The Night Manager

TWENTY-SIX

At Heathrow it was eight in the morning of a sodden English winter's day, and Burr was wearing his Miami clothes. Goodhew, at the arrivals barrier, wore a raincoat and the flat cap he used for bicycling. His features were resolute, but his eyes were overbright. The right eye, Burr noticed, had developed a slight twitch.

"Any news?" Burr demanded when they had barely shaken hands.

"What of? Who? They tell me nothing."

"The jet. Have they tracked it yet?"

"They tell me nothing," Goodhew repeated. "If your man presented himself in shining armour at the British Embassy in Washington, I would hear nothing. Everything's handed down through channels. The Foreign Office. Defence. The River House. Even Cabinet. Everyone's a halfway house to someone else."

"That's twice they've lost that plane in two days," Burr said. He was heading for the cab rank, spurning trolleys, lugging his heavy suitcase by hand. "Once is carelessness, twice is deliberate. It left Colón at nine-twenty at night. My boy was on it, so was Roper, so was Langbourne. They've got AWACs up there, radar on every atoll, you name it. How can they lose a thirteen-seater jet?"

"I'm out of it, Leonard. I try to keep an ear to the ground, but they've taken the ground away. They keep me busy all day long. You know what they call me? The Comptroller of Intelligence. With a p. They thought I would appreciate the ancient spelling. I'm surprised to learn that Darker has a sense of humour."

"They're throwing the book at Strelski," Burr said. "Irresponsible handling of informants. Exceeding his brief. Being too nice to the Brits. They're practically accusing him of Apostoll's murder."

"Flagship," Goodhew muttered under his breath, like a rubric.

A different colouring, Burr noticed. High points of red on the cheeks. A mysterious whiteness round the eyes.

"Where's Rooke?" he asked. "Where's Rob? He should be back by now."

"On his way, I hear. Everybody on his way. Oh, yes."

They joined the taxi queue. A black cab pulled up; a police-woman told Goodhew to get a move on. Two Lebanese tried to push ahead of him. Burr blocked their way and opened the cab door. Goodhew began reciting as soon as he had sat down. His tone was remote. He might have been reliving the traffic accident he had so narrowly missed.

"Devolution is old hat, my master tells me over the smoked eel. Private armies are loose cannons on the deck, he tells me over the roast beef. The small agencies should keep their autonomy, but henceforth they must accept parental guidance from the River House. A new Whitehall concept has been born. Joint Steering is dead. Long live Parental Guidance. Over the port we talk about how to streamline, and he congratulates me and tells me I'm to be put in charge of streamlining. I shall streamline, but I shall do it under parental guidance. That means, to suit Darker's whim. Except.'" He leaned suddenly forward, then turned his head and stared at Burr full face. "Except, Leonard. I am still secretary of Joint Steering and shall remain so until my master in his wisdom deems otherwise or I design. There are sound men there. I've been counting heads. Was mustn't condemn the barrel because of a few bad apples. My master is persuadable. This is still England. We are good people. Things may go amiss from time to time, but sooner or their honour prevails and the right forces win. I believe that."

"The weapons on the Lombardy were American as forecast," Burr said. "They're buying Best Western, with a bit of British where it's any good. And training in it. And demonstrating it to their customers up at Fabergé."

Goodhew turned stiffly back to the window. Somehow he had lost the freedom of his movements. "Countries of origin provide no clue," he retorted with the exaggerated conviction of someone defending a feeble theory. "It's the peddlers who do the mischief. You know that perfectly well."

"There were two American trainers up at the camp, according to Jonathan's notes. He's only talking about officers. He suspects they've got American NCOs as well. High-powered identical twins, they were, who had the bad manners to ask him his business. Strelski says they must be the Yoch brothers from Langley. Used to work Miami, recruiting for the Sandinistas. Amato spotted them in Aruba three months back, drinking Dom Perignon with Roper while he was supposed to be selling farms. Exactly one week later, Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw, our distinguished knight, starts buying American instead of East European and Russian with Roper's money. Roper never hired American trainers before; he wouldn't trust them. Why's he got them there? Who are they working for? Who are they reporting to? Why's American Intelligence got so sloppy suddenly? All these radar windows appearing everywhere? Why didn't their satellites report all that military activity up on the Costa Rican border? Combat helicopters, war wagons, light tanks? Who's talking to the cartels? Who told them about Apostoll? Who said the cartels could have their fun with him and deprive Enforcement of their supersnitch while they're about it?"

