The Memory Trap

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The Memory Trap

ANTHONY PRICE

PROLOGUE:

Lunchtime in Berlin

Two things, the boss had told everyone to do: to act normal, but to report anything suspicious to the plain-clothes cop just inside the doors to the kitchen. But for Genghis, the new Turkish waiter, those were contradictory orders. Because, if there was one thing he had learnt never to do, both back home in the old country and in Berlin, it was to help the cops. The less a man had to do with those bastards, the better. And maybe in this case the safer too, if the kitchen-rumour about two cops-with-rifles on the roof was right.

Small guns were bad enough, but long guns meant marksmen. And marksmen meant big trouble for someone.

So bugger them! "Dumb Turk", they were always saying. So he'd be dumb, then!

All the same (and strictly for safety's sake, anyway), he kept his eyes open. And that eventually paid off in a double satisfaction: it was drugs-bust for sure, and he had two of the dummy1

ring spotted; and neither of them was at one of his tables.

In the corner of the terrace was, for a guess, the supplier, who was from out of town (he looked more like a Czech or a goddamn Pole than a German), and who was scared stiff with the stuff on him, as he wouldn't yet have been if he'd been the buyer, because carrying money wasn't yet a crime.

But he wasn't the scary one, anyway: the one to keep well clear of was the hatchet-faced Arab two tables away, by the steps down to the lake, who was pretending to be a Turk, reading a good Turkish newspaper, but who for bloody-sure wasn't. You could always tell an Arab.

But he was the minder . . . though whether he was minding the sweating-pig Pole, or watching for the money-man, Genghis couldn't decide. All that was certain was that he had scrutinized every new arrival on the terrace, while he hadn't given the Pole a second glance since his arrival, and that (unlike the Pole) he wasn't scared, but sat very still — too still

— only lifting his eyes from this unread paper.

The head-waiter snapped his fingers. 'Table Four —Table Five — they are still waiting. Get a move on!'

'Yes, sir!' Genghis bobbed his head obsequiously. 'At once, sir!'

Table Five was the fat Berliner, and his fatter wife and fattening daughter, who had their main course to come. (One day it would be he who would snap his fingers!) And Table Four was the big handsome Englishman with the very plain dummy1

Englishwoman (not his mistress . . . but her clothes were good and her perfume was expensive; so maybe his Mistress, rather!): they had ordered only a snack and rot-gut wine. But none of them had business with the Pole, anyway —

He pushed through the kitchen-doors, meeting the cop's eyes blankly.

Dumb Turk!

'Five — three pike.' The heat hit him. 'Four — sandwiches, wine.'

'Not ready — the pike.' One of the cooks slid a tray towards him, rocking the bottle dangerously. 'Anything happening?'

The temptation to be smart, and tell them that nothing would happen until the money-man arrived, reached the tip of Genghis's tongue. But then he remembered the cop behind him, and shrugged stupidly.

Somebody shouted something that he missed, but everyone laughed.

Dumb Turk!

He pushed out into the sunlight again, away from the heat into the gentle warmth of the sun: it was one of those good Berlin autumn days, when the bitter winter still seemed far off. Then he saw the head-waiter bending and nodding to the fat German.

And someone else was coming in — a tall, distinguished-looking man —

The head-waiter intercepted him, bowed him to a table, and dummy1

then snapped his fingers at Genghis once more.

Genghis set down the sandwiches, and took his time over opening the bottle. Then he gave the big Englishman all his attention until the rot-gut had been tasted, allowing himself additional time then to smile at the plain Englishwoman as he filled her glass, if only to annoy the head-waiter. And, anyway, apart from smelling good, she had a fine pair of boobs under that string of pearls. 'Thank you madam —

sir . . .'

The gentleman at Table Five, you idiot!' The head-waiter hissed in his ear. 'What are you playing at?'

'It wasn't ready — his order.' He saw the distinguished-looking man look round over his menu. He would be the one

—

'Don't bandy words with me. Get moving.'

Again the doors.

Again the policeman. (If he only knew!) This time a heavily-loaded tray, with the additional beers the fat German had ordered earlier, about which he had clean forgotten: he balanced it expertly, but then waited until Otto and Dieter, who had not been far behind him, came in for their orders. Otto, he remembered, had been providing the Arab with his third cup of coffee. But, not being a dumb Turk, he wouldn't have noticed anything, of course.

Into the sunlight again, with everything as busily normal as before, with the pigs all at their troughs, feeding their faces dummy1

as though their lives depended on it (all except the Pole, who was still sweating, and the Arab, who was still not really reading his newspaper), and the sail-boats on the lake behind. And, inevitably, the head-waiter gesticulating at him.

He began to weave through the tables —

The money-man buyer was still there, studying his menu. So he hadn't seen anything (but Genghis had to hand it to the cops there, the clever swine: there wasn't a uniform inside or a suspicious car outside to be seen, they knew their business all too well, the drugs squad, evidently!) —

Then he swore under his breath as the big Englishman got up, pushing back his chair and blocking his chosen route, so that he had to swing to his left . . . only to find that avenue blocked by the head-waiter himself. And, of course, he wouldn't give ground to make things easier, any more than the damned Englishman: no one ever cared for waiters.

He re-routed himself automatically, pirouetting on paper-thin leather through which he could feel the unevenness of the terrace flagstones. But now the woman was also moving, damn her — not getting up, but pushing her chair back in order to keep her eye on her partner: with a face like that perhaps she was used to him straying.

He coughed politely, and began to squeeze past. But as he did so the Englishman came into sight again —

What! He was heading for the Pole — ? And —

He saw the Arab get up. And, simultaneously, the dummy1

Englishwoman began to move, pushing him — almost unbalancing him — what!

Suddenly the Englishwoman went mad — and his ankle caught on something, so that the tray began to escape from his control: he had only a fraction of a second to catch up with it, or else — what!

Nothing mattered but the tray — the Englishwoman was either mad or drunk, what she was doing, and glass and crockery was crashing, and the Englishman tripping up, and someone was shouting —

But it was the tray that mattered!

No one saw Genghis's amazing recovery: his gravity-defying swoop, down and up, and the triumph of speed over impetus which caught up with and corrected the unbalance of his burden so triumphantly against all the odds, above Table Five. Or, if anyone did, the next moment obliterated the image, as the Verfassungsschutz marksman opened fire.

Because then Genghis did finally drop the tray.

PART ONE

A Walk in the Sun

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1

They were waiting for him at Heathrow: they took him off the plane ahead of everyone else, like a king or a criminal.

'Dr Audley? Would you come this way please, sir.'

'Mmmm.' He hated being stared at like this. But there was no help for it. All he could do was to come quietly. The uniformed man even took his hand luggage from him. And then the civilian took it from the uniformed man.

It had been obvious, of course, ever since the Return Immediately message had been delivered so apologetically by his CIA guard-dog/guide dog, that the shit was in the fan back home; that they had held the flight for ten minutes just so that he could be on it merely confirmed the obvious. But after that the old drug had worked on him as it always did, as it always had done over so many years, so that now he was neither flattered nor apprehensive, but only impatient.

'Oops!' The man in the suit had stopped suddenly, so that he had almost cannoned into him. 'What — ?'

'Hold on a moment, sir.' The man didn't need to explain further, since the reason for their halt was blocking the passage ahead. 'Could I have your identification, please?'

'Mmm.' Audley watched as the young soldier, green-beretted, camouflage-jacketed and armed-to-the-teeth, scrutinized his passport.

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The civilian handed the passport back to him, unsmiling.

'Nothing to worry about, Dr Audley. There's an airport security exercise in progress, that's all. And we're in a restricted zone here.'

'Yes?' He hadn't the faintest idea where he was, actually. But within all major airports there were gim-crack labyrinths like this. In fact, the Devil himself had probably re-designed Hell in the light of the information he had gained from observing airport layouts.

'We're almost there.' Misreading Audley's expression of distaste as transatlantic weariness, the man nodded reassuringly. 'Not far now.'

He winced within himself. Those were almost the exact words he had been accustomed to feed Cathy on long car-journeys. Which reminded him that, however stimulating, this wasn't the homecoming he'd planned for next week, just in time for her birthday. And he hadn't even got her a present now.

Damn!

'Your bag, sir.'

The civilian was offering him his hand luggage while standing outside an anonymous door on which the uniformed man was about to knock.

'Thank you.' On the other hand, depending on the nature of this emergency, it might get him home earlier. And, however important his Washington job was supposed to have been, it dummy1

had also been ineffably boring most of the time. So all this might yet be a time-bonus. 'And my other luggage?'

'That's being transferred directly to your onwards flight, sir.'

The words took a second to register. 'My onwards flight — '

He just managed to clip the humiliating question mark off the end.

'Don't worry, sir. I shall attend to it myself.' The man was wearily accustomed to querulous questions from VIPs. 'And I shall be returning here to collect you — ' He looked at his wrist-watch. ' — in exactly thirty minutes from now, sir.'

If this was Hell, then he wasn't even properly in it, thought Audley irritably: he was in the limbo of transit to somewhere else. And wherever it was, he already didn't want to go there.

Then he realized that the uniformed man was opening the door for him — he hadn't heard either a knock or any reply to it, but the thunderous VIP scowl he had fixed on the poor fellow had rendered the man expressionless.

'Yes — thirty minutes. Thank you.' He heard himself reply to them both as he strode into the room like the wrath of God.

'What the devil — '

'Hullo, David,' said Sir Jack Butler.

Audley felt the wrath of God deflate, collapsing him to his true size in an instant. 'Hullo, Jack.'

'Close the door, there's a good chap.'

'Yes, Jack.' He had expected an underling, he realized. Or an equal, anyway. But, equal or underling — or civil servant of dummy1

any variety and seniority, bearing whatever instructions and orders, and whatever material to be quickly studied, and then signed for or returned — or even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, with the Thirty-Nine Articles — it would have been all the same. But it was Jack Butler. So he closed the door.

'David, I'm sorry to pull you off a job like this — in this way.'

'That's all right, Jack.' What he hated about Jack Butler apologies was their sincerity. Anyone else's apologies he could treat with the disdain they deserved. But when Jack said he was sorry, then that was what he was.

'I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary.' Butler regarded him steadily.

'No? I mean — no — ' From having been suddenly embarrassed, Audley became even more suddenly apprehensive: that Jack himself should come to brief him was not in itself too worrying, because knighthood and promotion hadn't changed him one bit; but this elaboration of his apology was out of character ' — no, of course not, I mean.'

'Sit down, David.'

Audley sat down — only to discover that the chairs in this particular VIP safe-room were somewhat lower and very much softer than he expected, so that for a moment he felt that he was never going to stop sitting down until he reached the floor. 'Ah — yes, Jack?'

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Butler had seated himself without difficulty. 'You are here because I made a grave error of judgement,' he said simply.

'As a result of which we have lost someone.'

Audley's brain went into over-drive. Taking responsibility for mistakes had never been one of Jack Butler's problems: he had been taking it for upwards of forty years, ever since he had first sewn his lance-corporal's single stripe on to his battle-dress blouse. But losing someone was always unsettling, and all the more so in these somewhat less violent days.

'Who's dead?' It came out brutally before he could stop it, as the possible names of those at risk presented themselves —

names, faces and next-of-kin.

'No one you know.' Butler drew a single breath. 'But it should have been you, David.'

'Me?' Taken together with that "error of judgement" that had all the makings of a sick little joke. But Butler had never been a man for jokes, sick or otherwise. And he certainly wasn't joking now. 'What d'you mean — me?'

'Jaggard asked us to make a contact with someone from the other side.' Coming straight to the point was more Butler's style. 'From the Arbatskaya Ploshchad.'

'From — ?' That was even more precisely from "the other side": it was from the other side of the Kremlin —not the KGB side (from which, in the Dark Ages, orders to kill had so often emanated), but the GRU . . . which, in the present dummy1

climate, was even more surprising. 'From military intelligence, Jack?' But then, coming from anywhere over there at this moment, it was not so much surprising as —

what? Astonishing — ? Outrageous? The synonyms shunted each other almost violently enough to de-rail his train of thought, leaving him finally with incomprehensible for choice. 'But — for Christ's sake, Jack! — what — ?' Only then he realized that "What am I supposed to have done?" was redundant: Jack Butler knew as well as he did that neither his Washington activities nor any others in which he had recently been involved could remotely be tagged even as annoying to the Russians, let alone dangerous. 'What sort of contact?'

'A defection.' Butler was ready for him.

Well . . . yes, thought Audley, relaxing slightly. Defections were certainly on the cards these days: ever since the winds of change had started to blow through the Soviet Union and its satellites the possibility of picking up a useful defector or two had been widely canvassed. He had even written a paper on that very subject for the use of station commanders. But that had been all of eighteen months ago, in the early days oiglosnost and perestroika. And, in any case — but the hell with that!

'Why us, though? Jaggard knows we're not usually into field-work. And, come to that, he doesn't even like us to be, anyway.'

'Yes.' In the matter of the duties and scope of the Department dummy1

of Intelligence Research and Development, Jack Butler was at one with Henry Jaggard, however much they disagreed on other matters. 'But, in this case, the defector asked for us.' He sighed. 'Or, to be exact, he asked for you, David. By name.'

It had been that damned defection paper, thought Audley wrathfully: it had carried a routine follow-up request, for those who wanted more information or who had information to give, so that he could up-date it subsequently; and anyone with an ounce of knowledge could have traced it back to him from its style and content; so some imperial idiot down the line had been careless with it, and it had fetched up on someone's desk at GRU headquarters.

'His name was Kulik.' Butler returned to his point. 'Oleg Filipovitch Kulik.'

Kulik — Then the past tense registered. 'Oleg Filipovitch Kulik . . . deceased, I take it?'

Butler nodded.

'Kulik?' That wasn't so very surprising, because defecting was a high-risk enterprise, as Oleg Filipovitch must have known.

However, what Butler was expecting was that he would now pick that name out of the memory-bank. But the only Kulik he could recall from the paying-in slips of thirty years was a third-rate Red Army general who had never been close to military intelligence (but rather, from his long and disastrous career, the opposite); and who, in any case, must be long-since dead.

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'Yes?' Butler looked at him expectantly.

'Never heard of him. What was he offering?'

'He didn't say. He merely said that it was of the highest importance.' Butler stopped there, compressing his lips.

'And?' Audley recognized the sign. Beneath that worrying apology and the customary politeness, Sir Jack Butler was incandescent with that special red-headed rage which always smouldered within him, but which he never failed to control no matter what the provocation. Hot heart, cool head, as old Fred had been so fond of saying: Butler was the sort of man he had liked best of all.

'They're not sure that he was GRU.' Butler released his lips.

'But they think there was a man named Kulik in their computer records department, liaising with KGB Central Records. Only, since they aren't sure about the value of what he was offering they're not prepared to be certain.'

'They' were Jaggard's Moscow contacts presumably. And in this instance they were quite right. Because if Kulik's lost goodies were peanuts it wasn't worth risking their necks for him. But if the goodies really had been dynamite, then Kulik's bosses would be just waiting to pounce on whoever started to ask questions about him now.

But now, also, he was beginning to see the shape of the game, even though the ball was hidden under the usual ruck of disorderly, bloody-minded, dirty-playing players who knew that the referee was hovering near, whistle-in-mouth. 'So we dummy1

know sod-all about him really — right?'

'That's about the size of it, yes.' Butler looked as though he was about to pull rank. With reluctance, of course (and especially with Audley, who had once been his superior officer; but with Kulik dead and thirty-minus-minutes at his back and a plane somewhere on the tarmac out there, if it had to be pulled, then he would pull it). 'They're working on him now.'

'I'll bet they are.' Audley knew he would loyally do whatever Jack Butler wanted him to do. Because that was the way he felt about Butler, in spite of all appearances to the contrary: in an uncertain world, Butler had somehow become his sheet-anchor over the years, much to his own surprise. Only, in the meantime, he was going to have his pound of flesh, with or without blood. 'But all they know as of now is that Kulik wanted me. And now he's dead — ?' Flesh with blood, he decided. 'And, of course, you didn't offer me up for the slaughter . . . Was that the "error of judgement", Jack?

Because, if it was, then I forgive you for it — ' He refused to quail before Butler's displeasure ' — was that the way it was, Jack?'

Butler looked at his watch. 'The way it was . . . was that I didn't think I could get you back quickly enough from Washington.' He looked up again. 'Besides which, Jaggard said it was just a routine pick-up.'

There was no such thing as a routine pick-up. 'So you smelt a rat, did you?'

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'No. That was what Jaggard said. And I had no reason to disbelieve him.'

'No?' No excuses, of course. Where others would be looking to avoid blame, if not actually seeking credit for prescience when things went wrong, Jack Butler was accustomed to tell it how it was. 'But Kulik did actually ask for me, you say. So what form did this request take? What did he want us to do?'

'The message was passed at an embassy reception for one of our trade delegations. Low-grade technology —factory robotics for car production. And he didn't really ask us to do anything. He just wanted to be met — by you, David.' Butler pursed his lips. 'It was your name that sparked Jaggard's Moscow colleagues. They'd never heard of Kulik. But they had heard of you.'

'Where did he want to be met?' Audley brushed aside such doubtful fame.

'In West Berlin.'

'In West Berlin —'

'That's right. He was getting himself across. He said that he had something of the highest importance. He gave his name.

And he named the place and date and time of the meeting.

Just that — nothing else. Except he wanted you to meet him.'

Too bloody simple by half! 'Where was the place?'

'A restaurant beside one of the lakes. Well inside the city —

nowhere near any crossing. And Jaggard said he'd have the place properly covered, so he didn't reckon on any dummy1

complications.'

Audley felt the minutes ticking away. Maybe that "too-bloody-simple" had been hindsight. Because it did look reasonably simple, if not routine: Kulik himself had been doing all the risky work, and had in effect offered himself on a plate in the restaurant, free of charge and without advance bargaining. So, really, anyone could have picked the man up, since he had nowhere to go except further westwards after having come so far already.

Then a cold hand touched him between the shoulder-blades as he found himself thinking that, although anyone could have gone, he would actually have fancied a nice easy trip to Berlin, to meet someone who wanted to meet him. He'd always liked Berlin, even in the bad old days.

'And . . . Jaggard didn't mind, when you refused to supply me?' It occurred to him as he spoke that Henry Jaggard might have smelt a rat. In which case, if things went wrong, Jack Butler's intransigence could be blamed.

'I promised to produce you in due course, when they'd got Kulik back here.'

'Uh-huh.' He sensed that something was inhibiting Butler now. And it could be that, even if he hadn't smelt that rat, Butler might well have smelt Henry Jaggard's calculations, even though he would have despised them.

'Yes . . . Well, I thought it might be as well for us to have a representative there, David.' Butler scowled honestly. 'Just in dummy1

case Kulik really wanted to deal with Research and Development, not with anyone else.'

The cold hand touched Audley again. But then he remembered gratefully that Butler had already reassured him about the casualty list. 'A very proper precaution, Jack!'

All the same, the coldness was still there, even while he grinned proper curiosity at Butler by way of encouragement.

Because, with Kulik deceased (and no matter how frustrating that certainly was), there was nothing much anyone could do now. And yet here was Sir Jack Butler at Heathrow, like the mountain come to Mahomet. 'So who did you send, then?'

'I sent Miss Loftus.'

'Oh yes?' In matters of intelligence research, Elizabeth was razor-sharp. But her field experience was necessarily limited by her length of service. 'A good choice.' And, on the face of it, that was what it must have seemed to be —for Henry Jaggard's "routine pick-up". Only from the granite-faced look of Mount Butler now, it evidently hadn't been. 'She's okay, is she, Jack?'

'Yes —' The VIP cordless phone on the low table beside Butler began to buzz, cutting him off but not startling him.

'Hullo?'

Audley took refuge in the echo of that reassuring "yes" for a moment as Butler stared through him while receiving his phone-message. Then the departure/arrival flight monitors on the wall behind caught his attention. They gave him a dummy1

choice of Stockholm, Athens, Naples or Madrid, but not Berlin, or even Frankfurt — there were no immediate German destinations at all, in fact.

"Thank you.' Butler replaced the receiver.

