The Furies

INVITATION TO A MOVIE PREMIERE: SUNDAY EVENING

First contact, the critical point of an infiltration. Sometimes scary, always nerve racking. Ambra takes a deep breath while Caddon nods his encouragement. She says, "Hello? My name is Linda Black. Joshua Bernstein's assistant."

"That's Mr. Bernstein of the Chicago Tribune?" A faint rustle of paper, and then, "He's on our guest list for this evening."

"He is. Unfortunately Mr. Bernstein's been taken ill, quite suddenly. He has a touch of gastroenteritis and he's not going to make it to the premiere."

"I'm very sorry to hear that." A hesitation, then: "Does this mean the Tribune won't be able to do a review?"

"Joshua's keen to do it if he possibly can. He wondered if I might come along to the premiere as a stand-in. I know it's not very satisfactory, but if you could arrange for a reel to be sent to the Cinema Room here for a private screening, he thought he might be well enough to view it tomorrow and catch the Wednesday edition."

"That would be terrific, Ms. Black. I'll get a ticket to you right away. Where are you staying?"

"We're at the Pink Palace." Alias the Beverly Hills Hotel; Ambra uses the popular nickname. "Incidentally, do you have a guest list?"

"Yes of course. Why?"

"I'd like to do a little homework on people involved in the movie."

A tiny hesitation. "It's a bit irregular."

Spada has an expression like a man facing Doomsday. Ambra gives a blasé wave.

"You know Joshua. He likes to get a little chitchat by way of background. Obviously he'd prefer to do the chatting himself, but it's the best we can do at short notice."

"Any interviewing of the stars would have to be arranged through our publicity department."

"I won't be interviewing anyone, not formally. Just getting background for Joshua's review. You know, like the overall budget for the production."

"Two hundred and forty million, give or take. Let me get back to you."

Ambra puts the phone down. "I hate lying."

Spada says, "But you do it so well."

"Ms. Black? I've cleared the matter of the guest list with Mr. Goldstein, on condition that anything said by the stars this evening is off the record. Give me your e-mail address and I'll shoot it through."

"Fax it to me at the Palace."

"Sorry, but I need to send it directly through to Joshua's office rather than an open line to a hotel. I couldn't possibly fax it. Security, you understand."

This is one smart cookie. "But that's no use to me. I'm right here on the boulevard."

"I don't know what to do about that. Surely you can log in from the Palace?"

On the extension line, Spada is making grotesque faces, mouthing something. Ambra shrugs angrily. He does it again and this time she recognizes the words: Don't bloody lose it! She scribbles: Bernstein's e-mail address, Chicago Tribune. NOW!

Spada starts to bash frantically at a laptop keyboard.

"Of course, what am I thinking? That'll be fine."

A long pause, and then: "The address?"

Spada is on his feet, stabbing his fingers towards the laptop's screen like a sorcerer and doing something like a war dance.

Ambra says, "You know, I can never remember my own e-mail address."

"The address?" Bristling with suspicion.

Spada is scribbling. He cracks his shin on a low table, screams silently and thrusts a piece of paper in front of Ambra. She reads the e-mail address calmly into the telephone.

"What damned use is that?"

Spada is holding a wet towel to his shin, groaning quietly. Hairy legs, like a gorilla's.

Ambra continues, "It'll just be sent encrypted."

Caddon is tapping into a cell phone. "I assume that's an example of British humor. I'll get on it now."

THE RAMIREZ CANYON GARDEN CENTER

"They've hired thugs," Caddon complains, putting down the car phone. "Snap Security, they think they're licensed to kill. Half of them have been down for violence."

"So what?" Ambra replies. "It's a big star affair. They want to keep gate-crashers out."

"Something's going on in there." Ambra is in an ankle-length turquoise dress with a crossover shoestring strap at the back, the V stretching to the bottom of her spine. Well-toned, tanned legs peek out coyly from a slit at the front. The effect is finished with a sweep of beads and stones from her left shoulder down to the bottom right. Her hair is twisted up at the top, ending in a spike with a little feather stuck in the back. "You look like a movie star."

"I feel like a poodle."

"I couldn't even plant a waiter. The catering firm's owned by O'Reilly's cousin. Big family concern."

"Family as in Mafia?"

"I wish. At least we'd know who we're dealing with."

