboard or port; all I knew was that, as you looked at the aircraft from the front, we were in the small hold at the rear and the door was on the left-hand side. I clutched my oxygen tube as a loadie crossed over it, and adjusted my mask as his leg caught it, pulling it slightly from my face. The inside was wet, clammy and cold now the seal had been broken.

I picked up my Car 15, a version of the M16 Armalite 5.56mm with a telescopic butt and a shorter barrel, cocked it and applied the safety. The Car had a length of green para cord tied to it like a sling; I strapped it over my left shoulder so the barrel faced down and it ran along the rear of my body. The rig (parachute) would go over that.

I pushed my hand under the sniper suit to get hold of the Beretta 9mm that was on a leg holster against my right thigh. I cocked that, too, and pulled back the top slide a few millimeters to check the chamber. Turning the weapon so it caught one of the loadies' red glows, I saw the glint of a correctly fed round, ready to go.

This was my first "false flag" job posing as a member of Israeli special forces, and as I adjusted my leg straps I wished I'd had a little more time to recover from the circumcision. It hadn't healed as quickly as we'd been told. I looked around me as we got our kit on, hoping the others were in as much pain.

We were about to carry out a "lift" to find out what the West's new bogeyman, Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi multimillionaire turned terrorist, was getting up to in Syria. Satellite photography had shown earth moving and other heavy equipment from Bin Laden's construction company near the source of the river Jordan. Downstream lay Israel, and if its main source of water was about to be dammed, diverted or otherwise tampered with, the West needed to know. They feared a repeat of the 1967 war, and with Bin Laden around it was never going to be a good day out. He hadn't been dubbed America's "public enemy number one" by Clinton for nothing.

Our task was to lift Osama's right-hand man known to us only as the "Source" for op sec (operational security) reasons from on site. His private jet had been spotted at a nearby airfield. The U.S. needed to know what was happening in Syria, and, more to the point, maybe learn how to lay their hands on Osama. As the briefing guy had said, "Bin Laden represents a completely new phenomenon: non-state-supported terrorism backed by an extremely rich and religiously motivated leader with an intense hatred of the West, mainly America, as well as Israel and the secular Arab world.

He must be stopped."

Once ready and checked by the loadies, it was just a question of holding on to the airframe and waiting. There was nothing to do for the next few minutes but daydream or get scared. Each of us was in his or her own little world now. Before any operation some people are frightened, some are excited. Now and again I could see reflections from the red flashlights in people's eyes; they were staring at their boots or at some other fixed point, maybe thinking about their wives, or girlfriends, or kids, or what they were going to do after this, or maybe even wondering what the fuck they were doing here in the first place.

Me, I didn't know what to think really. I'd never been able to get sparked up about the thought of dying and not seeing anyone else again.

Not even my wife, when I was married. I always felt I was a gambler with nothing to lose. Most people who gamble do so with the things that are important to them; I gambled knowing that if I lost I wouldn't break the bank.

I watched the glowing redheads pack our kit away into the large aluminium Lacon boxes. Once we'd been thrown out and the door had closed again, they'd stow all other evidence that we had been there in the boxes and just sit it out until they were taken care of in London.

Two of the loadies started a sweep with their flashlights to make sure there was nothing loose that could be sucked out as soon as the door opened. Nothing must compromise this job.

We got the order to turn on our own oxygen, disconnect from the aircraft supply and stand by. Sarah was standing in front of Reg 1, who was to tandem jump with her. She had never failed to amaze me. She was an IG (Intelligence Group), the very top of the intelligence-service food chain, people who usually spend their lives in embassies, posing as diplomats.

Their lives should be one long round of receptions and recruiting sources through the cocktail circuit, not running around, weapon strong.

Then again, Sarah had always made a point of finishing the jobs herself.

She was masked and goggled up, looking for all the world as if she'd done this a thousand times. She hadn't; her first jump ever had been three weeks before, but she took her job so seriously that she'd probably read ten books on free fall and knew more facts and figures than all of us lot put together.

She turned and looked for me. We got eye-to-eye and I gave her an everything-is-OK nod. After all, that was part of this job, to look after her.

The loadie motioned us toward the door. Our berg ens each containing forty pounds of equipment, were hanging from our rigs and down the back of our legs. We waddled forward like a gaggle of geese, putting weight on each foot in turn. Thankfully the berg ens hadn't needed to be fully laden. If everything went to plan, we'd be on the ground for only a few hours.

There was a pause of about five seconds as the loadie by the door spoke into his mike to the British Airways navigator, then he nodded to himself and swung into action. The door was about half the size of an average up-and-over garage door. Pulling out all the levers, he swung them counterclockwise, then pulled the handles toward him. Even though I had a helmet on, I heard the massive rush of air, and then a gale was thrashing at my sniper suit. Where the door had been there was now just a black hole.

The tags on the aircraft's luggage containers fluttered frantically. The freezing cold wind whipped at the parts of my face that weren't covered by my mask. I pulled my jockey's goggles over my eyes, fighting against the blast, gripping hard on to the airframe.

Seven miles below us lay Syria--enemy territory. We did our final checks. I wanted to get this jump out of the way, get the job done and be in Cyprus for tea and toast tomorrow morning.

We rammed up close to each other at the exit, the roar of the wind and the jet engines so loud I could hardly think. At last came a handheld red light from the loadie We all joined in with a loud scream: "Red on, red on!" I didn't know why, no one could hear anything; it was just something we always did.

The loadie light changed to green and he shouted, "Green on!"

He moved back as we all shouted to ourselves, "Ready!"

We rocked forward, trying to scream above the roar: "Set!"

Then we rocked back.

"Go!"

Out and out we spilled, four people on three rigs, tumbling toward Syria. Being the last man, I was pushed by the loadie to make sure there wasn't too much of a gap between us in the sky.

You can now free fall from an aircraft flying at high altitude and miles from the target area and land with pinpoint accuracy. The HAHO (high altitude, high opening) technique calls for extreme weather clothing and oxygen equipment to survive temperatures as low as minus 40 C, especially when a fifty-mile cross-country descent can take nearly two hours.

It has now largely replaced the old HALO (high altitude, low opening) approach, for the simple reason that, instead of hurtling toward the ground at warp speed, with no real idea of where you're going to land or where the rest of the team are once you're on the ground, you can glide gently onto the target sitting in a comfortable rig. Unless, of course, a man in a white coat has recently clipped a bit off the end of your cock.

I felt the jet stream pick me up and take me with it. As the aircraft thunders over you at 500 miles an hour you think you're going to collide with the tailplane, but in fact you're falling and never hit it.

Once I was out of the jet stream it was time to sort myself out. I could tell by the wind force, and the fact that I could see the aircraft lights flashing three or four hundred feet above me, that I was upside down. I spread my arms and legs and arched my back, bunging myself over into a stable position.

I looked around--moving your head during free fall is about the only thing that doesn't have an effect on your stability--trying to see where everyone else was. I could just about see a figure over on my right-hand side; I didn't know who it was, and it didn't matter. As I looked up I saw the taillights of the 747 disappearing way above us, and downstairs, on the floor, there was nothing, I couldn't see a single light.

All I could hear was the rush of air; it was like sticking your head out of a car traveling at 120 mph. What I had to do now was keep stable and wait for the AOD (automatic opening device) to do its bit. The drill is just to assume that it's going to work, but to get in the pull position just in case. I thought, Fuck that. I knew my pull height--30,000 feet, an 8,000foot drop. I moved my left hand up, just above my head, and my right hand down to the pull handle. There has to be symmetry with everything. If you're in free fall and put just one hand out, that will hit the air and you're going to tumble.

I could see the needle on my wrist alti. I was past 34,000. Instead of waiting to feel the pull of the AOD on the pin, I kept on looking at the alti, and bang on 30,000 feet I pulled the handle and pushed my hands up above my head, which made me backslide, which meant the air would catch the drogue chute to bring the main pack out. I felt it move and rock me slightly from side to side. Then bang--it's like running into a brick wall. You feel like one of those cartoon characters that's just been crushed with a rock.

I still wasn't particularly worried where everybody else was in the sky, I just wanted to sort myself out. I could hear another canopy cracking open, and I knew that it was near. I looked up to make sure I had a canopy rather than a big bag of washing above me. The middle three or four cells of the big mattress were full of air. I grabbed hold of the brake lines, the two handles attached to para cord on each side of the canopy, and ripped them from the velcro that held them in position on the webbing straps just above my shoulder and started pulling. There are seven cells to the canopy; by pumping you expose the end cells to air to quicken the process.

I had a look around me now, trying to find out where I was in relation to the others. Fuck, my cock hurt! The leg straps had worked their way farther up my leg and it felt like someone was giving my dick a squeeze with a pair of pliers.

Above me I could see Sarah and Reg 1.1 must have had a slow opening of the end cells, as they should have been below me. They were now spiraling past me, his right arm pulling the brake line down to get into his correct position in the stack. Sarah just hung there like a small child as he slotted in between me and Reg 2, who was below me somewhere.

Being the last man in the stack, it was a piece of piss for me; I was just bringing up the rear. As long as I was directly above and just touching the rear of the canopy below me, I wasn't going to get lost, unless Reg 1 got lost with Sarah. Reg 1 would be doing the same to Reg 2, who was at the bottom; he'd be doing all the navigating and we'd just be checking. And if the worse came to the worst, we could actually shout to each other once we'd got off oxygen.

Reg 2 would be looking at the display on his sat nav (global positioning device, via satellite). All he wanted was one bar in the center of the display.

Technology is wonderful. We were traveling at about thirty-five knots; the canopy gives you twenty knots, and we were running with the wind, which was fifteen.

I checked my height--just over twenty-eight grand--good. Checked the sat nav, good. That was it. Everything was done: the oxygen was working, we were stacked. Time to get comfy. I got hold of the risers that attached the canopy to the rig, and pulled myself up and wiggled my legs to move the leg straps halfway down my thighs.

For the next thirty minutes we minced along the sky, controlling the rig, checking height and the sat nav. I started to see lights now. Small towns and villages with streetlights following the roads out of the built-up areas for about half a mile, then darkness, only car lights giving away the road.

I looked at my alti. I was about 16,200 feet. I thought, I'll just go for a few more minutes and I'll take my oxygen mask off. The fucking thing was a pain in the ass. If I started feeling the effects of hypoxia dizziness, I'd bring the mask back to my face and take a couple of deep breaths. By now I was just under 16 grand; my mouth was full of saliva and it felt all clammy. I got hold of the clip with my right hand and pulled the press stud off, and the thing just fell down and dangled by the left-hand side of my face.

I could feel the cold around my mouth where all the moisture from the mask had been. I was freezing, but it was nice; I could stretch my mouth and chew my jaw around a bit.

After about ten minutes I checked my alti again: 6,500 feet, time to start working. I put on my NVGs (night viewing goggles), which had been hanging around my neck on para cord and started looking for the flash on an IR Firefly (infrared detecting system). It was the same flashing light that you would expect to see on the top of a tall tower to warn aircraft, but these are just little handheld things that throw out a brilliant quick flash of light, through an IR filter. No one would see it apart from us--or anyone else with NVG, of course. I kept looking in the darkness. It would be easy to pick out. Bang--there it was to my half right.

We were coming in on finals. I was concentrating on keeping myself positioned right on top and to the rear of Reg 1 's canopy, which was larger than mine as he had the extra weight to jump with. I heard him below me sounding like a nursery-school teacher.

"Right, any minute now. Keep your legs bent and under your hips. Are your legs bent?"

She must have acknowledged. I pulled the NVGs off my face and let them hang.

"OK, put your hands up by me." I imagined her with her hands up, holding Reg 1 's wrists on the brake lines to keep them out of the way so she didn't damage herself if they took a bad landing.

I couldn't see any ground yet--it was far too dark--but I heard:

"Standby, standby. Flaring soon ... flaring ... flaring ..."

Then the sound of his bergen thumping into the ground, and his command to Sarah: "Now!"

His canopy started to collapse below me as I flew past. My bergen was dangling by the straps from my feet; I kicked it off and it fell beneath me on a three-meter line. As soon as I heard it land, I flared, too. Hitting the deck, I ran along for three or four steps, turned quickly and pulled my lines to collapse the canopy.

A body appeared behind me. Regs 3 to 6 had been on the ground for five days preparing the job and were manning the DZ (drop zone). Fuck knows how they'd inserted in-country, and I didn't care.

"You all right, mate?" I recognized his voice. Glen, the only one whose name I knew, was the ground commander. He looked as if you'd hear steely Clint Eastwood when he opened his mouth, but in fact what you got was softly spoken David Essex.

"Yeah. Fine, mate, fine."

"Let's get all this shit off."

Within minutes our rigs, sniper suits and oxygen kit had been stowed in large bin liners and we were aboard two Toyota Previas, the drivers wearing NVGs, bouncing along the desert floor, heading for a light industrial estate on the outskirts of a town less than a mile from the Golan Heights and the border with Israel. All of us were dressed the same, in green jump suits, with civilian clothes underneath as part of the E&E (escape and evasion) plan, plus belt kit and our own choice of boots. Mine were a pair of Nike hiking boots, which we'd checked were available in any Tel Aviv main street.

Glen and I went way back. We had done Selection together in the early Eighties, and had got to know each other later while chatting up the same woman, who was now his wife. He was the same age as me-late-thirties--had a swarthy Mediterranean look and a few moles on his face which were sprouting hair, and he always needed a shave. Constantly smiling, he was one of life's good guys--in love with his wife and two kids, in love with his job, probably even in love with his car and the cat.

For the last five days they'd been preparing and placing an explosive attack on an electricity substation, which was going to close down the town while we hit the target, and I knew that Glen would have enjoyed every minute of it.

"We're at the drop-off point."

If we had to talk it would be in a low whisper from now on. As we clambered from the vehicles I motioned to Sarah for both of us to stand out of the way. We got underneath one of the small stumpy trees that made up this olive grove, the stars giving us just enough light to move in without bumbling. The thing I'd always loved most about the Middle East was the stars; it felt as if you could see the whole universe, and so clearly.

The Regs were putting their berg ens on and sorting themselves out.

The glow of the town could be seen coming from the dead ground about five K-s beyond the target. The night air was cold after the warmth of the people carrier and I couldn't wait to get moving.

The driver came over, holding up a small magnetic box.

"The keys," he said.

"Both vehicles, rear near-side wheel arch."

I glanced at Sarah as we both nodded. She had a smaller bergen than mine, containing her trauma kit, with fluid, and anything else she would need. Once the patrol kit was packed, what else went in was down to personal choice.

Glen joined us with a jolly "You OK?," as if he felt he had to bolster Sarah's morale.

She looked at him blankly and said, "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

There was a pause as he let the tone of her reply sink in. He didn't like it.

"OK, let's go." He pointed at her.

"You, behind me. Nick, behind her, OK?"

On the track between the olive groves I could see shadowy figures shaking out into single file. My only job was to protect her; we hadn't let Glen in on this, but if there was a drama, the two of us were going to fuck off sharpish. We'd just let them get on with it and die. As we joined the snake I wondered about the times I'd done jobs while in the Regiment, not realizing that no one really cared.

We moved off into the shadows, weapon butt in the shoulder, index finger across the trigger guard, thumb on the safety catch. Sarah was carrying only a Beretta for self-defense. We were there to do everything else for her.

For about forty minutes we moved through wide groves. When we finally stopped I could hear only the crickets and the wind in the trees.

Ahead of us now was the target, a row of six or seven low-level, brick faced light industrial units with flat aluminium roofs and windows. The entire complex was surrounded by a three-meter-high chain-link fence, with just one entrance, which was gated off for the night. The road was lit by yellow street lamps every thirty meters, and there were floods on the fronts of the buildings, facing down the walls and lighting up the shutters.

There were also lights on in some of the units, but no sign of movement.

Apart from the fence there seemed to be no security, which would be about right for units that supposedly housed nothing more serious than JCB spares.

The buildings gave off enough light for us to see what we were doing, but we were still in the shadows of the grove. Glen came alongside me and said quietly, "This is the FRV (Final Rendezvous). The target ... if you look at the nearest building on the left..."

We were looking at the long sides of three rectangles. He indicated the closest one.

"You see the lights on?" I nodded.

"All right, count three windows from the left. That's where we reckon he is or was last night." The "reckon" would have been a bit of a judgment call: the latest pictures we had of the Source were three years old. I didn't even know his name. Only Sarah did, and only she could positively identify him.

I could make out two small mobile satellite dishes and a wire half-wave dipole antenna on the roof, looking like the world's longest washing line.

You didn't need that lot for road building.

I sat against a stubby tree while the patrol prepared itself, bringing out kit from their berg ens very slowly to eliminate noise. There was no light from the town to the north, which was lost completely in the dead ground.

Reg 1 and 2 checked in with Glen, then moved off. Glen pulled an antenna out of a green twelve-by-eight-inch metal box and began to press buttons. I didn't have a clue what the box was called, but I knew what it did. A little red light came up, which no doubt was a test to make sure he had com ms with whatever devices were rigged up at the electricity substation that supplied the power to this area. I imagined they'd be using a number of small stand-off charges, something about the size of a Coca Cola can, to penetrate the cast-steel casings. All they'd need to do was make a hole big enough for the coolant to drain out of and the generators would quickly burn themselves out.

Sarah wanted confirmation about the target. She pestered Glen, "Are you sure that's the building? Are you sure he's in there?" He was already pissed off with her, and told her politely that she might be in overall command but he was the commander on the ground, so shut the fuck up and let him do his job. Good one, Glen, I thought.

We were kneeling around him at the edge of the grove as he made his final checks on the target and confirmed the orders with the rest of us.

There were no changes to the plan. It was Sarah who would give the final Go or No Go now. She nodded at him.

"OK, everybody, here we go." Glen got his box of tricks and pulled up the antenna the last few inches.

"Standby, standby ..." I heard the click of a button being pressed. There was a delay of about two seconds, then a bright flash in the distance, beyond the glow from the industrial units.

Then, after twenty seconds, there was total darkness as the lights went out in the compound.

Glen was back to enjoying life, despite Sarah's presence. He grinned.

"OK, let's go."

We moved off at a slow jogging pace along the edge of the trees. Once level with Reg 1 and 2, we turned left over the waste ground and went straight for the fence. They were pulling at the straight line of the cut they'd made, making a big upside-down V for us to get through.

We took advantage of the darkness and sprinted the fifty meters to the target building. There was the odd outburst of hollering and shouting through an open window--nothing frantic; the voices just sounded pissed off that the power had failed, probably halfway through the Syrian version of East Enders. Now and again I saw the glint of flashlights from inside.