It was just possible that they'd chartered a plane just for him, decided Audley, permutating the scheduled alternatives in order of possibility and then rejecting them all as unlikely.

But then, since old Jack was quite notoriously tight-fisted with his Queen's revenue, a chartered plane was either out-of-character or another disturbing indication of extreme urgency.

Butler nodded at him. 'Your flight's on schedule, David.

They're boarding now.'

Audley's eye was drawn to the monitor. If it was one of, those, then it would be Stockholm, with a Berlin connection, the boarding warnings suggested. All the rest were too far away to make sense, so far as that was possible. 'You said Kulik was heading for West Berlin. How far did he actually get?'

'He got to the restaurant. He was killed there.'

'Christ!' Audley began to make connections. There was a Catch-22 about old-fashioned field experience, rather like fighter-pilot's combat-time: the more you had, the safer you were. But that meant surviving to become safer. 'So Elizabeth was on the spot, you mean — was she?'

'Very much on the spot.' Butler bit on his own bullet. 'Kulik dummy1

wasn't the only one killed in the restaurant. Jaggard kept his word — he arranged for an escort from Berlin station, to look after her. And the West Germans had the place properly staked out — the Verfassungsschutz special squad was covering every exit. All the liaison procedures were observed: Jaggard played it by the book.'

Audley nearly repeated his previous blasphemy. 'Who else was killed?'

'Our Berlin station man.' Butler shook his head. 'You don't know him, David. But ... he was killed alongside her, anyway.'

Some "routine pick-up"! 'And what the hell was the Verfassungsschutz doing — ?' What made it worse was that the special squad was good — not to mention well-armed.

'Enjoying their lunch?'

'They killed the assassin. He only got off two shots: one for Kulik and one for our man.' Butler shook his head again. 'It's no good blaming the Germans, David. But I'm not going into any of the detail now. Miss Loftus will put you into the picture soon enough.'

'Oh yes?' What made it worst of all was that it didn't fit properly — in fact, it didn't damn-well fit at all at this moment. But that had to wait, with the way Butler was looking at him. 'So now I go to Berlin to clear up the mess, do I?' He frowned at the departures monitor. The Stockholm boarding warning had gone off, and the remaining destinations were incomprehensible. 'Or —what?'

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'You go to Naples.'

' Naples?' If it had been Timbuktoo, it would have made no better sense.

'Paul Mitchell will meet you — he's already there. And Miss Loftus will also be there by the time you arrive. They will each brief you. But you are in charge, they know that.'

'I should damn-well think so — ' A disorderly crowd of questions jostled Audley's brain, pushing in through the hole Naples had made in his concentration ' — What's Mitchell doing in Naples?'

'His brief is to watch your back. But at the moment he's looking for someone I want you to talk to. Someone you know, David.' Butler stared at him. 'Do you remember Peter Richardson?'

The disorderly crowd stopped jostling as Naples suddenly became at least partially explicable. 'Yes, I remember him.'

He decided to leave it at that with his Neapolitan boarding light winking at him behind Butler.

'I have his service record here.'

Audley accepted the buff envelope automatically. But then he found he could no longer leave it at that after all. 'What has Peter Richardson got to do with Kulik? He retired years ago.

And he wasn't with us long, anyway.'

'Kulik gave us Richardson's name before he died. His name and your name again, David.' Butler continued to stare at him. 'Is there anything you know about Richardson that we dummy1

ought to know — ' He glanced down at the envelope ' — that may not be on record?'

So that was why he was here: to ask the old 64,000 dollar question!

'Without looking at the record . . .' Then he shrugged.

Obviously there wasn't anything of significance in it, otherwise he wouldn't have been given it. And the only thing he did know about Peter Richardson which wouldn't be in there had nothing to do with security matters, but was well covered by his own word of honour. 'But ... I can't think of anything. Only, I haven't set eyes on him for years. Not since he up and quit on us. And that would be ... '74, was it? Years ago, anyway. And I didn't know him all that well, even then.'

He lifted the envelope. 'Isn't that clear from the record?'

'He once pulled you out of trouble, in Italy.'

'He did — yes.' No use denying what was on record. 'And he was there up north, on that job of yours at Castleshields. But I still hardly knew him — he was Fred Clinton's man, not mine.' It was Kulik's word against his, it seemed. 'Fred's man

— Fred's mistake, wasn't he?' That would also be in the damn record, even if Sir Frederick Clinton himself was honourably dead-and-buried, so he didn't need to labour the point. But Kulik's word was final, of course: there was no arguing with a dead man. 'So you want me to talk to Peter Richardson. So I'll talk to him.' All the same he was still more than puzzled.

'You didn't sweat all the way from the Embankment just to ask me if I knew more than was in this rubbish — ' he held up dummy1

the envelope again ' — did you?'

'I want you to bring him in, David. We can't force him to come. But I think he may be safer under wraps for the time being. And he may listen to you, of all people.'

There was a sharp knock on the door. And, on cue, the Neapolitan boarding light had become desperate.

' Wait!' Butler gave the man outside his old Army voice.

'When I said that it could have been you in Berlin I meant it.

That's why I'm giving you Mitchell to watch your back. And your front, too.' The parade-ground volume had gone, but it was still Colonel Butler speaking, not Sir Jack. 'Until I'm satisfied that that second bullet didn't have your name on it I can't be sure that there isn't a third bullet still unfired, with Richardson's name on it. So you must exercise due caution in Naples, David. Is that understood?'

'Yes, Jack.' Or, as everyone was so fond saying, See Naples, and die! But, in the meantime, he had a plane to catch.

2

They were waiting for him at Naples too, of course: they took him off the plane ahead of everyone else. Only this time, even though the stewardess treated him like a VIP, the rest of them were in two minds about him — even those who heard him addressed as Professore —

'Professore Audley? This way, if you please, Professore.'

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Everyone had looked at him when he'd arrived last and late.

Now, regardless of the Italian custom of upping even the most cobwebby doctorate to professorial status, the suspicious expressions on the faces of those passengers nearest to him suggested that they were mentally bracketing him with Professore Moriarty, as another master-criminal caught at last.

But after that it was simpler, with no Heathrow labyrinth to negotiate, only a car waiting for him, with Paul Mitchell standing beside it.

Or, rather, three cars —

Or, rather . . . half the Italian army?

'Hi there, David.' In dark glasses and open-necked shirt Mitchell looked like any late-season English tourist, in striking contrast to Audley's Italian escort, whose shiny crumpled suit had shouted 'Policeman' in confirmation of those recent passenger-suspicions. 'Good flight?'

'What are all those soldiers doing?' Audley pointed past Mitchell.

'Don't worry. They're not your reception committee.' Mitchell waved an acknowledgement to shiny suit, who was hovering beside the rearmost car. 'There's some sort of anti-terrorist scare in progress . . . although they're calling it "an exercise", like the SURE one you must have seen at Heathrow.' He re-directed the wave to the front car. 'So everyone's being screened and searched.' Now he opened the passenger door.

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'Everyone except us, that is . . . Get in, David, there's a good fellow . . . No, we're cleared to go out by the back entrance, with these special branch types for protection.'

Audley regarded the small battered Fiat with distaste.

'Yes . . . well, I'm sorry about the transport.' Mitchell grinned ruefully at him. 'Only, I wanted to drive you, so we could talk.

And this was all they could find at short notice. But... it is unobtrusive. And I have put the seat back as far as it'll go, anyway.'

'What about my bags?' Mitchell's rather strained cheerfulness was almost as irritating as the Fiat. 'And where's Elizabeth?'

'Elizabeth is chatting up the local cops and the Guardia di Finanza.' Mitchell circled the car. 'She'll be meeting us along the coast. And your bags are being held at the airport. Don't worry.'

So that was the last of his luggage, thought Audley. But, although he couldn't see what the Italian customs service had to do with Peter Richardson, it was perhaps as well that Elizabeth was elsewhere, because there certainly wasn't room for her in the back of this car. 'I'm not worrying. Just tell me about Peter Richardson.'

The car started with a jerk which banged his knees against the dashboard.

'Damn! Sorry!' Mitchell struggled with the gear-box. 'This isn't exactly what I've been used to — it drives in Italian ... or dummy1

maybe Neapolitan — ah!'

Mitchell's pride and joy at home was a second-hand Porsche, which he had got cheaply for cash after the stock market crash, Audley remembered. Tell me about Peter Richardson, Mitchell.'

'Major Richardson — ?' Mitchell flogged the car to catch up with the unmarked police vehicle ahead. 'I thought you were the expert on the elusive Major, David?'

Audley's heart sank. So far from being an expert, he still thought of Peter Richardson as Captain, not Major. But, of course, that last promotion had been Fred Clinton's work at the time of the fellow's departure, as a sop to their mutual feelings of still more-or-less friendly regret. But that wasn't what mattered so much as the adjective Mitchell had added.

'What d'you mean "elusive"? Haven't you found him?'

The Fiat juddered to a halt, within inches of the leading car which had stopped at what was now a heavily defended exit, complete with a brace of light tanks.

'Yes . . . well . . . "yes-and-no" is the answer to that, David.'

Mitchell peered through the dirty windscreen, watching the Italian special branch arguing with the Italian army. 'Or, rather, "no-and-yes", more accurately.'

Audley felt his temper begin to slip, but then checked it. Of all his colleagues, apart from Jack Butler himself, he knew Paul Mitchell best. So now he could recognize the tell-tale signs under that accustomed casualness, for all that the dummy1

man's eyes were concealed behind sunglasses. And the 30-millimetre cannon which was more or less pointing at them at this minute no more accounted for those whitened knuckles on the hands of the steering-wheel than did the little car's gearbox account for that bruising start.

'Uh-huh?' If Paul Mitchell was frightened, then perhaps Jack Butler was right — and perhaps he ought to be properly frightened too. But fear was in itself a debilitating influence, so whatever was scaring Mitchell, a display of Audley-temperament would serve no useful purpose.

'Uh-huh?' As Mitchell turned to him he just had time to compose his own expression into what he hoped was one of innocent inquiry. 'Is he safe and sound, Paul?'

Mitchell frowned at him, as though such unexpected mildness was just another burden, and a rather unfair one. 'I think . . . so far as I know he is — yes.'

It was going to be very hard to keep up this Butler-like equanimity. And, in any case, overdoing it would only worry Mitchell more. 'You think — ?'

Activity ahead mercifully distracted Mitchell. The police seemed to have convinced the army that they were not terrorists making their getaway, and barriers were being variously raised and moved.

Audley braced himself, but this time Mitchell recovered his Porsche-driver's skill, launching them after the lead car as though they were at the end of a tow-rope, yet still leaving dummy1

himself half-a-second in which to grimace at his passenger.

'You know that all this has been happening rather quickly, David — hoicking you back from the States and me from . . .

where I was — ?'

Where Mitchell had been was probably Dublin, thought Audley. And that wasn't a place for rest and recreation. So, until he'd met Elizabeth, he might actually have been cheering up. But after that he might suspect that he'd exchanged the frying pan for the fire. Only that wasn't what he was about to enlarge upon. 'Something's already gone wrong, you mean.' He tried to sound resigned to such an accustomed turn of events rather than angry.

Mitchell made a face at the thickening traffic ahead. 'There was a misunderstanding, let's say.'

'Oh yes?' Resignation was actually more appropriate: since no one yet understood what was happening, what else could be expected? 'Go on.'

'London sent an SG to Rome, warning them that I was coming — and that you were also en route, and that you wanted to talk to Major Richardson.' Mitchell massaged the steering-wheel. 'To be fair to them in Rome, David ... the SG

wasn't all that explicit. It didn't specify any sort of emergency in asking them to locate Richardson.'

'It didn't mention Berlin, you mean?' That was hardly surprising. 'So what did they do?'

Mitchell half-shrugged. 'They had his address in Amalfi of dummy1

course. And a bit more than that, seeing he'd been in the business himself in the old days. So they didn't think twice about picking up the phone and calling him up with the good news that you were about to drop in at his palazzo — ' He glanced at Audley ' — is it really a palazzo — ?'

'They mentioned my name?' Audley brushed the question aside.

'They didn't at first — ' The slipstream of an enormous lorry made the little car shudder ' — they didn't actually get through to him, only to some servant at the palazzo . . . what do palazzos have? Butlers — ? Major-domos?' The vision of a sun-bathed palace on the Amalfi coast, complete with a uniformed staff, animated a curiosity tinged with envy in Mitchell. 'And it's the old family place too, isn't it? His mum was a marchesa or a principessa, or something, wasn't she?'

'They mentioned my name?' There was no particular reason why Mitchell should know anything about Richardson.

Except that Mitchell always knew more than was good for him.

'Only when he played hard to get. I think they rather thought he must be an old buddy of yours, David. And when the . . .

major-domo, or whatever . . . when he kept telling 'em the Master was busy, or otherwise-engaged, and could he take a message per favore . . . then I'm afraid they did name-drop.'

'And what happened then?' Audley still couldn't put that "yes-and-no", "no-and-yes", together.

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'Then I arrived — in Rome. And I had a little talk with Jack.

And, of course, he told me to play it by the book, and tell the Italians we were on their patch, looking to have a chat with an old comrade.'

Audley's heart sank again as he imagined what the Italians would have on file under Audley, David Longsdon. It would have been all right if old General Montuori was still alive, albeit in well-earned retirement. But with no one to explain the truth between the lines recording his one-time Italian activities Montuori's successor would inevitably expect trouble once that name re-appeared on his blotter — just as Peter Richardson might also have done.

Damn! 'Are you about to tell me that Richardson is now missing, Peter?'

'Yes — yes-and-no, David —'

'And just what the hell is that meant to mean?' As he turned on Mitchell the car plunged into a tunnel, startling him as it bathed everything in garish orange light.

'It's not quite as bad as it seems, maybe.' The orange light flickered eerily on Mitchell's face. 'The Italians got a bit uptight at first.'

Surprise, surprise! 'They did?'

'Yes . . . They insisted on helping us — on finding Richardson themselves, and delivering him to us. I rather got the impression that he isn't exactly numero uno in their popularity stakes.'

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'What — ?' They were in the midst of a deafening maelstrom of tunnel noise-and-traffic on a multi-lane autostrada which hadn't existed in his old Neapolitan days — the days of General Montuori and Captain Richardson. 'Richardson — ?'

'Uh-huh.' Mitchell annexed Audley's own useful multipurpose non-committal grunt for himself. 'The elusive major himself — ' He nodded ' — only, as they apparently haven't found him themselves they're being nicer to us now

— God!'

Audley's knees hit the dashboard painfully as the little car decelerated fiercely. 'What — ?' He could hardly think for the noise.

'Some mad bastard — that mad bastard — ' Mitchell stabbed a finger ahead ' — has just cut in ahead of me.' He looked up at his mirror. 'They're all mad — stark, staring mad, David —

' He frowned ' — or ... I hope they are, anyway —'

Audley massaged his bruises. He couldn't keep shouting

'What?', he had to find a more sensible question. 'If no one knows where Richardson is ... what makes you think he's safe?'

The car burst into sunlight. 'Safe — ?' For a moment he didn't seem to have heard the rest of the question. 'That's why I think he's safe: because no one knows where he is.' He peered into the mirror again. 'I just hope the same applies to us, now that I've lost our escort somehow —'

Audley looked around. What was certain was that he didn't dummy1

know where he was. But this was one bit of Italy where, on a clear day like this, that ought to be easily rectified once a sufficient gap in the buildings on his left opened up.

'Ah! There he is — phew!' Mitchell grinned relief at him.

'Sorry, David. Really, I quite enjoy driving in Italy. It's the nearest thing to stock-car racing I know. But keeping in with our escort rather spoils it, that's all ... But, as I was saying —

what was I saying?'

Audley gave up trying to spot Vesuvius. 'Richardson is safe.

But you don't know where he is.'

'That's right.' Mitchell sounded almost cheerful. 'So he knows where he is.'

Audley could see another nightmare tunnel ahead. 'What d'you mean?'

'I mean that he got in touch with us. The major-domo did his stuff, evidently. So now the Major's calling the shots, David.

And we're going to meet him.'

After Berlin that was an unfortunate choice of words. But the tunnel closed in on them before Audley could react. And this time, with an enormous sixteen-wheeler thundering beside them, no further words were possible, and even thought wasn't easy.

Light returned at last, yet Vesuvius was still hidden behind buildings. Except, by now they must be beyond it, with Amain" still an hour or more ahead. But now he had thought of what he had been going to say. 'You know about Kulik, dummy1

Mitchell.'

'Not a lot.' Mitchell sniffed. 'Does anyone know more than that?' He glanced at Audley quickly. 'Have you pulled the'

rabbit out of the hat again, Dr Audley — Professore — ?'

'No.'

Mitchell flickered another glance at him. 'You're about to remind me that Kulik also called the shots — day, time and place — are you?'

Audley winced at the repetition of "shots". But, having talked to both Jack Butler and Elizabeth, Mitchell had it all pat, evidently. And meanwhile the car was beginning to slow down again.

'And it didn't do him a lot of good — is that it?' This time Mitchell didn't bother to look at him. 'Don't worry, David. I haven't forgotten that. It's at the very top of my list that I'm your minder.'

Audley was about to look away in exasperation. But then he caught a glimpse of the sea beyond Mitchell's profile.

The sea at last! "The sea! The sea!" — the cry of Xenophon's ten thousand fellow-Greeks had been dinned into him so thoroughly at school by old Wimpy long ago that the words always came back to him at every first sight of it, at first almost triumphantly, and then almost sadly as he became conscious of the length of years which now separated him from that first-learning!

'What is it, David?' Mitchell sat bolt-upright. 'What have you dummy1

seen?'

'Just the sea.' The man was a bag of nerves. 'That's all.'

But it wasn't all. And it wasn't just the sea — it was the Bay of Naples . . . Old Wimpy's Bay of Naples — no, not Naples, but Neapolis, with Pompeii and Herculaneum close at hand, and Paestum just down the road: the happy hunting-ground of every Classics-master who had ever had to hammer irregular verbs into —

The sea — ? This time he also sat bolt-upright. 'What the hell

— ?'

'What — ?' Mitchell's nerves had been jarred again.

Audley looked around as best he could within the maddening constraint of his safety belt and the ridiculous little car itself.

'The sea's on the wrong side. This isn't the way to Amalfi.'

' What?' Mitchell's voice cracked with exasperation.

'Where the hell are we?' He fumbled with the window-winder: if the sea was on that side — where were they going?

'We're in a traffic jam, is where we are — what d'you mean,

"the wrong side" — ? For Christ's sake, David! Don't do that

— get your head in — ' The rest of the command was drowned by a cacophony of horns behind them.

Audley could see the jam of cars. But it was about all he could see: with one pantechnicon behind them and another trying to push them off the road, wherever Vesuvius might be, it could be anywhere. But they were undoubtedly in a traffic jam: they were on the approach to some sort of Italian clover-dummy1

leaf junction, and that seemed to be a sauve qui peut invitation to every driver to assert himself, according to his courage if not the size of his vehicle.

'Get your head back in please, David.' Mitchell ignored the noise behind him and recovered some of his cool. ' Please, David —'

The very coolness turned Audley back towards Mitchell, because of its underlying panic: it caught exactly the final desperation of that Royal Sussex corporal on the grenade-throwing primary training exercise long ago, when Trooper Arkwright in front had held on to his live grenade between them, instead of throwing it out of the drill-trench —

'Throw it.' (Matter-of-fact, the corporal. Almost conversational.) ' Throw it— ' (No longer matter-of-fact: frozen-faced, rather — was that the face? But he couldn't remember the face: faces sometimes eluded him.) 'THROW

IT — !' (Memory blanked out at that point, as the Royal Sussex corporal and Trooper Audley had hit the dirt in the bottom of the trench, in an attempt to reach Australia before the grenade exploded) —

He found himself smiling as he turned. Time had quite washed away the sick horror of that moment, leaving in memory only the comedy of their undignified survival after Arkwright's belated throw, and then the wondrous flow of dummy1

the corporal's invective, unleashed after a matching moment of speechlessness. But then he stopped smiling as he saw the half-drawn pistol in Mitchell's hand.

'Put the window up, David.' Mitchell wasn't looking at him.