"For heaven's sake, Neal, it's just a party."

"It's a twenty-two-acre perimeter. Stick with the crowd, don't get maneuvered into a dark corner."

"I'll be good."

"What did they issue you with?"

"I'm not into guns," says Ambra.

"Jeez."

"I don't come from a gun society."

"Well listen to our pious tea-drinking limey."

Spada, driving the stretch limo, slows. The headlights pick up a stream, and the car makes bow waves as it crosses.

"Are you sure this is the right road?" Caddon asks. After the movie, Spada had slipped the car unobtrusively onto the end of a convoy of limos and Lincolns heading away from the cinema. But the headlights of the car he's been following have disappeared and they've lost the convoy somewhere in the gulleys north of LA.

"Trust me, boss. Hey, I think that's Barbra Streisand's old place."

"Stuff Barbra Streisand's old place, where's the frigging party?"

"Stay cool, man." Lights appear scattered over a foothill a couple of miles ahead. "Hey!"

Caddon exhales. "By the way, Ambra, that's a thousand bucks' worth of jewelry, and that's just the rental."

"I'll try not to lose the necklace in the soup."

"Likewise, spill tomato juice on that nice little Versace number and I'll invoice your MI6."

"Versace? Can't be. Nobody even measured me up, Neal."

"Tony does it by eye and yes it's Versace, it's a Keira Knightley throwaway, and it's also twenty thousand bucks out of my budget. Final check. Distress code word?"

"Orange Glow. Do we need the melodrama?"

"And you don't do guns," Caddon confirms. "You're a freaking pacifist or something."

"Just a snubbie, a hammerless J-frame Smith and Wesson. It's blue with a flower on the handle. Quite pretty." She gives Caddon a simple-country-girl smile.

"And that transmitter has a maximum range of two hundred yards. Keep within that distance of the parking lot."

Spada squeezes the big limousine around a sharp bend and heads up an unpaved winding track toward a blaze of light on the hillside. A Louis XIV flunkie opens the door. A squat, bald-headed man with a Hitler mustache and a tuxedo examines the invitation card and attempts a smile. "Ms. Black, welcome, enjoy the evening."

Spada trickles the limo over to a dark corner of the parking lot, as far as possible from the Rollers, the Continentals, and the smoking chauffeurs. In the near dark, the FBI men retrieve metal boxes and monitors from the trunk and quickly assemble equipment in the passenger compartment. The monitor screen glares bright blue in the rear of the car. Caddon curses, pulls shades down, puts on a headset. Spada picks up an image intensifier and begins to scan the lot, reading license numbers into a microphone. And forty minutes' drive to the south, at a workstation in the Bureau, another two agents collate these one by one with the owners of the cars, and check the owners one by one against the guest list.

Away from Caddon's anxious cosseting, Ambra finds that she is breathing heavily, checks herself. But she can't stop her heart pounding in her chest.

The August night air is sticky. Cicadas are shrilling in the dark. Now the next barrier, the big one: mine host, welcoming guests at the gates of the Ramirez Canyon Garden Center. "Linda Black? Pat O'Reilly. Don't believe we've met." Ambra feels her carpal bones being squeezed by a big, hairy hand. Astute eyes, set in a small, round face, assess her. "I understand Mr. Bernstein couldn't make it." The voice comes from midchest.

Yes, we poisoned him.

Ambra smiles. "He has a spot of tummy trouble. I'm a poor substitute, I know." But it lets me in to spy on your guests. "Joshua can still do the review from the Palace if I leave early. I'll give him the chat from here and we'll make tomorrow's Tribune." I hate lying, but I do it so well.

"Sure, sure."

Something in the voice? Or the way he's looking at me?

The producer's trophy wife, all Botox and liposuction, holds out a limp hand. "Enjoy the evening, Ms. Black."

She walks under a balloon-draped archway with THE ANDROMEDA DOSSIER glowing in big blue neon letters. You're through. And don't be so bloody paranoid.

Trying to hide her relief, Ambra hitches the strap of her cocktail bag onto her shoulder. Chatter from a hundred voices is coming out of a marquee. Another Louis XIV flunkie, maybe a student on a vacation job, approaches with a tray. She lifts a grapefruit juice.

The big star is holding court, five feet four inches in platform heels and a velvet tuxedo. No sign of the leading lady. And a quick scan of the marquee reveals no sign of Demos.