We reached the edge of the target building and everybody got against the wall, Glen looking toward the nearest corner. Around that, to the left and next to the shutters, was our entry point. Sarah was between us, catching her breath and trying to keep the noise down.

The other three in the crew were on their knees, nearer the corner. If the door was locked they'd have to blow it. They started to get the prepared charges from their belt kit. I watched as they worked together, slowly unwinding the det cord, which looked like white washing line, but was filled with high explosive.

They stood up with the charge. Everything was nice and slow and controlled.

As they started to move, the door burst open.

Voices were shouting in Arabic from around the corner. The door charge was quickly placed on the ground. I saw hands reach into belt kits.

They would have to remove the threat, but quietly.

The voices got closer and closer and I could hear the sound of flip flops slapping against feet. Two boys rounded the corner wearing sandals, arm in arm, both smoking and still shouting about something, maybe what Grant Mitchell was up to in the Queen Vie.

Two of the Regs climbed aboard them, and almost at once I heard a distinctive buzz and crackle. The boys were getting Tazered good style, at the same time as being dragged out of sight toward us. Tazers are cattle prods for humans. As the two electrodes touch a body, you press a button and 100,000 volts zap through the target. They are a great weapon as you can hold the victim at the same time as you fuck them up big time, without getting zapped by the current yourself.

As the blokes got them down on the floor, I could hear them moaning and groaning under the hands that covered their mouths. They were still being dealt with as Glen put on his NVGs. We did the same.

Glen looked back at Sarah to check we were ready. Following his cue, we moved toward the corner with Sarah still between us. It was now one of those situations that couldn't be stopped. We just had to get on with it.

The fuck-it factor had taken over.

We piled in through the door. A Reg secured the entry point and waited for the other two to join him, dragging the two dazed Syrians. The corridor was dark and silent. In a loud whisper Glen said, "With me, with me, with me." We moved like men possessed down the breeze-block passage, the world through our NVGs looking like a light-green negative film.

We turned right, and through the windows to our left I could see the outside of the building; on the other side there were plywood internal doors leading, I guessed, to rooms or offices. The smell of cigarettes, cooking, coffee and the sweat of not too much air conditioning was almost overpowering.

We came to a T-junction. Glen stopped on the left, Sarah right up behind him. I came up level, on the right. I wasn't too sure which way we were heading. Glen would tell me. I looked over and he was moving hisIR flashlight beam, attached to his weapon, to the right.

I cleared the corner, moved forward three or four meters and stood my ground, waiting. I knew Glen would be clearing the other way. I saw his weapon'sIR splash against the walls as he turned toward me, then they both passed on my left. Sarah still had her pistol bolstered and was keeping close to Glen. The floor was tiled or concrete, it was hard to tell which.

All I knew was that there was an echo of footsteps and squeaking rubber as we moved.

Glen stopped and pointed at a door. He took his weapon out of the shoulder, put his back against the wall to the left and reached for the door handle. I moved to the opposite side, weapon still up in the shoulder, ready to make entry. He nodded; I took off my safety and nodded back.

He turned the handle and I moved inside, pushing the door with me.

I was blinded. The NVGs were totally whited out. It was as if someone had let off a flare in front of my face.

Glen shouted, "The fucking lights are back on!"

I fell on my knees and ripped off the NVGs, blinking hard as I tried to get back some normal vision. I made out movement in the right-hand corner and rolled to the left, trying to make myself a harder target. As my eyes adjusted I saw a middle-aged guy, his head bald apart from wiry side hair. He was curled up against the far wall, his hands protecting his face, flapping even more than I had just been as you do when, just as the lights come on, a man with a weapon bursts in on you. Fuck it; they must have had standby power.

I became aware of bits of electronic machinery PCs, screens and computer stuff all over the place, whirring and crunching now the power had returned.

I lifted my weapon into my shoulder and pointed it at him. He got the message. I called for Sarah.

She came in and confirmed, "That's him." She gob bed off in Arabic and he immediately did as he was told, sitting down on the sofa against the other wall, away from the desk with all the machinery on it. He didn't move; his eyes were like saucers, trying to work it all out and listen to Sarah at the same time.

From my bergen, I pulled out six magnesium incendiary devices. All I needed to do was to get them sparked up and we could be on our way.

It was then that Sarah pulled a laptop and some other gear from her bergen and started plugging it in and revving things up, still talking to the Source, referring to the Arabic script displayed on two of the screens. He replied at the speed of sound, trying his best to stay alive.

I was confused. This wasn't in the plan. I tried to keep a calm voice.

"Sarah, what are you doing? Come on, it's time to go."

Glen stayed outside in the relit corridor, giving protection. I knew he would feel exposed soon and would want to move out. After all, we'd got who we'd come for. I said, "Sarah, how long's this going to take?"

She was still scrolling down the screen. I was getting pissed off. This wasn't what we were supposed to be here for.

"No idea--just do your job and keep everyone back."

I needed to underline the problem we faced.

"This is going to turn into a gang-fuck soon, Sarah. Let's just grab him and go."

She wasn't even looking at me, just hitting one of the keyboards.

The Source sat tight, looking as confused as I felt.

Glen was starting to get agitated. He stuck his head back into the room.

"How much longer?"

She said, "What's with you people? Wait."

Sarah seemed gripped by the information she had before her. I walked toward her, trying to be the good guy.

"Sarah, we've got to go. If not, we're in a world of shit." I grabbed her arm, but she pulled away and glared at me. I said, "I don't understand the problem. We have the Source, so let's grab him and go."

We were inches apart, so close I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke.

"There is more to do, Nick," she said, slowly and quietly.

"You don't know the full brief."

I felt ridiculous. Very near the bottom of the food chain as usual, I'd obviously been shown only one piece of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle.

They'd justify it in terms of "need to know" or "op sec," but the real reason was that people like me and Glen simply weren't trusted.

Just as I took a step back the silence was broken by shouting, then the distinctive signature ofAKs on auto, their heavy calibre 7.62 short rounds flying around outside the building.

"Shit.. . don't move!" Glen shouted into the room. We had gone noisy:

not good. He left us and ran down the corridor. I closed the door.

I could hear the lighter sound of Car 15s returning fire, and lots of shouting, from our guys as well as the Syrians. It didn't matter that the Syrians could hear us shouting in English--there was now so much gunfire and confusion that it was irrelevant--much more important was to get the communications right.

I tried to sound calm.

"Sarah, time to go."

She turned her back on me and carried on working. Our new friend on the sofa was getting more worried by the minute. I knew just how he felt. There was another exchange of fire outside.

"Fuck this, Sarah, we've got to go. Now!"

She spun around, her face tight with anger.

"Not yet." She almost spat the words. She jabbed her finger toward the direction of the contact as more rounds were fired.

"That's what they're paid for. Let them get on with it. Your job is to stay with me, so do it."

Glen was at the end of the corridor, screaming to me at the top of his voice.

"Get them out! Get them out now!"

I moved across the room toward the Source. He was curled into a ball, like a terrified child. I grabbed his arm and started to drag him off the sofa. I hadn't even put on the plasticuffs.

"Let's go, Sarah, we're .. .

going ... now!"

She turned, and as she did I realized that she was drawing down on me, her pistol aimed at my center mass. She stepped back so there was too much distance for me to react to it.

My new friend didn't want anything to do with this. He just stood next to me, his arm still half elevated by my hand, gently and calmly praying in a low Arabic moan as he waited to die.

Sarah had had enough.

"Sit him down." She said something in Arabic that must have been to the effect of "Shut the fuck up!" because he jumped back on the sofa. She levelled her eyes on me again.

"I'm staying here, what we are doing here is important. Do you understand?"

It doesn't matter who it is, if somebody's pointing a gun at you, you get to understand very quickly. Whatever her agenda was, it must be important.

She turned calmly, bolstered her weapon and went back to work on the keys.

I had one last try.

"Can't we just take him, plus the computers, and fuck off?"

She didn't even bother looking at me.

"No. It has to be done this way."

I couldn't do both take her and the Source. I was still working out what to do when I heard Arabic voices inside the building. The best way to do my job and protect her was to go forward, to get out of the room and stop the threat before it came screaming in to get us.

"I'm going outside," I said in an urgent whisper.

"Don't move until somebody comes to get you. Do you understand me?" I checked my mag was on tight as she looked up from the computer and sort of acknowledged.

I put the Car 15 into my shoulder, and holding the pistol grip to keep the weapon up, opened the door with my left hand.

The lights were still on in the corridor and the sounds of contacts were louder to my right, but my immediate concern was the noises to my left in the corridor. I decided to move down to the next junction and hold it there;

that way there would be a weapon at each end with Sarah in the middle.

I closed the door behind me and started to run. After seven or eight strides I was moving past an external door when it burst inward. The thud as it hit me full-on was as hard and sudden as if I'd walked into the path of a moving car. I was hurled against the opposite wall, stunned and winded. Worse, my weapon had been forced out of my hands. I had lost control of it.

There was yelling on both sides; me from the pain, once I got my breath back, and the Syrian from the surprise. He jumped on top of me on the floor and we grappled like a couple of schoolkids. I tried to get to the pistol on my right thigh, but he had me in a solid bear hug around my armpits. I was pinioned with my arms out like the Michelin Man.

I tried to kick and buck out of position, then to head-butt him. He was doing exactly the same. Both of us were screaming.

The bloke stank. He had a week's bristle on him and it was rough against my face and neck as he squeezed and squeezed, his eyes closed, snorting through his nose as he cried for help. He was a big old boy, packing over two hundred pounds of solid weight.

I needed help, too, and screamed for Sarah. There was no way she couldn't have heard me, but she didn't respond. I wasn't entirely sure what this boy was trying to do, whether he wanted to kill me, or if he was just fighting to protect himself.

I yelled again.

"Sarah! Sarah!"

He responded by lifting his head slightly to scream out even louder. It gave me a momentary window. I head-butted him, trying to make contact wherever I could. He did the same. Then something happened that moved the situation on. You don't normally feel pain during a fight, but I felt a stinging in my left ear. His teeth were sinking in. I could actually hear the skin break and then the sound of him straining to bite harder. The fucker had a gristly bit of my ear lobe in his mouth and was starting to pull his head back.

I felt the capillary bleeding at once, warm and wet, splashing the side of my cheek as his heavy breathing spat it out. He was in a frenzy, growling at me through clenched teeth, snot and saliva. I was still trying to get my hands down toward my leg so I could reach my pistol, which wasn't helping keep my ear intact.

I managed to get my legs around his gut. I tried to squeeze, but could only just about get my feet together. I felt the snorting from his nose move away from my face slightly, which wasn't good news for my ear. Then his head jerked back, taking part of the lobe with him. The pain felt like a blowtorch on the side of my head, but now that he'd moved back a bit I could start to get my hands around his head. I could see the blood on his face and snot running down from his nose as he fought to breathe through his still-gritted teeth. My fingers reached his eyes and he squeezed me up even more, shaking his head and screaming as I began to get a good hold on his face and dig deeper with my thumbs. He tried to bite my fingers.

I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to just below the crown of his head and grabbed a fistful of his hair.

You can't just whip a head around to break someone's neck. The design is too good for that. What you have to do is screw it off, as if you were untwisting the cap on ajar. You're trying to take the head off at the atlas, the small joint at the base of the skull. It's relatively easy if you're doing it against somebody who's standing, because if you get them off balance, their body is going down and you can twist and turn at the same time, so their momentum works against them. But I couldn't do that; all I could do was keep my legs around him and try to keep him in one place.

I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as I could. I kept on turning as we both screamed at each other. The fucker didn't like it; he knew what was going on, but fortunately for me he was too old and too fat to do much about it.

His neck went without too much of a crack. He slumped down, and there wasn't much noise coming from him; there wasn't even a body jerk.

He just went very still. My hands were covered in blood, snot and saliva. I rolled over and kicked him off.

My weapon was only about five feet away. I picked it up and checked that the magazine was on tight, and that I still had a round in the chamber.

I started to move back to Sarah, then stopped. I ran back to the Syrian.

I could hear firing again, and people screaming and shouting, both Brits and Arabs, maybe just thirty meters away. It's funny how these details take a back seat when you're worrying about other things.

I scrabbled around and eventually found the piece of my ear still in his mouth. I couldn't be assed trying to stop the bleeding on the side of my head because I knew it wouldn't; capillary bleeding goes on forever. It would sort itself out. But I would want to get the severed bit sewn back on. It wouldn't be too good with a chunk missing because I'd have a VDM (visual distinguishing mark); but worse than that, I knew a couple of people with bits of their ear missing, and it looked fucking ugly. The only alternative was to have a 1980s Kevin Keegan haircut to cover it up.

I got back to the room and banged on the door.

"Sarah, it's me. I'm coming in, I'm coming in."

Glen was still at the end of the corridor. When he heard my voice he shouted, "Come on, for rack's sake! Drag her fucking ass out... now!"

He was right.

Enough was enough, we were all going to die here soon.

I pushed the door open and Sarah was still standing over one of the PCs with her laptop plugged into some other shit. I looked over at the Source.

He was sitting in the same position I'd left him in, as if he were watching the TV A small amount of blood was trickling from a hole in his shirt, but it was the one in the front of his head that gave the game away. Blood was oozing out like lava flow. The back of his head lolled against the sofa; it had ballooned out slightly, but the skin was keeping all the fragmented bone in place. It looked like a car windshield that's been punched; the glass goes out in the shape of a fist, but it's still held together. Blood and gooey gray tissue were dribbling onto the sofa. You didn't have to be George Clooney to know this boy wouldn't be surfing the net anymore.

Not even looking at me as she manipulated the keyboard, she said, "He tried to attack me. But he is happy God would have sent him seqina."

She knew I wouldn't have a clue what she was on about, and added, "Tranquility."

I looked at him again. He hadn't moved from where he'd been when I'd left the room and there was no look of tranquility on his face. He hadn't attacked her. So what; as if I gave a fuck. It was probably part of the alternative brief she'd been given. AK fire called me back to the real world.

"Come on, let's go. Now, Sarah!"

"No." She shook her head.

"I'm going to be a few seconds more."

The incendiary devices were still on the table. One of my jobs, unless she was going to tell me that had changed, too, was to destroy any equipment on target.

She hit the final key.

"OK, we can go." She started to pack herself up.

I went to the sofa, pulled the Source away and let him roll onto the floor. Picking up one end of the sofa and dragging it across the room, I leaned it against the bench of computers. I got the wastepaper basket, scattered the contents on the bench top and added a rug from the floor and a couple of chairs. I wanted as much flammable stuff as possible near the incendiaries.

I said, "Are you sure you're ready now?"

It was the first time she'd looked at me since I'd returned to the room. I saw her studying the red mess on the side of my head. I pulled the pin of the first device and positioned it on the table between two VDUs. The handle flew off, and by the time the last one was placed two were already burning fiercely. I could feel the heat, even through my jump suit.

I ditched the bergen; everything I needed now was in my belt kit. The air was filling with the noxious black fumes of burning plastic. I grabbed hold of Sarah, who had her repacked bergen slung over her shoulders, and headed for the door. I opened it a couple of inches and shouted to Glen, "Coming through! Coming through!"

He yelled back, "Shut the fuck up and run! Run!"

I didn't look left or right, just ran for the door by the same route we'd come in. Within less than a minute I was in the cold night air, my eyes peeled for the gap in the fence. It was pointless worrying about getting shot; I just ran in a stoop to make as small a target as possible, keeping Sarah in front of me.

I caught a glimpse of Glen behind me, plus another bloke still farther back. They followed as we sprinted toward the fence, rounds thudding into the ground around us. The Syrians were firing far too many rounds in one burst and couldn't control their aim.

Reg 1 pulled open one half of the upside-down V Sarah slid into the gap like a baseball player going for base. I prepared to do the same. I caught up with her as her slide stopped on the other side and kicked her out of the way so I wasn't blocking the gap for the other two.

"Move! Move!" I expected them to do the same to me. Nothing happened.

Reg 1 had already seen the reason why: "Man down! Man down!"

Looking back through the gloom, I could see a shape on the ground about twenty meters away. Whoever was with him already had his hand in his loop and was trying to drag him toward the fence. Each of us was wearing a harness, a large loop made of nylon strapping between our shoulder blades with which a downed body could be dragged or hooked up to a heli winch for a quick extraction.

"Stay here don't move!" I could see from Sarah's expression that for once she was going to do as she was told.

I ran out to the dragger, and between us we pulled Glen toward the hole in the fence line. He was moaning and groaning like a drunk.

"Shit, I'm down, I'm down."

Good. If he was talking, he was breathing.

I could see that the legs of his coveralls were shining with blood, but we'd have to look at that later. The first priority was to get him, and us, out of the immediate area.

I slid through the fence, turned on my knees, got hold of Glen's harness and dragged him through the gap. Sarah said and did nothing. Her bit was done; she was way out of her depth now. Reg 1 and 2 were waiting with her; the other two patrol members were giving covering fire from the olive-grove side of the fence as we moved toward them, letting off double taps at anything that moved. They needed to conserve ammo; we didn't have Hollywood mags.

Reg 1 was shouting commands.

"Move back to the FRV, move back."

He had a sat comm out, its miniature transmission dish pointing skyward, telling the world that we were in the shit. I didn't know who he was talking to, but it certainly made me feel better.

Every other man carried a poncho stretcher a big sheet of green nylon with loop handles as part of his kit. Reg 2 laid his on the ground as I removed Glen's belt kit and bergen and put it on my back. So much for traveling light. As we rolled him onto the stretcher he was still conscious but, if he hadn't already, he'd soon go into shock.

It was then that I heard an ominous slurping noise in time with his breathing. He had a sucking wound to his chest: air was being sucked inside his chest cavity instead of going through his mouth. It was going to need sorting out quickly because otherwise the fucker was history. But there wasn't enough time to do it here that way we'd all die. We'd have to wait until we reached the FRY Reg 2 heard the noise, too. Grasping Glen's hand, he placed it on his chest.

"Plug it up, mate." He wasn't that out of it, he understood what he needed to do. With a chest wound we couldn't give him morphine; he was going to have to take the pain.

Two of us got hold of him, one on either side of the stretcher, and started to hobble along with him as quickly as we could, Sarah following at my heels. I didn't look at what was going on behind us, but I heard the rate of covering fire from Reg 1 and 2 step up as we moved off.

We hit the tree line, Glen's moans distorted by the jolting as we ran. We got farther into the grove, and only then moved to the right, under cover.

He was still conscious and breathing noisily as we laid him on his back.

The light from the target area was just enough to see my hands moving as they worked on him. There was no need to worry about clearing his airway, but his hand had fallen from his chest. I put my hand over the wound to form a seal. Hopefully, with his chest now airtight, normal breathing would return. I could see the anguish in his eyes. His throat spluttered as he coughed and fought the pain.