Just ahead of them, weaving between the gaps in the cars in the other lane, were a couple of Neapolitan urchins carrying trays of cigarettes and assorted junk.

'For God's sake, Paul! They're only —'

' Put the window up.' Mitchell didn't-take his eyes off the urchins.

'Throw it!'

Audley wound the window up.

'Only kids.' Mitchell slid the pistol back under his armpit before completing his sentence.

The car moved again, leaving the children behind.

'Only kids.' Mitchell nodded. 'But that's the way it's done.

Beirut ... the West Bank . . . Belfast one day, I shouldn't wonder. All you need is a traffic jam in the usual place. Or, if not, they can easily cause one . . . And then a bit of carelessness, like an open window. And then, just pop a grenade in, and run.'

'A — ' The coincidence with his own recent thought chilled Audley into silence. As of now, that would never be a jolly dummy1

anecdote again. But meanwhile he had to reassure himself.

'Aren't you being a bit over-cautious?'

'Probably.' Mitchell breathed out heavily as they shook themselves free of the traffic jam, turning under the autostrada on to what looked like a minor road. 'Maybe I'm a bit twitchy.'

Too long in the trenches, thought Audley critically. Mitchell's problem was the reverse of Elizabeth's. And it was one thing (and a good one) to give Research and Development types like Elizabeth a bit of field-experience, but another (and a very bad one) to over-stretch them just because they showed an aptitude for that too.

In fact, seconding Mitchell to Henry Jaggard's Dublin operation was like chartering Concorde to fly relief food to Ethiopia: when he finally over-shot some inadequate runway

— when his already-threadbare academic cover finally split under the pressure — all bloody-Jaggard's sincere regrets wouldn't put the clock back.

Mixed metaphors, he thought, also critically. But, trenches and Concordes and threadbare clocks aside, he must be gently encouraging now —

'I didn't mean that, Paul.' He could see the sea again. 'I know you're just obeying Jack Butler's orders.' But not the sea: this was Wimpy's Bay of Naples, still — it had to be. And . . . and there was even a road sign ahead —

Baia — Bacoli — Miseno —

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Not just Wimpy's bay: Wimpy's ancient Misenum, from which Admiral Pliny had heroically taken his fleet to succour the Vesuvius disaster-survivors of Pompeii and Stabia —

Damn!

'What I meant ... I don't see how anyone can know that I'm here — ' He almost added 'whereever I am'. But now he knew where he was, even if he didn't know why he was so far from Amalfi — 'except Peter Richardson — ?'

'And the Italians.' Mitchell accelerated after the police car in front. 'And the entire staff of the Palazzo Richardson — ?

And Uncle Tom Cobleigh and All, thereafter?' He nodded at Audley without taking his eyes off the police car. 'But chiefly Major — Peter — Richardson . . . yes.'

Suddenly everything was turned on its head, upside-down, in a way which he'd never even considered. But which, of course, Mitchell had quite naturally taken as a possibility from the moment he'd been saddled with his orders. 'Peter Richardson isn't a traitor, Paul.'

'No?' Slight shrug. 'Well. . . if you say not, David.' This time he managed a quick glance. 'After fifteen years — or more, would it be — ?' Now he was on the Miseno road. 'Are you willing to bet your life on that — never mind mine . . . which I still rather value — ?' Another shrug.

Audley waited.

'You're the boss.' Mitchell finally remembered the rest of his orders, but with an unconcealed air of resignation. 'And the dummy1

expert.'

There was more. And Audley wanted to hear it.

Shrug. 'Just so you remember that Kulik must also have reckoned no one knew where he was, David.'

That was the opening. 'I haven't forgotten that. But you told me that Peter Richardson is arranging this meeting. And you also told me not to worry, Paul.'

The police car ahead showed its brake-lights, and then turned off the road.

'So I did.' Mitchell followed suit. 'And so he has . . . more or less—yes.'

"More-or less" was like "yes-and-no": as unsatisfactory as it was imprecise. Only now they were running out of road —

quite literally running out of it, as the final narrow stretch of tarmac ended and they bumped on to a pot-holed sand-swept track. And he could see the sea again, between a scatter of beach-cafes and kiosks, with a few parked cars and a jetty ahead: they had not only run out of road, they were running out of land, too.

Mitchell parked beside the police car, right on the foreshore.

'This is where we change horses, David. But you stay here for a moment.'

'Why?' The next horse had to be a boat. But there was no craft in view belonging to the police or the customs, let alone the Italian navy. Indeed, what he could see from here suggested that this wasn't one of the Baia-Miseno peninsula's dummy1

more fashionable anchorages.

'Because I say so.' Mitchell started to open his door, but then stopped. 'How much did Jack Butler tell you about Berlin, David? Apart from Kulik.'

Audley could guess what was coming. 'He said we lost a man.'

'That's right. Name of Sinclair — Edward Sinclair. I met him once.' Mitchell nodded. 'Big chap. Not specially bright. But big. And a fluent German-speaker. That was why Ted was in Berlin, probably.'

Audley couldn't place Edward Sinclair. But that merely confirmed what Butler had said. 'So what?'

'Big like you, David.' Mitchell paused, and looked around.

'Elizabeth will tell you in more detail. But when she got to the rendezvous, Kulik was already there, sitting at a table all by himself. And so was the man who shot him.' He stared at Audley. 'Do you get the picture? He was waiting for you, David.'

Audley stared back at him as the picture formed in his mind.

'Okay.' Mitchell nodded again. 'So I'm just going to have a quick look round. And then we'll take a boat trip. And we'll just hope Major Peter Richardson has got his act together properly, and that he hasn't forgotten all he was taught.

Okay?'

If there was one thing they could rely on, it was Peter Richardson's memory, thought Audley. But at that moment it dummy1

also looked as if it was the only thing. 'Where are we going?'

Mitchell grinned suddenly. 'We're going to be end-of-season tourists, David.' He swung his door open. 'How would you like to visit old Tiberius's villa on Capri, eh?'

3

For a moment, as he examined the 18-hour stubble on his chin in the mirror of the motor-cruiser's Lilliputian lavatory, Audley forgot about the dead. But then they crowded back into his thoughts, uninvited but insistent.

"It's bad luck, thinking of the dead": who had said that — ?

The question, no sooner treacherously asked, was instantly answered by memory: it had been "Daddy" Higgs — Troop Sar'-Major Higgs himself, no less, of course — of course! Old Daddy Higgs!

"It's bad luck, thinkin' of the dead when there's work to be done, Mr Audley, sir”: memory expanded the superstition automatically, with the words perfectly recalled even though that grizzled face itself had become hazy. (Had it really been grizzled, even?) It had been "Daddy" because the men complained that he was always fussing — but Old because he proudly wore the 1937 Coronation Medal ... so that when he'd been burnt to a crisp on Fleury Ridge he'd been what?

All of 30-years-of-age, plus maybe a year or two, forever after? God!

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He shook his head at his reflection and dried his hands on the dirty scrap of towel. Daddy Higgs was long-dead. And General Raffaele Montuori was five years' dead, alas! But Oleg Filipovitch Kulik and Edward Sinclair and one as-yet-unidentified assassin were very newly-deceased. And —

Damn! Daddy Higgs's theory, behind his admonishment to his youngest and greenest (and most stupid?) subaltern, had been that the dead always had a majority vote; so, by thinking of them, you invited them to vote you into their club

—

Damn!

But he had to think of the newly-dead, all the same, while he could, with both Elizabeth and Mitchell somewhere out there, waiting for him under the tattered canvas awning at the stern, and the politely-suspicious senior Italian intelligence officer whom he'd so briefly just met also expecting an invitation — damn!

He scowled at himself. There could be very little doubt that his own invitation had been given, in Berlin. Kulik, all alone but no doubt sweating with relief now that he'd crossed the Wall safely, had in fact been comprehensively betrayed: date, time and place-betrayed, from the inside. But, with such exact information, all that bloodbath in the restaurant could have so easily been avoided that it must have been intended.

He shook his head at himself. Because all that, while it was enough to give Butler and Mitchell the frights, equally didn't dummy1

make sense, either. So he was back to old Wimpy's despairing anger, when any of his pupils (but, it had always seemed, most of all one David Audley!) had bogged up the logic of the crystal-clear Latin language: "This is nonsense, boy! And nonsense must be wrong!"

There they were, waiting for him.

'Elizabeth.' He had already nodded to her, embarrassed that his most urgent need wasn't information, but a lavatory. But now he could come to the point. 'Tell me about Berlin.'

'There isn't much to tell, David.' Her chin came up. 'I'm afraid I made a hash of it.'

'She didn't make a hash of it, actually,' said Mitchell. 'Henry Jaggard and our Jack mixed the hash. Lizzie never had a chance.'

Elizabeth gave Mitchell a wooden glance, and then dismissed him without bothering to react. 'It was supposed to be routine. But the Germans weren't happy with Kulik coming across under his own steam: they wanted to pick him up straightaway.'

'But you didn't know how he was coming across.' Mitchell again came to her defence. 'No one even knew what he looked like, for God's sake!'

He should have foreseen that Mitchell would be a problem, thought Audley: there had been the beginnings of something between the two of them, Mitchell and Elizabeth, once. But now it was very much a one-sided thing. 'Go on, Elizabeth, dummy1

please.'

'Yes.' The jaw came up again, more determined than before: the Loftus jaw which, on her famous naval ancestors, must have struck terror into friend and foe alike. 'As Dr Mitchell says, we weren't able to supply them with any information, except as regards the RV. So . . . maybe I should have expected trouble. But I didn't.'

'It was . . . "just routine", they told her,' supplemented Mitchell.

Audley coughed diplomatically. 'I take it you weren't armed?'

'The Verfassungsschutz was covering the place, David,' said Mitchell. 'They're always armed to the teeth. And they get uptight if anyone else is. They're always rowing with the Americans about it.'

'Uh-huh —' As the cruiser rocked in the gentle Mediterranean swell Audley pretended to reach for one of the supports of the awning, but missed it and caught Mitchell's arm instead.

'Not like the Italians, fortunately — ouch!' Pain cut Mitchell off.

'Sorry.' Audley kept his grip. 'So neither of you was armed . . .

How did you identify Kulik?'

'We didn't. Not for certain. He was there alone. And there was also an Arab, sitting alone, but we discounted him. So ...

Ted —I sent Ted over, David.'

Babes and innocents! And now she was blaming herself —

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and quite rightly. Except that Henry Jaggard and Jack Butler had even more to answer for between them. 'Uh-huh?' That was all he could say.

'It happened very quickly.'

When it happened, it always happened very quickly.

'Ted reached his table. It was three tables away from where we were sitting. Kulik looked up at him.' She stared through him. It wasn't happening quickly now: it was happening frame-by-frame on slow advance, and she couldn't stop looking at it. 'I think Ted said something.'

'And the Arab?'

'He was by the steps.' She continued to stare. 'He'd got up. At least ... he must have got up ... when Ted Sinclair got up.'

She hadn't been watching the Arab: it had been a routine pick-up, and Arabs hadn't featured in it. But now he was in the frame at last. And by then it had been too late.

'I saw the gun then.' She focused on him suddenly. 'He'd had it behind his newspaper as he walked — he was holding the paper across his chest when I first saw him by the steps.' She frowned at him. "Then ... he simply pointed it.'

'What sort of gun?'

'What sort of gun?' She blinked at him.

'7.65 Browning — North Korean copy. Short silencer.'

Mitchell murmured the information. 'A pro's gun, David.'

'Yes?' Mitchell knew about guns. But to know so much about dummy1

this one he must have been in contact with the Berlin security police on his own account. Or perhaps, in giving him his minder's job, Butler had obliged him helpfully. 'Go on, Miss Loftus . . . You saw the gun — ?'

'Yes.' She drew another deep breath. 'As I saw it ... he dropped the paper and held the gun two-handed. And he shot Ted Sinclair with it first, David.'

So that was why they were all so worried for him. 'And then he shot Kulik?'

'Yes—'

'No!' Mitchell had moved out of reach. 'You're not telling it how it was now, Lizzie, damn it!'

'Mitchell —' Audley began angrily ' — for God's sake!'

'No! He's right, David.' Elizabeth shook her head, blinking again. 'I saw the gun . . . and I don't know ... I knew it was already too late, then . . . But there was this bottle on the table, the waiter had just brought — ' After the hesitations the words suddenly tumbled out ' — so I picked it up and threw it at him, David. At the Arab, I mean.'

'That's more like it.' Mitchell nodded. 'And she bloody hit him too, by God, what's more: that's the way it was! She's not an ex-games mistress for nothing, by golly —cricket as well as hockey was it, Lizzie?'

Audley held up his hand quickly before Elizabeth exploded.

'All right! You threw the bottle, Elizabeth —'

Elizabeth breathed out. 'Yes.'

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'And it hit him.' He kept his hand in Mitchell's view.

'Not really.' Her anger didn't subside, but she controlled it. 'I don't know — I'm not really sure. Because . . . everything was happening at once. And there were tables in between, with people, David. They started to scatter and scream when I threw the bottle, before they knew what was happening.'

'And Kulik — ?'

'He was trying to duck under the table, I think.' Her lips tightened. The Arab shot him in the back — I saw him recover, and then aim again, slightly downwards . . . He — it was as though he shrugged the bottle off, and steadied himself again before he fired.' She gave Audley a single decisive nod. 'But I couldn't see Kulik by then, not properly.

And that was when the German police marksman on the roof also fired — I heard the thump of the Arab's first shot, but not the second one: I only heard the rifle-shot. And it knocked the Arab down the steps —I wasn't even sure that he had fired, that second time —not right then.'

'No, of course.' It wasn't simply the bitter cocktail of professional misjudgement and personal guilt that was bugging her now: it was the imprecision of her own eyewitness recollections, which her training and her honesty were both requiring her to admit as he forced her to drain the cup — and in front of Paul Mitchell, too, of all people.

And Mitchell was just about to open his big mouth again, too

—

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'So what happened then?' The very last thing she wanted would be sympathy and understanding from Mitchell.

'I went to Kulik.'

Good girl! If there had been two compressed seconds of consternation after she had hurled a full bottle of wine across a peaceful Berlin restaurant, it would have been nothing compared with the chaos after that rifle-shot. There would have been just one milli-second of silence, in which the meaning of the sound registered. And then it would have been pure panic. But she had kept her head, nevertheless.

Good Girl!

Only she wouldn't thank him for saying as much. 'You went to Kulik — ?'

'He was in a bad way. I thought he was dead, actually. Or as good as.'

'Which he was.' Mitchell nodded. 'As good as.' He nodded again. '7.65 soft-nosed dum-dum: pro-gun, pro-bullet —

went diagonally through him, upwards and then in all directions, David.' Final nod. 'He damn-well should have been dead — like Ted Sinclair already was.'

Elizabeth was looking at Mitchell now. But she didn't seem to see him. 'Yes.'

Then she returned to Audley. 'He opened his eyes. And he looked at me.'

In surprise, it would have been. Whatever natural death might be like, unnatural and violent death always came as a dummy1

surprise, even in war, where it had been neither surprising nor unnatural, Audley remembered: even those who had claimed to be resigned to the inevitable the night before, regardless of Daddy Higgs's superstitious outrage, hadn't believed that it was actually happening to them.

'He said something in Russian.'

Yes. And, for choice, that would be "Mother". Even William Shakespeare, who was usually right about everything, had been wrong about that, in imagining that the dying thought about their wives and children, let alone their unpaid debts.

Although, to be strictly accurate about what he could recall, it was the younger ones who had remembered their mothers, while the older — or the relatively older, anyway — had used words which Elizabeth might not have known in English, never mind in Russian.

'Yes?' He realized that as he remembered Normandy he had been looking through her. And that had disconcerted her.

'Yes, Elizabeth?'

She still looked at him strangely, frowning.

'Yes, Miss Loftus?' He felt the wind on his face, and the boat rolling under him in the swell: they were far out into the bay now, and he felt time at his back with Capri looming ahead somewhere. But together they sharpened his voice, from a gentle question to an order.

Still she frowned at him. 'I said . . . "You're going to be all right", David.'

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Good girl, again! (But perhaps it hadn't been him she'd really been looking at, by God!) 'Yes — ?' (But she was looking at him now.)

'He didn't seem to hear me.' But looking at him seemed to steel her. 'So I thought . . . first, I thought he was dead. But then he opened his eyes again — he'd closed them . . . But then he opened them again.'

Audley waited. This, after all, was the important bit. 'Yes — ?'

'I thought . . . no, I knew he was dying, then . . .' She trailed off, almost as though ashamed.

If he'd been there he would have been dead by then. But then, again, he might not have been. Because he would never have just sat there in the open, waiting for Kulik to make contact, just because Henry Jaggard had pronounced the occasion to be mere 'routine', with Kulik making all the running, when he knew nothing about either the man or what he was bringing out. Only, Elizabeth hadn't known any better — and Henry Jaggard and Jack Butler had made their respective errors of judgement. So now he was here — in the bloody-middle of the Bay of Naples, and without the faintest idea what he was doing, as a result. (Except that he did know slightly more about Peter Richardson than about Oleg Filipovitch Kulik . . . which was almost nothing. So now he was damn-well boxed in by that, and would have to let Richardson make the running this time, whatever the risk, damn it. Damn it!)

So now he was angry, because he was having to wait again.

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'Go on — ' He caught his anger in that instant as it jolted him with a sudden insight: this was Elizabeth Loftus, and she was one tough lady — a real "shield-maiden", if ever there was one. So by then, in the midst of that Berlin chaos, she would have been angry too . . . with all the shame-of-failure and guilt-for-Ted-Sinclair still in the future. 'That was when he dropped my name . . . and Peter Richardson's, did he?'

The Loftus-jaw again. 'I shouted at him.' (Those Loftus-ancestors had hanged men on the yard-arm at the Nore, back in '98 — 1798!) 'And he said, "Tell Audley", David.' (And the ones they hadn't hanged, they'd flogged.) 'Then he said, "Tell him Piotr Richardson knows." And he tried to say more, but then he haemorrhaged — he coughed up blood all over me . . . And then he died.'

Audley nodded. That was near enough what Butler had indicated: that Elizabeth Loftus would spell out what had actually happened.

'Famous last words,' murmured Mitchell. '"Tell Audley"! So what is it that you know, David? What's the little shared secret you have with our elusive Major?'

Audley shook his head irritably. 'What happened then, Elizabeth?'

'But that's the problem of course, Lizzie.' Mitchell nodded to himself. 'His problem — our problem . . . everyone's problem, eh? For once you don't know, do you David? Or you don't know what it is you're supposed to know, rather ... all those dummy1

years ago — uh-huh? Otherwise he wouldn't be here.'

'Shut up, Paul.' Elizabeth transferred her anger for an instant. 'What do you want to know, David?'

What did he want to know? 'What did the Germans do? Are they holding anyone? What sort of statement have they put out?'

'They haven't got any leads.' She paused for a moment, marshalling her answers. 'Only the Arab's passport. Which doesn't actually prove anything for sure . . . except that it looks like one of a PFLP batch, according to the Israelis.' She didn't quite look at Mitchell for confirmation. 'But. . . they grilled everyone who was there. Only that didn't produce anything. Because most of them were regulars. And the rest were cleared easily, Colonel Schneider said.'

'And the restaurant staff?'

'They were clear too. Except a new waiter, who was a Turk.'

She closed her eyes for an instant. "They held him for questioning. Because . . . they thought maybe he'd caused a diversion, before the shooting started.'

'A diversion?'

'He didn't. He dropped his tray.' Her mouth twisted. 'But that was after the shooting, not before, I was able to tell them.

But. . . they're still holding him.'

'Why?'

'That was to do with their official statement. Because . . .

what they're putting out — at least for the time being, David dummy1

— is that it was a gangster shoot-out, involving Turks and drugs.' She gave him a clear-eyed look. 'The Germans were extremely helpful, David. But Colonel Schneider said he didn't think the statement would stick for long.'

'Extremely embarrassed, more like.' Mitchell sniffed derisively.