Still staring out of the window, Goodhew was refusing to listen. "Take one crisis at a time, Leonard," he urged in a clenched voice. "You've got a boatful of arms, never mind where they come from, headed for Colombia. You've got a boatful of drugs headed for the European continent. You've got a villain to catch and an agent to save. Go for your objectives. Don't be distracted. That's where I went wrong. Darker... the list of backers... the City connections... the big banks... the big financial houses... Darker again... the Purists... Don't be sidetracked by all that: you'll never get there; they'll never let you touch them, you'll go mad. Stick to the possible. The events. The facts. One crisis at a time. Haven't I seen that car before?"

"It's the rush hour, Rex," said Burr gently. "You've seen them all." And then, just as gently, like a consolation to a beaten man: "My boy pulled it off, Rex. He stole the crown jewels. Names and numbers of the ships and containers, location of the Colón warehouse, waybill numbers, even the boxes they've stored the dope in." He patted his breast pocket. "I didn't signal it through; I didn't tell a soul. Not even Strelski. There's Rooke and me and you and my boy. We're the only ones who know. This isn't Flagship, Rex. This is still Limpet."

"They've taken my files," Goodhew said, not hearing again. I kept them in the safe in my room. They've gone."

Burr looked at his watch. Shave at the office. No time to go home.

* * *

Burr is calling in promises. On foot. Working the Golden Triangle of London's secret overworld ― Whitehall, Westminster, Victoria Street. In a blue raincoat borrowed from a janitor, and a paper-thin fawn suit that looks as though he has slept in it, which he has.

Debbie Mullen is an old friend from Burr's River House days. They went to the same secondary school and triumphed in the same exams. Her office is down one flight of steps, behind a blue-painted steel door marked no entry. Through glass walls, Burr can watch clerks of both sexes labouring at their screens and talking on telephones.

"Well, look who's been on holiday," says Debbie, eyeing his suit "What's up, Leonard? We heard they were taking down your brass plate and sending you back across the River."

"There's a container ship called the Horacio Enriques, Debbie, registered Panama," says Burr, allowing his native Yorkshire accent to thicken, in order to emphasise the bond between them. "Forty-eight hours ago she was berthed in Colón Free Zone, bound for Gdansk, Poland. My guess is she's already in international waters, headed for the Atlantic. We have information she's carrying a suspect load. I want her tracked and listened to, but I don't want you to put out a search request." He gave her his old smile. "It's owing to my source, you see, Deb. Very delicate. Very top secret. It's got to be all off the record. Can you be a pal and do that for me?"

Debbie Mullen has a pretty face and a way of laying the tip of her right forefinger against her teeth when she ponders; she does this to conceal her feelings, but she cannot conceal her eyes. First they open too wide, then they focus on the top button of Burr's disgraceful jacket.

"The Enrico what, Leonard?"

"Horacio Enriques, Debbie. Whoever he is. Panama registered."

"That's what I thought you said." Removing her gaze from his jacket, she delves in a tray of red-striped folders till she comes to the one she is looking for and hands it to him. It contains a single sheet of blue paper, embossed and crested and of appropriate ministerial weight. It is headed "The Horacio Enriques" and consists of one paragraph of overlarge type:

The above-named vessel, the subject of a highly sensitive operation, is likely to come to your notice while changing course without apparent reason or performing other erratic manoeuvres at sea or in harbour. All information received by your section which relates to her activities, whether from overt or secret sources, will be passed SOLELY AND IMMEDIATELY to H/Procurement Studies, the River House.

The document is stamped top secret flagship guard.

Burr hands the folder back to Debbie Mullen and pulls a rueful smile.

"Looks as though we've crossed the wires a bit," he confesses. "Still, it all goes into the same pocket in the end. Have you got anything on the Lombardy while I'm about it, Debbie, also hanging about in those waters, most likely at the other end of the Canal?"

Her gaze has returned to his face and stayed there. "You a Mariner, Leonard?"

"What would you do if I said yes?"

"I'd have to telephone Geoff Darker and find out whether you'd been telling porky-pies, wouldn't I?"

Burr is really stretching his charm. "You know me, Debbie. Truth's my middle name. How about a floating gin palace called the Iron Pasha, property of an English gentleman, four days out of Antigua headed west? Anybody been listening to her at all? I need it, Debbie. I'm desperate."

"You said that to me once before, Leonard, and I was desperate too, so I gave it to you. It didn't do either of us any harm at the time, but it's different now. Either I'll ring Geoffrey, or you'll go. It's you to choose."