"What's it like? What's it like? Oh, shit."

He screwed up his face even more as Reg 2 moved him. It was a good sign: he could still feel it, his senses hadn't given way yet.

Reg 2 finished checking him.

"No exit wound."

First you've got to plug the leaks, then you have to put in fluid to replace what's been lost. I watched as Reg 2 grabbed the field dressings from Glen's belt kit and ripped them open. You always use the casualty's own dressings; you might need yours later. The packaging was Israeli, but they looked the same as ours, like big fat sanitary napkins with a bandage attached. Their job, in any language, is to block up wounds and stop bleeding by the application of direct pressure.

A round from an AK had also ripped through the muscle mass on his thigh, like a butcher's knife slicing open a side of beef. He was losing blood fast. Reg 2 started to cavity-pack the wound.

The downside of Glen still breathing was that we couldn't shut him up.

Over and over he groaned, "What's it like? What's it like?"

I looked down at him. He was covered in sweat, and the dust had caked onto his face.

"Shut the fuck up," I said.

"It's nothing, we'll fix it." You should never let a casualty see you looking concerned.

Sarah was several paces behind me, watching the route we had just taken, weapon out. I half whispered, half shouted, "Sarah! Come here!"

She moved toward me. I said, "Put the heel of your hand over this hole when I take mine off, OK?"

He was losing consciousness. Close to his ear, I said, "It's OK, you can speak to me now." There was no response.

"Oi, come on, speak to me, you fucker!" I pulled on his sideburns. Nothing.

I pulled up the left sleeve of his coveralls to expose the six-inch band of tubigrip on his forearm. Underneath that was the catheter, already inserted in a vein before we moved on the target. You'd have to be mad not to; a bit of anticoagulant in the catheter to stop the blood from clotting and it will last for a good twenty-four hours. You are a bit sore afterward, but it will save your life. It's hard to get a vein up to insert a catheter once you've lost fluid, especially under fire and in darkness.

Reg 2 had nearly finished packing the thigh wound. It would have been no good just piling bandages on top, because the muscle underneath was still going to bleed. You have to really pack the cavity, keeping direct pressure on the wound, and that, in turn, will stop the bleeding. That done, he now needed fluid.

Glen's breathing was very rapid and shallow, which wasn't a good sign.

I felt the pulse on his neck; same problem there. His heart was working overtime to circulate what fluid was left around his body.

Shots were now being fired at us from about a hundred meters away but all my attention was focused on Glen.

Reg 2 shouted at Sarah.

"Watch him and tell us if his breathing starts to slow down. Got it?" She nodded and started to take notice.

I pulled the plasma expander from his belt kit, a clear-plastic half-liter container shaped like a liquid soap bottle. I ripped it out of its Israeli plastic wrapper and threw that on the ground. I bit off the little cap that kept the neck of the bottle sterile. Fuck hygiene infections could be sorted out in hospital. Let's keep him alive so he can get to one first.

By now I also had his IV set out of its protective plastic coating, and was biting off the cap to the spearhead connector and jabbing it into the self-sealing neck of the bottle. I undid the screw clamp, took off the end cap and watched as the fluid ran through the line. I heard it splash onto Glen's face. He didn't react. Bad sign. Rolling the screw clamp on to stop the flow, I wasn't concerned about air bubbles in the line; a small amount doesn't matter certainly not in these circumstances. Let's just get the fluid in.

There was more gunfire from the target area, too close for comfort, and for the first time since we'd been in the trees our blokes fired back. The Syrians had found us.

Reg 1 was still in command. He was down at the tree line waiting for us to sort Glen out.

"How much longer up there?"

Reg 2 called back.

"Two minutes, mate, two minutes. I need your fluids."

As he jumped up with his weapon to collect the kit I unscrewed the end cap of the catheter and screwed the IV set into it.

Sarah was still plugging the hole. I could hear her breathing quickly in my ear as she leaned over Glen.

"Nick, listen to me. Let's leave them to it, let's go."

She was right, of course. The two of us would stand a far better chance on our own.

I ignored her and carried on working on Glen, gently squeezing the bottle to get the fluid into him. She whispered, a bit more urgently, "Come on, we need to go now, Nick. Remember, this is what they get paid for.

And you are paid to protect me."

Glen had to be dangerously low on fluids, but he was still conscious just.

"Sarah, pass me your fluid, quick."

She used her free hand to pull the bergen straps off her back to get to it.

The first bottle was now empty. I turned off the IV with the screw clamp.

Sarah had her fluid in her hand. I said, "Open it."

I heard her ripping the plastic with her teeth as I pulled off the empty bottle. She handed it over. The sound of gunfire was still very much in the background.

Reg 2 came back, packs of fluid pushed down the front of his jump suit, panting as he collapsed on the ground next to us. I jabbed the new bottle into the set and opened up the screw cap. Reg 2 was studying Glen.

All of a sudden he shouted, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" and leaned over, grabbing Sarah's hand and lifting it.

There was a sound like a rush of air escaping from the valve of a car tire and a fine geyser of blood sprayed in all directions. The round must have pierced his lung, and as he breathed in, the oxygen was escaping from the lung and going into the chest cavity. The pressure had built up so much in his chest that his lungs hadn't been able to expand and his heart couldn't function properly. That was why Sarah had to watch and listen, because the pressure on the heart and lungs would make him breathe much slower than he needed.

Reg 2 went ballistic, still gripping her arm.

"Fucking bitch! Fuck you.

Do it right! What are you trying to do? Kill him?"

She said nothing as the air gush subsided. Then, very calmly, she reminded him who was boss.

"Let go of my arm at once and get on with your job."

Reg 2 placed Sarah's hand back over the wound. Glen was just about conscious but still losing blood internally. Reg 2 got right up to his face, "Show you can hear me, mate ... show me ..." There was no reply.

"We're going to move you, mate. Not long now before we're out of here. OK? OK?" All he got in reply was a low moan. At least there was a reply.

Reg 2 had to turn him to check the leg dressing. Blood started to run out of the hole and down Sarah's fingers. She looked at me, pissed off, as another fluid set was being connected. She wanted out of here.

The others were rolling into the FRY out of breath and confused about what had happened.

"Is everyone here?" Reg 1 counted. He came over to us and looked at Glen.

"Is he ready to go?"

Reg 2, still looking at the casualty, said, "I think we're just about to find out." Using one of the large safety pins that came with the field dressings, he pinned Glen's tongue to his bottom lip. Glen was out of it; he couldn't feel a thing. The danger was that, in a state of unconsciousness, his tongue would roll back and block his airway.

I turned to Sarah as they sorted their shit out for the next phase and whispered in her ear, "Our best chance now is with these boys. If you don't want to come, that's fine, but you leave the bergen. I'll take it back."

The look on her face said she knew she had no choice. She wasn't going to leave; she couldn't do it without me.

Reg 2 placed one of the ripped plastic coverings over the wound to seal it better and instructed Sarah, "Get your hand back on that." He and another Reg picked up the casualty. Reg 2 kept the bottle high for the fluid to run freely by holding the hanging loop in his mouth.

It wasn't a tactical move to the wagons, it was a case of getting out of there as fast as we could, bearing in mind the weight of the casualty and his comfort. I didn't know what was going on behind me, back at the target area, and I didn't really care.

We reached the vehicles about thirty minutes later. I grabbed Sarah and took her to one side. There was no point getting involved in what these blokes were doing; we were just passengers. That wasn't good enough for Sarah.

"Come on," she hissed, "why aren't we moving yet?"

I pointed at the rear Previa. They had got the back door open and were pulling the seats down to create a flat space for Glen. Looking beyond them I noticed that the town was still dark. I was right, the industrial units must have had emergency power.

The driver of our vehicle retrieved the key, opened the door and motioned us inside. Another of the team got in the front. He leaned back toward us.

"As soon as they're ready we're going to move to the ERV (Emergency Rendezvous)."

We were sitting in darkness, the driver with his NVGs on. There was tension in the air; we needed to get going. If not, it wouldn't just be Glen who'd be in the shit. I didn't talk to Sarah; I didn't even look at her.

At last, the other vehicle started to move off slowly and ours maneuvered in front of it and took the lead. It wasn't long before we hit the metal led road. Behind us headlights came on, and Sarah took this as her cue to get out her laptop. A few seconds later she was going shit or bust on the keyboard. The screen glowed in the darkness, lighting up her sweaty, dirty face. My eyes moved to the maps, diagrams and Arabic script in front of her, none of which meant anything to me, and then down at her well-manicured fingers that were tapping away furiously on the keys and smearing them with Glen's blood.

We drove like men possessed for twenty minutes. Then, after an NVG drive into the desert with IR filters on the wagons' lights for another ten, we stopped.

Apart from the engine gently ticking over and the noise of Sarah's fingers hitting the keys and her mumbling the Arab script she was reading, there was silence. A beeping noise came from the laptop. She muttered, "Fuck it!" Her battery was running out.

There were shouts from the other Previa. Somebody was working hard on Glen, yelling at him, trying to get a response. Silence was obviously out of the question now. It's hard to be quiet when you're fighting to keep a man alive.

The driver looked at his watch after about five minutes. He opened the door and shouted, "Lights!" then started to flash the wagon' sIR light between dipped and full beam as he hit the Firefly and stuck it out of the window. Even as this was being said, I started to hear a throbbing noise in the distance, and less than a minute later the sky was filled with the steady, ponderous beat of an incoming Chinook. The noise became deafening and stones clattered against the windshield and body work as the Previa rocked under the downwash from the rotor blades. The pilot wouldn't be able to see the vehicles or the ground now due to all the sand and crap his rotors were throwing up.

A few seconds later a figure loomed out of the dust storm, bent double, his flying suit whipping around him. He flashed a red light at us and the driver shouted, "That's it, let's go."

Our vehicle edged forward. We drove for several yards into the maelstrom of wind and dust before things started to calm down. Red and white Cyalume sticks glowed around the open ramp and the interior was bathed in red light. Three loadies wearing shoulder holsters, body armor and helmets with the visors down were beckoning to us urgently with a Cyalume stick in each hand. As if we needed any encouragement.

Our Previa bumped up the ramp as if we were driving onto a cross Channel ferry, and one of the loadies signaled us to a stop. The other vehicle lurched in behind us, and as soon as it had cleared the ramp I could feel the aircraft start to lift off its hydraulic suspension. Moments later, we were in a hover.

We swayed to the left and right as the pilot sorted his shit out and the toadies lashed down the tires with chains. Hertz was going to be one very pissed-off rental company.

We were no more than sixty feet off the ground when I felt the nose of the Chinook dip as we started to move off and turn to the right.

Chaos erupted inside the aircraft. The Regs spilled from their vehicles, shouting at the loadies, "White light! Give us white light!" Somebody hit the switch, and all of a sudden it was like standing on a floodlit football field.

The inside of the other wagon looked like a scene out of ER. Glen was still on his back, but they'd ripped open the front of his coveralls to expose the chest wound. Blood was everywhere, even over the windows.

Reg 2 ran over to a loadie who was still at the heli ramp checking it had closed up correctly. He shouted as loudly as he could against the side of the guy's helmet and pointed to the rear wagon.

"Trauma pack! Get the trauma pack!"

The loadie took one look at the bloodied windows, disconnected the intercom lead from his helmet and sprinted toward the front of the heli.

Everybody had a job to do; mine was simply to get out of the way. I left Sarah sitting in the back of our Previa sorting out her laptop, and moved to the front of the Chinook. I knew where the flasks and food would be stowed and, if nothing else, I could be the tea lady.

As I moved to the front of the aircraft I met the loadie on his way back with the trauma pack, a black nylon bag the size of a small suitcase. I stepped to one side and watched him open the bag as he ran, bouncing off the front wagon and airframe as he momentarily lost his balance.

At that moment Sarah jumped out between us with the laptop and power lead in her hands. She was shouting at him, "Power! I need power!"

He went to push her aside, yelling, "Get out of the fucking way!"

"No!" She shook her head angrily and put her hand on him.

"Power!"

He shouted something back at her; I didn't know what because he was now facing away from me, pointing toward the front of the aircraft.

She moved quickly past me toward the cockpit, so bound up with her own obsession that she didn't even see me. I continued on, heading for the bulkhead behind the cockpit. I picked up one of the aluminium flasks, which was held in place by elastic cargo netting, and started to untwist the cup. Coffee, not tea, and it had never smelled so good.

As I turned and started to walk down toward the rear Previa, flask in hand, I could hear them, even above the noise of the heli, shouting with frustration. Two drips were being held up and a circle of sweaty, dusty and bloodstained faces was working on him. As I got closer I could see they were rigging him up in shock trousers. They're like thick ski pants that come up past your hips and are pumped up to apply pressure to the lower limbs, stemming blood loss by restricting the supply and so keeping more blood to rev up the major organs. It was a delicate procedure, because too much pressure could kill him.

Reg 2 looked as if he was on the case big time. He was holding Glen's jaw open, breathing into his mouth with the safety pin still in place. I was close enough to see his chest rise. Someone had his hand over the chest wound, ready to depressurize. Once Reg 2 had finished inflating his lungs a few times he shouted, "Go!" Another was astride him, both arms outstretched and open hands on top of each other on his chest.

"One, two, three..."

There was obviously no pulse and Glen wasn't breathing. He was technically dead. They were filling him up with oxygen by breathing into his mouth, then pumping his heart for him, while simultaneously trying to make sure that no more of his fluid escaped from any of the holes he had in him. Glen's chest was just a mess of blood-matted hair.

The team was going to be too busy to drink coffee, so with nothing useful to do I pulled up my left sleeve and peeled back the tubigrip. Ripping off the surgical tape holding the catheter in place, I carefully pulled it out, pressing down on the puncture wound with a finger until it clotted.

I looked around for Sarah. She was in a world other own, sitting near where the coffee flasks were stowed. She'd found the power point and an adaptor that fed a two-pin plug, and her fingers were tapping frantically at the keyboard once more.

I looked back at Glen. There was still lots of shouting and hollering going on in there; I just hoped that whatever was on that computer was worth it.

I looked out of one of the small round windows and saw lights on the coastline. We had a bowser inside the Chinook, feeding extra fuel. It looked like this was a direct flight and that we were on for tea and toast in Cyprus later that morning. I took a sip of coffee.

As we crossed the coast and headed out to sea, I stared out of the window, my mind starting to focus on the deep sound of the two big rotors throbbing above us. I was cut out of the daze by a despairing shout: "Fuck it! Fuck it!"

I looked up in time to see the bloke who'd been astride Glen's chest climbing down slowly onto the deck, his body language telling me everything I needed to know. He swung his boot and kicked the vehicle hard, denting the door.

I turned my head and stared back out of the window. We were flying low and fast across the water. There wasn't a light to be seen. My ear was hurting. I reached into my pocket and checked around for the lobe. I sat there toying with it, thinking how strange it was, just a small lump of gristle.

Hopefully they'd stitch it on all right--but what did it matter how bad I looked? I was alive.

I stood up and went over to Sarah. It was my job to look after her, and that included keeping her informed of what was going on. She was still immersed in her laptop.

I said, "Sarah, he's dead."

She carried on tapping keys. She didn't even look up to see me offering her a flask top of coffee.

I kicked her feet.

"Sarah ... Glen is dead." She finally turned her eyes and said, "Oh, OK," then looked straight back down and carried on with her work.

I looked at her hands. Glen's blood had now dried hard on them and she didn't give a shit. If it hadn't been for her fucking about and not telling us that the job wasn't as straightforward as we were first told, maybe he'd still be here, a big fucking grin on his face. Maybe Reg 2 was right, maybe she had been trying to kill Glen at the FRY She knew that I would have binned the patrol and gone with her if he wasn't still in with a chance.

The team were sitting against the wagon, opening flasks and lighting up, leaving Glen exactly as he was. We'd all been doing what we got paid to do. Shit happens. This wasn't going to change their lives, and I certainly wasn't going to let it change mine.

As Sarah carried on hitting her computer keys I drank coffee and watched the line of the Cyprus coast appear, trying to work out what the fuck I was doing here.

Three gallons a day, that's your lot," the bosun barked.

"But two gallons have to go to the cook, so there's one gallon--I'll tell ye again, just one gallon--left over for drinking, washing and anything else ye need it for. Anyone caught taking more will be flogged. So will gamblers, cheats and malingerers. We don't like malingerers in Her Majesty's navy!"

We were lined up on either side of the deck, listening to the bosun gob bing off about our water ration. I was trying not to catch Josh's eye; I knew I'd burst into a fit of laughter that Kelly wouldn't find amusing.

There were about twenty of us "new crew," mostly kids, all dressed in the standard-issue sixteenth-century sailors' kit: a hessian jerkin and shirt, with trousers that stopped about a foot short of the trainers we'd been instructed to bring with us. We were aboard the Golden Hind, a fullsized reconstruction of the ship in which Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580. This version, too, had sailed around the world, and film companies had used it as a location so often it had had more make overs than Joan Collins. And now it was in permanent dock serving, as Kelly called it in her very American way, as an "edutainment" attraction. She was standing to my right, very excited about her birthday treat, even if it was a few days late. She was now nine, going on twenty-four.

"See, I told you this would be good!" I beamed.

She didn't reply, but kept her eyes fixed on the bosun. He was dressed the same as us, but was allowed to wear a hat--on account of all the extra responsibility, I supposed.

"Ye slimey lot have been hand-picked for a voyage with Sir Francis Drake, aboard this, the finest ship in the fleet, the Golden Hind}" His eyes fixed on those of each child as he passed them on the other line. He reminded me of my very first drill sergeant when I was a boy soldier.

I looked over at Josh and his gang, who were on the receiving end of his tirade. Joshua G. D'Souza was thirty-eightish, five feet six inches, and, thanks to being into weights, about two hundred pounds of muscle.

Even his head looked like a bicep; he was 99 percent bald, and a razor blade and moisturizer had taken care of the other 1 percent. His round, gold-rimmed glasses made him look somehow more menacing than intellectual.

Josh was half black, half Puerto Rican, though he'd been born in Dakota. I couldn't really work that one out, but nor could I be bothered to ask. Joining up as a teenager, he'd done a few years in the 82nd Airborne and then Special Forces. In his late twenties he'd joined the U.S. Treasury Department as a member of their Secret Service, in time working on the vice-presidential protection team in Washington. He lived near Kelly's dad's place, and he and Kev had met, not through work, but because their kids had gone to the same school.