'Do be quiet, Mitchell.' Audley silenced Mitchell, and then nodded encouragingly at Elizabeth. (They were both right, of course: Schneider was a damn good man. So he would have been hugely embarrassed by such a monumental fuck-up on his patch.) 'How . . . "helpful", Elizabeth?'

She studied him for a second. 'I talked to Colonel Schneider.

And then he contacted Jack in London. And they concocted a holding story between them, to which I agreed . . . after I'd talked to Jack — Sir Jack.' The look was now clear-eyed. 'Sir Jack told Colonel Schneider that I had been standing in for you, David. And . . . the Colonel knows you, doesn't he?'

That was an understatement. But it was none of anyone's business right now. 'What story?'

'It's chiefly to do with Ted Sinclair.' The mention of Sinclair hurt her. 'Officially, they haven't put out any names, as yet —

just that it was a criminal police matter, with no politics involved.' Elizabeth blinked. 'But Colonel Schneider has arranged for one of the Berlin papers to pick up a leak that an innocent foreigner was unfortunately killed in the cross-fire.

And they've put out that he was a British Council officer who'd just arrived in Berlin from Frankfurt, who was dummy1

lunching a ... a visitor, David.'

'A visitor?' Mitchell snapped the question. 'With three people dead, Lizzie — ? And the Berlin papers chasing everyone who was there?'

'The visitor was me.' Elizabeth threw Mitchell off. 'And I was representing the British Ladies' Hockey Federation, to arrange an exhibition match in the spring. And, if they check up on that, the BLHF will confirm they sent a committee member to Berlin, to examine the condition of the playing-fields.' She tossed her head. 'But that isn't important . . . even if they could trace me ... I am a BLHF committee member because I'm a Ladybird — '

'A what?' exclaimed Mitchell.

'For God's sake, Mitchell — ' Audley joined her. 'Yes, Elizabeth — ?'

'Yes.' Elizabeth dismissed Mitchell. 'The name Colonel Schneider did leak was for you, David: Ted Sinclair has become "David Ordway". And the British Council in Frankfurt has been told that their office and the BLHF were sending two people to Berlin. Do you see?'

'That won't hold for long.' Mitchell shook his head at Elizabeth. 'If we're lucky . . . maybe another day. But no more.'

But Audley saw. And, although Jack Butler hadn't quite told him everything, he saw even more clearly.

Because Butler and Schneider between them had conspired dummy1

to buy him time, as Mitchell had emphasized. But, as neither of them was certain that they'd done that in spite of all their best efforts, they were letting him decide how much those efforts might be worth: that, either if he failed to elicit this information ... or, even if he did, and he judged the risk too great, and played it accordingly "... then he would act accordingly anyway . . . with Elizabeth and Mitchell beside him, and the Italians breathing down his neck.

'Yes.' He was here now, in the Bay of Naples. So the bottom line was that Jack Butler was relying on him to make the right decision without any footling restriction, as from company commander to second-lieutenant. And the years which separated him from Peter Richardson, also separated Jack from that: even though he was now back in the field, and far from home, Butler expected him to weigh politics and diplomacy, as well as survival, and coming safe-home to Mrs Faith Audley and Miss Catherine Audley, into the bargain.

'So, in theory, you're not supposed to be here.' Mitchell, with his responsibility for that survival, went one better. 'Because, whoever put that kamikaze-Ay-rab into Berlin is supposed to be presuming that he took you out with his first shot, as per contract — eh?' But he sneered at his own hypothesis as he offered it. 'Is that what we're supposed to assume?' He rocked with the boat's motion: coming back to England — or, actually, to Wales — from Dun Laoghaire (which was worse than this: which was frequently sideways as well as up and down ... so he had his sea-legs now, from all those Anglo-dummy1

Irish crossings!). 'But you're not relying on that, are you?'

Audley held on to the stanchion which Mitchell had abandoned in moving out of his reach. What neither Butler nor Mitchell could imagine was that coming back to the sharp end was more interesting: that, however uncomfortable, it also reassured him that he was still alive, and not yet too geriatric for those duties to which he nowadays helped sentence others, for whom no scheduled flights were held, and who were not delivered to (or taken off) those flights as though they were such Very Important Persons that they didn't have to worry (or, couldn't waste time worrying?), because they were Too Important. So that now (no matter how frightened he could be if he let himself think about it) ... at least he wasn't so bored with life anyway!

'Very well! So Kulik was waiting for me. But so was the Arab.

And he took out Ted Sinclair, believing he was me. So why Kulik, then — ? If he was just bait?'

Mitchell shrugged. 'So maybe they double-crossed him.'

Another shrug. 'The mouse springs the trap — who cares about the cheese? Not the Russians!'

'No.' Elizabeth shifted uneasily. 'It doesn't fit.'

Mitchell looked at her in surprise. 'What doesn't fit, Lizzie?'

'It doesn't fit the Russians, Dr Mitchell.'

'No? Everything's sweetness and light now, is it? Glasnost and Perestroika, and all that jazz?' He cocked his head at her. 'And nice Mr Gorbachev off to New York to announce dummy1

missile cuts — and army cuts, too? Is that what you've been working on, Lizzie: doing Jack Butler's sums for him? Don't kid yourself, Miss Loftus —'

'I'm not kidding myself.' Elizabeth allowed herself to be provoked at last. 'You've been too long in Ireland, Paul.'

That was probably true, thought Audley critically. (And, typically for Research and Development, they each had a shrewd idea of what the other had been doing. So much for departmental security!)

'That may very well be, my dear Elizabeth.' Mitchell rolled loosely for a moment as he took her measure. 'And . . . you may have a point with nice Mr Gorbachev, even . . . seeing how he hasn't really any choice, the way the wind's blowing.'

He nodded again. 'But not everyone in the Kremlin has got the message yet — let alone in Dzerzhinsky Street and Arbatskaya Ploshchad.' This time he grinned. 'Apart from which, if Comrade Kulik could still have had something to sell . . . And he was on the level . . . even nice Mr Gorbachev wouldn't think twice about putting him down, for the good of Glasnost— eh?'

'With a hired assassin?'

'Why not?'

'An incompetent assassin?'

They were both volleying at the net now —

'He wasn't all that incompetent, Lizzie — '

'He didn't recognize David.' She looked at Audley: she'd had dummy1

enough of this exchange. But he wasn't yet ready to intervene.

'So he had a contract for one large male Caucasian, maybe.'

Suddenly it was Mitchell who was uneasy. 'Or maybe he panicked when it looked like Kulik was being picked up, and simply decided to settle for poor old Ted. It happens, Lizzie.

If you panic.'

'In Ulster maybe it happens.' She came back to Audley again.

'I don't know, David. But it just doesn't feel right.' She frowned at him. 'Killing you, David . . .'

'Yes.' Mitchell wasn't quite ready to quit. 'Now that would have been a scandal, I grant you.' He matched her frown.

'Our David is ... just a bit too grand for sudden death —

you're right there, Lizzie . . .' He trailed off finally, leaving

" This isn't Ireland" unsettled between them. 'So what have we got then? A bit of rogue KGB-GRU private enterprise, David?' They were both looking at him.

'Or ... a third party?' Elizabeth accepted victory diplomatically. 'Have the Germans identified the Arab yet?

He had this suspect passport — and the Israelis were very helpful over that, Schneider said.'

'They were, yes.' Mitchell steadied himself.

'What — ?'

'I talked to Schneider this morning, while I was waiting for you, David.' Mitchell sounded only slightly apologetic.

'Minding you ... I wanted to know who we might be up dummy1

against, just in case . . . just in case your Arab had friends.

That was when he told me all about the gun.'

'And the passport?'

'It was a very good one, actually. What they call a "Bakaa Valley" job — the Israelis do.' He watched Audley. 'They're experts on Arabs and passports, your old Israeli friends are.

And your other old friend, Colonel Benedikt Schneider, is well-in with them. So they obliged him by identifying it for him: it's part of a lot they've picked up examples of elsewhere . . . from Abu Nidal-PFLP distribution. Which doesn't mean much precisely, because any of those splinter groups will provide a hitman if the deal is right, Schneider says. Complete with a one-way ticket, even.' He paused.

'Which fits Berlin rather uncomfortably, I'm afraid, David.

Because whoever hired that Ay-rab must have known you'd have protection. So two shots were the most he'd expect to manage before the Verfassungsschutz took him out. But he knew he was going to paradise afterwards. So he didn't care.'

No wonder Mitchell was twitchy, thought Audley.

Then Mitchell made a face at him. 'Which doesn't get us much further, if you really don't know why you've suddenly become so unpopular all of a sudden. Which ... I take it you don't? Otherwise — ?' He turned away almost casually.

'Lovely view, eh Miss Loftus — Sorrento . . . Capri? And our own transport, too!'

Otherwise you wouldn't be here hung between them for an instant, before the sea-breeze blew it away.

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'It's a smuggler's boat.' To Audley's surprise she let herself be diverted.

'Is it, indeed?' Mitchell looked up and down the craft. 'Or ex-smuggler's boat, presumably?' He fixed finally on the low wheel-house. 'Although your Guardia friends are certainly dressed for the part, Lizzie. Is that to help us mix with the locals, just to be unobtrusive, then — ?'

They were playing with him. But, they were both scared, he decided. So, in spite of the past and the insuperable present of their relationship, they had suddenly come to an unspoken agreement. Because fear, like politics, made for strange alliances.

Or, anyway, what Elizabeth said next would confirm that-

'Not Guardia, Paul.' She leaned over the paint-flaked gunwale, pretending to study the still-indistinct loom of Capri through the haze. 'Captain Cuccaro is Intelligence, not Guardia . . . Although I don't know about the crew, such as it is . . .'

'They look like a bunch of pirates, whatever they are.' Failing to get any reaction from Audley, Mitchell was forced to prolong the exchange. 'Are we being met, in Capri?'

'I expect so.' Elizabeth wasn't so good at playing games: she couldn't think what to say next.

'You haven't told them where we're going?' Mitchell began to be stretched, in turn.

'No.' Elizabeth leaned further. And Audley found himself dummy1

watching Mitchell study the stretch of her skirt across her hips, never mind whatever else was visible from their different view-points. Because, although Miss Loftus was cursed with the Loftus-face — the Loftus-jaw, particularly . . .

her figure was all her own.

'No.' She straightened up, and looked directly at him.

'Captain Cuccaro doesn't yet know where we're going.

Because I wanted your instructions about that, David. But . . .

he's not very happy. He wants to talk to you about. . .' She almost blundered too far '. . . about Peter Richardson.'

'Yes.' Mitchell nodded, suddenly hard-faced. 'And so do I, by God! Because there's damn all in the records about him since he left us and went back to the army. And then he retired very shortly after that, anyway.'

'I don't see how he could have been a double.' Elizabeth shook her head. 'If he had been he'd never have left us.

They'd never have let him go, once he was inside.'

'So it's more likely something from the old days.' Mitchell watched Audley. 'Something he knows that maybe didn't seem important at the time . . . And you're the expert on that, David.'

'Yes.' It was no good denying what Jack Butler himself had thought. 'Whatever Richardson knows — about Kulik, or anyone else . . . anything else — he's no traitor.'

'What makes you so certain? He was Fred Clinton's man, not yours, surely?'

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'Wrong profile.' What he wasn't about to do was to discuss the instincts of the late — and, in his time, great also —

Frederick J. Clinton in the small matter of recruitment, let alone that of treachery: Mitchell had hardly known Fred, and never in his heyday — and Elizabeth hadn't know him at all.

And neither of them, anyway, had lived through treason's own heyday, as Fred had done: those infamous years when everyone had been hagridden by doubts, which Fred had once dubbed "the Cambridge Age" to put his star recruit from Cambridge in his place. '"Profiling" went out with the ark.' Mitchell hadn't finished, and wasn't going to let go. 'It went out with Clinton.'

'He was thoroughly vetted.' He hated to hear Fred consigned to history so crudely.

'But not by you, David. Fred Clinton's man — and an old-school-tie recruit, right?'

'Army, actually.' Mitchell knew too much, again. But not quite everything.

'Okay — old-regimental-tie, then.' Mitchell was implacable.

'Failed the old regiment — and then failed us, the way I heard it.'

Elizabeth was frowning at him again. But he had to settle with Mitchell now. 'Then you heard it wrong.' The trouble was, in a perverse way the fellow had it right, all the same.

He could even remember Neville Macready summing up Richardson when the news of his departure was announced:

' Yes . . . well, they can't say I didn't warn them . . . Clever dummy1

fellow, of course — total recall, and all that. And plenty of style with it. But . . . "Tiggers don't like honey", I said to Fred. "And they don't like acorns. And they don't like thistles

— you'll see". But, of course, our Fred's never read "Winnie-the-Pooh" — wrong generation — he simply didn't understand what I was talking about.'

'How should I have heard it, then?'

Where Mitchell had been much more importantly right, however, was that guess about "the old days". But that was where he kept coming up against the blank wall in the records, and the equally blank wall of his memory (which was more reliable than any record). So it couldn't — it damn-well couldn't — be anything that they'd share, he and Richardson, that had made Kulik bracket their names in his last breath.

'He was a very talented man.' He eyed Mitchell reflectively.

'In some respects he was maybe even better than you, Mitchell.'

'Oh aye?' Having goaded Audley into starting to answer, Mitchell wasn't offended by the comparison. 'But I got his job nevertheless, didn't I?' He even grinned knowingly at Elizabeth. 'We're both Audley-recruits, aren't we, Lizzie?

So ... we may not be as talented. But we're not quitters, are we?'

Elizabeth, who hated being knowingly-grinned-at by anyone, but particularly by Dr Paul Mitchell, became even more dummy1

Loftus-faced. 'Why did he resign, David? From Research and Development? And then the army, too? If he was so good

— ?'

That had been the question which had hurt Fred Clinton, when his potential star-pupil had graduated cum laude, and then turned his back on the services. But, if he —hadn't read A. A. Milne, he had known his Dryden —

'I can't say that I'm not disappointed, David. Not to say surprised, too . . . Although Neville says he warned me, with some rubbish about acorns and thistles.'

' Yes . . . but, then, it's the difference between "cold" war and

"hot" war, Fred — isn't it?' (That had been the first time he'd had to face what he already knew, but hadn't faced: that Fred was getting old now, and that the generation-gap between those who had felt the heat, and never wanted to feel it again, and those who hadn't, but who wondered endlessly about what it had been like, was becoming a problem to him.) ' It's like it was with my late unlamented father-in-law, Fred: so long as the guns were firing, he was a hero. But once they stopped, he began to get bored. And then he got up to all sorts of mischief —

"A daring pilot in extremity ..."

"... but for calm unfit ..."

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— so it's probably just as well. Because he'd have got up to all sorts of mischief, if he'd stayed with us.'

'Haven't we got enough mischief for him?'

' More than enough —1 agree!' (But that had been exactly the right moment to hit Fred with what he'd been worried about himself, at that time so long ago: that memory was still sharp, by God!) ' But he's the sort of chap who might get involved with politics, Fred. And . . . de-stabilizing the Government isn't what we're into — is it?'

'He isn't into that.'

' No.' (Fred wasn't over the hill yet. But he was no longer sitting on the top of it quite, either.) ' But some of the people he knows are ... or, let's say, I'm not sure about them, anyway. And . . . I have rather got the impression that intelligence research bores him — when we have to advise others when to risk their necks out there — ?'

That was it: whatever Mitchell might question as unlikely, he wouldn't argue with that. Because Mitchell and Richardson were brothers-under-the skin; only Richardson had been flawed, and Mitchell wasn't. 'He wasn't a research man, at heart.' And, also, there was that other difference — which would wound Mitchell deeply. But it would also stop his mouth, too. 'He was a soldier, you might say. And we didn't have a proper war for him. So that's why he resigned — from the army, as well as from R and D, Paul.'

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'Yes. He resigned.' Unexpectedly, Elizabeth hit him from the flank. 'But he also retired, David — from everything? Just like that — from everything?'

'Uh-huh?' Once the man had left R and D, that had been the end of him, was all he could recall. Fred had helped him back, of course: it had been Fred's influence which had promoted him from captain to major ... if not to keep him on his career-track, then maybe not to discourage their next recruit. So that had been merely prudent, never mind keeping faith with Richardson himself.

He shrugged. 'Well . . . that was afterwards.' All he could recall from afterwards was the office gossip in which he hadn't been interested. Peter Richardson — Major Richardson now — back with his regiment had been of no consequence whatsoever: he had smashed up one of his sports cars (and been smashed up in it, with it ... but that was no great surprise!); and then his adored Italian mother had died, on whom he had doted. (And that had been sad, maybe . . . but that was the way the world was: kings and queens and chimney-sweepers all had to die sometime; and so did mothers: mothers, and kings and queens and chimney-sweepers were dying all the time. And, anyway, the Principessa had died loaded with lire, to pay for a great big Italian hearse, drawn by four black horses through Amalfi, to solace her loving son in his grief in his inherited palazzo.)

'That was when he retired — resigned?' It was Elizabeth again, not Mitchell. But, where Mitchell had merely dummy1

questioned him about the sequence of events, Elizabeth was frowning at the events themselves.

So now he wasn't so sure of himself. But what he remembered wasn't in doubt, nevertheless. 'That was when he sent in his papers — yes. Because then he had all his inheritance to manage. All the family estates, up and down the coast, Elizabeth —' What made that doubly-sure was that one of Fred Clinton's criteria had been money, always: a man's politics and his sexual weaknesses were two things which mattered most, in those old days. But if he already had money, at least that ruled out arguments about his expenses allowance, when the budget was tight '— so ... that was old money, anyway.' And that was what Fred had liked best: old money. Apart from which, Peter Richardson had always loved his other country, as well as his mother: he had been almost as patriotic about the ancient Republic of Amalfi, which was more than half-a-thousand years older than Italy itself, than about his other Land-of-Hope-and-Glory.

But Elizabeth was still frowning at him. 'What's the matter, Elizabeth?'

She was still frowning. And so much so that even Paul Mitchell wanted to know what the matter was, also —

'Lizzie — ?'

'I think you should talk to Captain Cuccaro, David.'

Now they both looked at her. But Mitchell cracked first. 'Uh-huh? And . . . what did Cuccaro say, Lizzie? Does he want to dummy1

talk to the elusive Major, then? On his own account — ? Does he? Never mind the Russians?'

But she shook off Mitchell and all his questions then, together with her frown. 'It's the Mafia who want to talk to Major Richardson, Cuccaro says. And . . . and, I think that's what he wants to talk to you about, David — '

4

The Italians had not sent a boy to do a man's job: Audley had concluded that already from his brief meeting with Captain Cuccaro when he'd come aboard. But that, in view of what was surely in their records, was hardly surprising. Only close-up it was even more evident.

'Professore.'

'Captain.' Additionally, Cuccaro was what Mrs Faith Audley would have called "a fine-looking man", as well as an elegant one in his immaculate designer-jeans and expensive shirt (complete with a curious bronze medallion on a chain round his neck). All of which made Audley himself feel even more crumpled and unprepossessing. "Thank you for joining us, Captain. Your assistance is much appreciated.'

Cuccaro rolled easily with the boat's motion. 'I am here to facilitate your mission, Professore.' He gestured gracefully.

'And, of course, to ensure your safety as well as your success.'

There was no reason why the Italians should connect him dummy1

with events in far-off Berlin. But there was now the extraordinary Mafia intrusion to be explained. 'My safety?'

He let himself almost lose his balance.

Cuccaro grinned suddenly. 'I am also grateful to you for this

—' He swept a hand over the boat ' — these days, I command only a desk, you understand. So this is a most pleasant change — to be at sea again, Professore.'

Small talk, was what Audley understood, even as he grabbed the nearest stanchion in order to keep his feet: if this was the way the game had to be played . . . then the boat first. And that curious medallion . . . which that last lurch had brought close enough for him to be able to make out a bearded head on it, surmounted not by a crown, but what looked like a German pickelhaub.

'Is that so?' He managed to find an Audley-smile from somewhere. 'I wouldn't have thought this is your sort of boat, Captain.' He waved as best he could with his free hand to include the tattered awning and the flaking paint, glancing quickly at Elizabeth (whose expression still bore the remains of the impact of Cuccaro's grin: being dazzlingly smiled-at by handsome men was for her an outrage only a little short of being actually touched by any man, handsome or not). '"A smuggler's boat", Miss Loftus said — ?'