Back out into the warm air, honeysuckle competing with the Dior perfume. Over in the Chinese Garden a jazz quartet, all scarlet jackets and bowler hats, is playing "Speak Softly Love" from The Godfather. It seems appropriate. Over to the right, close to the fence, she sees a six-seater Bell helicopter.

"Hi there."

Thirtyish, athletic, short blond hair, expensive smile. Vaguely familiar, possibly some minor actor she is supposed to recognize. "You on your own?"

Get rid of him.

"Uh-huh."

"Nice party, huh?"

"Only just got here. How do I get rid of you?"

He laughs. "Hey, you're English. Seen the Japanese garden?"

"No, I haven't seen the Japanese garden."

"I'll take you to it. By the way, the name's Joe Scarlatti. That's a nice dress." Running his eyes up and down her body.

"Yes, I'm good at it."

"Huh?"

"Lots of experience."

"Sorry? I don't get your drift."

"Dressing up." Ambra pauses, then gives a delighted, deep-throated laugh. "Hey, you've made my evening! You really think I'm a woman!"

The muscleman's eyes are beginning to glaze over. "You don't mean …?"

"I do this all the time. Don't you like boys? I thought they all like boys in this business. Now, where are those Japanese gardens you're taking me to?"

The muscleman suddenly roars with laughter. "Okay, mister or mizz, I won't bother you no more." He's still laughing as he disappears into the dark.

The Japanese garden. Little groups in conversation. A scaly dragon, four claws, five long talons to a claw. Mouth open, showing big teeth and a long tongue. She taps its body experimentally: fiberglass. Geisha girls, also fiberglass, throwing long shadows from the lanterns. Keep moving, don't stop.

Demos, where are you?

The movie is turning out to be a disaster. Not The Andromeda Dossier, although Caddon is beginning to wish it all the ills in the world, but the one being produced by the Englishwoman and transmitted to the TV monitor in the back of the limo. The screen shows close-ups of wineglasses, cardboard plates with cute little holders for the aforesaid glasses, microscopic sausage rolls. In between the canapé close-ups the camera whirls dizzyingly and Caddon catches a succession of inanely grinning, surgically improved faces, useless overpaid showbiz dross that lives in fake Spanish Revival homes and would be better employed digging ditches or being flogged to death on a naval brig.

Away from the marquee lights, the camera isn't picking up properly and faces appear a ghastly, ghost-like white. And now the woman is heading farther up the party, almost out of range, and the visual transmission is beginning to fail altogether.

Spada, meantime, is grunting into a telephone receiver, scribbling notes.

"Sound's beginning to go," Caddon says in frustration. "She's at the limit."

"What's going on?" Something on the TV monitor.

Caddon stares, too, trying to make out the shapes. "Looks like four people, no, five. Heading up the hill. What's the stupid woman doing?"

"Looks like she's going after them, boss."

"Loved your music, Mr. Demos. Made the movie, in my opinion." This from a big-budget producer.

"Thanks."

"Especially that scene where the dam starts to crack. The score was even scarier than the Psycho shower. It's going to be iconic."

Demos manages a modest smile and wonders what the guy's after.

Normally he'd bask in the praise — and why not, he deserves it — but something else is filling his mind. The Tin Can, has he made it? Goldstein's secretary said he was flying in from Montego Bay. He looks around, anxious for once to get away from the adulatory crowd around him.

"How do you compose music, Mr. Demos?" This from a minor actor in the movie. "I mean, does it just jump into your head?"

Demos says, "Sometimes, yeah, from nowhere, sometimes I even wake up in the night with a theme, driving me nuts. Other times I go for weeks or months and get nothing and I begin to think, Hell, I'm past it. It helps to visit the settings."

"That could be difficult for a Star Trek movie," someone says, and the little crowd laughs.

Demos drifts away. To his relief he has spotted an old man, not fifty yards from him, at the other end of the marquee: the Tin Can. He's with a young Japanese man in a tuxedo. Good, good. Are the others here? They've had to come from Europe, Japan, North Korea. But they're needed here, now.

The Tin Can and his Japanese companion spot him. Now they drift casually toward the exit. Demos wends his way, also casually, through the fantasy women, the actors on the make, the babble.