Josh had his three standing next to him, working hard at understanding the bosun's accent. They were on their last leg of a whistle stop tour of Europe during their Easter vacation. Kelly and I had collected them off the Paris Eurostar just the day before; they were going to spend a few days seeing the sights with us before heading back to D.C." and Kelly was really hyper. I was pleased about that; it was the first time she'd seen them since "what happened"--as we called it--over a year ago. All things considered, she was doing pretty well at the moment and getting on with her life.

The bosun had turned back and was moving up our line.

"Ye will be learning gun drills, ye will be learning how to set sail and repel boarders.

But best of all, ye'll be hunting for treasure and singing sailors' shanties!"

The crew was encouraged to respond with their best sailor-type cries.

All of a sudden, competition for the loudest noise came from the siren of a tourist boat passing on the river, and the bark of its horn, as the first sailing of the day "did" London Bridge.

I glanced down at Kelly. She was quivering with excitement. I was enjoying myself, too, but I felt just a bit weird standing there in fancy dress in full public view, aboard a ship docked on the south side of London Bridge. At this time of the morning, there were still office workers walking along the narrow cobblestoned road that paralleled the Thames, dodging the delivery vans and taxis on their way to work. The trains that had got them this far were slowly trundling along the elevated tracks about 200 meters away, making their way toward the river.

The pub next to the ship, the Olde Thameside Inn, was one of those places that supposedly dates from Shakespeare's day but which, in fact, was built maybe ten years earlier on one of the converted wharves that line the river. The office crowd, plastic cups and cigarettes in hand, were making the most of the morning sun on the terrace overlooking the water, having picked up their late breakfast from the coffee shop.

I was hauled back to the sixteenth century. The bosun had stopped and was glaring theatrically at Kelly.

"Are you a malingerer?"

"No sir, no sir!" She pushed herself into my side a bit more for protection.

She was still a bit anxious about strangers, especially adult men.

The bosun grinned.

"Well, seeing as you're a special crew, and I know you're going to work hard, I'm going to let you have your rations. You'll be getting some special sailors' nuggets and Coke." He spun around, his hands in the air.

"What do you say?"

The kids went bonkers: "Aye aye, sir!"

"That's not good enough!" he bellowed.

"What do you say?"

"AYE AYE, SIR!"

The kids were shepherded by the bosun and the rest of the permanent crew toward the tables of food.

"Small sailors first," he ordered.

"The tall sailors who brought you here can wait their turn."

Kelly ran over to Josh's three--two girls, Dakota and Kimberly, aged eleven and nine, and a boy, Tyce, who was eight. Their skin was lighter than Josh's--their mother was white--but they looked just like their dad, except they still had all their hair. Which was a good thing, I thought.

Josh and I turned and looked out over the deck toward the Thames.

Josh waved back at some tourists who were waving from the boat, either at us or at the coffee morning still going strong to our left.

"How is she coping?" he asked.

"Getting better, mate, but the shrink says it'll take time. It's affected her schooling big time, she's way behind. The last lot of grades were shit.

She's an intelligent girl, but she's like a big bucket with holes, all the information's going in, but it just drips out again."

"You think about what she's been through, man, for sure it's going to take some time."

We turned to see all four of the kids throwing chicken nuggets down their necks. It was a strange choice for breakfast, but then again, I liked choc ice cream and fries first thing in the morning when I was a kid. The elder daughter wasn't getting on with Tyce today and Josh had to do a dad thing.

"Hey, Kimberly, chill! Let Tyce have his Coke--now!"

Kimberly didn't look too happy but obeyed. Josh turned back toward the river, took off his gold-rimmed glasses and gave them a wipe.

"She looks happy enough, that's a good sign."

"It's the best she's been for ages. She's slightly nervous around adults, but with her friends she's OK. It means so much for her to see your lot.

Besides, it gives her a rest from me." I couldn't bring myself to say that I found it wonderful to see him as well. I hoped he knew anyway.

We both looked out over the river with not a lot to say. He broke the silence.

"How's the job? Are you on permanent cadre yet?"

I shook my head.

"I don't think it will ever happen. They know I was involved in a lot more of the Washington stuff than I let on." It pissed me off, because I needed a regular income these days. I had the money I'd rescued from last year's gang-fuck, but that wouldn't last forever. I grinned.

"Maybe I could turn to crime. Couldn't be worse than the shit I do now."

He frowned, not sure if I was being serious or not, and tilted his head in the direction of the huddle of small sailors, as if to remind me of my responsibilities. He put his specs back on and focused on a black guy in an old, shiny blue tracksuit who had set up shop at the corner of the pub, selling the Big Issue and chatting up the women walking past.

"It's OK for you," I said.

"We don't have a training wing where I can go and put my feet up and still get paid." I thought Josh was going to give me a lecture, so I put my hands up.

"OK, I surrender. I will sort my shit out-one day."

In a way, I had sorted myself--a bit. With the money I'd diverted from the Washington job, 300,000 once the dollars were converted, I'd bought myself a house up on the Norfolk coast in the middle of nowhere. The village had a co-op on the corner and that was about it; a traffic jam was when the three fishing boats came into the harbor and their vans arrived at the same time to take the catch away. Otherwise, the busiest it got was when the postman rang his bell as he was going around the corner. I didn't know anyone; they didn't know me. If anything, they all had me down as an international drug dealer or some weirdo. I kept myself to myself, and that suited everybody just fine.

I'd bought a motorbike, too. At last I had the Ducati I'd always promised myself, and I even had a garage to put it in. But what was left--about 150,000--wasn't enough to retire on, so I still had to work--and I knew only one trade. Maybe that was why Josh and I got on; he was much the same as me, running his life like a conjuror, trying to keep all the plates spinning on top of their poles. His plates weren't spinning so well at the moment. Now that Geri had gone, one income wasn't enough, and he'd had to put the house up for sale.

Josh had had a tucker of a year. First his wife had got into yoga and all that mind-body-spirit stuff, then she'd ended up going to Canada to hug trees--or, more precisely, to hug the yoga teacher. Josh and the kids were shattered. Something had to give. He could no longer travel away from home with the vice-presidential crew, so he became one of the training team out in Laurel, Maryland. It was a very grand-sounding outfit-Special Operations Training Section--but a shit job for a man who was used to being in the thick of things. Then, two months after his wife left him, his friends Kev, Marsha and their other child, Aida, were hosed down, and he found he was an executor of the will--along with some dickhead Brit he'd never heard of called Nick Stone.

Between us we looked after Kelly's trust fund, and we'd been having some problems selling the family home. When it came down to it, who was going to buy a house where a whole family had been butchered? The property company was trying to pull a sleazy deal so it could get the land back. The insurance companies had been trying to give Kelly a lump sum instead of making regular payments, because it was cheaper for them. The only people getting any money were the lawyers. There was something about it all that reminded me of my divorce.

I turned to him.

"It is good to see you, mate."

He looked back and smiled.

"Same here, mate." His piss-taking accent sounded more Australian than English. Maybe they got Neighbors in his part of Virginia, too.

There was really nothing more to be said. I liked Josh and we had a fuck of a lot in common, but it wasn't as if we were going to be sharing toothbrushes or anything like that. I'd decided after Euan turned me over to bin any idea of friendship with anyone else ever again, and to restrict myself to acquaintances--but this did feel different.

"Talking of shit," I said, "how's the quilt shaping up? The kids sounded really ecstatic about it last night."

His eyes looked up at the sky.

"Fuck, man, it's been a nightmare. Two months of hoo-ha and the kids getting so high they might as well be on drugs."

I had to laugh. I'd been following the buildup to this from Josh over the phone, but no one was going to stop him honking about it a bit more now.

"I've been to meetings, meetings about meetings, sewing classes, discussion groups, you name it; that's been my life for the last two fucking months."

There was going to be a summit between the Israelis and Palestinians in Washington, D.C. Clinton was out to look the big-time statesman, brokering the peace deal, and somebody had come up with the bright idea of making the world's biggest peace quilt to commemorate the occasion.

Kids from all over had been sewing like crazy in preparation for the world's biggest photo opportunity on the White House lawn.

Josh said, "I mean, do you have any idea how many stitches it takes to sew on just one fucking little shape?"

"Don't worry about it, mate," I said.

"They'll turn it into a TV commercial for Coke and then you'll all be rich."

The bosun wanted us.

"Oi, you two! Come down and get your rations or ye'll swing from the yardarm!"

"Aye aye, sir!"

"I can't hear you. What did you say?"

Josh got into 82nd Airborne mode, snapped to attention and screamed,

"SIR! AYE AYE SIR!"

The old boy flogging the Big Issue started to cheer and clap, though I wasn't too sure whether the bosun liked the competition. Josh collected his food and sat down amongst the kids, trying to pinch some of their breakfast.

I got my ration of authentic Elizabethan nuggets, doughnuts and pirate cola. A train from London Bridge station rattled along the elevated railway line behind us, the bells of Southwark Cathedral just fifty meters away fired off a salvo, telling us it was 10:30 a.m." and here I was wondering for the millionth time how I'd landed myself with all this. Josh told me he'd always loved the idea of being with the kids, but had never realized the stress of looking after them all the time until his wife left. Me, I loved it when I was with Kelly, but hated the idea of it. The responsibility filled me with dread. When it came to the world of emotions I was a beginner.

My birthday girl was holding court, telling Josh's kids about her boarding school.

"I got a twenty pence fine because I didn't wear my slippers to the shower room last week." She loved the idea of being the same as the other girls; the fact that she had been fined meant she was one of the crowd.

"Yes, and who has to pay the fine?" I said.

She laughed.

"My manager."

Her school had been fantastic about everything, even though they knew only the bare bones of what had happened. I agreed with Josh that it was the best thing to do, taking her right away from the U.S. and an environment that would bring back memories and screw her up even more. She never brought up the subject of what had happened the day her parents and sister died, but she had no problem talking about them if things came up in daily life to remind us of them. Only once had I made a direct reference, and she'd just said, "Nick, that was a long time ago."

She began telling everyone about the week's plans.

"Nick couldn't see me on my birthday and had to leave me with Granny and Grandad the day before. But this week we're going to see the Bloody Tower."

"What?" Josh's mouth dropped open. He might be ex-Airborne at work, but within earshot of his kids not even the mildest cuss would pass his lips.

"She means the Tower of London," I said.

"There's a place called the Bloody Tower; it's where the Crown Jewels are kept, I think. Something like that." History had never been my strong point.

Kelly's face lit up at the thought of seeing all those jewels. As a child, I'd never known that sort of joy. My mother and stepfather never took me anywhere; all they ever gave me was promises. When I was about eight, HMS Belfast docked by Tower Bridge and became a museum. All the kids on the estate went, but not me all I got for weeks was lOUs. At last I was told I was going with my Auntie Pauline. I spent hours trailing around the local shops behind her, asking when we were going.

"In a minute, son, not long now." The bitch was lying, just like my parents. The whole thing had been a ploy to get me off their hands while they went out on the piss. After that I didn't even bother to ask. Fuck 'em. I had another eight years before I could leave home; I'd treat it like a waiting room.

"... then we're going to have a sleepover at the place where all the mummies are. There's a museum where you can spend the ..."

She was interrupted by the bosun, who'd maybe guessed that the tall sailors needed a rest.

"It's time for some seafaring tales while ye have your feed. So listen in, all ye crew, small and tall!"

It was while we were sitting there listening to the sea tales, and I was digging a chicken nugget into my red sauce, that I felt my pager go off. I liked the fact that people needed me to do things they couldn't do themselves, but I always kept it on vibrate because I hated the noise it made; it always spelled trouble, like an alarm clock that wakes you on a morning you're dreading.

I took it out of its little carrying case, which was attached to the draw cord of my trousers, and checked the screen. It was displaying only a phone number. I was aware that Josh was looking at me. He knew exactly what it was. The other kids were too busy listening to stories of doom and gloom on the high seas to notice, but Kelly never missed a trick. She shot me a concerned glance, which I ignored.

Pager networks cover a larger area than mobile phones, which was why the Intelligence Service used them. I preferred them anyway, because it gave me time to adjust mentally before someone bollocked me or even worse, gave me the job from hell. I'd had the pager for only about six months. I wasn't too sure if it was a promotion to be given one, or if it meant I was considered a sad fuck and always available, locked away like a guard dog until needed, then once done, given a bone and sent back into the kennel.

Josh raised an eyebrow.

"Dramas?"

I shrugged.

"Dunno, I'm gonna have to phone. Can you hold the fort?"

He nodded.

"See you in a few."

The stories were still going on and the rest of the crew were producing tubs of ice cream for the spellbound kids. I slipped away and went down the stairs to one of the lower decks, where we were going to be sleeping that night. Mattresses were spread out on the floor, and we'd had to bring our own fluffy sleeping bags, just like sixteenth-century sailors did, ho ho.

I rummaged in my holdall for some small change, and went upstairs and tried to sneak off the boat without Kelly seeing me.

I should have known better. She must have been watching me like a hawk; as I looked around and saw her, I put my hand up and mouthed, "Be back in a minute," pointing at the pub. She looked puzzled, and more than a bit anxious. Josh was still with them, nodding and grimacing and generally joining in with the tales of seafaring derring-do. The cathedral bell rang out to tell me it was now eleven o'clock.

I found a pay phone in the pub hallway. The Olde Thameside Inn had its first customers of the day: traders from the fruit market drinking pints, rubbing shoulders with the City dealers and their bottled beer. As I stood with my finger in my ear trying to listen for the dialing code, I found myself looking at racks of tourist flyers, rows and rows of the things telling me how great the Tower of London was, all of them seeming to point the finger at the scurvy mutineer who might be jumping ship.

I pushed a couple of coins into the slot and dialed the number, putting my finger back into my other ear to cut out Oasis on the juke box. After just one ring a very crisp, efficient female voice said, "Hello?"

"It's Nick, returning the page."

"Where are you?"

She knew exactly where I was. Every call to the Firm is logged on a digital display. They put as much effort into spying on each other as they do against the enemy. It was pointless tapping in 141 before the number, and saying, "I'm in Glasgow and can't get back," because whatever I did the display would still tell her I was at a pay phone in Southwark.

I said, "London."

"Please wait."

She pressed the cut-out button. Two minutes later she came back.

"You need to be at Gatwick at three thirty this afternoon."

My heart sank, but I already knew I was going to be there.

"How long for?" Not that it mattered much, I was already a couple of jumps ahead, thinking about how I was going to make excuses to a recently turned nine-year-old.

She said, "I don't have that information."

Once she'd finished with the details of the RV I put the phone down, expecting a refund of my unused coin, but I got nothing. The phone box in the pub was one of those private ones where you can charge whatever you want. For a pound I got all of sixty seconds.

I walked back, making my way around the crowd outside that had moved with the sun toward the ship. I was racking my brains thinking of what I was going to say. Not to Josh that wouldn't be a problem but to Kelly.

I saw Josh looking for me. It was only about twenty or thirty meters to the gangplank, and I was looking up at him and slowly shaking my head, getting some of the message across in advance. He knew exactly what was happening; he'd been there himself.

I went up the gangplank, pretty certain I would be in the shit, and no doubt starting to look suitably guilty. This was the first occasion Kelly and I had had any decent time together since she'd been in the U.K.; it was like a newlywed leaving his honeymoon to go back to the office.

As I got on deck she and a few other kids were helping to clear up the plates under the bosun's instructions. For a horrible second or two I had a flashback other in her house just before her family was killed, laying the table for her mother in the kitchen. It made me feel even more guilty, but I told myself we'd both get over it. She would be upset but I could make it up to her when I came back. Besides, she'd seen Josh and the kids, and we'd had a whale of a time. She'd understand. Plus, she could see her grandparents now.

Josh knew what was on the cards. He bent down to his kids.

"Yo!" He clapped his hands together as they waited for the instruction.

"OK, kids, let's get all these plates back to the bosun," and he dragged them away.

I said, "Kelly?"

"Mmm?" She didn't look up, just carried on being too busy picking up plates. She wasn't going to make it easy for me to give her the news.

"That was my boss on the phone. He wants me to go away."

She still didn't look me in the eye as she put the plates in a bin. She said, "Why?"

"They've got a job for me. I told them that I was going to be with you for the week and I didn't want to go in, but they said I must. There's nothing I can do."

I was kind of hoping she'd buy the line that they were to blame, not me.

She stopped what she was doing and spun around. Her face told me everything I didn't need to know.

"Nick, you promised."

"I know, I can't help it. I've just been bleeped " "No," she stopped me.

"It's beeped!" She was always giving me a bollocking for getting it wrong.

Her face had gone bright red. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes.

"Listen, Kelly, we can always do this again some other time. Just think, Josh and his children have to leave for home in a few days and won't have a chance to see all these places, but we can come back."

"But you said ... you promised me, Nick ... you said you wanted to have a holiday with me ..." The words tumbled out, punctuated by angry gasps for air.

"You said you'd make up for not seeing me on my birthday.

You promised me then, Nick ... you promised."

She didn't just have her hand on my heartstrings, she'd braided them into ropes for extra purchase and was pulling on them big time. I said, "I know I did, but that was last time. This time it will be different, I really mean it."

Her bottom lip was starting to go and her eyes were leaking down her face.

"But, Nick, you promised ..."

I stroked her hair.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it. I've got to go to work. Oh, come on, Kelly, cheer up."

What the fuck was I saying? I always hated this. I didn't know what to do or say, and to make things worse I reckoned I was starting to sound like my Auntie Pauline.

The cry had become heartrending sobs.

"But I don't want you to go ... I want to stay here and be a sailor ... I want you to stay here ... I don't want to sleep on this boat without you."

"Ah," I said, and the way I said it was sufficiently ominous to make her look up.

"You won't be sleeping on the ship. I'm going to take you to see Granny and Grandad. Listen, I promise, I really do promise, I'll make this up to you."

She stared at me long and hard, then slowly shook her head from side to side, deeply wounded. She'd been sold down the river, and she knew it.

I wondered if she'd ever trust me again.

There was nothing I could say, because actually she was right. Just to make sure I avoided the issue, I walked across to the bosun.

"We've got to go," I said.

"Family problem." He nodded; who gives a fuck, he just gets paid to wear the hat and growl.

Josh came back. His kids were halfway through a lesson on how to hoist the sails. I said, "We've got to go, mate."

I tried to pat Kelly's head, but she flinched away from my hand. I said, "Do you want to go downstairs and change? You can say good-bye in a minute. Go on, off you go."

As she disappeared I looked at Josh and shrugged.

"What can I say, I've got to go to work." And then, before he had the chance to come up with all sorts of different ways that he could help, I said, "I'm going to take her down to her grandmother's now, then I'm off. I'm really sorry about this, mate."

"Hey, chill, it doesn't matter. These things happen. It was just really good to see you."

He was right. It had been really good to see him, too.