'Yes.' Cuccaro grinned again. But this time it was a different smile. 'Or, it was until very recently.' He held up his hand, with a single brown finger raised, 'Do you hear that?'

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The only thing Audley could hear was the engine. Which was just an engine, in the same way that the boat was just a boat.

But evidently not to Captain Cuccaro.

'Beautiful!' Cuccaro focused suddenly on Audley again, and was himself. 'It is ... an appropriate boat, let us say, Professore.'

Audley listened to the engine again. All he could say for it was that it wasn't making much noise. But if it was a smuggler's boat, that was to be expected. 'You mean . . . it's unobtrusive, Captain?'

"That also.' Cuccaro nodded, but seemed only half to agree.

'The Guardia seized it up the coast, a few days back.' The faint American origins of his otherwise perfect English intruded. 'There are many such in these waters

—''unobtrusive", as you say.' Another nod. 'And very fast, when speed is required.' He stared at Audley for a moment.

'Most of the time, they hire out to the tourists . . . with maybe a little fishing, also. And then, one day —one night, they meet a bigger boat, by appointment.'

'Uh-huh?' If Cuccaro wanted him to be interested in smuggling as a prelude to their own business, then he would be. 'Drugs, presumably?'

'Drugs ... or what you will.' The medallion swung in its nest.

'Cigarettes are still very popular with the smaller fry. And, of course, there are the local exports — the ancient artefacts . . .

Roman and Greek from Campania and the south. Etruscan from the tombs in the north —they are much sought-after by dummy1

foreign collectors. It is good steady business, Professore. If one is not too greedy.'

Audley nodded politely. 'That's very interesting.' But two could play at this small-talk-game. 'That medal of yours, Captain — is that an ancient artefact?' He leaned forward, keeping tight hold of his stanchion, but couldn't quite make out the inscription. 'What does it say — ?'

'My good luck piece?' Cuccaro looked down for an instant.

' "Wilhelm der Grosse Deutscher Kaiser" , Professore. " Koenig von Preusseri" .' He took the medal in his hand and turned it over.' " Zum Andenken an den hundersten Geburtstaf des grossen Kaisers Wilhelm I, 1797-22 Maerz-1897" .' He looked up at Audley. 'Not so very ancient. My grandfather picked it up on the Piavein 1918. My father wore it in his war. And now I wear it — for good luck, also.'

'I see.' Audley had had his own smile ready and waiting. 'And you think we'll need good luck today, Captain? Or is it Major Richardson who needs the luck now?'

No smile this time. 'He has been lucky so far. Now . . .

perhaps you are right.'

'With the Mafia after him?'

'Among others.' Cuccaro turned towards Capri for a second, as though to judge its proximity. 'What is it that you want from him, Professore Audley?'

'I merely want to ask him a few questions.'

'About what?'

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'I wish I knew.' But the truth wouldn't do, Audley could see.

'About the old days, when he worked for us. Nothing to concern you, Captain — or Italy.' And that was also true. But as Kulik had had nothing to do with Germany, he'd best hedge that piece of truth. 'What is it that your Mafia wants with him, Captain?'

'You do not know?' Cuccaro glanced at Elizabeth.

'As it happens ... I don't.' The trouble with the truth was that, with his Italian record, it was quite simply unbelievable. But it was all he had. 'The fact is, Captain Cuccaro, he resigned from our service years ago. And then he went back to the army. But then he resigned from that. . . You might say that he was having bad luck then.'

'Bad luck?'

Audley dredged his memory for what, in its time, had been of no more than passing interest on the " Heard about poor old Peter?" level. 'He had a nasty road accident. Not his fault.'

But memory, as always, came to his rescue: " Poor old Peter!

Ran into a dirty great big lorry, right outside his flat.

Smashed himself up properly, apparently — and his new Jag, too"; to which he had said " Is that so?" (and thought, from experience and with unfeeling disinterest, driving too fast, as usual—serve him right!). 'Not his fault . . . and then his mother died. So then he retired here, in Italy!'

But Cuccaro was watching him. 'You knew him well, though, Professore?'

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'I worked with him only once or twice.' He felt a vague irritation swelling up in his throat. 'I have not set eyes on him for fifteen years, Captain. And you have not yet answered my question: why is the Mafia interested in him?'

Cuccaro looked away for a second, then back at him. 'He has a boat like this one. And an organization to go with it. Only ...

his is an even better boat. And his organization, it would seem, is as good as his boat.' The stare became frankly disbelieving. 'And this . . . you did not know?'

For a moment Audley could only stare back at him. 'Peter Richardson — ?' He couldn't quite keep the incredulity out of his voice. 'You're saying — ?'

'"Wrong profile"?' Mitchell raised an innocent eyebrow.

The trouble was, it wasn't so utterly unthinkable, the next moment, as he thought about it — not, anyway, when he added premature retirement (and in comfort) to Richardson's restless spirit. It had been plain corrosive boredom more than anything else which had in the end parted him from R and D all those years ago, in spite of that wild special aptitude of his which had so captivated Fred Clinton. And boredom, as he well knew himself, was the father of mischief.

But he still wanted more time to think. 'Is smuggling your business then, Captain?' He pretended to study the boat as he spoke, as though that was expected of him.

Smuggling — ?

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'No.'

If smuggling wasn't the connection with Kulik, it was nothing, really — or, it needn't be, need it? Half the world's travellers, who filled the duty-free shops in every airport and chanced their arms with that extra bottle, were petty smugglers at heart —

Brandy for the parson, 'Baccy for the clerk — and if Richardson had merely been supplying that ancient demand

— ?

'Neither is the Mafia my business.' Having waited in vain for him to come back, Cuccaro spoke more sharply. 'But Major Richardson interests them now. That is what the word in Naples is, the Guardia informants say. And that, perhaps, is why he has become . . . unavailable?'

The cosy picture in Audley's mind dissolved. Brandy and

'baccy ... or, up-dated, Lucky Strikes in exchange for the odd Greek vase or Etruscan funeral pot . . . that was one thing.

But the Mafia —

'What's he in to?' Mitchell could contain himself no longer.

'Drugs are where the money is, aren't they?' And, once uncontained, he was irrepressible. 'And now what's it?

"Crack" — ? Isn't that raising the stakes?'

Money! That was what was wrong, damn it! That damn-well was the "wrong profile" — wasn't it? Except . . . that fifteen years made a nonsense of that cosy picture, too —did they?

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'He's run out of money, has he?' He snapped himself back between them.

Cuccaro frowned at him once more. 'He never had any money.'

Now they were really at odds. 'He had plenty of money, Captain.' The gleaming Richardson-cars and the West Central flat were there in memory to support him. 'He had money from his mother.' Money had always been a huge plus in Fred Clinton's preferences, even before the aptitude tests: if you were heterosexual and well-heeled (and, for choice, not Cambridge!), then with Fred you were over the first fences, they always said. 'And she was rich.'

'And then dead, too.' This time Mitchell was with him.

Because, in his time, Paul Mitchell had been over those same fences, and knew them. And despised what he knew, too.

'With a palazzo all of his very own — right, David?'

Cuccaro shook his head. 'There was no money.'

'No money?' Mitchell accepted the turnabout more readily.

'No palazzo — ?'

Cuccaro's lip curled. "There is a ... "palazzo", as you call it.

But it was . . . how do you say? Mortgaged, is it?' He nodded.

'And the Principessa was a great lady. So there was also credit. And bank loans, too.' The nod became a shake. 'He had no money. He had only her debts. And some of them were debts of honour.' He stared at Audley, not Mitchell. 'He had . . . "bad luck", you said, Professore — ?'

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There was more. 'What else?'

'She died. And she was a great lady, as I have said. So there was not too much inquiry then. But ... it seems now that all her little problems had suddenly become big ones, you see.'

Cuccaro swayed and rolled with the boat's motion, so that his shrug was almost lost with it. 'There was perhaps a certain delicacy in asking questions which could only have made for greater sadness at the time, about her death . . . you understand, Professore?'

'Yes.' From his own tangled childhood Audley understood far better than the man could imagine. But the hell with that!

(And, for that matter, the hell also with whoever hadn't done his job properly, back in the early seventies, on Peter Richardson for Fred Clinton — at least for the time being!).

'Yes.' Mitchell looked sidelong at him, and then back at Cuccaro. 'But. . . hold on a moment. The palazzo —' The damn palace seemed to have become an obsession.

'For God's sake, Mitchell — '

'No.' Mitchell shook him off. 'It was mortgaged . . . and all the rest. But he never lost it — Palazzo Castellamare di San Lorenzo — ' He fixed on the Italian ' — he never lost it, in spite of everything ... So he's been cruising these waters from the start, has he? Paying off the interest — ? And then the capital, too? And then more — ?' He rounded on Audley suddenly. 'It's a bloody showpiece, David — the Palazzo Castellamare di Major Peter Richardson: that's what Rome Station said. The ruddy guides on the tourist coaches point it dummy1

out. Blue-water swimming pool, big white yacht by the private jetty — nothing like this in view, of course.' He swept a hand over the smuggler's boat. 'But he must have been at it for years, to turn his hard luck into all that!' He returned to the Italian. 'How long have they known about it? Or suspected it, even?'

Not long, thought Audley quickly, watching Cuccaro's face.

But then, why should they have suspected anything? There had been no black marks against Major Richardson, he would have passed simply as a rich expatriate Englishman bringing his own money to restore his Italian family fortune.

Cuccaro sighed, and gestured eloquently as only an Italian or a Frenchman could, to gloss over his Guardia colleagues'

failure. 'Not long since, it seems.'

'Only when the Mafia got interested in his act?' Mitchell wasn't letting go. 'Uh-huh?'

Cuccaro's expression hardened. 'It is possible that he has become greedy, after many years of keeping out of their way.

But . . . there was no official inquiry into him until recently —

that is true. And that is how the matter of his mother's death came to light. But that will not be pursued further now, I am informed.'

"The great lady" was safe, if not her son. But that, Cuccaro was informing them, was none of either his business or theirs, anyway. The business in hand was to take Richardson while making sure that Professore Audley neither came to dummy1

grief nor caused any, as he had done in the past.

'Of course.' They were agreed there, actually. What Butler expected of him was results, double quick. But results diplomatically achieved, also. 'I am grateful for your frankness, Captain. You have clarified certain . . . aspects of our mission which disturbed us — Sir Jack Butler and Mr Henry Jaggard.' He threw the names in for respectability.

But when they failed to melt Captain Cuccaro he decided to go for broke. 'And the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, representing Her Majesty's Government.' Only that still didn't seem to work. And if neither Her Majesty nor Mrs Thatcher could blot out his record after all these years, then he must resort to desperate extremes, with Capri altogether too close for comfort now. 'So, if I may, I will take you into our confidence — ?'

'Professore.' With Capri looming, Cuccaro was under the whip too. So, in spite of all his doubts and the lurch of the boat as it cut through the wake of another Capri-Napoli water-bus, he sketched a bow.

'You have not traced Major Richardson yet?' He allowed only two seconds for agreement. 'And neither have we. And that disturbed us. Because we didn't know why he's suddenly become so ... unavailable?' He smiled. 'But now we know.

Thanks to you.'

Cuccaro reached across his chest to take hold of his Kaiser Wilhelm good luck piece. 'But you have rendezvous, I am told

— ?'

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That was what he wanted, of course.

'Not exactly,' said Mitchell. But then he looked at Audley.

'Only in a general sort of way —' Then he looked past Audley, towards Capri ' — a general locality, I mean, David.'

'And where is that, sir?' The oddly-Americanized "Sir"

betrayed the Italian's dislike: technically, Mitchell also rated

"professore". But Mitchell and Cuccaro were Anglo-Italian chalk-and-cheese.

'Please!' Audley held up his hand. 'You ... or ... the authorities . . . want to talk to Major Richardson, I take it—?'

Cuccaro eyed him warily. 'There are questions to be asked.

And to be answered.'

'About his smuggling activities?'

'If that is what they are.' The Italian paused. 'Then —yes, Professore.'

That was it, of course. Until that sudden Mafia interest had given his game away, Richardson had had everything going for him: his pre-retirement career had not only given him all the requisite smuggling skills to add to his blue-blooded local connections, but it had also endowed him with a certain respectability, as an ex-Intelligence officer. But then, when the balloon finally had gone up, the Italians must at once have thought more than twice about him, with the American Sixth Fleet so often swinging at anchor across this bay, in NATO's main base in the Central Mediterranean: that perfect cover for smuggling — or even the smuggling itself — might dummy1

cover other enterprises, eh?

He ought to have thought of that. And, by God, it still beckoned him now, as he thought about it! At least it was something Captain Cuccaro would believe — Perfidious Albion! — he would believe that, if nothing else!

'Question-and-answer?' Mitchell moved into his silence, just as warily. 'Or arrest?'

That was going too fast. 'Please, Dr Mitchell —'

'Not arrest — ' Cuccaro spread his hands ' — say . . .

"protective custody" rather, sir.' He switched back to Audley.

'We do not desire . . . difficulties, Professore. But there are other matters — other considerations . . . which, at present, are not clear to us ... at this moment, you understand?'

This time Audley didn't quite understand. 'What other

"considerations"?'

Such innocence seemed to surprise the captain. 'You saw the airport? And the precautions there?'

Audley nodded, remembering Heathrow as well as Naples. 'A man in a tank pointed a cannon at me — yes?'

"Then you know that there is an anti-terrorist emergency.'

'An exercise, I thought. There was a similar one at Heathrow when I was there a few hours ago.' For once he didn't have to pretend innocence. 'An exercise? Or—?'

' "Sure" ,' murmured Mitchell. 'That's what they told me.'

'What?'

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'"Scheduled Unspecific Routine Exercise" — "SURE" for short, David. They have 'em all the time these days.' But then Mitchell cocked an eye at the Italian. 'Are you telling us that this time they're not so ... "sure", maybe?'

Cuccaro studied each of them for a moment. 'There is a great deal of ... activity, in many different quarters. Very disturbing activity, Professore.'

The engine-note beneath them changed from a controlled drone almost to silence, as though it were no longer propelling the boat. The harbour lay just ahead of them, with the island towering up above on each side of the crowded anchorage.

'What sort of activity?' snapped Audley.

'Your Major Richardson is not the only person who has become hard to find.' Cuccaro lifted one shoulder dismissively. 'He has not been my concern, until now, as I have already told you. But there are others . . .'He stared at Audley

'. . . whose sudden absence makes for nervousness.'

That, at least, Audley understood. Cuccaro must be an anti-terrorist man, among other things. And one of the first suspicious signs of any impending terrorist operation was the departure of the representatives of suspected terrorist-front agencies to safer climes beyond European jurisdiction.

But where the devil did that leave Elizabeth's Arab?

'I see.' That Arab was a damnable coincidence, more likely than not. Because, whatever Kulik had been offering them, dummy1

the Russians weren't into terrorism in these heady Glasnost days — if anything, quite the opposite . . . except that, neither were they into bad-publicity assassinations, by the same token. Yet, in the meantime, the last thing he wanted in the immediate future was Cuccaro breathing down his neck.

'Well, that's really rather reassuring.'

'It is?' It was Mitchell who spoke. But then, in his present post-Dublin twitchy state, he was another candidate for reassurance.

'Oh yes.' He forced himself to brighten. 'Major Richardson may be a ... smuggler.' He attempted an Italian gesture, half apologetic, half-cynical, as he turned back to Cuccaro. 'And, if he is, my Government would deeply regret that . . . which, quite frankly, comes as much as a surprise — a most embarrasing surprise — to us as it would appear to have come to your people, Captain.' Not even Jack Butler could find fault with such diplomatic language. But he had to harden it, nevertheless. 'And you can rest assured that after we have spoken with him we will place him at your disposal.

And then the law must take its course, naturally.'

They were all looking at him now. But the boat was wallowing in the swell outside the harbour, so they were all also finding it difficult to keep their feet as they did so, even the Italian himself.

'After — ?' Cuccaro managed to steady himself. Then he looked uneasily towards the harbour. 'Are you saying that you wish for no protection, Professore?'

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'Protection from whom?' Securely anchored to his stanchion, Audley could concentrate on asserting himself. 'The Mafia is none of my business. And I am none of theirs. They do not know me — they do not know of me. Why should they?' He shrugged. 'And, in any case, since Major Richardson has arranged this rendezvous with Dr Mitchell I think we may reasonably confide that they will not be attending it.' He smiled at Cuccaro. "Confide" was an admirably diplomatic word, with its nuances of smugness and self-importance — a very Henry-Jaggard-word. And that encouraged him to go further. 'I am simply visiting an old friend-and-colleague, to discuss matters from long ago, Captain. The fact that my old friend-and-colleague happens to have a problem of his own relating to certain — ah — certain unwise activities in which he has engaged . . . that is a mere coincidence.' But now he must sugar the pill. 'But he, of course, may not regard it as any such thing. More likely, he will have assumed that my appearance relates to those . . . alleged activities. In which case he will be expecting advice. And my advice will be that he must give himself up immediately.' No smile now: magisterial disapproval now! 'Indeed, I shall insist that he does that. And I will tell him that there is an unmarked craft waiting for him, to ensure his safety.' He nodded the words home. 'I trust that such an undertaking meets your requirements, Captain?'

'Hmmm . . .' Mitchell emitted an uneasy sound.

'Yes, Dr Mitchell?'

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"Protection from whom?" was what was exercising Mitchell's mind. And it might be as well to deal with the problem of Mitchell here and now, while he was inhibited by Cuccaro's presence. 'I take it you agree with me?'

'Mmm — yes, of course.' Mitchell gave him an old-fashioned look, but then brightened falsely as he turned to Cuccaro.

'We can perhaps leave Miss Loftus with you, Captain. We should be able to handle the Major between us, I don't doubt

— yes.'

'Not "we", Dr Mitchell.' Audley shook his head. 'You will both remain here, of course.'

Mitchell opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. 'My instructons, Dr Audley — '

' My instructions are to meet with Major Richardson, Dr Mitchell.' The only problem was that Mitchell had not been very precise. But Captain Cuccaro's presence could be helpful there, too. 'Where did you say the meeting-place was — ?' He nodded politely to the Captain. 'We appreciate your cooperation in this matter, sir. So there shall be no secrets between us.' He extended the politeness to Mitchell. 'Yes, Dr Mitchell — ?'

Mitchell was ambushed — horse, foot and guns. And there was nothing he could do about it. 'The Villa Jovis.'

'And where is that?' He beamed at Captain Cuccaro co-operatively. 'The Villa San Michele I have heard of, Captain . . . but I am afraid that I am not conversant with the dummy1

geography of Capri ... as, no doubt, both you and Major Richardson are — ?'

Cuccaro, equally ambushed, stared at him for a moment. And then pointed. 'It is on the other — ' he searched for the right word ' — the other mountain, Professore, from San Michele.

It is on Monte Tiberio —'

'Monte Tiberio?' Audley ducked under the awning to follow the line of Cuccaro's finger, to the left. 'And . . . the Villa Jovis

— what is that?'

'It is the palace of Tiberius.'

'Of Tiberius?' All he could see was what looked like a statue on the high point of the peak, above a fringe of trees, with a scatter of white houses below. So, presumably, the old emperor had been reinstated (probably by Mussolini, in his bid to re-establish the Roman Empire?), to look down on his special island. Which was a nice thought: old Wimpy, in his most memorable Latin lessons, had been a great Tiberius-admirer, disdainful of Tacitus and Suetonius as "mere gossipers" who had libelled a good man in his old age.

'It is a ruin.' Cuccaro was also staring. 'It is ... a maze? How do you say — ? There are many walls, and staircases . . . and arches ... on many levels, on the hillside. A maze?'

'A labyrinth?' All he could see was a hint of a platform among the trees.

'A labyrinth — yes!' Cuccaro welcomed the word. 'And ... it is a long walk up there, by a narrow path between the houses. A dummy1

path not for cars, you understand — ? The cars — the taxis . . . they go only from the Marina Grande to Capri town, below. Then you must walk, between the houses and their gardens to reach the . . . excavations.' He turned to Audley, as though questioning his ability to make such a journey. 'It is a long walk, Professore.'