Outside, the pair are heading up the slope toward the rear of the garden center, away from the party, the Tin Can using his walking stick. For a frail eighty-year-old he can move. Here and there others are detaching themselves from groups, drifting into the dark. Demos follows. The air smells of dry vegetation, reminds him that it's the wildfire season. He catches up; he can hardly make out their faces in the shadows. They follow the Tin Can without conversation. Near the top of the garden center, far from the party, the Can waves his walking stick at a long, Victorian-style green house, all wrought-iron pillars and trees in silhouette. They turn into it.

The Tin Can presses a button on his throat. The voice that comes out is toneless and metallic. "What happened?"

Demos says, "How do I know?"

"You were responsible for recovering the weapon."

"I wasn't there. That was the arrangement. We agreed to keep a layer between us and the device. Maybe it was in a bad state after all this time."

"Why hasn't the incident reached the media? It must have left corpses for miles downwind." This from a young woman, also dressed like an actress at a movie premiere, speaking good English with a German accent.

Demos says, "How would I know?"

"You don't know much."

"It'll break at any moment, it's bound to."

The Can says, "What's the word from the governor's office?"

A man, educated Boston accent, says, "The FBI have identified the bodies at the mine shaft."

The Hollywood musician's face is sweaty. "We're unraveling. Maybe we should abandon the project."

The actress says, "With what's at stake? Don't be stupid."

The Boston man says, "We're in too deep to pull out now. Your useful idiots can't be traced back to us. That's right, isn't it? They can't be traced back to us?"

"I had a visit from two FBI agents yesterday." Demos's voice has a slight tremble.

"What?" There is a sudden collective stillness.

"They have me on CCTV speaking to two of the patriotic militia just hours before the accident."

"You fool. Where?"

"In some restaurant. I told the FBI it was a casual encounter."

"And did they believe you?"

"I don't know."

The actress says, "You have stupidity coming out of your ears."

The Boston man says, "That and the wreckage are terrific leads for the FBI. Maybe you're under surveillance, Demos. Maybe we all are."

"No. This is a safe area."

"Vladimir, this gets worse by the minute." A small, squat Japanese man facing the Tin Can has loosened his bow tie, and, like Demos, his face is coated with sweat.

The metallic voice says, "We cannot abandon the project. We will never get another opportunity like this. So. We proceed as planned. We will use one of the other weapons. I have teams retrieving them now." He turns to the Boston man. "You did compose a decoy letter?"

"Anonymous hand delivery to the British embassy in Washington. Real stuff in it, as you said, to make them focus on it. But buried deep enough they'll never work out the message by Friday."

"Real stuff in it?" The German woman's voice is filled with alarm. "What are you saying?"

"Enough to suck them in."

"Are you mad? Giving them real information?"

"Not mad, lady, clever. Without it the letter had no credibility. With it, they'll squander their resources chasing wild geese. It contains no hint of our real purpose. And one of the Phoenix militia has his prints all over it."

The Tin Can says, "Excellent. That will sow real confusion. The North Korean woman contacts our satellite man tomorrow. If she delivers the codes, the Pentagon will find itself blind for a crucial fifteen minutes."

The Japanese man says, "I don't trust the bitch. She has an agenda."

"We all have our agendas," the actress says. "I prefer to call them dreams."

The Tin Can says, "We must never meet again like this. And I will tolerate no more mistakes. Just a few more days. Meantime, we keep our eyes open and watch our backs."

For a startled moment Demos imagines he sees a figure inside the greenhouse, crouching among the bushes. A trick of the shadows — he shakes the illusion off. The Tin Can is right. Don't panic.

In the back of the stretch limo, Caddon is close to panic. Ambra's microphone is out of range, and it seems to be close to a fountain, or some sort of water flow. But Caddon is hearing enough snatches of conversation to make him aware that he is listening in on some very serious people; that whatever they're up to, it's big and bad and imminent; that the English intelligence woman must be real close to them; and that she must thereby be exposing herself to a gigantic risk.

As the conversation unfolds he can hardly believe his ears, keeps squeezing his headset up against them. It's beginning to sound like some fantastic convocation of terrorist groups, one from Germany, one from Japan, maybe one from America. And someone coming in from North Korea? Next to him, Spada, an earpiece jammed to his ear, is openmouthed with amazement, and forgetting to breathe.