"Same here. Have a good flight back. I'll give you a call as soon as I've finished this job, and we'll come to you next time."

"Like I told you, the beds are always made up. The coffee, white and flat, is always hot."

It took me a moment to understand the white and flat bit.

"Is that some kind of Airborne saying?"

"Kinda."

I said good-bye to his kids and they got back to pulling ropes and getting bollocked by the bosun. Then I went down below and changed.

We stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a blue-haired New Age guy saunter across. I laughed.

"Kelly, look at that bloke there! Isn't he weird!" He had big lumps of metal sticking out of his nose, lips, eyebrows, all sorts. I said, "I bet he wouldn't dare walk past a magnet factory."

I laughed at my own joke. She didn't, possibly because it was so bad.

"You shouldn't make personal remarks like that," she said.

"Anyway, I bet he s been to the Bloody Tower." Her schoolwork might be suffering a bit but she was still as sharp as her old man.

I looked across at her in the passenger seat and felt yet another pang of guilt. She was reading about how wonderful London was from a flyer we had in our rental car; she was sulking away, probably wondering what could be so important in my life that instead of taking her to see the Crown Jewels, I was dumping her back with her dreary old grandparents whom she already saw enough of during the weekends out from her boarding school.

We drove through Docklands in the East End of London, past the outrageously tall office block on Canary Wharf; then, as we followed signs for the Blackwall Tunnel, the Millennium Dome, still under construction, came into view across the Thames. Trying anything to lighten the mood, I said, "Hey, look, the world's biggest Burger King hat!"

At last I got a reaction: a slight movement of the lips, accompanied by a determined refusal to laugh.

Still heading toward the tunnel that took us under the Thames and so

south, we came to a gas station just past the Burger King dome. I needed to call her grandparents.

It seemed that fuel was a sideline for this garage; it sold everything from disposable barbecues to lottery tickets and firewood. I undid my seat belt and tried to sound happy with life.

"Do you want anything from the shop?"

She shook her head as I got out to use the pay phone on the wall. I'd get her something anyway. A nice bundle of kindling, maybe.

After pulling various bits of paper from my jacket pocket I found Carmen and Jimmy's phone number on a yellow Post-It note, its sticky bit covered with blue fluff from my jacket. Kelly was still sitting in the car, belted up and staring daggers at me, both for what I had done and what I was about to do.

I knew that they'd be in at this time of day. They always had lunch at home; in nearly fifty years of marriage they'd never eaten out. Carmen didn't like other people preparing her husband's food, and Jimmy had learned better than to argue. I also knew that Carmen would answer the phone; it seemed to be a house rule.

"Hello, Carmen, it's Nick. How are you both?"

"Oh, we're fine," she said, a little crisply.

"Quite tired, of course," she added, to introduce a tone of martyrdom at the first available opportunity.

I should have ignored it and got straight down to business.

"Tired?" I asked, and as I said it I suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, yes, we stayed up until well after News at Ten. You said Kelly would be calling us."

They hadn't heard from her since I'd taken her away for the trip, and I'd promised she would call. Mind you, Kelly hadn't exactly gone out of her way to remind me.

"I'm sorry, Carmen, she was so sleepy last night I didn't want to wake her."

She didn't go for that one and I didn't blame her. She was right; at ten o'clock last night we were both filling our faces with Double Whoppers and fries.

"Oh, well, I suppose we can talk to her now. Has she had her lunch?"

What the question actually meant was: Have you remembered to feed our granddaughter? My thoughts went out to Jimmy, married to her for half a century, and her son, Kev. No wonder he'd headed west just as soon as he could.

I tried to laugh it off; for Kelly's sake I didn't want to rise to this emotional blackmail.

"Carmen, look, something has come up. I have to go away tonight.

Would you be able to have her and take her back to school on Monday? I was going to take her out for the five days to 'do' London, but she might as well go back now."

There was excitement in the air, but she still had to carve off her pound of flesh.

"Of course. When will you be coming?"

"That's the problem, I haven't enough time to get her to you. Could you meet us at Gatwick?"

I knew they could. In fact, chances were that Jimmy was already being dispatched with an impatient motion of her hand to get his eleven-year-old mint-condition Rover out of the garage. The new door that had just been built gave direct access from the bungalow; he was very proud of that. I could picture him in there, wiping any stray finger marks off the paint work.

"Oh .. . can't you come here? It would mean we wouldn't get back until late."

They lived only an hour from the airport, but anything to fuck me about.

"I can't, I'm afraid. I'm a bit strapped for time."

"But where would we meet you?" There was an edge of panic in her voice at the thought of having to do something so challenging, mixed with annoyance that today's minute-by-minute routine was being disrupted. It must have been a riot growing up as Mr. and Mrs. Brown's little boy.

I'd sensed from the beginning that they or rather, she didn't really like me. Maybe she blamed me for their son's death; I certainly knew she resented the fact that I was the person he'd appointed as their granddaughter's guardian, even though she knew very well that they were too old to look after her themselves. But fuck it, they'd be dead soon. I would just feel sorry for Kelly when that day came; she needed other people to support her, even if they were as suffocating as the Browns.

When I got back to the car Kelly was pretending to be engrossed in another flyer, and without looking up she greeted me with a downright martyr's sigh. I'd have to sort her out soon, or she was going to turn out like her poisoned granny.

I kept it upbeat.

"They're really excited about you coming to stay today instead of next weekend, they can't wait to see you and hear all about your time on the ship with everyone."

"OK. That means that I go back to school when everybody else does?"

"Yes, but you'll have a great time with Granny and Grandad first."

She didn't share my optimism, but she was switched on enough to know that, even though they might be boring, they loved her dearly. It was the only reason I put up with them.

We got back onto the main drag and headed for the tunnel, me thinking about the RV details I'd been given. From Kelly there was nothing but brooding, oppressive silence and I didn't really know how to break it.

Eventually I said, "I'll phone you at school one lunchtime next week,

OK?"

She perked up.

"You will? You'll phone me?"

"Sure I will. I don't know when it will be, but I will."

She looked at me and raised an accusing eyebrow.

"Is that going to be another one of your promises?"

I smiled and nodded my head. I knew I was digging myself a very deep hole here, because every time I promised I seemed to fuck up; I didn't have a clue what I'd be doing, and I knew it was a short-term gain. I hated this part of my responsibilities, I hated letting her down the way I'd been let down.

I said, "Not just a promise a double promise. We'll talk about all the things we'll do on our next holiday. I'll make it up to you, you'll see."

She was studying my face, sizing me up. Having gained an inch, she was going to go for the full mile.

"Do I have to go to Granny and Grandad's?"

I could guess how she felt. She'd told me that when she was with them, she spent most of her time pulling her shirt back out of her jeans after Carmen had pulled them up to her armpits "to keep out the cold." I wouldn't want to be going there either, but I said, "It'll be fine, don't worry about it. You were going to stay with them next weekend after school anyway. Another weekend won't hurt. I'll have a little chat and see if they'll take you to the aquarium to see those sharks we were talking about."

She gave me a look to let me know the aquarium trip wouldn't happen.

I knew she was right and ploughed on.

"One thing's for sure, I don't want them to take you to the Bloody Tower; that's our special thing, OK?"

There was a slow acknowledgment, even though she probably knew there was more chance other grandmother metamorphosing into Zoe Ball overnight. I indicated to get off the M23 on the last stretch toward the airport.

Signs welcomed us to the North Terminal and I headed up to the shortterm parking. I kept up my goodness-me-I'm-so-excited voice.

"Right, let's go and see if Granny and Grandad are here yet, shall we? Tell you what, if they aren't, we'll go and have something to eat. Hungry yet?"

That should keep Granny happy.

She didn't say it, but the look she gave me as she got out of the car said, Cut the crap, dickhead, I've had it up to here. She'd been hung out with the washing; she knew it, and she wanted me to know that she knew it. I got hold of her hand and bag, because there was traffic all over the place, and followed the signs to the North Terminal.

I'd arranged to meet them in the Costa Coffee shop. It would be easy enough to find; even they could do it.

I looked at my G-Shock, the one I'd bought to replace the one I'd lost. It was a Baby-G this time--the new one--and when you pressed the backlight button, a little surfer came up on one of the displays. I quite enjoyed that, even though it was the same little man doing the same little surfing thing every single time. Sad but true.

It was just past one o'clock. They weren't there yet. Trying to ease my guilt I took Kelly on a sightseeing tour of the shops and she landed up with bars of chocolate, an airline teddy bear and an All Saints CD. It was the easy way out; I knew it wouldn't achieve anything, but it made me feel a bit better.

We went back to the Costa Coffee shop and sat on bar stools with a view of the terminal entrance. She had an orange soda, I had a flat white, if that was what they called it, and we both had a sandwich as we sat watching a packed airport get fed, catch planes and generally spend more money in one hour than they would in an entire day on holiday.

Kelly said, "Nick, do you know how long it takes before an elephant is born ?"

"Nope." I wasn't really listening; I was too busy bending over my coffee and looking out for Wallace and Gromit, resisting looking at my watch.

"Nearly two years."

"Oh, that's interesting," I said.

"OK, do you know how many people were in the world in I960?"

"Three years."

She'd sussed me out.

"Nick ... Three billion. But very soon the world will have a population of six billion."

I turned to look at her.

"You're very clever for a--" Then I saw what she was doing: reading facts off the back of sugar packets.

"That's cheating!"

At last I got a smile from her. It turned into an actress's smile when she said through gritted teeth, "Oh, look. Granny and Grandad."

"Well, off you go then and say hello!"

Muttering under her breath, she got off her stool and ran over to them.

Their faces showed a mixture of relief at finding us and self-congratulation at being brave enough to be out and about in such a big, busy place. Kelly gave them both a hug; she did love them, it was just that they weren't the sort of people you'd want to spend all day with, let alone a bonus weekend.

Their trouble was, they didn't actually do anything. They didn't take her to the park or on outings; they just kind of sat there expecting her to draw pictures and drink cups of tea.

Jimmy was wearing cream flannels and a beige anorak; Carmen wore clothes from the sort of catalog that had Judith Chalmers on the cover.

Jimmy's face seemed to have no features whatsoever; he looked as if he'd been designed in a wind tunnel. Kev must have got his dark skin and eyes from his mother, who still looked attractive, even if she did believe people really thought her jet-black hair was natural.

The pair of them were busy fussing all over Kelly, asking her what she'd done as they walked toward me. I got in there first, flicking my eyes between them as I spoke.

"Jim, Carmen, how are things?" And before they could debrief me on the road conditions and the exact route they'd taken I got straight down to it.

"Look, I'm sorry about this, but I've got to go. You sure you're OK for the rest of the weekend?"

They were both very happy. It was like Christmas again, except that that time it had been Heathrow and Kelly had had to be picked up four days early. They never understood why someone so erratic had been chosen as her guardian; they didn't even know me and I was clearly not suited to the task. I bet they had me down as one of Kev's wife's friends. They never did like Marsha. When they weren't blaming me for their son's murder, they were probably blaming her, not that she was around to answer back.

Carmen busied herself doing up the top button of Kelly's shirt and tucking the whole thing back into her jeans. You can't take any chances, the drafts you get in airports.

I made sure they saw me take a quick look at my watch. I had loads of time, but it didn't mean I wanted to stay.

"I've really got to go now. Kelly, give us a hug and a kiss."

She wrapped her arms around me and I bent at the waist so we could kiss. Carmen hated that, because Kelly didn't show them the same sort of sustained affection. She did with them only what she knew was expected, and I had to admit that made me feel good.

I looked her in the eye and mimed a phone call with my hand.

"I

promise."

She raised an eyebrow and gave me a withering look.

"Is that a Nick promise?" she said quietly, so that only I could hear it. I suddenly saw about twenty years into the future; she was going to grow up into the sort of woman who could light a fire just by looking at it.

"No," I said, equally quietly, "it's an NPP."

"What's that?"

"Normal person's promise."

She liked that one and nodded.

I knew I'd dropped myself in the shit even more, just as my parents had done with me. By now it was almost unbearable. Carmen and Jimmy were uncomfortable with our private intimacy, and I really didn't know how to behave in these situations. I was feeling more guilty than ever. I just wanted to leave.

The look on Kelly's face made me remember my thirteenth birthday.

My parents didn't. They made up for it by running to the corner shop and buying a board game in the shape of a robot for seventy-five pence. The reason I knew that was because it wasn't even wrapped up, just in a bag with the price tag still on. I knew how it felt to be let down by the ones who are supposed to love you most.

I whispered in her ear, "I've got to go."

As I stood up, Carmen's nod told me I should have left ten minutes ago.

She said, "We'll be hearing from you, then?" in that special way of hers that suggested she wouldn't exactly be holding her breath.

"Of course we will. Granny," Kelly said.

"When Nick makes a promise he always keeps it." She might be lying through her teeth, but she knew when to back me up.

I grinned.

"Yeah, something like that. Bye now."

Jimmy smiled weakly. I couldn't tell if he was happy or just had wind. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard him speak.

Carmen decided it was time for Kelly to cut from me.

"Oh, that's nice, you've got a record, have you?" she said.

"Who's it by?"

"All Saints."

"Oh, they're good, aren't they? My favorite is the ginger one with the Union Jack dress."

"That's the Spice Girls."

"Oh, is it?" Carmen glared at me as if it was my fault, then rounded on Jimmy.

"Grandad doesn't like any of them; he doesn't go for all that piercing."

Kelly looked at me and rolled her eyes. As the look changed to one of desperation, I turned on my heel and walked away.

made as if to go back to the car park, but instead jumped onto the transit train that would take me to the South Terminal. I kept thinking about the fuckup and how Kelly must be feeling, but I would have to cut from that soon. I decided to use the two-minute journey to sort out my guilt, then bung the work cassette into the back of my head before I got off the train.

The shuttle was full of all the usual airport suspects: young couples in matching football shirts, him with a team holdall, her with copies of Hello! magazine and word search puzzle books; and businessmen in suits, carrying briefcases and laptops and looking in dire need of The Little Book of Calm.

I walked into the South Terminal, following the signs to the short-term car park, and took the elevator to the top floor. I was in work mode now;

everything else had been put to one side in another compartment.

The exposed roof level was about three-quarters full. The deafening sound of aircraft taking off blanketed all the other noises of cars and clattering luggage trolleys. I half closed my eyes to protect them from the glare of sunlight as I started walking down the aisles.

In a row of wagons, down the middle, I spotted what I'd been told to look for: a Toyota Previa people carrier, dark blue with tinted windows.

Maybe the Firm had found a use for the ones brought back from Syria after all; it wasn't as if Hertz would have been too happy to have them back.

I went to the rear of the row of vehicles and started to follow the line of cars toward it.

Since the change of government in 1997, every department seemed to be using people carriers. I didn't know if it was policy or just that Tony Blair used one, but they were a great improvement--much more room for a briefing, instead of sitting hunched up in the back of a sedan with your knees around your head. Besides, they were easy to find in a hurry.

As I got closer I spotted a driver in the front seat, filling up the right hand side of the cab area, reading the Evening Standard and looking uncomfortable in his collar and tie. None of the windows was open. The size of his head and his flat-top haircut made it look as if it should have been sticking out of the turret of a Panzer.

I approached casually from the rear, checking the number plate. I couldn't exactly remember the full registration but I knew that it would be a P. The thing I was looking for was the VDM, and sure enough, above the Toyota sign, on the bottom left side of the tail, was the small chrome outline of a fish, the trademark of heavy-duty Christians. This was the one; I went up to the sliding door on the side and waited, listening to the engine purr.

The door opened out a few inches, then slid back to reveal the two rows of passenger seats. I looked inside.

I hadn't seen Colonel Lynn for nearly a year, but he hadn't changed much. He hadn't lost any more hair, which I was sure he was happy about.

His clothes were the same as always, mustard-colored corduroy trousers, a sports jacket with well-worn leather elbows, and what looked like the same Viyella shirt he'd been wearing the last time we'd met, just a bit more frayed around the collar.

I climbed in and slid the door closed behind me. I could feel the air conditioning working overtime as I took my seat next to him and we shook hands. Lynn had that fresh-from-the-shower officer's smell about him; maybe he'd taken in a quick game of squash at the Guards' barracks in Chelsea before coming to the meeting. Between his feet was a dark blue nylon day sack which I recognized. It was my quick-move kit.

There was somebody else in there, in the rear row of seats, whom I also recognized. I turned and nodded politely at her. She returned the gesture, refolding her copy of the Daily Telegraph. It was only the second time that I'd met Elizabeth Bamber in person. Last time hadn't gone too well; she was on the selection board that refused me permanent cadre. It seemed that our cultural differences didn't endear us to each other during the interview.

Permanent cadre are Ks deniable operators on a salaried retainer not freelancers like me, called on to carry out shit jobs that no one else wants. The pay I got was 210 a day for ops, 160 for training days. I wasn't too sure what the retainer was, but I knew that, like all other payments, it would be handed over in a brown envelope with no tax or national insurance to pay. It was a bit like casual labor, which made me feel used and fucked over, but I liked the money what there was of it. In any case, it was the only line of work I'd ever known, and I was more afraid of what I would become without it.

I didn't know exactly what Elizabeth did, or for whom; all I knew was that she was one of those women who, if they weren't working for the Intelligence Service, would probably own a stable full of racehorses. She probably did anyway. She had that sort of broken-veined, no-nonsense, out-in-the-fresh-air look about her. She was medium height and in her late forties or at least looked it, especially with her shoulder-length hair, which was 60 percent gray, with a center parting and a little fringe, though I doubted she gave much of a fuck about it. In fact, having hair was probably a bit of an inconvenience for someone like her, because it took valuable time to comb the stuff.

She was wearing a very smart, sensible, gray two-piece that looked as if it had cost a fortune; it would have been economical in the long run, however, because she probably wore it every third day, alternating it with the two other equally expensive outfits she bought every year in the Harvey Nichols sale. Under her jacket was a blouse with a long scarf attached that was tied into a bow. The smart but practical look was complemented by an almost total lack of makeup it probably took too long in the morning to put it on, and she couldn't be bothered with that: she had a country to protect.

I made a half turn back toward Lynn so that I had to move only my head to see each of them. There was silence for about half a minute, broken by the rustling of a newspaper in the front. I glanced to my left and saw the driver's huge neck sitting on a very wide back and slightly hanging over his collar. I could see part of his face in the rearview mirror; his pale skin and near-Slavic looks gave the game away: he was a Serb, no doubt promised passports for his entire family if he spied for us during the Bosnian war. This guy would now be more loyal to the U.K. than most Brits, myself included.

