Our kind of traitor

OK.

'Next morning October 31 I call my goddam Swiss banks. "Get me the fuck outta Mumbai." Services, timber, tea, I got maybe thirty per cent. Hotels seventy. Couple week later, I'm in Rome. Tamara call me. "Turn on the goddam television." What do I watch? Those crazy Pakistani fucks shooting the shit outta Mumbai, Indian stock market stop trading. Next day, Indian Hotels are down sixteen per cent to 40 rupees and falling. March this year, they hit 31. Khalil call me. "OK, my friend, now you get the fuck back in. Remember it's me who told you this." So I get the fuck back in.' The sweat is pouring down his bald face. 'End of year, Indian Hotels are 100 rupees. I make twenty million profit cold. The Jews are dead, the hostages are dead and I'm a fucking genius. You tell this to your English spies, Professor. Jesus God.'

The sweated face a mask of self-disgust. The cracking of the rotten weatherboards in the sea-wind. Dima has talked himself to a point of no return. Perry has been observed and tested and found good.

*

Washing his hands in the prettily decked-out upstairs lavatory, Perry peers into the mirror and is impressed by the eagerness of a face he is beginning not to know. He hurries back down the thickly carpeted staircase.

'Another nip?' Hector asks, flapping a lazy hand in the direction of the drinks tray. 'Luke, lad, how's about making us a pot of coffee?'