Debbie is still smiling. So is Burr. He keeps his smile in place all the way down the lane of clerks until he reaches the Then the London damp hits him like a clumsy punch turns his self-control to outrage.

Three boats. All going in different bloody directions! My joe, my guns, my dope, my case ― and none of it my business!

But by the time he reaches Denham's stately office he is his outwardly dour self again, the way Denham would like him best.

* * *

Denham was a lawyer and Harry Palfrey's unlikely predecessor as legal adviser to the Procurement Studies Group in the days before it became Darker's manor. When Burr launched his bloody battle against the illegals, Denham had urged him forward, picked him up when he got hurt and sent him back to try again. When Darker made his successful putsch and Palfrey padded after him, Denham put on his hat and quietly walked back across the river. But he had remained Burr's champion. If he ever felt confident of an ally among the Whitehall legal mandarins, Denham was his man.

"Oh, hullo, Leonard. Glad you rang. Aren't you freezing cold? We don't supply blankets, I'm afraid. Sometimes I rather think we should."

Denham played the fop. He was lank and shadowy, with a schoolboy shock of hair turned grey. He wore broad-striped suits and outrageous waistcoats over two-toned shirts. Yet deep down, like Goodhew, he was some sort of an abstainer. His room should have been splendid, for he had the rank. It was high, with pretty mouldings and decent furniture. But the atmosphere was of a classroom, and the carved fireplace was stuffed with red cellophane coated in a film of dust. A Christmas card eleven months old showed Norwich cathedral in the snow.

"We've met. Guy Eccles," said a chunky man with a prominent jaw who sat reading telegrams at the centre table.

We’ve met, Burr agreed, returning his nod. You're Signals Eccles, and I never liked you. You play golf and drive a Jaguar. What the hell are you doing, muscling in on my appointment? He sat down. Nobody had quite asked him to. Denham was trying to turn up the Crimean War radiator, but either the knob had stuck or else he was turning it the wrong way.

"I've a bit of a load to get off my chest, Nicky, if it's all the same to you," said Burr, deliberately ignoring Eccles. "Time's running against me."

"If it's about the Limpet thing," said Denham, giving the knob a last wrench, "Guy might be rather good to have around." He perched himself on a chair arm. He seemed reluctant to sit at his own desk. "Guy's been hopping back and forth to Panama for months," he explained. "Haven't you Guy?"

"What for?" said Burr.

"Just visiting," said Eccles.

"I want interdiction, Nicky. I want you to move heaven and earth. This is what we were in business for, remember? We sat up nights, talking about just this moment."

"Yes. Yes, we did," Denham agreed, as if Burr had made a valid point.

Eccles was smiling at something he was reading in a telegram. He had three trays. He took the telegrams from one tray and, when he had read them, chucked them into one of the others. That seemed to be his job today.

"It is about feasibility, however, isn't it?" Denham said. He was on the arm of the chair still, his long legs stretched straight before him, his long hands thrust into his pockets.

"So's my paper. So's Goodhew's submission to Cabinet, if it ever gets there. Where there's a will ― remember, Nicky? We won't hide behind the arguments ― remember? We'll get every country involved round a table. Face them off. Challenge them to say no. International hardball, that's what you used to call it. We both did."

Denham loped to the wall behind his desk and plucked a cord from the folds of a heavy muslin curtain. A large-scale, map of Central America appeared, covered by a transparent skin.

"We have been thinking about you, Leonard," he said archly.

"It's action I'm after, Nicky. I've been doing a lot of thinking of my own."

A red boat was pinned off the port of Colón abreast of a dozen grey ones. At the southern end of the Canal, projected routes to east and west of the Gulf of Panama were overlaid in different colours.

"We haven't been idle while you've been so industrious, I assure you. So ship ahoy. The Lombardy, her gunwales awash with arms. We hope. Because if they're not, we're in the most frightful shit, but that's another story."

"Is this the latest position anyone's got for her?" said Burr.

"Oh, I think so," said Denham.

"It's the latest we've got, that's for sure," said Eccles, dropping a green telegram into the centre tray. He had a lowland Scottish accent. Burr had forgotten about it. Now he remembered. If there was one regional accent that grated on his ear like fingernails on a blackboard, it was lowland Scots.

"The Cousins' wheels grind exceeding slow these days," Eccles remarked, after a small suck of the front teeth. "It's that Vendon woman, Bar-ba-ra. Everything has to be in triplicate for her." He gave his teeth a second suck of disapproval.