Still we just sat there. Elizabeth was looking at me; I was looking at her. Come on, I thought, let's get on with it. It always felt as if they were toying with me.

It was Lynn who kicked off.

"We haven't seen you for a long time, Nick. How's life?"

As if he cared.

"No complaints. How long am I going to be away?"

"It will depend on how quickly you can get the task done. Listen to what Elizabeth has to say."

Elizabeth was primed, ready to go; she didn't even have notes. She levelled her gaze on me, and said, "Sarah Greenwood." It was delivered more as a question than a statement, and her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she were expecting an answer.

My reaction when I heard the name surprised me. I felt as if I'd just been told I had a fatal disease. My hard drive was spinning. Was she dead? Had she fucked up? Had she got me in trouble? Had she been lifted? I wasn't going to show these people anything more than I had to; I tried to remain casual and unconcerned, but all I really wanted to do was ask, "Is she OK?"

She said, "You know her, I believe?"

"Of course I know her by that name anyway." I didn't say how I knew her name, or what jobs I'd done with her. I didn't know how much Elizabeth knew, so I just played it straight, which is always the best thing to do.

In my experience, the less you say, the less drama you get yourself into.

It's good having two ears, but even better to have just one mouth.

"Well, it seems that she has disappeared and of her own accord."

I looked at her, waiting for the follow-on, but she let it hang. I didn't exactly know what she was getting at, yet she was looking at me as if I should know.

Lynn saw the problem.

"Let me explain, Nick."

As I turned my head toward Lynn, I caught him just finishing eye contact with Elizabeth. He was playing the peacemaker here.

He said, "Two years ago, Sarah Greenwood was posted to the Washington desk. You are aware of that?"

Of course I was. I always tried to keep tabs on where she was and how she was getting on, though I never kidded myself that the interest was mutual.

I'd half hoped that she'd make an appearance during my debrief over last year's fuckup in the States, but she didn't. I realized he was still waiting for an answer.

"No, not really."

There was a pause as Lynn glanced again at Elizabeth. It looked as if he needed the nod to continue; he must have got it, because he said, "Sarah has been U.K. liaison with the Counterterrorism Center, a new intelligence cell set up by the CIA to provide warnings against potential terrorist attacks. It's a central clearinghouse, if you like, for intelligence on terrorism worldwide. Here is the problem. As Elizabeth has already said, Sarah has disappeared we know she's still on the U.S. mainland, but we don't know where or why she has gone. We fear that her reliability and judgment are, how shall I say it, in doubt."

I couldn't help a smile. That was the standard ruck-off when what they were really saying was: "We don't like you anymore. You have done something wrong and you are no longer one of us."

Now it was time for Elizabeth to join in. She said, "Let's just say, since her posting in Washington she has been engaging in too many initiatives of her own."

Still looking at Lynn, I smiled again.

"Oh, I see too many initiatives."

I gave her word the full five syllables.

I hated it when they beat around the bush. Why didn't they just get on with it and tell me what the fuck was happening and what they wanted me to do about it? Before I could get an answer we were interrupted by the arrival of some punters.

"Oil You're not on holiday now; give a hand with these sodding bags!"

"All right, don't get out yer bleedin' pram!"

Everything stopped as we all looked over to the driver's side of the wagon. I couldn't see Lynn's face, but Elizabeth's registered disgust. Two couples were standing by a Ford Escort XR3i. While we'd been waffling away they'd turned up, opened the trunk and were loading their luggage.

One young couple, both in their mid-twenties, had come to pick up the other one. The girl back from holiday was wearing white cut-down jeans with half her ass hanging out to show us how brown she was, but the effect was spoiled a bit by all the exposed skin being goose bumped, what with this being Gatwick rather than Tenerife. Just in case we didn't get the message that she'd been away, her bottled blond hair was in beads where it had been braided by a beach hustler.

Our man in the driving seat was keeping an eye on them continuously, still with the paper up, still on the same page, the skin of his massive neck hanging over his collar even more as he looked right in his wing mirror checking everything out. These boys had to be jacks of all trades, offensive and defensive drivers, as well as bodyguards to protect their "principals" and great joke-tellers to entertain them. Maybe that was why the Serb worked for Elizabeth. She wasn't the sort of person who understood jokes, and judging by the Serb's expression as he tried to follow the estuary English outside, he wasn't up to speed on banter either. I just hoped he wasn't learning his English from these two in the wagon people would think that Prince Charles had been hitting the gym.

The entertainment was over. We all turned back to our original positions and Elizabeth carried on, physically affected by what she had just seen. Her breed found such people a terrible stain on their ordered lives.

"We are concerned that there might be a conflict about the ethics of her employment."

I tried not to laugh.

"Ethics? That's not Sarah. She's got ethics filed under "Things to worry about when I'm dead."" I risked a chuckle, but either Elizabeth didn't understand, or she got the joke and didn't like it.

The atmosphere felt so frosty I wondered if the Serb had adjusted the air conditioning. I was slowly welcoming myself out of this wagon.

Elizabeth continued as if I still hadn't spoken.

"We feel that this could expose current operations and put operators' lives in very real danger."

That stopped me smiling.

"How do you know Sarah might be putting operations at risk?"

"That," she said, "you don't need to know." I could see she'd enjoyed saying that.

"However, let me give you an example of the problem we face. The information that Sarah Greenwood retrieved from Syria I understand that you were part of that operation? that material delivered to us was in fact incorrect. It would appear that she quite deliberately distorted information she knew was important to us and the Americans."

So they had wanted what was on the computers after all. And, as usual, I had been one of their mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed on shit.

She was on a roll now.

"It was most unfortunate that the Source was killed--after all, that was your task: to bring him back. We still don't know what intelligence the Syrian operation would have revealed-because you destroyed the computers on site, I believe."

She made it sound as if I'd done all that on some kind of whim. I let her carry on, but inwardly I was ready to punch her lights out.

"The Americans were not pleased with our efforts, and I have to say, it was hardly one of our finest hours."

I wasn't going to let her rev me up even more. For years we'd done jobs for the U.S. that Congress would never sanction, or that were against the 1974 executive order prohibiting U.S. involvement in assassination.

The job had been false-flagged as an Israeli operation because the

U.S.

could not be seen to be screaming into Syria and kidnapping an international financier, even if he did happen to be the right-hand man of the world's most prolific terrorist. However, by making it look like a joint operation between the Israeli military and Mossad, everyone was a winner:

America would get the Source, the U.K. would have the satisfaction of doing a difficult job well and Israel would reap all the kudos. Not that they knew about it when it was happening--they never did--but they would still take all the credit.

I thought back to Syria and Sarah's frantic work on the laptop, and the fact that she had killed the Source. Sarah had certainly sounded convincing during the debrief, and after that I didn't even think about it, it was finished.

Whatever had happened since then didn't worry me either; it wasn't going to change my life. Well, maybe it was now.

Elizabeth continued, "She could have caused a major change in foreign policy, and that, I must say, would have been most detrimental to the U.K."s and USs balance of payments and influence in the region ..."

She was talking crap. I bet the reason she was pissed off was because Clinton had recently signed a "lethal presidential order" against Bin Laden. He had authorized, in advance, an aggressive operation to arrest him if the opportunity arose, at the same time recognizing that some of those involved might be killed. In other words, Clinton had found a way around America's strict anti assassination rules, and the Firm would be done out of some work. I could see that Sarah fucking about wouldn't help matters.

I waited for the part Elizabeth had forgotten to emphasize. There are three things they like to give you at a briefing, when they eventually get around to saying what they really mean. One, the aim of the task; two, the reason why the task has to happen; and three, the incentive for the operator.

I saw her eyes move fractionally up and to the left. She was lying.

"... as well as putting operators at risk in the area. Which is, of course, our most important consideration." Not a bad incentive, I thought--even if she was talking bollocks--especially if it was me operating there.

"As to her motives, well, that's not for you to worry about."

I was starting to feel uneasy about all this. I turned to Lynn.

"If you were worried about this back then, why didn't you just give her a bung?"

From behind me Elizabeth said, "A bung? A bung?"

Lynn looked over my head and said, in the voice of a queen's counsel patiently explaining a blow job to a High Court judge, "Money. No, Nick, we didn't offer her a bung. You know as well as I do that the service never bribes or pays anyone off."

I couldn't believe he'd said that and I somehow managed to keep a straight face. Amazingly, so did he. They look after their own in the Intelligence Service. Even if the IG's been given the sack for gross misconduct, whether it's for being a pedophile and getting blackmailed for it, or for just screwing up the job, he goes into a feeder system where he gets work, and that does two things--it keeps tabs on him, but it also keeps him sweet, and, more importantly, quiet. That's what a bung is all about:

keeping the house in order.

I wished they would give me one. Only a few months earlier I'd been escorting an IG called Clive to a service apartment in London. These apartments are paid for, furnished and run by the Intelligence Service.

Nobody lives in them; they're used for meetings, briefings and debriefings, and as safe houses.

Clive had had a bit of a drama with Gordievsky, the Russian dissident who'd years ago defected to the West with a headful of secrets. The former KGB chief was briefing the Intelligence Service at one of the training establishments near the Solent on the south coast. Clive and two others refused to go to the presentation, on the grounds that Gordievsky was a traitor, and it didn't matter which side he came from. I happened to believe they were right, but they still got cut away. After all, it was very embarrassing for Her Majesty's government to have its people calling an inbound defector a scumbag. Two went quietly with a payoff and jobs supplied by the Good Lads' Club the City. Clive, however, refused to go. The best way, it seemed to the service, was to offer him a bigger wad than the other two. If that was refused, then he could have as much pain as money can buy.

I persuaded him into a flat in Cambridge Street, Pimlico, and listened as they offered him 200 grand to shut up and fuck off to the City. Clive picked up the money, ripped it out of its plastic bank wallets, opened the window and scattered it like confetti. As the hundreds of notes fluttered down onto the corner pub on Cambridge Street, the punters must have thought Christmas had been brought forward to June.

"You want to fuck me off?" Clive said.

"Then it's going to cost you a fucking sight more than this."

I thought it was great and wanted to join the pub crowd fighting for fifty-pound notes. To my mind the boy had done good; nobody likes a traitor, no matter what side you think you're on. I really hoped Sarah wasn't one, because I liked her. Actually, I liked her a lot.

I asked Elizabeth, "And you're sure that she hasn't been lifted?"

She looked at Lynn.

"Lifted?"

It was a bit like being at Wimbledon, sitting between these two. Lynn had to interrupt again because Elizabeth seemed about as switched on to real life as Mickey Mouse.

I asked, "So what do you want me to do about it?"

Elizabeth kept it very simple.

"Find her."

I waited for the rest of the sentence. There was nothing. It was the most succinct aim I'd ever been given.

"Do you know where she could be? I need a start point."

She thought for a while.

"You will start in Washington. Her apartment, I think, would be best, don't you?"

Yes, I didn't disagree with that. But I had another question: "Why don't you get the Americans to help you? They'd have the resources to track her down much faster."

She sighed.

"As I thought I was making clear to you, this matter needs to be handled with the least possible amount of fuss, and speedily." She looked at Lynn. He cleared his throat and turned to face me.

"We don't really want to involve any American departments yet. Not even our embassy staff are aware of the situation. As you might imagine, it's somewhat embarrassing to have one of our own IGs missing in the host country.

Especially with Netanyahu and Arafat in the U.S. for the Wye summit." He paused.

"If you fail to find her they will have to know, and they will have to take action. This is a very grave situation, Nick. It could cause us a lot of embarrassment."

I had been given the shortest aim ever, and now I'd also been told the clearest reason why. Lynn showed the worry on his face.

"We need to find her quickly. No one must know. I emphasize, no one."

I hated it when these people used the word "we." They're in the shit, and all of a sudden it's "we." If the job went wrong it would have no father but me.

I calmed down.

"That's why you want a K it's a deniable op?"

He nodded.

Why me? I said, "Isn't this a job for the security cell? They're used to investigations. This isn't my sort of work."

"This isn't something that needs to go any farther within the service."

There was irritation in Elizabeth's voice.

"I particularly wanted you for the job, Mr. Stone, as I understand you know Sarah better than most."

I looked at her, still trying not to show any emotion. She'd raised a knowing eyebrow as she said it. Shit. I tried to look puzzled.

"I know her, if that's what you mean, and I've worked with her, but that's about it."

She tilted her head slightly to one side. She knew I was lying.

"Really?

I was informed that the relationship between you was somewhat cozier.

In fact I was told that the reason for your divorce after leaving the military was due entirely to your relationship with Sarah Greenwood. Am I mistaken?"

She wasn't, and I now understood even more. They had chosen me because they thought I knew her well enough to have a chance of finding her. They were firefighting, and they were using me as Red Adair. Fuck 'em, let them sort their own shit out. I might be pissed off, but I wasn't stupid. It was excuse time.

"It's not going to work," I said.

"The U.S. is a big place, and what am I going to do on my own? I haven't seen her for ages and we weren't that close. What can I do? What's the use of even getting on a flight?"

Lynn bent down to pick up my quick-move kit.

"You will be going on the flight. You will start an investigation to find her. If not, I'm afraid you will find yourself in jail."

I felt like saying, "Come off it, that's the sort of line I use myself when I'm threatening people. You can do better than that." But I had learned the hard way to keep my mouth shut, and it was just as well I did. Lynn had my day sack on his knees now.

"Credit us with a little intelligence, Nick. Do you really think we don't know the full events of last year?"

My stomach lurched and I knew my cheeks were starting to burn. I tried to remain calm, waiting to hear what he had to say.

"Nick, your version of events leaves out a number of details, any of which will put you behind bars if we so choose. We haven't investigated the money you kept, or the unlawful killings you performed."

That sounded rich coming from a man who had sent me out routinely to "perform" unlawfully. But I knew that they could stitch me up if they wanted. It was par for the course; I'd even been part of the stitch-up sometimes.

I now knew how it felt.

There was an outside chance they were bluffing. I stared at him and waited to see what else he had to say. I soon wished I hadn't, because it gave Elizabeth another opening.

"Mr. Stone, let us consider your situation. What, for example, would happen to the child in your guardianship if you were imprisoned? Her life must be difficult enough as it is, I should have thought: new country, new school..."

How the fuck did they know all this? I thought I'd already been given my incentive, but obviously not. They didn't come any less subtle than this. I had to clench my fists to control myself. I felt like kicking the shit out of both of them. They knew it, and maybe that was why Godzilla was in the driver's seat. It's always unwise to fuck with a man who has a neck bigger than your own head, especially if he probably has enough weaponry in the foot well to shoot down a jumbo jet. I took a deep breath, accepted I was in the shit and let it out again.

Elizabeth carried on as Lynn opened my day sack

"Having found her, report back where she is and what she's doing. Then await further instructions."

I turned back to Lynn. I knew she had finished and he would now give me the details I needed. I could hear the newspaper being unfolded. She was probably checking which of her horses were running tomorrow. I tried to keep my breathing under control. I felt angry and helpless, my two least favorite emotions.

Lynn was unloading the bag and handing me the items. My cover documentation, driver's license, passport and even an advert for books from a local paper, showed that, as from now, I lived in Derbyshire. There were three credit cards. These would have been serviced every month, and used so that I ended up with a normal bill like everyone else. The family who covered for me made sure of that; years ago we used to keep all this stuff with us all the time, but there were too many fuckups, with people getting corrupt and using the credit cards to pay for new cars and silk underwear for their mistresses. An audit a few years earlier had unearthed two K operators who had never even existed, and somebody somewhere was drawing off the money.

Lynn said, "There's the photography kit to Mac anything down to us."

I Xhad a quick look inside. From the way that Lynn said it, I knew he'd just got the briefing on this kit, and it sounded all exciting and sexy. I nodded.

"Great, thanks."

"Here are your flight details and here are your tickets." As he got them out of the bag he checked the details and said, "Oh, so you're Nick Snell now?"

"Yep, that's me." It had been for quite a while now, ever since I became operational again after ... well, after what I'd thought I'd got away with.

Then he produced two flash cards from envelopes and handed them to me.

"Your codes. Do you want to check them?"

"Of course." He passed the bag to me. I took out the Psion 3C personal organizer and turned it on. I'd been trying to get the new 5 Series out of the service, but unless the funds were for building squash courts, it was like trying to get blood from a stone. All the Ks would have to put up with the 3Cs they'd bought two years ago--and the thing I had was one of the early ones, which didn't even have the backlit display. The service's attitude to kit was the same as that of a thrifty mother who buys you a school uniform several sizes too big, only in reverse.

I put the cards into both of the ports. It would be no good getting on the ground and finding that these things didn't work. I opened up each one in turn and checked the screen. One had just a series of five number sequences;

I closed that down and took it out. The other had rows of words with groups of numbers next to each word. All was in order.

"The contact number is ..." Lynn started to reel off a London number.

The Psion held the names and addresses of everyone from the bank manager to the local pizza shop, as you would have as part of your cover. I hit the data icon, and tapped the telephone number straight in, adding, as I always did, the address "Kay's sweet shop," I could sense Elizabeth's eyes burning into the back of my head and I turned around. She was looking disapprovingly at me over the top of her paper, clearly put out that I was entering her contact number in the 3C. But there was no way I'd remember it that quickly; I'd need to go away and look at it, and once I had it in my head I'd wipe it off. I'd never been clever enough to remember strings of telephone numbers or map coordinates as they were given to me.

Lynn carried on with the details.

"Once in D.C." make contact with Michael Warner ." He gave me a contact number, which I also tapped in.

"He's a good man, used to work in communications, but had a car accident and needed to have steel plates in his head."

I closed down the Psion.

"What's he do now?"

Elizabeth had finished with the racing section and turned to the share prices. The driver still hadn't turned a page. Either he was learning the recipe of the day by heart or he'd gone into a trance.

Lynn said, "He's Sarah's PA. He'll let you into her apartment."

I nodded.

"What's the cover story?"

Lynn looked impatiently at his watch; maybe he had another squash game to get to.

"He knows nothing, apart from the fact that London needs to check out her security while she's away on business. It's time for her PV review."

Personal vetting is carried out every few years to make sure you aren't becoming a target for blackmail, or sleeping with the Chinese defense attache--unless you've been asked to by Her Majesty's government--or that you, your mother, or your great aunt haven't chucked in your lot with the Monster Raving Loony Party. Not that that would have meant that much in the past. Once you were "in" as an IG things seemed to flow along without much in the way of monitoring, unless you were at the lower end of the food chain my end where it was a completely different story.

"He is a bit strange at times; you may have to be patient." Lynn started to smile.

"He had to leave the com ms cell because his steel plate picked up certain frequencies and he used to get terrible head pain. He's good at his job, though." The smile faded as he added pointedly, "And more important, he's loyal."