But maybe that wasn't what he was thinking about at all. And quite rightly, too! Even, in all these new circumstances, quite predictably?

'Well . . . that's good, then.' He nodded from Cuccaro to Mitchell.

'Good?' Mitchell frowned at him. 'How is it "good", David?'

'Good for a rendezvous.' Audley nodded, pursing his lips.

'Only one way in — one way out . . . that's usually bad. But a long way in — then you can sit down somewhere, and see who's coming. And decide accordingly?' He cocked his head at them both. 'The Major has a bad conscience, maybe? And, although I'm an old colleague —an old friend ... I could be setting him up — for the Guardia di Finanza, if not the Mafia?' He concluded with Mitchell. 'And we trained him —

remember?' He gave Mitchell a thin smile, even as his own personal memories of Richardson increased his own doubts.

'What would you do, if you thought the roof was falling in on you, Dr Mitchell?'

Mitchell stared at him. Because what Mitchell would do in that event was to be somewhere else, far away from trouble and even further away from old friends and colleagues. But dummy1

he couldn't admit that in front of the Italian.

'So Major Richardson will be watching out up there, and waiting.' Audley nodded, home at last. And then nodded towards Monte Tiberio. 'But if I turn up with someone he doesn't know ... if Captain Cuccaro accompanies me, or gives me an escort. . . then, if he has been up to no good all these years, he'll sit tight, wherever he is. And he'll walk off, eventually, when he knows the coast is clear — right?'

'Is that what you really think, David?' Elizabeth unwound suddenly.

'What I really think, Miss Loftus, is that we don't really have any choice in the matter. Because, if I take a long walk, up there . . . with you and Dr Mitchell in attendance, never mind whatever quite unnecessary protection the Italian authorities may have imagined is appropriate ... if that's what we do, then we'll all have wasted our valuable time. Because the Major is waiting for me, and no one else. And I haven't come this far to waste my time, Miss Loftus.'

They all hated that: they were agreed on that. But they also couldn't argue with its logic effectively, in front of each other, without aborting the mission, never mind questioning his authority. Which put them all on the line.

'So that's agreed, then.' He chose to accept their silent hate as agreement. It was only like it always was, after all: they weren't about to reward him with their approval, any more than he ever applauded Jack Butler for making logical dummy1

decisions with which he couldn't argue, however much he disliked the profit-and-loss calculation involved.

And, anyway, what was agreeable was that it was like the old days, when there wasn't a car and a driver in attendance, and another talkative committee meeting at the other end: it wasn't boring.

'Well — let's get on with it, then.' He pointed at Capn.

5

He was just getting into the taxi when Paul Mitchell appeared out of nowhere, pushing his way through the late-season tourists who thronged the quayside of the Marina Grande.

Audley decided not to frown, although that was his first inclination. For he had half-expected Mitchell to try something like this, he realized. So he merely raised his eyebrows instead.

'What is it now?' He had to concede that it had been Mitchell, at the very last moment before he disembarked, who had remembered to supply him with a wad of Italian Monopoly-money, without which he could probably not have penetrated the Villa Jovis ancient monument itself, let alone hired transport to get him near it. 'What else have I forgotten?'

Mitchell gave the taxi-driver a friendly grin. 'Speak English?

No? Well then . . . momenta per favore?' He turned to dummy1

Audley. 'Give me your coat, David.'

'Why?' Audley saw that Mitchell was carrying some sort of alternative garment.

'You don't look like a tourist.' Mitchell eyed his crumpled second-best suit with distaste. 'You look like a businessman who's slept in his suit. And that won't do.' He thrust the garment at Audley. 'Take off your jacket.'

'F—' But then he decided to give in gracefully while he still seemed to be winning. 'Oh — very well!'

He peeled off his jacket. And then remembered to rescue his passport, warrant card, credit cards and Eurocheques, without all of which he never felt he really existed when he was far from home.

Mitchell accepted the jacket in return for what seemed to be some sort of lightweight windcheater, and fretted as Audley bestowed the proofs of his real existence in its breast-pockets. 'Now the tie, David.'

'The tie?' But, of course, tourists didn't wear West Sussex Yeomanry ties.

'Get in the taxi.'

That, at least, was sensible: in the taxi he was out of sight, if there were any prying eyes hereabouts. But then Mitchell held the door so that he couldn't close it, and leaned into the gap.

"This isn't one of your very best ideas, David. Aren't you getting a bit long in the tooth for fun-and-games?'

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Audley gave up trying to wrestle the door closed. Arguably, the substitution of the jackets might be sensible. But that had simply been Mitchell's excuse to Captain Cuccaro, rather than another belated bit of sense. 'You are supposed to be making polite conversation with Cuccaro, Mitchell. So that he doesn't queer my pitch.'

Mitchell screwed up his second-best jacket. 'Your pitch is already too bloody queer for my liking, David. What the hell are you up to?'

'I'm not "up" to anything. I'm obeying orders. Just as you are.'

'Oh yes?' Mitchell held the door rock-firm. 'I thought my orders were to watch your back. And yours were not to take any unnecessary risks.'

'Your orders were to obey my orders.' The real trouble with Paul Mitchell was that he'd never been a soldier. But the immediate problem was to get the taxi-door closed. 'I'm not taking an unnecessary risk, Paul — I'm taking a calculated one. Because everything I said on the boat is true. Or ...

everything I said about Peter, anyway. And I know him better than you do: I know how he was trained to think. So I know what he'll do if he's running scared.'

'That was a long time ago.' Mitchell's face was like his hold on the door.

'It was — yes.' He slackened his own hold deliberately. 'But he won't have forgotten. And he'll know that I haven't, dummy1

either.'

A muscle on the corner of Mitchell's mouth twitched. 'But we still don't know what's really going on, David. So . . . you're going in blind.' He glanced uneasily at the taxi-driver, who had settled down with a tattered newspaper. 'After what happened in ... to Elizabeth, David?'

'This is different.'

'Damn right, it is! It's a bloody-sight riskier — ' Mitchell stopped as his anger roused the taxi-driver from his sports page.

'Signor — ?' The man looked questioningly from Mitchell to Audley as though he feared they were about to come to blows. 'Avanti, huh?'

'Avanti.' Audley agreed, and then transferred his nod to Mitchell as he felt the door move. 'No one else is expecting me up there. I don't exist — remember. So just hold Cuccaro for one hour, Paul. And that's an order. Then you can all come up and admire the view with me. Understood?'

Another twitch. 'You know ... I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't think you were enjoying yourself, David — ' The final click of the door, and then the thickness of the window and the sound of the engine drowned the rest of Mitchell's considered judgement, so that Audley was spared it.

Then the taxi began to nose its way through the crowd.

Mitchell wasn't stupid, of course: his last shot had been a bull, right in the centre of the target. And his previous shot dummy1

had been an inner, too close to the bull for comfort maybe.

But then he had been on-target all along, towards the end of the exchange: the whole thing had been a cock-up, from start to now, from London-and-Berlin to London-and-Capri —

There was a map in a plastic folder, prudently attached to a piece of string, on the back seat. And, translating kilometres into miles, Capri wasn't very big, mercifully.

'Villa Jovis?' He inquired politely.

The taxi-driver shrugged. " Piazza, signor.'

Audley found the Piazza on the map. Cuccaro had said it was

"a long walk" to the ruins, hadn't he? But it was no more than a mile-and-a-bit, maybe even less. And distances on land always confused naval men.

Or had it been Mitchell who had said that? But it didn't matter, anyway. Because he no longer wanted to think about either Mitchell or Cuccaro —

He paid the driver off eventually, with what seemed a lot of Mitchell's Monopoly-money. But presumably the clock had been ticking down there, in the Marina Grande, far below.

It was no good looking around: he wouldn't spot anyone if he'd miscalculated, or if Mitchell hadn't held Cuccaro. And it wasn't because the place was too crowded, the narrow streets dummy1

and tiny squares, because they weren't and it wasn't — not this late in the season, and in the middle of the day — the mezzogiorno so beloved of all Mediterranean peoples (and maybe Richardson had calculated that, too?). It was, simply, that he was in the middle of his own calculated risk now, so that there was no one he would know, friend or foe, to be able to spot, in any case.

Except Peter himself. And it was Peter's job to spot him now, not the other way round.

Peter Richardson —

The truth was that he hadn't really known the man very well, all those years ago, whatever Butler and everyone else might think from the record, either from what Fred Clinton might have chosen to add to it by way of footnotes, or because of his established reputation for never-forgetting. But he could feel his memory expanding under pressure (as it always did). . .

and he knew more now, of course — however surprising Cuccaro's information had been—

Mitchell had said it would be a long walk. But that hadn't meant anything: he could walk anyone off their feet, any time. And it was a small island, with small (but mercifully well-signposted!) paths directing him to the Villa Jovis, with anything like an actual road soon left far behind —narrow dummy1

paths winding among desirable holiday residences tucked behind walls and gardens, or separated by tiny hillside vineyards —But it was a long walk, by God!

Maybe not surprising, at that . . . Or, trying to imagine Richardson short of cash was the first challenge: with Peter the money had always been evident if not just short of flashy

— not just the always-new car (and the always new, but never serious, girl), but also the throwaway asides (that first time he had known more about Cheltenham racecourse than Cheltenham GCHQ). And it had been old money too, everyone had assumed (of the sort old Fred Clinton notoriously preferred in his recruits): old blue-blooded maternal money, derived from the legendary principessa and her palazzo inheritance. Fred had been almost as happy with that as with the alpha-plus results from the aptitude tests . . .

although, as it had transpired, someone had blundered there too, in not discerning that there had been no true inclination towards scholarship, let alone the happy drudgery of research, to go with those special aptitudes —

There were blue flowers here, trailing in wild profusion in an overgrown hedge beside a vineyard, with the harbour below like a mill-pond full of toy boats. But in fact . . . they weren't flowers at all: they were weeds — he could remember them from the distant past of long-ago Italian holidays, festooning the farm hedgerows on the approaches to Paestum. And they dummy1

had stirred his pale Protestant English gardener's soul with a curious mixture of admiration and envy and disapproval then, that mere weeds could be so spectacular: weeds were entitled to be both rare and beautiful, but had no right to be so outrageously colourful. But then, of course, they had been Italian weeds —

Richardson was half-Italian, that was what he must take account of. And wasn't it always said of Anglo-Italians that they could be the very devil?

He was getting close to the Villa Jovis now: he could even make out what might be the ruins among the trees on the skyline, surmounted by the statue of Tiberius which he had first seen from far below. And the landscape around him had changed: he had left the cosy holiday homes, with their gardens, behind him. Now there was only one path under the shoulder of the ridge, with secluded houses hidden among the trees on his right and a rock-strewn hillside on his left.

And no more blue flowers: the hillside was spotted with what looked like English buttercups among the boulders.

He stopped trying to make excuses for Peter Richardson.

Very devil or not, the man had made devilish complications out of what should have been a simple mission —made them with his smuggling enterprise, certainly; but, had he become dummy1

involved in more than that?

He stopped for a moment, as another fact registered: in all this long walk in the sun he hadn't passed anyone, either going up or going down, since he had left the lowest region of shops and hotels. But now there were two people coming towards him . . . and . . . there was no one at all behind him.

He took them in with another glance, and then admired the view again. They were just boy-and-girl, dressed in uni-sex sweat-shirt and very short shorts, the girl with a camera bouncing between her little no-bra breasts, the boy with an old haversack hanging on his shoulder, from which a bottle-top protruded.

As they passed him, he smiled at them. And got an answering smile from the girl, and a blank look from the boy.

But now there was someone else coming down. And still no one behind him, coming up —

This was the only way up: this was the way the old Emperor Tiberius must have come up to his great marble palace on the island where he'd spent so many years, from which he'd ruled his empire in those first Anno Domini years . . . and, for sure, every plunderer and invader afterwards had come the same way, to that look-out point up there — from Arabs and Normans and Spaniards, to Napoleon's Frenchmen and the sweating British redcoats who had also bid for possession —

to reduce his palace to rubble between them all.

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But now it was Peter Richardson's territory. And, by design and from experience, he appeared to have calculated exactly that there would be no throngs of tourists here at midday in late October, so that the sorting of possible goats from undoubted sheep would be thereby simplified.

After youth came age: this time it was an ancient black-garbed Caprese grandmother, with thick bowed legs and a wicker basket over her arm. And she didn't react to his smile, either: she didn't even look at him.

The last lap was among pine trees, which led him to the guardian's ticket-office, which appeared to be combined with a grubby little cafe.

Eventually a somnolent guardian materialized at the window.

'Uno?' He regarded Audley incuriously for a moment, then peered round into the emptiness as though to reassure himself that, if there was one idiot abroad when all sensible people were eating, drinking and resting, there weren't others trying to slip past behind him.

'Yes — si.' Audley was aware suddenly that his mouth was dry

— that, in fact, he was extremely thirsty. 'Uno —ah — una bottiglia di birra, per favore?'

The guardian sighed, and then wearily indicated the dirty white tables on the terrace of the cafe.

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At least it wasn't like Berlin, thought Audley. Neither Richardson nor anyone else awaited him on the terrace, it was reassuringly empty of both Mafiosi and Arabs as well as tourists, bona fide or otherwise. Which was just as well, because it was otherwise an altogether most suitable place for an asassination, with a sheer cliff offering convenient disposal of the body simultaneously: wasn't that how old Tiberius was said to have got rid of those who had offended him?

He sipped his beer gratefully, peering over the cliff down to the wrinkled blue sea far below. Somehow, and in spite of everything, he felt reassured himself, that he had calculated correctly. Or, rather, that Richardson had got it right, after all these years, in remembering that the two preferable extremes for any rendezvous were, respectively, crowds (where there might be safety in numbers, if nothing else!) or solitary places (where anyone who had no very good cause to be there stuck out like a sore thumb — as he himself did now), in spite of ...

He took another sip. And then found, to his chagrin, that two English sips almost equalled one Italian bottiglia, effectively.

But . . . actually, it was possible that Richardson had got it more than right, with any luck at all. Because, in any perfectly reasonable analysis of the events, it was like old Fred always said: that the elements of any situation were seldom neatly inter-locking, with everyone (on each side —

or, often, on more than two sides) pursuing related dummy1

objectives.

He drained the last drops of birra, and added his glass to the detritus of the table's previous occupants.

If it was like that now — if. . .it was at least reasonably likely that whoever had been gunning for Audley and (apparently) Kulik in Berlin, might not know about Peter Richardson's private problems (about which even the Italians themselves hadn't known until very recently) in Italy. In which happy case Richardson's present "unavailability" might have equally caught them — whoever? — by surprise ... as it had also caught the British and Italians . . . and the Mafia too — ?

But now he was making pictures. And even pictures of pictures, maybe?

But now it was time to find out, anyway!

It was like a labyrinth, just as Cuccaro had said —

But a labyrinth on different levels (not like a two-dimensional garden maze of evergreen hedges, in the English style: it was a labyrinthine maze of ruins in brick and stone on different levels . . . brick and stone from which the painted wall-plaster had long fallen away, and the marble had long been plundered and crushed for the lime-kilns of the ignorant plunderers).

Instinctively, he climbed up, away from the trees at the lower levels: he was here to be seen . . . either immediately, from some higher level, if Richardson was already here ... or (which was much more likely) to be followed from behind, if dummy1

Richardson had watched him pass from some safe vantage along the way, among the gardens and vineyards and walled houses.

What was it that they shared, from the old days? Or ... if they didn't share it (as he increasingly suspected; because, if they'd shared it. . . then why had he no slightest clue to what it might be —?)... no, if they didn't share it . . . what had Fred Clinton given Peter Richardson to do, about which David Audley had had no inkling . . . but which was a good and sufficient reason for David Audley and the man Kulik to die, in Berlin — ?

He reached the statue at last, coming out on the highest point — on to a wide stretch of gravel low-walled on its cliff-side and with white ornamental railings above the tiers of ruins on the island-side, with the whole of Capri beyond, and an ugly little chapel at his back. But it wasn't a statue of the Emperor Tiberius at all, presiding over the tremendous wreck of his palace, as it ought to have been by right and by reason. He'd been quite wrong in his assumption —

Wrong?

Even as he frowned up at the statue he was aware that he wasn't alone on the top of the Villa Jovis (and, if he'd thought more about it, he'd have placed Jupiter himself up there, if not Tiberius. But he would have been wrong there, too, dummy1

wouldn't he!)

Wrong!

So now there were two men away to his left, over by the railings, admiring their view of Capri from peak to peak.

But ... two men in suits? ("That won't do,” Mitchell had said.) But, anyway, neither of them was Peter Richardson —

He realized, as he stared at them, that one of them was returning his stare: a stocky, almost chunky, man. Whereas the other man was still admiring the view, quite unconcerned. But then he moved slightly, away from his chunky friend, no more than two or three steps, running his hand along the top rail lightly as he did so, yet still not turning full-face towards Audley.

But those steps were enough, even without full-face. Even the steps weren't necessary. What was necessary now was to decide what he himself was going to do. Except that decision predicated choice. And he really didn't have any choice now.

He walked towards the railings, listening to the sound of his shoes on the gravel, crunch by crunch, and not looking at the chunky man any more.

'Beautiful view.' This close his last hope evaporated. But it had never really been a hope, anyway. Because, with some people, recognition had to be face-to-face (and, anyway, he wasn't good with faces). But with others it was how they stood that was unforgettable, with each part of their weight always distributed ready for action, even when they were at dummy1

rest.

'Very beautiful.' The man turned to him.

The movement was fluidly casual. Zimin had been a soldier, and a good one — a trainer as well as an honours graduate of Spetsnaz. But he would also have made a damn good rugby player in the three-quarter line of the club lucky enough to recruit him: that was what Audley had thought, that one and only other time.

'We were admiring the view last time we met, I seem to remember, Colonel.' For the life of him, he couldn't smile this time. But then Zimin wasn't smiling now, either. 'New Zealand House — the sixteenth floor?' Zimin definitely wasn't smiling: he looked tired and drawn under his tan, as he had not done that evening, when they'd watched the lights of London go on together. 'What was it? The Wool Secretariat reception — ?' Indeed, it was perhaps time to react innocently to such lack of friendliness. 'It is Colonel Zimin, isn't it?'

'Yes, Dr Audley.' The man was almost frowning at him. 'It is Dr Audley, isn't it? The . . . celebrated Dr Audley?'

That voice was also memorable, with its curiously Germanic inflection. And, of course, he had discovered the reason for that in his subsequent check: Zimin was on record as having the gift of tongues, but German was his second language, just as Germany had been his Spetsnaz speciality. And he had learned his English as a German-speaker for that reason, no doubt. And probably his Italian and all the rest, too. That was dummy1

how Spetsnaz worked.

'Not very celebrated at the moment.' He felt a trickle of sweat run down his face near his ear, which could have been caused by the un-English October sun, but which was more likely the muck-sweat of fear. "The over-heated Dr Audley, Colonel.' He managed to produce some sort of smile at last, even in the knowledge that Zimin's chunky minder was now almost out of view behind him. 'I have very poor temperature control. Typical Anglo-Saxon — or North-West European, maybe . . . Although, of course, my other Norman ancestors did rather well in these parts, actually. So maybe it's just me.'

'Is that so?' On the surface, Zimin was humiliatingly cool-and-calm, just as the rest of him still seemed to hang loose.

But Audley sensed that inside he was dancing on his toes and wound up clockwork-tight: the whole joke — no joke! —

might be that he must be assuming "the celebrated Dr Audley" would be even-better-protected here, so far from home.

'Oh yes!' After that chance meeting at the New Zealand House reception Zimin would have done his homework too, if he hadn't done it before (and, indeed, if it had been such a chance meeting on his part, also). And that was what he himself must hold on to now — if only to stop this embarrassing sweat-of-fear which was running off him: that the Russian must be putting two-and-two together logically, when the real mathematics of the situation were such a hopeless mess. 'All these parts —from here to Sicily — were dummy1

once Norman territory, long ago. And they made a better job of running them than anyone has since.' Smile, Audley! 'And long after that, in Nelson's time or thereabouts . . . there was a British garrison here. Only, then the French threw us off.