No Demos, but faces harder to recognize in the shadows, away from the big marquee and the barbecue chimerae.

Single white female, Dior perfume attracting the male of the species like insects to pheromone. Someone says hi there; Ambra passes on.

Nothing here. Should have spotted him by now. Keep circulating.

Demos? Maybe, maybe. He has company, about a hundred meters away. Three of them, heading for the dark shadows. No, four. Five, one a female. They're into the shadows, away from the party. She loses sight of them. Damn!

A vine-covered barn. Conservatory attached, about the size of a tropical house, lit up with strings of multicolored lights and looking like an ocean liner in the dark.

Ambra winds her way swiftly along a curving path through cacti, then across lawn studded with obelisks and spheres, toward the barn. Orion, club raised, poking his head over the black silhouette of the Ramirez Mountains, Los Angeles glowing orange to her right.

Orange Glow, the distress call. Transmitter in her hair, little microphone picking up everything. Reassuring. But the range is only two hundred meters; must be on the limit.

The barn is lit up, but empty. Plows, scythes, barrels, bales of hay decorate the interior. Through to the conservatory. A blaze of color: lemon trees, banana trees, date palms; African violets scenting the air; but no humans.

Lost them. Ambra becomes aware that her jaw is clenched tightly. Calm down, this is a safe environment. Not like the Pakistan job.

Out again. Where the hell?

Voices. Subdued. From a big greenhouse farther up, almost at the perimeter.

Subdued but angry. Tinged with fear? Some instinct makes Ambra approach cautiously, on a wide circle, making sure she is not silhouetted. She stops near the open greenhouse door, risks a glance. Bushes and trees. Human silhouettes at the other end, about fifty meters away. She takes a chance. She crouches down, slips quickly inside, and approaches through the bushes, murdering the Versace number, now rolled up around her thighs. The damp soil close to her nose threatens to make her sneeze. The voice is in English, although the accent is foreign. But instead of a reply, there is a metallic, tinny buzz. It seems to have a syntax, but it isn't human. She daren't approach any closer, hears the blood pounding in her ears. Water is spraying somewhere, ruining the acoustics. Baffled and frustrated, she can neither make out the words nor recognize the individuals.

There's a final exchange, and another long, tinny rasping, a voice and yet not a voice, like Darth Vader. She feels goose pimples on her arms. Then the figures are marching away. Ambra retrieves shoes and handbag, scrabbling desperately in the dark, and runs out. The men are visible in outline, spreading out, occluding the party lights down the hill. She follows them down past the conservatory. And now they have reached the fringes of the party; it's okay to approach more closely. They have split up. She sees Demos chatting with a young actor, the man with the metal voice heading for the drinks. He is limping, carries a walking stick.

Ambra ignores Demos and his new friend, follows the man with the stick. He reaches an unoccupied trestle table, picks up drinks and canapés. He has his back to her. She wanders, puts down her glass, puts little cocktail sausages onto a plate. She's within a meter of the man before she looks up, casually.

And sees a face she will never forget.

The right-hand side is a mass of red and white scar tissue, rippled like water. He has no eyebrows, and his right eye is devoid of eyelashes. His right hand, holding a glass of champagne, is scarred. Their eyes meet.

Ambra, embarrassed at staring, says, "Have you seen the Japanese garden?"

The man presses a finger against his throat, and the voice that comes out is like a tin can speaking. "And you are?"

"Linda Black. How do you do?"

"Ah yes, Linda Black."

The man touches his throat again and a metallic whisper passes into the ear of his neighbor, who glances coldly at Ambra and strides off.

The Tin Can says: "And how is Joshua? I understand he was taken ill rather suddenly." Something in his tone of voice — or is it just the artificiality of it? It occurs to Ambra that the eye without the lashes doesn't blink. It just stares.

"Yes, an upset stomach. I'm sure he'll recover quickly."

"I know he will."

She becomes aware of the third man, pretending to pick food, drifting around behind her, ever so casually.

O'Reilly, flanked by two men in tuxes, corvettes escorting a battleship. One is barrel-chested, the other absurdly thin. They remind Ambra irresistibly of Laurel and Hardy, but there is nothing humorous about their turned-down mouths and glassy eyes. A short, dumpy woman of about forty is struggling to keep up with them. She is looking at Ambra through thick spectacles with something like malice. And the bonhomie has gone from O'Reilly's face.