I shrugged.

"Fine." Chances were that Metal Mickey was loyal because he couldn't get a job anywhere else, apart from as a relay station for Cellnet.

I was packing everything back into the bag. I couldn't wait to get into the fresh air; I was fed up with being scrutinized and fucked over by these people. But Lynn hadn't finished. He had one more item, which he shoved right under my nose. It was a sheet of white paper, requiring a signature for the codes. I used Lynn's pen to scribble mine and handed it back. No matter what happens, you've still got to sign for every single thing. Everyone needs to cover their ass.

I pushed open the door and slid it back, picking up the day sack When my feet were on the concrete I turned and said, "What if I can't find her?"

Elizabeth lowered the paper and gave me the sort of look she'd given our friends in the Ford Escort.

Lynn glanced at Elizabeth, then back at me.

"Get yourself a good barrister."

I picked up the day sack turned away and started to walk toward the elevator. I heard the door slide closed, and moments later the Previa moved off.

I walked toward the elevator trying not to get myself into a rage. I didn't know what had brought it back on--the fact that the Firm knew about both Sarah and Kelly, or the fact that I'd been stupid enough to think they didn't. I tried to calm down by telling myself that, in their shoes, I would have done exactly the same, would have used it as a lever to make me do the job. It was a fair one, but that didn't make me any happier about being on the receiving end.

I got to the elevator and jabbed the button. I looked at the red digital display above the door. Nothing was moving. An elderly couple arrived, having an argument about the way their bags were stacked on the trolley.

We all waited.

The elevator stopped at every floor but ours. I stabbed at the button six times in rapid succession and the elderly couple shut up and moved to the other side of their trolley to keep out of my way.

Maybe it was Sarah I was pissed off with, or maybe I was just pissed off with myself for letting her under my guard. Elizabeth was spot on, she had been responsible for my divorce.

The wait for the elevator was starting to turn into a joke. More people had arrived with trolleys and were milling about. I took the stairs. Two levels down, I followed the signs to departures across the skywalk, fighting my way against a stream of pedestrian traffic with suntans. Several charter flights must have come in at once.

I couldn't get the briefing out of my mind. How was it that they knew everything about last year's fuckup? I'd kept my mouth shut all along and let them have just the barest of facts.

There was no way I was going to let them take the money off me. Did they even know about it? I had a brain wave and started to feel better. They couldn't know everything. If so, they would know that I had enough evidence to put a few of the fuckers behind bars forever, and if they knew that, they wouldn't risk threatening me. Then I felt pissed off again: they could do what they wanted, because they knew about Kelly. I'd seen grown men's emotions getting fucked over and used against them when it came to their kids, but I'd never thought it would happen to me. I cut all the conjecture from my mind and started working.

Departures was the normal mayhem people trying to steer trolleys that had other ideas and parents chasing runaway two-year-olds. A gaggle of pubescent schoolkids with tin grins were on a trip somewhere, and an American kids' orchestra was sitting on its trombone and bassoon cases, bored with waiting to check in.

I went to the cash point then to the bureau de change. Next priority was to find myself some plausible hand luggage. I bought myself a leather holdall, threw in my quick-move day sack and headed for the pharmacy for washing and shaving stuff. After that I hit a clothes shop for a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts and spare underwear.

I checked in at the American Airlines business-class desk and fast tracked air side into the lounge, where I got straight on my mobile to contact my "family." They were good people, James and Rosemary. They had loved me like a son since I boarded with them years ago, or that was the cover story, anyway. James always seemed like a father should be; he was certainly the sort of man who would have taken his eight-year-old around HMS Belfast. Both civil servants who had taken early retirement, they had never had any children because of their careers, and were still doing their bit for Queen and country. I even had a bedroom they called it "Nick's room" in the loft. If all your documentation shows that's where you live, you must have a room, surely?

These were the people who would both confirm my cover story and also be part of it. I visited them whenever I could, especially before an op, with the result that my cover got stronger as time passed. They knew nothing about the ops and didn't want to; we would just talk about what was going on at the social club, and what to do with greenfly on the roses.

James wasn't the best gardener in the world, but this sort of detail gives substance to a cover. While I was in the area I would use my credit cards at one or two local shops, collect any mail and leave. It was a pain to do, but details count.

"Hello, James, it's Nick here. Quick change of plan. I'm going for a holiday in America." I might have changed names, but not James and Rosemary. They just got used to the change of details; after all, I was their third "son" since retirement.

"Any idea how long for?"

"A couple of weeks probably."

"All right, have a good holiday then, Nick. Be careful; it's a violent country."

"I'll do my best. See you when I get back. Say hello to Rosemary for me."

"Of course, see you soon. Oh, Nick ..."

"Yes?"

"Local council elections. It was a Lib Dem who got in."

"OK, Lib Dem. Male or female?"

"Male, Felix something. His ticket was to stop the planning permission for the super store."

"Oh, OK. Will he block it?"

"Don't be stupid. And talking of blockages, the problem with the septic tank got sorted out yesterday."

"OK, cheers. I tell you what, I'm glad your shit is sorted out there, because I'm up to my neck in it here." We were both still laughing as I pressed "end" and watched the businessmen frantically bent over their laptops.

There was nothing else to do now but wait for my flight, my head slowly filling up with Sarah. I didn't want to do this job. She'd fucked me up, but I still missed her. I could see that if what I was being told was right, she definitely needed to be stopped; it was just that I didn't want to be the one to do it.

I settled into my business-class seat, listening first to the screams and banter of the zit-faced, hormonal boys and girls from the band twenty rows behind me, then to a very smooth, west coast American voice saying how wonderful it was for the flight crew and cabin staff to be able to serve us today.

They filled us with drink and a meal of chicken covered in stuff, and it was only then that I closed my eyes and started to think seriously about how I was going to find Sarah.

Even in the U.K." a quarter of a million people go missing each year, over 16,000 of them permanently--not, for the most part, because they've been abducted, but out of deliberate choice. If you go about it the right way it's a very simple thing to do. Sarah knew how to do that; it was part of her job. Finding a missing person in the U.K. was bad enough, but the sheer size of the U.S.A." and the fact that I couldn't turn to anyone for help, meant it was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack, in a field full of haystacks, in a country full of fields.

Whatever was going on in her head, like most people in this business, Sarah would have her security blanket tucked away. Part of that would be another identity. I had two backup IDs, in case one was discovered.

Everybody finds their own way to build one up and, more especially, hide it from the Firm. If you ever had to do a runner from them, you'd need that head start, and if Sarah had it in mind to disappear it would have been well planned. She wasn't the sort of person to do anything at half cock.

Then again, nor was 1.1 thought about my new mate, Nicholas Davidson, who I'd bumped into in Australia the year before. He was a bit

younger than me, and had the same Christian name, which is always a good start, as it helps when reacting to a new ID. But more importantly, both Nick and Davidson are very common names.

I found him in a gay bar in Sydney. It's usually the best place for what I had in mind, whatever country you're in. Nicholas, I soon learned, had been living and working in Australia for six years; he had a good job behind the bar and a partner with whom he shared a house; most important of all, he had no intention of going back to the U.K. Pointing out of the window, he said, "Look at the weather. Look at the people. Look at the lifestyle. What do I want to go back for?" I got to know him over two or three weeks; I'd pop in there a couple of times a week, when I knew it was his shift, and we'd have a chat. I met other gay men there, but they didn't have what Nicholas had. He was the one for me.

When I got back to the U.K." I opened up an accommodation address in his name. Then I went to the town hall and got Nicholas registered on the electoral roll for the area of the address and applied for a duplicate of his driver's license. It arrived from the DVLC three weeks later.

During that time I also went to the Registry of Births and Deaths at St. Catherine's House in London and obtained a copy of his birth certificate.

He hadn't liked to talk to me about his past, and I could never get anything more out of him than his birthday and where he was born, and trying to dig any deeper would have aroused suspicion. Besides, his partner, Brian, was getting pissed off with me sniffing around. It took a couple of hours of scouring the registers between 1960 and 1961 before I found him.

I went to the police and reported that my passport had been stolen.

They gave me a crime number, which I put on my application form for a replacement. Added to a copy of the birth certificate, it worked: Nick Davidson the Second was soon the proud owner of a brand-new ten-year passport.

I needed to go farther. To have an authentic ID you have to have credit cards. Over the next few months I signed up with several book and record clubs; I even bought a hideous-looking Worcester porcelain figurine out of a Sunday supplement, paying with a postal order. In return, I got bills and receipts, all issued to the accommodation address.

Next I wrote to two or three of the high-street banks and asked them a string of questions that made it sound as if I were a big-time investor. I received very grovelling letters in reply, on the bank's letterhead, and written to my address. Then all I did was walk into a building society, play very stupid and say I would like to open a bank account, please. As long as you have documentation with your address on, they don't seem to care.

I put a few quid in the new account and let it tick over. After a few weeks I got some standing orders up and running with the book clubs, and at last I was ready to apply for a credit card. As long as you're on the electoral register, have a bank account and no bad credit history, the card is yours.

And once you have one card, all the other banks and finance houses will fall over themselves to make sure you take theirs as well. Fortunately, it appeared that Nick One had left no unpaid bills behind when he'd left. If he had it would have been back to the drawing board.

I was thinking about going one step farther and getting myself a National Insurance number, but really there was no point. I had money and I had a way out, and anyway, you can just go down to the local DSS and say you're starting work the next Monday. They'll give you an emergency number on the spot, which will last you for years. If that doesn't work, you can always just make one up; the system's so inefficient it takes forever for them to find out what's going on.

As soon as I had my passport and cards up and running, I used them for a trip to confirm they worked. After that, I carried on using them to keep the cards active and to get the passport stamped with a few entries and exits.

Just as I would do if I needed to disappear, Sarah would be leaving behind everything she knew. She wouldn't be contacting family or friends, she would completely bin all the little day-to-day experiences that made up her life, all the little eccentricities that would give her away.

I started to think back over what she'd told me of her past because, without any outside help, that was the only place I had to go. I really knew very little, apart from the fact that she'd had a boyfriend a while ago, but binned him after finding out he was also seeing another woman. The story went that he lost a finger during the row with her; and that was the sum total in that department. Maybe metal-headed Mickey Warner could help, if I made it sound like a PV question. In fact, there would be plenty of questions for him to answer.

As for the family and her upbringing, she'd never told me much. All I knew was that, though we might have come from different ends of the social spectrum, we seemed to share the same emotional background. Neither set of parents had given a monkey's. She was fucked off to school when she was just nine, and me, well, I was just fucked off. Her family life was a desert, and it would hold no clues. The more I thought about it, the smaller the needle became and the larger the haystack.

What it boiled down to was that if she wanted to disappear she could-nobody was going to find her. I could be on her trail for months and still not be getting any warmer. I racked my brains, trying to remember something, anything, that might help, some little clue she might have revealed at some point that would give me a lead.

I pressed the "call" button and ordered a couple of beers, partly to help me sleep, partly because, once I got to D.C." there would be no more alcohol.

For me, work and drink never mixed.

Maybe Josh could help. I could get hold of him when he returned from the U.K." and maybe he could access some databases and run some covert checks. I wondered whether I should tell him the truth, but decided against. It could land both of us in the shit.

The thought suddenly struck me that part of me was hoping I wouldn't find her. I felt depressed, but resolved to crack on and get it over and done with. I would go straight to her flat, meet my new mate Metal Mickey, and take it from there.

The beer turned up and I decided to veg out for the rest of the flight. As I watched a film my mind drifted to Kelly. She was probably sitting at the table with her grand ad drawing pictures and drinking tea and trying to pull her shirt out from her jeans every time her grandmother tucked it back in. I made a mental note to call her.

I took another swig of beer and tried my hardest to think of something else, but I couldn't get Sarah out of my mind.

In 1987, two years before the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the U.K. and U.S. were sending teams in-country to train Afghani rebels, the mujahedin.

The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan eight years earlier. Peasant villagers got their first experience of modern technology when they were pounded by Moscow's jets, tanks and helicopters. Three million were killed or maimed; six million others fled west into Iran or east into Pakistan.

Those that were left standing took on the Russians, living on stale bread and tea, sleeping on rocky mountainsides.

Eventually the mujahedin put out an international plea for help. The West responded with $6 billion worth of arms. Congress, however, would not give permission for the rebels to be armed with American Stinger ground-to-air missiles to take down the Russian gunships and ground attack aircraft, so our job was to train them in how to operate the Brit Blowpipe missiles instead. The CIA reasoned that if Congress was shown that the Afghans had a piss-poor ground-to-air missile capability which they certainly did with Blowpipe: you needed to be a brain surgeon or have two right hands to use the thing then they would eventually be allowed to have Stingers instead. They were right. We stayed and generally trained them how to fuck the Russians over.

Not that I knew it at the time I was more concerned about not losing a leg on the hundreds of thousands of antipersonnel mines the Russians had dropped but in Saudi Arabia, a few years before, a young civil engineering graduate called Osama Bin Laden had also responded to the rebels' plea for help, packing himself and several of his family's bulldozers off to central Asia. An Islamic radical from an influential and enormously wealthy family, whose construction company had been involved in rebuilding the holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, Bin Laden was inspired by what he saw as the plight of Muslims in a medieval society besieged by a twentieth-century superpower.

At first his work was political. He was one of the Saudi benefactors who spent millions supporting the Afghan guerrillas. He recruited thousands of Arab fighters in the Gulf, paid for their passage to Afghanistan and set up the main guerrilla camp to train them. Then he must have gone a bit loopy. With all that money he decided to take part in the fighting himself. I never saw him, but every other word from the mujahedin would be on the subject of how great he was. They loved him, and so did the West at that time. He sounded like a good lad, taking care of widows and orphans by creating charities to support them and their families, all that sort of stuff.

Our team had just finished a six-month tour in the mountains north of Kabul and was cleaning up back in the U.K.. before a two-week holiday when we got called to London for orders. It looked as if we were going back to visit our new best mates a bit quicker than we thought. Aboard the helicopter, the rumor going around was that we were needed to protect a civil servant during meets with the mujahedin. We groaned at the thought of having to nanny a sixty-year-old Foreign Office pen-pusher while he did an on-site audit of arms expenditure. Colin had been picked to be with the principal at all times when on the ground, while the rest of us would provide protection from a distance.

"Fuck that," said Colin.

"It'll be like getting stuck in an episode of Yes, Minister." He promptly wriggled out of it and handed the job over to me.

Colin, Finbar, Simon and I were part of the team. We were sitting in a briefing room in a 1960s office block on the Borough High Street, just south of London Bridge, drinking tea from a machine and gob bing off as we waited for others to arrive. A woman we didn't recognize entered the room, and all four of us, as well as a few of the advisers and briefing personnel, did a double take. She was stunning, her body hardly disguised by a short black skirt and jacket. She nodded to people she knew and sat down, seemingly oblivious to the many pairs of male eyes burning into her back.

Colin would fuck the crack of dawn if he had the chance. He couldn't keep his eyes off her. She took off her jacket, and the sleeveless top beneath showed off her shoulders. They had definition: she trained. I could sense Colin getting even more excited.

He leaned over and whispered to Finbar, "I need a lawyer."

"Why's that, wee mon?" Finbar always called him that, which was strange, as the Irishman was about a foot smaller than Colin.

"I'm getting a divorce."

We were all intrigued to know what she was bringing to the party; it came as a bit of a shock when she was introduced as the civil servant we were going to protect. I had to smile. I knew what was coming next and, right on cue, Colin leaned toward me.

"Nick ..."

I ignored him, making him suffer a bit more.

"Nick ..."

I turned and gave him a big smile.

"I'll take my job back now, mate."

I slowly shook my head.

Listening intently to the briefing officer, she crossed her legs, and the rustle of the material was just about the most wonderful sound I'd ever heard. I was sure we were all paying more attention to that than to the briefing. She was now comfortable in her seat and her skirt had ridden up enough to show the darker tops of her tights. It was impossible to tell if she was doing it on purpose. She didn't turn her head or glance around to check for effect.

When she stood up to speak, her voice was low and very confident. If the Intelligence Service didn't work out for her, she could always find a job on a 1-900 number.

Sarah explained that what she wanted to do was lay her hands on and get back to the West an airworthy, Russian-built Hind ground-attack helicopter, the true capabilities of which, she said, were still not understood.

Better still, she added, she'd like a pair. She was the one who was going to strike the deal with the Afghans, and it was a simple case of "We'll scratch your back by carrying on showing you how to fuck the Russians, you scratch ours with a helicopter or two."

From day one of the two months that we were moving in and out of Pakistan to the rebels' mountain hideouts, she was a consummate professional to work with. She made life so much easier for us sometimes on jobs like this we could spend just as much time massaging the fear factor out of the poor fucker who had to make the meet as we would preparing for it ourselves. But she was different. Maybe she wasn't scared because she had just as much of a fiery temper as the truculent rebels. That often led to delays in negotiations more so than the fact that she was a woman.

But it was obvious to me that she had the knowledge, language and background to hold her own with these people, for whom we all had the greatest respect; after all, they were fighting a superpower, and winning.

I saw that Sarah had a love and understanding of this part of the world that she couldn't have hidden, even if she'd tried. On top of that, she was switched on and didn't flap when the meets got heated. She knew I was there, and that the other three were around somewhere, watching. If the shit had hit the fan, the Afghans wouldn't have known what had hit them unless the shit was Russian, in which case our orders were to bail out and leave the rebels to it.

We were on a shopping trip, but with a difference. Everyone had a weapon and everyone was at war not only with the Russians, but also with each other as they fought to gain control of the country. Sarah played one group off against another to get what she wanted. It went wrong only once, when two young men discovered what was going on and confronted her. I had to do a little confrontation of my own at that point, and make sure the bodies were never found.

Another time she lost her cool when the rebels told her they wanted to sell the Hind to her, not simply hand it over. They had screamed and shouted at each other and the meet had ended with her storming off the mountainside. We drove to the border in silence, while she sat and brooded about what had happened. At length she said, "Not a good one for me, Nick. What do you think I should write in my report?"

I thought for a moment.

"PMS?"

She laughed.

"Never mind, we'll just have to come back and try again soon, but not for the next five days." It was the first time I'd seen her really laugh. As we tried to make it back to Pakistan before one of the helicopters she was so keen to get hold of found us, she was giggling like a school kid

It turned into a ritual. After it happened for the third time I would just nod and say, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke." She'd laugh, and we would then just spin the shit until we got to the safety of Pakistan.

Later she had a report that PIRA (the Provisional IRA) were passing technical information to the mujahedin on how to make homemade explosives and timer units. London reckoned the Afghans would be paying PIRA back with buckets of their U.S.and U.K.-sourced weapons.