But we got the better of them, eventually . . . with some help from the Russians, as well as the Germans.' This time —grin!

'We always end up on the winning side, Colonel.'

'I see.' The disadvantage of such crude time-buying was that it bought them both time. 'And is it history which brings you here now, Dr Audley? Or are you on holiday — ? Is Mrs Audley down there, in the town? And Miss Audley with her, perhaps?'

Audley watched the Russian take in the view again, from the ruins directly below them to far-off Capri-town, and even more distant Anacapri on its mountain beyond, before he finally came back to the ruins and Audley himself.

'No.' There was one bonus to all this, among all these hideous new uncertainties: Peter Richardson would not be joining this meeting, as it was at present constituted in full view of wherever he was down there below. With Zimin here — and, even more, with the chunky man in attendance — that was certain. So, with Peter out of mind, he could afford to strengthen his position by dismissing all the small talk. 'I'm working. And . . . although it's a pleasure to meet you again ...

I must admit that I'm also surprised to see you here, Colonel.'

Zimin studied him for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath. But, before he could speak, Chunky snapped dummy1

something in Russian, far too quickly and urgently for Audley to understand.

Zimin grunted, and then reached forward, first to touch Audley's arm, and then to hold it, pulling him gently away from the white railings — at least, pulling him gently, because he surrendered to the pressure. 'Dr Audley — if you please?'

Audley let himself be led, away round the squat chapel and into the shadow of what was very obviously not the statue of the Emperor Tiberius, Ruler of the World, but of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven.

"Thank you.' Zimin glanced past him for a second, and then at him. 'I am also surprised, Dr Audley — that you are here.'

They were now infinitely past small talk. 'You're surprised that I'm alive — is that it?'

Zimin drew a breath. 'I am ... relieved that you are alive.'

The rules hadn't changed. It was simply that there were new rules, apparently. 'Then . . . that makes us both relieved, Colonel Zimin. As well as surprised.'

Zimin took another look past him, presumably to make sure that Chunky was still doing his job. 'You are here to meet with the man Peter Richardson, I take it?' Then he nodded, and it wasn't a question. 'He is a former colleague, of course

— yes?'

Berlin still could have been the Russians, in theory. And, by the same theory, Capri could still be Audley as well as dummy1

Richardson, just as Berlin ought to have been Audley and Kulik. Only that wasn't the way Capri felt, somehow.

'He is.' No use denying what they knew. But that was no reason for admitting more too readily yet, even though Zimin knew more than he did. 'And supposing I am here to meet him?'

'Then we have a common interest.'

Audley considered the cards he had in his hand unhappily, and almost with despair. His only trump was his belief that Richardson would be lying low, if not gone already. But that was the one card he couldn't safely play while Zimin had all the others.

'A common interest?' Suddenly he had another certainty, which lifted the huge weight of fear off his back almost magically as it also clarified Berlin. If the Russians had simply been concerned to kill Richardson — with or without the aid of another surrogate Arab assassin — then a man of Zimin's seniority would never be in attendance, even as an observer. Not even in the bad old days, let alone now (when appearances mattered), would that have been KGB/GRU

style so to compromise men for whom diplomatic status was routinely required across the world.

So he was safe!

'A common interest?' He realized that Zimin had been waiting for something better than that. And . . . and now that he was safe, he could see more clearly that there was only one dummy1

reason why Colonel Zimin should have come to Capri, dropping all his other important duties . . . just as "the celebrated Dr Audley" had been forced to do. 'You'd like a word with him too, Colonel?'

The happy thought expanded. Because, if the Russians knew better what was happening than he did (and they could hardly know worse), it was now at least possible that they didn't know everything, if they had sent Zimin to bring in Richardson.

'We would not like any harm to come to him.' Zimin ducked the question smoothly. 'Our first concern, naturally, is for his safety. As I am sure yours is, Dr Audley. So you have also taken other precautions, of course — as we have?'

God — that put him on the line! Because that meant Zimin and Chunky weren't the only KGB tourists admiring the ruins of the Villa Jovis right now: Chunky was simply Colonel Zimin's private minder, with other "tourists" down below, among the passages and stairways and in the trees. And that was the other reason why Zimin had tightened up on seeing him: he had only been an unexpected ghost for that half-second which the Colonel had needed to remember that he didn't believe in ghosts. But, after that, he had been consumed by the fear that there must be British tourists down there too, sniffing his own men suspiciously.

There was no help for it. With the Russians as twitchy as this, the possibility of appalling accidents multiplied, involving innocent people. And, for Jack Butler's sake, he couldn't take dummy1

that risk —

'I am here alone, Colonel Zimin. I have help . . . further down.'

That actually raised the Russian's eyebrows slightly. Then he snapped an order at Chunky, in fast Russian vernacular.

Chunky vanished behind Our Lady's statue, and Audley was left with his familiar problem with modern languages, in which the difference between the written and the spoken word was always a source of humiliation.

Or maybe it was because he couldn't believe his ears — ?

'What was that, Colonel — ?' It was the verb which eluded him, among the rest. But, after having guessed at it, he still couldn't believe it.

'You are either very brave, Dr Audley. Or you are very stupid.'

Zimin considered him dispassionately for an instant. 'After what happened in Berlin.' Then he seemed to decide to give Audley the benefit of the doubt, as from one genuine soldier to one temporary one (but one from a real war before the Colonel's time nevertheless, which therefore demanded recognition).

'Oh — yes?' In less pressing circumstances Zimin's wrong choice from those alternatives would have been as interesting as it was wounding to his already damaged self-esteem. But meanwhile the sense of that command, if he understood it correctly, had to be resolved. 'That order of yours, Colonel Zimin — to your man ... I'd be obliged if you would explain it dummy1

to me, nevertheless.'

'Obliged?' The word seemed to throw the Russian.

'Yes.' Audley realized that the word wasn't to blame: Zimin was waiting now for his instruction to be carried out, and until it had been then even the celebrated Dr Audley could not hold his attention absolutely. 'Obliged, Colonel.'

Zimin's lips tightened. 'It was not for your former colleague, Dr Audley.'

'I know that.' The man's waiting was infectious. 'Or ... I gathered that.'

'Then you also know that he is in great danger.'

If the Russian had been concentrating on him fully he would be amending "brave" to "stupid" now. But he was boxed in by his own doubt, just as Audley himself was by his own stupidity. 'Indeed? But not from you?'

Almost as though against his will, Zimin forced himself to attend to Audley. 'We do not want him dead, Dr Audley. As others do.'

Audley held his face steady. Tell them to kill the Arab was undoubtedly what Zimin had said, although "kill" hadn't been the word he'd used: what he had just said made that certain, never mind the untidy events in Berlin.

'And we do not want you dead, either, Dr Audley. We do not want any . . . unnecessary violence in this matter. All we want is Major Richardson.'

So Berlin had been as much a disaster for the Russians as for dummy1

the British, albeit a different sort of disaster: in so far as that made sense, it made much better sense. Only he mustn't let his relief show, any more than his ignorance: anger was what he must show now. 'The correct word is "kidnap", I believe, Colonel.'

'He will not be harmed. Nor will he be held very long.'

'But he will have been kidnapped. And my Government —'

The scream took them by surprise equally, with its throaty mixture of mortal agony and terror: he saw Zimin's eyes widen as the sound rose from below to their left, among the trees, only to be cut off instantly, as though by a switch, leaving them staring at each other.

Then Zimin's mouth opened in a silent swear-word, that something which should have been accomplished equally silently had been bungled so noisily.

For a moment there was no sound at all: the very lack of sound mocked them both. Then it was shattered by another scream — but a very different one: a high-pitched cry punctuated by breath, ululating unstoppably.

That was a woman's scream! The certainty raced through Audley's brain as he thought also of Elizabeth disobeying him. But then the scream hiccoughed into hysterics; and . . .

Elizabeth wouldn't scream — wouldn't have hysterics . . .

and, anyway, it wouldn't be Elizabeth who disobeyed him —

Zimin was staring at him, ready-tensed as though the sound had tightened up his spring.

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Audley relaxed himself slowly and deliberately. Once upon a time, maybe, he might have chanced a forward's weight against a three-quarter's speed at this distance. But that time was long gone, and the Russian had far too many years'

youthful advantage. So all he had now, to steady his fear, was the echo of the man's words — no unnecessary violence? —

and his own wits.

The scream ran out of breath at last, degenerating into sobs.

But now a man was shouting, somewhere down among the ruins.

He drew a deep breath. 'I rather think — ' Embarrassingly, he had to clear his throat ' — I rather think your men have queered both our pitches now, Colonel. . . I'm afraid.' He spread his hands as eloquently as he could, and shook his head.

Zimin frowned, but didn't unwind.

'Richardson won't come now.' He shook his head again. 'God only knows what he'll be thinking!' That certainly was true.

'But he'll know he's been betrayed, anyway.' That was also true. So why not more truth? 'He's not stupid.' But now the important half-truth. 'So I'm afraid we've both lost him. And he won't be so easy to find next time — ' He could hear the sound of footsteps on the stone steps at the back ' — if we ever find him now, that is, Colonel.' He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. But he gave the Russian his ugliest scowl, and nodded towards the railing beside which they'd met, in full view of the whole of Capri. 'And what dummy1

rather pisses me off, Colonel Zimin, is that ... if, by any chance, he saw us exchanging pleasantries just now, before your idiots dealt with that Arab so incompetently . . . then he may very well think we're in this together. And that sort of glasnost won't be to his taste, seeing as how the Mafia and the Italian police also want to nail his hide to the nearest tree as it is.'

Zimin shook his head suddenly. But he was no longer looking at Audley.

Audley turned, just in time to observe Chunky straightening his ill-fitting suit-jacket.

'Goodbye, Dr Audley.'

The words and Zimin himself passed him together.

'Goodbye, Colonel —'

When they had gone he was ashamed to discover that his hands were shaking. So he grasped the railings and admired the Bay of Naples far below him. It would have been a very long drop. But the first outcrop of cliff below him would have silenced whatever sound he might have made.

Then he started thinking about Peter Richardson again.

Between the Russians and the Mafia, Peter had been betrayed somehow. But maybe that wasn't so very surprising.

And it was what Peter would do next that mattered now, anyway.

He began to think about the old days: it was in his memory of dummy1

them that his only hope now lay.

PART TWO

Just like the Old Days

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I am not . . .' he had carefully told Elizabeth '. . . as young as I once was.' So, as they approached the centre of London, she wasn't surprised when he appeared to doze off. He had been through a lot, after all. And that made it easy, when a red light caught them in the Bayswater Road, to be out of the car before either Elizabeth or the driver knew what was happening: it was just like the old days!

'David! What on earth are you doing?' She threw herself across the seats, her consternation emphasized by the mixture of fatigue and the unnatural light of the street lamps which dawn hadn't quite cancelled, which together gave her a three-day corpse look. 'Where are you going — ?'

'Sir!' The driver added his pennyworth of desperation to hers, all too aware that he was trapped by the lights in the outer lane. 'We're to go directly —'

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'It's all right.' He closed the door on them both as the lights changed, flattening himself against the side of the car to let a delivery van pass on the inside lane. 'Don't worry.'

A muffled sound from within turned into words as she tried to open the door again, only to have it shut again on her as an early-morning taxi hooted angrily behind. But other vehicles were following the van — damn!

'David!' She had the window down. But there was a gap coming up —

'It's all right.' He judged the approaching gap carefully. It would never do to push his luck again so soon after Capri. Tell Sir Jack that I won't be long — don't worry, my dear.'

Just like the old days! And no shortness of breath — only relief at being able to stretch his legs again. (Don't run!

Never run, unless you have to!)

Just like the old days, of course: not many pedestrians around, as yet; but the good morning smell of London —

London with its streets not yet fully charged with carbon monoxide: he could breathe it in gratefully, with his country-boy's memory of it going all the way back to exciting recollections of even older days — even to childhood forays, from steam-trains into Waterloo and on to Hamley's and a museum before lunch.

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But now he was safe enough, anyway — safer after that last turning, after having re-crossed the road, and done all the necessary things which would have been no damn good at all in less advantageous circumstances: poor Miss Loftus and her driver had been not so much out-smarted as out-ranked, and Jack wasn't the man to penalize them for that, anyway.

So he didn't have to worry about them . . . only about his own chickens properly coming home to roost.

Now he actually knew where he was, too: he'd jinked to reach Cato Street, which he'd imprinted in his memory long ago because of its famous conspirators ... so a quick right down and across the Edgware Road, and then left into Kendal Street . . . and then he'd be close to Matthew — ?

Always supposing Matthew was at home today — and this early? And one difference between the old days and these days was that he wasn't absolutely sure which day of the week it was, after so many alarms and excursions, from one continent across another, and back: did Matthew still keep an eye on his bank mid-week (give or take a day), now that his sons and grandsons and nephews ran it?

He pressed the Fattorini button: now he was going to find out.

'Hullo there! Who is that?'

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Audley turned his back on Hyde Park. 'It's David Audley. Can I come up please?' He felt himself relax. 'Please?'

' David — ?' From having been slightly foreign, and more than slightly outraged at so early an intrusion, the voice welcomed him immediately, and the door clicked. 'David!'

'David!' As always (or, since he had never called on her at dawn, as he had always imagined her, anyway), Marie-Louise had stepped out of one of her French magazines. 'You have come for breakfast — at last!'

'Lady Fattorini — Marie-Louise!' For the first time since Washington, Audley felt safe. 'Whatever's on the menu, you look good enough to eat.' Safe, but smelly, he thought belatedly as she advanced to embrace him. 'But don't hug me, darling: I'm jet-lagged and unfit for civilized company.'

'Mmm . . .' The years had augmented Marie-Louise not too much, just comfortably '. . . mmm ... I agree! But Matthew is just coming out of the bathroom, I think —'

'Matthew has come out of his bath — prematurely.' The chairman of Armstrong Fattorini Brothers materialized behind his wife, clad in thick grey-black hair and a towel. 'So you can have my bath, like in the old days. Or you can run another . . . because you're not going to get my breakfast.'

'Hullo, Matt.' He extricatd himself unwillingly from Marie-Louise: more even than the sight of her, her smell was of safety from an outside world which promised nothing but dummy1

danger now. 'I don't want your bath — or your damn breakfast. I just want to make a couple of phone-calls, that's all.'

'Oh yes?' Sir Matthew Fattorini lifted up one fold of his towel to rub his hairy chest. 'You're in trouble, then?'

'In trouble?' It was no good lying to Matthew. 'Of course I'm in trouble.' Then something more than old aquaintance spiked him. 'Why should I be in trouble —more than usually?'

Matt considered him briefly. 'Get the man his breakfast, dear.' The look focused on Marie-Louise. 'Put the door on the chain, and don't answer any more callers.' The look came back to Audley. 'And lock up your jewellery and silver.' The re-directed look concentrated. 'Or ... on second thoughts, my dear . . . phone up Sands, and tell him to bring the car round to the back. Then lock up the silver — bien entendu?'

'Yes, dear.' Marie-Louise had been a child in Normandy long ago, when Audley's tank had passed five miles from her family home. So, while she didn't believe all her husband was telling her, she believed some of it. 'Matthew is enjoying his fish day, because it is Friday, David. But would you prefer bacon-and-eggs, not kippers — ?'

'Give him the bacon.' Matthew dismissed her sharply, waiting until she'd gone before continuing. '"Jet-lag", you said — ?'

Audley had been thinking hard through Matthew's warning dummy1

signals, of which there were altogether too many to take lightly. 'I've been in America, Matt. So what's the matter?'

Matthew Fattorini's expression hardened. 'You just dropped in for breakfast — after all these years — ?' Matthew frowned at his own questions. 'Well ... I suppose, if I must give you the benefit of the doubt —though God only knows why . . .' He shook his head. 'But. . . there's this major terrorist alert out, David. Isn't that up your street — the safety of the realm?'

'Uh-huh?' The non-committal grunt came naturally now.

'Didn't you see the soldiers at the airport? If you're jet-lagged

— ' Matthew looked at him suspiciously. 'One of our fellows coming back from Brussels said they had tanks at Heathrow.'

'I came in through RAF Brize Norton.' He bought time with a lie. 'It's probably just an exercise, Matt.'

Matthew nodded. 'Yes — that is the official explanation: a

"Scheduled Unspecific Routine Exercise". " SURE" for short.

The newspapers are full of it.'

'So it's just an exercise then.' But the suspicion was still there, that he could see. 'So what's new?'

'What's new?' Incredulity displaced suspicion. 'Doesn't the Russian bit of it count as new? What that idiot on TV

described as "double-SURE" last night — anti-terrorist cooperation being just another bit of Glasnost?' Matthew shook his head. 'The word in the City yesterday was that they'd started cracking down on all their ports and airfields hours before anything happened in the West. Not "co-dummy1

operation" — more like cause-and-effect . . . But you don't know anything about this? You're just in one of your own fifty-seven varieties of trouble?'

'I don't.' Being able to answer the first question quickly and fairly honestly gave Audley five seconds' rest on what had suddenly become a slippery rock-face before he tackled the second. 'As regards my present predicament, Matt ... I wasn't looking for information, just for a nice safe telephone, that's all.'

'Of course, my dear fellow!' Matthew hitched up his towel with one hand and pointed with the other. 'In my study there. No scrambler, of course. But I think it's safe enough . . . And then breakfast?' He produced his merchant banker's smile. 'And my driver will then take you wherever you want to go after that — within reason. Go on, then.'

'Thanks, Matt.' Neither that interest nor those suspicions were surprising: Matt knew too much about the old days, via the adventures of his brother Fred as well as because of friendship and certain mutual favours traded in those days.

And he was himself an unashamed operator in a business where the smallest piece of reliable inside information could always be made to pay handsomely somehow. What was surprising was that neither Jack nor Paul had mentioned the Russian dimension of the supposed emergency.

He picked up the receiver and pressed the buttons. (Maybe Paul hadn't known. But Jack surely would have done —

wouldn't he?)

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He heard the ringing note —

(Captain Cuccaro would have now. And so had Zimin!) Cover story first, just in case, though.

'Hullo?' Faith answered properly for once, neither giving her name nor her number. 'Who is that?'

'It's me, love.' Also he simply wanted to hear her voice.

'David! Are you in trouble?'

'What?' Everyone seemed to know too-bloody-much: he hadn't even had time to lie — and as far as she knew he was still safe in Washington. 'What do you mean — am I in trouble?' All the half-truths he'd marshalled turned their backs on him mutinously, looking for escape. But he grabbed the slowest of them. 'I was just phoning to say I'm back.'

'Yes. I know you're back. And now you're going to tell me that you won't be coming home just yet.'

'What? How do you know?'

'I've just put the phone down on Jack Butler. He told me to tell you — to tell you if you phoned me — to come in at once.'

The rest of the half-truths were running for cover now, having thrown away their shields and spears. 'Oh?'

'And he didn't sound too pleased.'

And Faith herself didn't sound too pleased, either. 'No?'

'No. And I've been given protection, David, if you're interested.' No one transmitted displeasure down the phone better than Mrs Audley. 'A very nice young man. Who thinks dummy1

the world of you. Although I can't think why.'

'No?' There was a set of Low cartoon originals on the wall of Matthew's study. But it didn't include the famous 1940 one, in which an embattled British Tommy shook his fist against the dark clouds of impending defeat, facing it alone. And that omission switched his own control from Defence to Offence.

'Well, don't forget to get his name, love — he's obviously ready for promotion. But meanwhile . . . give me some bad news: tell me something awful.'

'What?' The tables were turned on that word.

'Tell me something awful.' What was awful? 'Mrs Mills is pregnant again — and the washing-machine has gone wrong . . . And Cathy's fallen in love with the boy who delivers the papers — anything.'

' What — ?' Suddenly her voice changed. 'You mean it —don't you!'

'I mean it — yes!' There was just an outside chance that all this was going on tape somewhere. But, as Jack wasn't the man to squander his resources eavesdropping on someone he trusted, it was on the far outside.

Several seconds ticked away. 'Cathy wants to go to India for her year off before University as a nursing auxiliary. And I've said no.'