Ambra, wired up to the eyeballs, wonders if somebody has spotted the fact; noticed the camera, the lens on her Versace dress looking like a big opal set in diamonds, the fiber-optic cable embedded in the strap, the transmitter tucked inside her twisted-up hair, the aerial with the feather attached.

O'Reilly gives her the answer. "Enjoying the party, I hope? Ms. Linda Black, Joshua's assistant, may I introduce Ms. Linda Black, Joshua's assistant?"

MIKI UNION STATION, SUNDAY MORNING

"Why are you visiting the United States?"

The passport has been created by world-class craftsmen; likewise the visa obtained, so it said, from the American embassy in Tokyo. The real Etsuko Nakamura will not arrive until tomorrow, by which time the counterfeit one, now calmly facing the immigration officer, will have vanished into the bowels of America. Nothing can possibly be wrong. The young immigration man's searching stare has to be part of the technique. "For cultural reasons."

"Is that business or pleasure?"

"Business. I am a singer. I will be rehearsing with the Haydn Symphony Orchestra. That will also be a pleasure."

The young immigration man slowly scans her visa and then stares at a computer screen. Her calmness begins to waver; she feels her heart thumping in her chest.

Then: "Enjoy your stay, Miss Nakamura."

She now merges with the arrivals throng, drifting with the flow so as not to attract attention. There's no point in trying to avoid the CCTV cameras; she will now be on half a dozen videotapes. Outside the airport — nearly there! — she joins a taxi queue in an agony of impatience, desperate to lose herself in the vast city she was looking down on minutes earlier. She is beginning to tremble, a delayed reaction. A taxi, come on, come on!

She gives up on the taxi queue and takes the airport shuttle into town, keeping to herself. Fortunately nobody around her seems inclined to talk. She gazes out at the high canyons, the mind-boggling volume of traffic, the shop windows laden with luxuries — unbelievable luxuries. She enters Union Station, as instructed. More prodigious wealth! Shops, restaurants, and offices inside a railway station! And a confusing array of platforms and monitor screens. In the ladies' room she disappears into a cubicle, takes off her coat, skirt, and shoes, puts on jeans, sneakers, and a nondescript windbreaker from her red carry bag, and stuffs the red bag and its contents into a dull gray one. She waits three minutes, calming down, listening to the comings and goings. A couple of women are gossiping while washing their hands; they seem to go on forever. But at last they disappear. Miki takes a deep breath and emerges from the cubicle. She checks herself quickly in the mirror, turning up her collar and putting on dark glasses.

Another deep breath and she is out.

For the first time since arriving, she feels secure. She is now invisible; she cannot be connected with the woman who arrived at the airport a short while ago. She takes a Yellow Cab to an address in Chinatown, the stress of the entry draining out of her like a fluid. The taxi driver says, "Just arrived in LA?"; she grunts and he takes the hint.

She has been told the motel is run-down, but what makes it beautiful is that it has no CCTV camera at the front desk. In her room she looks at the heavy patterned curtains, the comfortable bed, the television, the do-it-yourself coffee tray, the shower and toilet connected to the room. If this is run-down …

She experiments with the shower, then strips herself naked, looks at her trim body approvingly in a full-length mirror, and then stands under a stream of warm water for a glorious fifteen minutes. Then she dries herself and lies out on the bed, emptying her mind of everything, relaxing her muscles from toe to head, preparing herself mentally.

Telephone ringing. She awakens with a jerk. The digital clock on the television set tells her she has been asleep for almost an hour. The voice is male, deep, Midwest Republican, all Christian Right and family values. "Miss Nakamura? George McCall here."

"George, it's been a year."

"I look forward to hearing you sing again. Could we have dinner tonight? Shall we meet, say seven o'clock at the Natural History Museum?"

"I look forward to that, and to seeing you again."

The coded exchange complete, with no duress words, Miki puts down the receiver and smiles. Things are moving along like clockwork, tick tick tick. She has succeeded in the most difficult phase, entering the country undetected, and the team has made contact. Everything and everyone is in place. And from now on, things are going to happen fast. She looks again at the digital clock. She'll watch American television for an hour, to see what brand of opium keeps this huddled mass stupefied.

She settles back on the bed, relieved and contented.