She looked concerned.

"What are we going to do about it, Nick? London wants me to find out who their contact is."

I cracked up.

"You already know them."

She looked puzzled.

"I do?"

"Colin, Finbar, Simon and me."

She was now totally confused.

"Think about it. Who has been fighting a terrorist war for years? We showed the Afghans what PIRA use, we showed them how to make the timer units. PIRA's stuff is easy to make, reliable and it works. It's the best improvized kit in the world. We even use it ourselves, so why not show our new best mates? That's our job, right: to help fuck up the bad boys."

The next evening in Pakistan was spent constructing a sit rep that took the piss out of the int collator who'd thought up this little PIRA gem, and she found it as funny as I did, which was all rather nice, because I was finding that I liked the way her nose twitched when something amused her and her face creased into a big, radiant smile.

It was strange that we got on so well, because in many ways we were chalk and cheese. I had joined the Army because I was too thick to do anything else. I'd seen the adverts that said I could be a helicopter pilot serving Queen and country, and an uncle of mine, who was an ex serviceman told me that girls loved a uniform. As far as I was concerned, all you had to do to get permanently tanned and laid was saunter down to the recruiting office. To a sixteen-year-old kid who thought that the world beyond my south London housing estate was just hearsay, it was no wonder the posters sucked me in. I couldn't wait to go to Cyprus wherever that was and fly my helicopter over beaches packed with girls who were just gagging for me to land and let them play with my joystick.

Strangely, however, that wasn't quite the way things turned out. I took the entry tests, but the Army seemed to take the view that somebody who could only just about do up his own boot laces without getting confused was not about to take sole charge of a multimillion-pound Chinook. So, the infantry it was, then.

Sarah, on the other hand, was smart. Private Benjamin she wasn't. Not that I knew much about her; ironically, she was just as good as I was at not giving anything away. No, I realized later, she was better. And to be honest that pissed me off. I wanted to know all about her strengths and weaknesses, her hopes and fears, her likes and dislikes, because armed with that information I could properly plan and carry out an attack on her expensive designer underwear. Since part of our cover while in Pakistan was that we were a couple and had to share the same hotel room much to Colin's fury I thought I might be in with a chance. At least, that was at the back of my mind at the start. I soon surprised myself by finding that, more than to get into her pants, I wanted to get inside her head. I realized I actually liked her. I liked her a lot, and I'd never felt that way about anyone before.

As time went by, however, I was making no progress. I could never get any sort of handle on who this woman really was. It was like playing a computer game and never getting past level one. It wasn't that she was aloof; she was a great mixer. She'd go out with the team, and even accepted dinner with me a couple of times. She had a way of making me feel like a puppy jumping around at her feet waiting for a doggie treat. I knew, though, that I had the dreamer's disease, and that nothing would happen between us. What the fuck would she want from someone like me, apart from my ability to rip people apart for her if they got too scary?

On that point I'd obviously acquitted myself all right, because Sarah was the one who suggested that I apply for a job with the service once I lefr the Regiment. Even now, after five years, I still didn't know if I should kiss her for that, or give her the good news with a two-pound ball hammer.

I drank more beer and tried to watch the TV screen in front of me, but really I couldn't be assed. I thought back again to the Afghanistan job. The United States and its allies gave tens of thousands of assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, millions of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of Stinger missiles to the mujahedin. By the time the war ended in 1989 the muj's stock of Stingers was far from exhausted, and the CIA soon had a multimillion-dollar reward operation going, in an attempt to get them back before they were sold to any terrorist group who fancied a couple to play with. As far as I knew, the offer still stood.

I turned onto my side, trying to get comfortable, and thought that maybe I should be going back to try and get some of that reward for myself.

It was about time I made some money. I didn't know where they were, but I knew an Afghan who'd got Sarah's Hinds for her, and he just might.

It's strange how things change. During that time Bin Laden was most certainly in the West's Good Lads club. Now he'd had the idea of blowing up things on the American mainland, he was public enemy number one. I wondered what sort of reward the U.S. had on his head.

The flight ended in Dulles airport, just outside of Washington, and I joined the long snake of people lining up for Immigration. It took about twenty minutes to shuffle to the desks, gradually zigzagging my way backward and forward between the ropes. It reminded me of lining up for a ride at Disneyland. The immigration personnel looked like policemen and behaved like bouncers, pushing and herding us into position.

My immigration official glared as if he were trying to spook me, maybe because he was bored. I just smiled like a dickhead tourist while he stamped the visa waiver and wearily invited me to enjoy my stay in the United States of America.

The automatic doors parted and I walked into the frenzy of the arrivals lounge. Drivers were holding up name cards, families were clutching flowers and teddy bears, and they were all looking hopefully at each face that came through the sliding doors. All I wanted was a big dose of caffeine.

I wandered over to Starbucks and got myself about a pint and a half of cappuccino. Tucking myself away in the corner, I got out the 3C and the mobile and switched them both on.

I found the number I wanted and waited an age for the mobile to get a signal. The new Bosch mobiles worked on both worldwide and U.S. frequencies;

there wasn't 100 percent coverage here yet, but it was getting better. They had completely changed the way we worked. Phones had been around for ages that could do the same job, but they weren't available commercially. On covert ops you can use only what you can buy at the Carphone Warehouse; if not, you'd stand out like dogs' bollocks. I hit the keys.

"Hellooo, Michael speaking." The voice was camp and highly pitched, more like a game-show host than the personal assistant of a member of the "other Foreign Office."

"My name's Nick Snell," I said.

"Oh, yes, I've been waiting to hear from you," he said, and it was a mixture of warmth, excitement and pleasure, as if I were a long-lost friend.

"How are you?"

I was a bit taken aback. We didn't know each other, and going by the sound of his voice I wouldn't even buy a secondhand washing machine from him, yet he was talking to me as if I were his best mate from way back.

"I'm fine," I said, feeling a smile spread across my face.

"How are you?"

He came back with, "I'm just Jim Dandy!" Then he tried to switch to serious mode.

"Now then, where do you want to meet me?"

All of a sudden I wondered if I was on a radio stitch-up show and started to laugh. I said, "I'll leave that to you. After all, it's your town, isn't it?"

"Oh, and what a town!" He clearly couldn't wait to share it with me.

There was a little pause, then he said, "I tell you what, I'll meet you at the Bread and Chocolate Bakery. It's a coffee shop on the corner of M and 23rd. They do fantastic mocha, and it's not far from the apartment. Now, do you know where M and 23rd is?"

I knew the area and I could read a map. I'd find it.

"I've got to pick a car up first--I'll be there in about two hours' time. Will that fit in with you?"

For reasons best known to himself, he came back with a mock-Texan drawl.

"Why, sure, Nick." He laughed.

"I'll be the beach ball with the blue shirt and the red tie; you won't be able to miss me."

I said, "I'm wearing jeans, a blue checked shirt and a blue bomber jacket."

"See you there. By the way, parking is an absolute bitch this time of day, so good luck to you. See you there, M and 23rd. Byeee!"

I hit the "end" button and shook my head. What the fuck was that all about?

I was only two blocks away when I got held up in slow-moving traffic.

With its tall buildings and narrow roads, the area around M and 23rd reminded me of the more upscale areas of New York. Even the weather was the same as on my visits to the Big Apple: cloudy, but warm. Trust Sarah to live around here, I thought, but in fact it made sense. It wasn't far from Massachusetts Avenue, which more or less bisects the city from northwest to southeast, and all the embassies, missions and consulates are in the area, mainly in the northwest section.

As I filtered forward I saw the problem. The junction ahead was sealed off by D.C. police bikers, and we were being rerouted to the right. As I made the turn, a fleet of black Lincolns with darkened windows screamed through the crossroads. At the rear of the convoy was a bunch of four wheel-drive Chevy escorts and two ambulances, just in case the principal cut his finger. It looked as if either Netanyahu or Arafat was already in town.

The grid system in D.C. works with the lettered streets running east west and the numbers north-south. I found the junction I wanted easily enough, but there was no way I could stop. The one-way circuit on M street had a mind of its own, and Metal Mickey was right, parking was a gang-fuck. The street was lined with cars that had a firm grip on their meters and weren't letting go for anyone; another three laps of the block and I finally found a Nissan pulling away from a space on M, just past the junction I wanted.

I locked up, fed the meter and walked. Bread and Chocolate turned out to be a small coffee shop on the street level of an office and apartment

building, just fifteen meters farther down on the left side of 23rd. There was another coffee shop opposite, attached to a grocery store, but this was the better of the two. The interior looked so clean I felt I should have scrubbed up before going in. Long glass display cases were filled with Danishes and a million different muffins and sandwiches, and on the wall behind them was a coffee selection menu that went on forever. Everything looked so perfect I wondered if people were allowed to buy anything and mess up the displays.

The tables were white marble, small and round, just big enough to seat three. I sat facing the glass shop front and ordered a mocha a small one after the mother lode at the airport. The place was about a quarter full, mostly with smartly dressed office workers talking shop. I nursed my caffeine for the ten minutes that remained before our RV Right on time, in he walked, and a beach ball he certainly was. He had skin that was so clear it was virtually see-through, and black hair that was slightly thinning on top, which he'd gelled and combed back to make it look thicker. On his cheerful, chubby face he had fashionably round, black-rimmed glasses, behind which a pair of clear blue eyes were looking twice their natural size because of the thickness of the lenses. He was wearing a shiny, gray, single-breasted suit, bright blue shirt and red tie, all set off nicely by a little burn-fluff goatee beard. He must have been about forty pounds overweight, but was tall with it, over six feet. His jacket had all three buttons done up and was straining to contain the load. He spotted me just as easily and came over, hand outstretched.

"Well, hellooo. You must be Nick."

I shook his hand, noticing his soft skin and immaculate, almost feminine, fingernails. We sat down and the waiter came over immediately maybe Metal Mickey was a regular. Pointing at my coffee, he looked up and smiled.

"I'll have one of those, please." The aroma of the mocha was no match for his aftershave.

The moment the waiter was out of earshot, he leaned forward, unnaturally close to me.

"Well then, all I've been told is to help you while Sarah's away." I was about to reply, but he was off again.

"I must say, I'm quite excited about it. I've never been involved with someone else's PV review before. Just my own, of course. Anyway, so here I am, all yours!" He finished in a grand gesture, with his hands in the air in mock surrender.

Grabbing my chance, I said, "Thanks, that certainly makes things a lot easier. Tell me, when was the last time you saw her? I'm not too sure how long she's been away."

"Oh, about three weeks ago. But what's new? She's here, there and everywhere, isn't she?"

The coffee came and Metal Mickey's head turned as he said thanks to the waiter. The light caught it just right and I could see the scarring where the plate had been inserted an area about three inches by two of slightly raised skin. I just hoped that no one on a nearby table answered their cellular phone, because he'd probably leap up and start doing the conga.

He picked up his coffee cup, got his podgy lips over the rim and sucked away at the froth. He put it down again with a big "Ah!" and smiled, then was straight back into it.

"Yes, three weeks ago was the last time. I don't worry much about her comings and goings. I just make sure things are running smoothly here." He hesitated, like a child who wants something from a parent and is trying to pluck up courage. I was almost expecting him to start playing with his fingers and shuffling his feet.

"I've been thinking, is her review because she's due to return to the U.K.? If so, it's just that I wondered ... would I have to go back, too? I mean, not that I wouldn't want that, but it's just..."

I caught his drift and cut in.

"I don't think she, or you, will be going home soon, Michael. Unless you want to." I decided not to hit him with any questions at the moment. He was too nervous, and would naturally be loyal to Sarah. Besides, I might as well get to grips with the apartment, then hit him with everything in one go.

There was visible relief in his face. I went on, in a more upbeat tone, "You have the keys for her apartment?"

"Sure do! Shall we go up there now?"

I nodded, and sucked down the rest of my coffee while he pulled some notes from a slim, tidy wallet to pay for the coffees. At the pay desk he carefully folded the receipt and tucked it away.

"Expenses," he sighed.

He carried on as we walked out onto 23rd.

"I don't know when she's coming back. Do you?" He held open the glass door for me.

I thought, Who's supposed to be asking the questions here?

"No, I'm afraid I don't. I'm just here to do the review." I thought I'd leave it at that.

I didn't know if he'd seen how a PV review was really carried out which wasn't like this--but he nodded as if he knew it was all part of the procedure.

"Did you manage to park near?"

"Just around the corner, on M."

"Well done, good boy!"

I started to go to the right, toward the car, thinking we were about to go for a drive.

"No, no, silly," he said, pointing the opposite way.

"She lives at the end of the block, on N."

It was strange; the one thing I didn't get from Lynn was Sarah's address.

Mind you, I didn't ask. It must have been shock at the thought of seeing her again.

As we walked the short distance along the narrow, tree-lined street to the next junction, I saw what he was pointing at. The apartment block was right on the corner of 23rd and N. Its jutting balconies and combination of red brick and white stone made it look like a game of Jenga played with Good & Plenty candy. I couldn't make up my mind whether that was how it had been designed, or if the builders had been drunk when they put it all together.

We carried on toward the junction and I decided to chance a question. I knew I'd resolved not to press him just yet, but this was one that I was very curious to have an answer to.

"Tell me about boyfriends," I said.

He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and disapproval, and sounded quite defensive.

"I don't think that has anything to do with this PV" He paused, then said, "But yes, as a matter of fact, I do ..."

"No, no, not you," I laughed.

"Sarah. Do you know of any men that she's been seeing?"

"Ohhh, Sarah. None at all. Well, not after what happened last time."

His tone just begged the question.

"Why, what happened?"

"Well, poor Sarah was in love with a guy from the real Foreign Office.

He was back in London, but he came here from time to time. They would disappear for a week or two, to the middle of nowhere. Not my sort of stamping ground, let me tell you."

I looked at him expecting to share a smile, but he was thinking of the next bit and had begun to look sad.

"Something very unfortunate happened, and I'm afraid it was me who was the bringer of bad news ..."

He was waiting for the pan to reply, and I obliged: "What bad news?"

"Well, I get a call from Sarah, telling me that Jonathan"--he took a breath, getting really sparked up about him--"is arriving at the airport and she wants me to pick him up and take him straight to the restaurant she's booked for a surprise dinner. They planned to leave for the lakes the next day."

I nodded to show that I was hanging on every word.

"I get to the airport to pick him up. He's never seen me before, of course, but I've seen photographs of him. Anyway, so there I am, waiting.

Out he comes, arm-in-arm with another woman. All over her like a wet dress, I ask you! I put my name card down sharpish, I can tell you, and followed to see what happened next. I even got in the taxi line with them and listened. She was called Anna .. . Ella .. . Antonella--that was it.

Anyway, a stupid name if you ask me, but spot on for a Sloaney slapper, which was what she looked. Too many pearls around her neck; didn't suit her ..." He left a gap. Maybe he wanted me to feel part of the show.

I said, "What happened next?"

"Well, what was I to do? I call Sarah at the restaurant an hour later to say that I couldn't find him. She says, "Not a problem, he's called me on my cell phone." You can imagine, Nick, I struggled all night about what to do. Do I tell her or do I not? Well, it's none of my business, is it? Anyway, the next day the decision was made for me." The smile on his face told me that it had been a good one. He was trying to suppress a giggle.

"Go on."

"Well, poor old Anna whats-her-face had been mugged downtown. In such a mess she was, lost her money, cards, the poor girl was in hospital for days, you know. Well, who does she ask the police to contact but dear Jonathan, care of the embassy? The call comes through, I get to hear about it, and guess what--it only turns out he's her ! So, I had the contact number and she was in hospital. Poor girl. I suppose I feel sorry for her now."

I laughed, but wondered who in their right mind would two-time with another woman when they already had Sarah.

"What happened?"

He held his hand up, with his index finger folded down.

"The bitch lost his finger; she slammed the car door on his hands! That will teach him to mess with Sarah. If you knew her like I do, Nick, you'd know that she's a wonderful woman. Far too good for a man like that." Someone must have powered up a mobile near us--Metalhead was off on a tangent.

"And she wears such wonderful clothes, you wouldn't believe!"

As we got to the junction I saw that the entrance was on the N Street side. A Latino in a blue polo shirt and green work trousers was hosing down the street directly outside the main doors, while the greenery along the front of the building was getting a drenching from the irrigation system.

The main doors were made of copper-colored alloy and glass. To the left, a brass plate welcomed us to the building; to the right, a touchscreen TV entry system made sure the welcome wasn't abused. Metal Mickey took out a long plastic key, which looked as if it should be used to wind up a kid's toy. He slipped it into the keyhole and the doors parted.

We walked into a world of black marble floors, dark-blue walls and ceilings you could free fall from. The elevators were ahead of us, about twenty meters farther down the atrium. To the right of them was a semicircular desk--very Terence Conran, with a shiny wooden top and black marble wall beneath. Behind it sat an equally smart and efficient-looking porter, who would have looked at home on the door of a five-star hotel. It appeared that Metal Mickey knew him quite well. He greeted him with a cheery, "Why, hello, Wayne, how are you today?"

Wayne was fortyish, and obviously having a really good day.

"I'm very good," he smiled.

"How are you doing?"

It was obvious that he didn't really know Metal Mickey's name or he would have said it, but he recognized the face.

"I'm just Jim Dandy," Mickey grinned. Then he looked over at me and said, "This is Nick, a friend of Sarah's. He's going to be using the apartment for a few days while Sarah's away, so I'll show him what's what."

I smiled at Wayne and shook his hand, just to prove to him that I wasn't a threat. Wayne smiled back.

"Anything you need, Nick, just dial HELP on the in-house phone and it'll be done."

"Thanks a lot. I'll need Sarah's parking space, if she has one."

"You just tell me when you want to collect the pass key." He beamed.

There was one more thing I needed. I leaned toward Wayne, as if letting him into a secret.

"If Sarah comes in, please don't tell her I'm here. I want to surprise her."

Wayne gave me a knowing, between-men sort of nod.

"No problem.

Tell you what, I'll call you on the in-house if I see her."

Metal Mickey and I took the elevator to the sixth floor. The door opened onto a corridor that was every bit as plush as the entrance hall downstairs, with the same colored walls and subtle, wall-mounted lighting.

You could see the vacuum marks on the thick blue carpet.

Metal Mickey was quiet for a change as we walked along the corridor, his hands in his pockets as he sorted out some keys. He stopped outside the door to apartment 612. "Here we are." He undid the large, five-lever deadlock first, then the equivalent of a Yale lock, and pushed the door open for me.

I stepped in before him and blocked the doorway, which opened straight into the living room. He got the message, dangling the keys between his thumb and forefinger in front of me.