Audley agreed with her. 'Change your mind — say yes.'

'What d'you mean? They catch the most awful diseases —'

'I know. But "yes" will buy us time. "No" will only make her dummy1

more determined. Just leave it to me.' He began to feel guilty.

But then the genuine awfulness registered, and he didn't.

'Goodbye, love! I'll call you again . . . when I can —'

He put the phone down, and then picked it up again and punched in the well-remembered numbers of the Saracen's Head public house by the river.

'Saracen.'

Teenage female voice. 'Get the boss, dear.'

'Dad's 'avin' 'is breakfast. You'd better call back later.'

There had been a child in the background at the Saracen's Head long ago, he remembered. 'Just tell him it's a friend of Mr Lee's, dear.'

''E won't like it — '

'He won't like it if you don't tell him. Go on! A friend of Mr Lee's.'

There was a moment's silence. 'Oh — all right! But 'e won't like it.'

Audley waited. It had been a very small child, his memory corrected him. But it had also been a long time ago — the old days indeed!

'Saracen.' Dad's tone bore out the ex-small child's warning.

"Ullo.'

'I'd like a word with Mr Lee.' Audley crossed his fingers.

'Oo wants 'im?'

So far, so good. 'A friend of his.'

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'Oh yus? Well, 'e 'ain't 'ere.'

Audley relaxed. It was like fitting a key into the rusty old lock of a long-disused room and finding that it still turned easily, as though newly-oiled. 'Mr Lee owes me three favours, for services rendered.' Over the years, those numbers had gradually decreased, as those Anglo-Israeli debts had been called in one by one. Although, of course, it wouldn't be Jake himself, now. So it all depended on how well his successors had been briefed. 'I want to speak to him, nevertheless.'

'Oh yus?' The landlord, of the Saracen's Head might also be struggling with his memories of long-disused procedures, as between "Mr Lee" and his "friend". But when you worked for the Israelis once, you worked for them always, was the rule.

'An' this would be an emergency, like — as per usual?' The phlegm rattled in the man's throat as he chuckled. 'Naow —

don't tell me! Face-to-face — or you got a number?'

Audley estimated Butler's orders against his own need. With the trouble he was already in — the new Russian trouble as well as the Berlin-Capri trouble — he was already in for a penny, in for a pound; and he could easily and (probably safely) encode Matthew's number with the very private and unforgettable formula which he and Jake had decided so long ago, after they had agreed that the one set of figures which no soldier ever forgot was his old army number. But he had always hated the telephone, and the hothouse temperature of Matt's flat was stifling him. 'Face-to-face.'

Everything came together as he spoke: perhaps because he dummy1

felt suddenly starved he imagined he could smell Marie-Louise's bacon, and her coffee too — and this side of Heaven there would be nothing to equal a thoroughly-Anglicized Frenchwoman's coffee-and-bacon. And also he must allow

"Mr Lee" time to make a rendezvous. So the lines on the map converged as he drew breath: ten minutes from here, in Sir Matthew Fattorini's Rolls-Royce, plus five for him from there to Jack Butler's fastness on the Embankment . . . plus fifteen to demolish the bacon and the coffee before that . . . finally offering "Mr Lee" maybe twenty minutes — ? 'Fifty minutes.

By the statue of General Abercrombie, in Abercrombie Gardens. One hour, maximum. Then I'll be gone. Have you got that?'

'Yuss.' The phone clicked and died. Time — seconds, rather than minutes — was always of the essence on the phone, when you didn't know you were on a safe line, they would have taught him.

He looked at his watch. Fifty minutes from now.

'And how is that beautiful daughter of yours, David? I am told that she takes after her mother — yes?'

His mouth was full of bacon. And the bacon carried with it a hint — the merest paradisal hint — of kidney-fat, did it — ?

'Cathy?'

'She must be working for her examinations, surely — ?

Always, now, they are in the midst of examinations!'

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A major anti-terrorist alert? (Matthew, still only half-dressed, had been silenced by his wife: "Let the poor man eat his breakfast, cheri! Is the car ready? Do something useful!")

'She has exams, yes.' Not co-operation — more like cause-and-effect: but what cause could produce this effect? The irony was that he needed to know the answer to that much more urgently than Matthew himself, who only had his stocks and shares at risk. 'But now she wants to go to India, before university. So Faith's worried sick.'

'Ah! India — yes!' Marie-Louise nodded sympathetically. 'She is too young for India. The women there are wonderful —

they hold the country together. But the men . . . they are not to be trusted with young unmarried girls.' Then she brightened. 'But India . . . that will be Christian India, yes?

To do mission work — that is what the young people do now . . . That could be worse, you know.'

'Worse?' The more he thought about Cathy in India, the worse it genuinely became.

'It is not political. One of my nieces wished to go to Nicaragua, from where the dreadful coffee comes, to help the revolution. Matthew had to arrange a more suitable enterprise for her — where was it, chéri? Perhaps you could do the same for David's Catherine — ?'

India, damn it!

'Round again, sir?' The voice of Matthew's driver sounded dummy1

cool and distant over the intercom of the Rolls as they turned into Abercrombie Gardens once more, past the statue of the old general who was one of Jack Butler's special idols.

Audley looked at his watch. The Israelis were almost out of time now, and his bright idea was beginning to look more than ever like the desperate long-shot it had always been, with the temperature of Anglo-Israeli intelligence relations so chilly these days.

'Yes — no! Hold on — slow down!' Where there had been nobody on the last circuit, there was now a young man loitering, although he looked far too young to be "Mr Lee."

But then everyone was young now — not just police constables but police superintendents and the Mr Lees of this world. 'Stop here, please.'

The Rolls drew up with its usual silent good manners. 'Shall I come back, sir?'

'Ah . . .' Audley felt crumpled and disreputable in his creased suit and three-day shirt: all he could hope for, if anyone was peeking through their curtains on the other side of the street, was that he might pass for an eccentric millionaire taking his morning constitutional. 'Yes.' Damn Butler! Damn India —

and damn Berlin and Capri, most of all! 'Ten minutes — '

Damn the whole bloody-lot-of-them!' — and then keep coming round. Right?'

The Rolls slid away, as though powered by thought rather than anything so vulgar as an internal-combustion engine, and the London October-chill hit him immediately. So ... he dummy1

was grasping at a straw, then. But there was a newspaper kiosk at the other end of the crescent of trees. So he would grasp the straw nonchalantly, as though he had all the time in the world, even though he suspected he'd already lost the game, and was into injury-time.

' Daily Telegraph, please.' For a moment he was embarrassed then, in the sudden knowledge that he had no Queen's coinage in his pocket, having nearly had no lire to purchase his Villa Jovis ticket. But then he thought again, re-estimating the odds that there might yet be some of the Queen's coins among the foreign detritus in his palm. 'How much is that — ?'

The old woman in the kiosk goggled at him for an instant, not so much as at an eccentric millionaire as at an idiot, while keeping tight hold of the Daily Telegraph she'd been about to surrender.

Audley squinted at his small change. 'Yes — ?'

"Ere — ' On second thought, she decided that he was a Martian who had made his historic landfall inadequately prepared; but, if she could, she would sell him a paper; so she leaned across to finger his coins. 'Thirty-p . . . that's twenty — that's forty —' she pinched the appropriate coins' —

an' eight-p change — right?'

'Right.' Audley accepted his Telegraph gratefully. When it came to newspapers, he knew his business in content, if not in price: the subs on the Telegraph weren't into clever design dummy1

on the news pages, even under the new Max Hastings editorial management; but they still picked up all those unconsidered trifles of news, local and international, for their fillers —

He opened the paper up. (Let the very-young-man wait — if he was a Mossad very-young-man he still had three minutes of waiting-time!) Cuccaro's cover story was just the sort the Telegraph liked —

Virus kills tiger

That wasn't it ... even though it was a vintage Telegraph heading —

Pushchair snatch

foiled by nannie

Another good one. But it was not the one he wanted. He turned the page to foreign news —

Mafia shoot-out

on holiday isle —

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Elizabeth's handsome captain had done his work well, even allowing for all his advantages —

A man fell to his death and two more were shot in a Mafia-style execution on the holiday island of Capri yesterday, visited by thousands of British tourists every year —

The grammar was maybe a bit rocky. But the facts were nearly right, as reported, even though absolutely wrong —

Holiday-makers scattered as gangsters opened fire on their rivals without warning —

That was also pretty close to the facts, give-or-take the truth—

The Italian police have taken a fourth man into custody, who is believed to have taken part in the shoot-out. A fifth man and a woman are also helping the police with their inquiries —

Even that was good, in its acceptance of what any uncontrollable eye-witnesses might have seen in the aftermath, when half of Capri had appeared out of nowhere, even before Cuccaro had arrived with Paul and Elizabeth, and the situation had become decidedly messy.

He re-folded his Telegraph quickly and untidily, shivering slightly as he set out for General Abercrombie's statue —

even remembering, as he did so, why Jack Butler so admired the old soldier —

The trees above were dripping early-morning moisture, and the pavement was pock-marked by all sorts of filth —pigeon-dummy1

shit and dog-shit, and general all-sorts-of-litter-lout shit, from take-away plastic containers to beer-cans and last night's evening newspapers. And the need to avoid this different mess took his attention until he reached the corner of the gardens, where the old General stood, sword-in-hand and bare-headed, looking blindly out over the London traffic, as he would surely not have looked over the Egyptian desert when he'd beaten the French.

There was nobody there — sod it!

He looked half-around. And then at the blackened panel below the statue: the old General, mortally-wounded, had still worried about the soldier's blanket in which they'd covered him. Because every soldier needed his blanket, just as he himself would have liked one now in the morning chill.

'Hullo, David.' Jake Shapiro appeared from behind the statue. 'You travel in style these days!'

If the old General had stepped down and offered him another blanket, Audley knew he'd not have been more dumb-struck.

'Jake — ?'

'Let's go and walk among the trees.' Jake kept well behind the statue, away from the road. 'Come on!'

The seconds of his minutes were ticking, Audley remembered. 'For God's sake — I thought you'd retired, Jake!' But he stepped out automatically: Jake had not only retired — he ought to be even more out-of-favour now, as an Arab-lover, with his present government. 'What the hell are dummy1

you doing here?'

'You asked for "Mr Lee" — ' Jake pushed him towards the central path, between the trees ' — and now you are complaining?'

Audley disciplined himself. 'I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking . . . maybe I should have retired, too. But then ... by the same token ... I suppose I might still be here, mightn't I?

Taken out of mothballs?'

'Ah . . . well, as to that, I can't say.' Jake grinned at him. 'But maybe with us it's like the old music-hall jokes: the old ones are still the best ones?'

'Uh-huh?' Matthew's Rolls-Royce was cruising out there somewhere, like a stop-watch ticking silently. 'Unfortunately, I haven't time for jokes, Jake. Why are you here — in London?'

'Because this is where the action is. Isn't it?' The Israeli stepped delicately around a nameless mess on the path. 'I was back home. And you were in Washington, and you were not in Berlin. But now you are here, where the action is? So now we are both here — ?'

The Israelis didn't know about Capri. Or, if they did, Jake wasn't ready to admit it yet. But if they didn't . . . then they might not know about Richardson. But what they did know had to be substantial indeed, to force the new generation of Mossad to swallow its pride and re-enlist Jake Shapiro? Yes!

'You're here because of me?' The Israelis had been very dummy1

helpful in Berlin, of course. But Jake's presence in London now put a different gloss on that, taken with the present terrorist alert. So whatever they knew must be frightening them. 'Because of our old "special relationship", would that be?' There was no time for finesse. 'You need a friend at court?'

'"The Court of Queen Margaret"?' Jake slowed down as they approached the end of the trees. 'Ah . . . well, we never did have many friends here, even in the old days. Your Foreign Office was full of Arab-lovers — unrequited lovers, of course.'

He smiled at Audley. 'Sure — okay! Well . . . you, at least, were pragmatic, David. You were willing to do business in the old Yorkshire manner: "Owt for nowt" — ?'

'What do you want, Jake?' He could see the very young man standing on guard at the far end of the gardens, apparently engrossed in his Guardian.

Jake gestured to turn them round into the trees again. 'I thought it was you who wanted something, David?'

Audley glimpsed a large car through the trees. But it couldn't be the Rolls yet. 'I just want to know what the Russians are doing.'

'Only that? Where do you want me to begin?'

'Don't piss me around.' In the old days Jake had usually got what he wanted by indirect means, he recalled: for Jake, an Audley question was as good as an answer. 'I've been minding my own business in Washington, working up our dummy1

submission on the new Secrets Bill for Jack Butler. As I'm sure you know.'

'Yes.' The Israeli nodded. 'The worthy Sir Jack has heretical views on Freedom of Information and the Public Interest —

he believes in them! That I know — yes! The worthy Sir Jack!

Yes?'

And the not-so-clever Jake Shapiro, thought Audley. But then half Jack's strength was that no one really believed in his sincerity. 'Yes. But now I want some information — in my interest, Colonel Shapiro.'

'Yes?' Jake peered into the trees on his left, pretending to be nervous.

'What's the matter.' Suddenly Audley actually became nervous.

'Don't worry. We are well-protected, old friend.' The reassurance came quickly. 'You lost someone in Berlin, didn't you?'

'Tell me something I don't know.' He decided not to hide his fear. 'Answer the question. My time is running out. And maybe in more ways than one, old friend.'

The Israeli faced him. 'Correction. You lost two people in Berlin: you lost a man named Kulik also.'

'How d'you know his name?'

'I know all three names. But only one of them matters now.'

Audley held his tongue without difficulty. No more questions!

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Jake held up three fingers. 'Kulik is dead in Berlin.' One finger went down. 'That was very careless of you —what my old boss would have called "unnecessary carelessness". But perhaps understandable at that stage.'

Audley concentrated on the remaining two fingers —blunt, serviceable fingers, rising from a work-calloused hand. In retirement, Jake had become a working farmer. But soft fruit looked like hard work, judging by those hands.

'And now Prusakov is also dead, as of two days since.' The second finger went down. 'But your people cannot be blamed for that.'

Something out in the furthest corner of Audley's peripheral vision diverted him from the last finger: the shape of Sir Matthew Fattorini's Rolls flicked through trees on the inner side of Abercrombie Gardens. But the Rolls didn't matter now: Who-the-hell-was "Prusakov" ?

'So that leaves Lukianov at large.' The third finger seemed to get larger as Audley stared at it. 'The luckiest — or the cleverest. . . yes?'

So there had been three runners. And although he dearly wanted to know who Prusakov was — and where and how and why Prusakov had run out of luck and cleverness "two days since", that would have to wait. 'At large where, Jake?

Lukianov?'

Jake shrugged. 'That, I don't know. And neither do the Russians, evidently.' The shrug became a shake. 'They are dummy1

tearing their hair — but that is also common knowledge . . .

What was it Cohen used to say, in the Saracen? "Screaming blue murder, like Auntie Vi did when she caught her tits in the mangle"?' The shake stopped and the bushy eyebrows lifted. 'All the way from Finland to the Black Sea — how many perfectly innocent criminals have been caught? And honest smugglers, who reckoned they'd bribed the border-guards sufficiently, too — ?' The eyebrows came down. 'The first plus-side is that the KGB is pushing all its contacts so hard that we are picking up people we never suspected, who are sticking out their necks. But the minus is that we're also losing valued middle-men who never knew who they were working for.' Quite terrifyingly, Jake began to become incredulous at his own revelations. 'If they were moving their tank divisions and dispersing their SS-20s as well, then we'd be battening-down for the Third World War — just as you are, David!' But then the incredulity steadied itself. 'Only you've gone off half-cock. Because they haven't shifted a mobile army-cookhouse.' The shake came back, but more disbelievingly. 'Just all their bloody spies . . . and their sleepers . . . and even some of their Spetsnaz sleepers —

which is even more outrageous . . . the handful that we know, here in England — ' Jake Shapiro actually bit his lip, under his moustache, on that ' — and that's strictly between you and me, as of now, David: if you want more on Spetsnaz, then you've got to trade at the very highest level — not you, but Jack Butler and his Minister. And it will involve a public pronouncement on your Government's attitude to the PLO.'

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He nodded. 'This is big business now, David.'

Audley felt almost as disembodied as he had also so recently felt on Capri when the screaming had started, half-aware that his features must have become as wooden as Jake Shapiro's suddenly were. Because Jake knew what he was saying: it had all been agreed — and bloody-quickly agreed, too — at his own very highest-level, in the few minutes which had elapsed between his "Mr Lee" call to the Saracen's Head and their joint-arrival under General Abercrombie's statue. Or (what was more likely, actually — and what was certainly worse, therefore) it had been agreed before? Which meant that the Israelis were so worried that they were desperate to co-operate at any price, in spite of Jake's pretended arrogance.

'I can't promise that, Jake.' Suddenly he felt greedy: having got so much so easily, he wanted more. And, anyway, however interesting that Spetsnaz information sounded —

and in exchange only for some half-arsed ministerial statement, which could be made to sound like something-and-nothing — it was just a sprat to catch a mackerel. 'I'm not even supposed to be talking to you now.'

'I can remedy that.' Jake gave him a bleak look. 'If you hadn't called me this morning, I would have called you this afternoon. Because I am empowered to do business with you, old friend.'

'With me?'

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'With you to start with. And to show good faith I will give you Prusakov: they took him in Italy, in a house outside Rome.

But, unfortunately he swallowed a pill, so that is the end of him. However, they also took the Arab who was with him.

And they will have squeezed him for sure. But that has not given them Lukianov. And he is the most dangerous of the three, we believe. Because he was the one who approached the various terrorist organizations in the first place, seeking the highest bidder for his merchandise — we know that.'

'What merchandise, Jake?'

Shapiro shook his head. 'That we do not know.' He looked at Audley sidelong. 'And you do not know — ?'

He must give the Israeli something. 'You've heard about Capri?'

'Capri — ?' Jake frowned.

Audley unfolded his Telegraph and offered the right page.

He had to allow that the stage might have lost a great actor when Jake's parents had illegally emigrated. But his surprise looked genuine.

'You were there?' The Israeli crumpled the newspaper as he looked up from it. 'This was . . . yesterday — ?'

'Yes.' Whatever else Mossad knew, Capri didn't fit in with it.'

Tell me about it.'

Audley shook his head. 'The Russians killed two Arabs. And they lost one of their own men, doing it. That's what we believe. But the man wasn't Lukianov, anyway. At least, I dummy1

don't think so.'

The Israeli drew a deep breath. 'It can't have been "Lucky"

Lukianov. Because the Russians wanted all three of them back alive, from the start. And as of last night —as of this morning, too . . . they still wanted him.' He lifted the crumpled Telegraph. 'So if this is kosher, then it could be a terrorist squabble to decide who's going to attend the auction. The fewer the bidders, the lower the price, maybe?

Not that they can't all afford to pay . . . But Abu Nidal certainly isn't going to let Ahmed Jebril get it, if he can stop him.' He sighed. 'Whatever it is . . .'

Audley let out his breath slowly. It was probable that Jake knew more than he was telling. But he didn't know about Peter Richardson yet.

'Okay, Jake.' If he risked more, then he might betray how little he'd known. Because Jake was smart. 'Tell me about this fellow Lukianov.'

2

'Good morning, Mrs Harlin.' Audley could always gauge how far he was into the doghouse from the expression on the face of Jack's PA. And one glance this morning was enough. 'Any messages for me?'

'Good morning, Dr Audley.' All the years of their acquaintance made not the slightest difference: with Mrs dummy1

Harlin it was Jack Butler contra mundum now, just as she had once given her whole loyalty to Fred Clinton before him.

'There are no messages for you. But Sir Jack is waiting for you in the conference room.'

'In the conference room?' It was still her loyalty to Jack which allowed her to warn him that they already had visitors.

And she had no need to elaborate on her encoded message: a conference before 10 o'clock in the morning always meant trouble. 'Thank you, Mrs Harlin. Would you tell him I'm here, then?'

'I have already told him of your arrival, Dr Audley.' The arrow on her disapproval-dial moved up into the red as he failed to move. 'He is w—' Her features relaxed suddenly' —