But Burr kept talking only to Denham, because he was anxious not to lose his temper. "There's two speeds, Nicky. Limpet speed and the other one. American Enforcement's being given the runaround by the Cousins."

Eccles did not look up from his reading as he spoke. "Central is the Cousins' bailiwick," he said, in his borderer's accent."The Cousins watch and listen; we get the take. No use in setting two dogs after one hare. Not cost-effective. Not. Not these days." He tossed a telegram into a tray. "Bloody waste of money, in fact."

Denham was talking before Eccles had quite finished. He seemed concerned to hurry things along:

"So let's assume she's where she is when last reported," he proposed enthusiastically, poking at the Lombardy's stern with his twig-like forefinger. "She's got her Colombian crew ― not confirmed, but we'll assume it ― she's headed for the Canal Buenaventura. All exactly as your marvellous source recites. Bravo him, her or it. If things happen in the ordinary way ― and one assumes that she'll want to look as ordinary as she'll hit the Canal sometime today. Right?"

Nobody said "Right" back.

"The Canal's a one-way street. Down in the mornings. Up in the afternoons. Or is it t'other way round?"

A tall girl with long brown hair walked in and without a word to anybody swept her skirts under her and sat herself primly before a computer screen as if she were about to play the harpsichord.

"It varies," Eccles said.

"Nothing to stop her turning tail and pissing off to Caracas, I suppose," Denham continued as his finger prodded the Lombardy into the Canal. "Sorry, Priscilla. Or up the road to Costa Rica or wherever. Or down this way and hit Colombia from the western side, long as the cartels can guarantee a safe harbour. They can guarantee most things. But we're still thinking Buenaventura, because you told us to. Hence the lines on my nice map."

"There's a fleet of army lorries lined up in Buenaventura to receive them," Burr said.

"Not confirmed," said Eccles.

"It bloody well is," said Burr, without lifting his voice in the least. "We had it from Strelski's late source via Moranti, plus there's independent corroboration from satellite photographs of lorries moving down the road."

"Lorries move up and down that road all the time," said Eccles. And stretched both arms above his head as if Burr's presence were draining him of energy. "Anyway, Strelski's late source is discredited. There's a serious school of thought says he was full of shit from the start. All these snitches fabricate. They think it'll earn them more remission."

"Nicky," Burr said to Denham's back.

Denham was pushing the Lombardy into the Gulf of Panama.

"Leonard," he said.

"Are we boarding her? Are we pulling her in?"

"You mean, are the Americans?"

"Whoever. Yes or no?"

Shaking his head at Burr's obduracy, Eccles posted yet another telegram ostentatiously into a tray. The girl at the computer had tucked her hair behind her ears and was pressing keys. Burr could not see her screen. The tip of her tongue had appeared between her teeth.

"Yes, well, that's the bugger, you see, Leonard," said Denham, all enthusiasm again. "Sorry, Priscilla. For the Americans ― thank God ― not for us. If the Lombardy hugs the coast" ― his striped arm made a bowler's arc until it reached a route that followed the complex coastline between the Gulf of Panama and Buenaventura ― "then, so far as we can see, she's got the Americans by the proverbial short-and-curlies. The Lombardy will then be sailing straight from Panamanian national waters into Colombian national waters, you see, so the poor old Americans won't get a look in."

"Why not arrest her in Panamanian waters? The Americans are all over Panama. They own the bloody place, or think they do."

"Not so at all, I'm afraid. If they're going to pounce on the Lombardy with all guns blazing, they'll need to sail in behind the Panamanian Navy. Don't laugh."

"It was Eccles laughing, not me."

"And in order to get the Panamanians to the starting line, they’ve got to prove that the Lombardy has committed a crime under Panamanian law. She hasn't. She's in transit from Curaçao and on her way to Colombia."

"But she's stuffed with illegal bloody guns!"

"So you say. Or your source does. And of course one terribly hopes you're right. Or he, she or it is, rather. But the Lombardy wishes the Pans no ill and she also happens to be Pan registered. And the Pans are frightfully reluctant to be seen providing flags of convenience and then inviting the Americans to tear them down. Very hard, in fact, to persuade them to do anything at the moment. Post-Noriega tristis, I'm afraid. Sorry, Priscilla. Sullen hatred is more like it. Nursing one very wounded national pride."

Burr was standing. Eccles was watching him dangerously, Like a policeman who has spotted trouble. Denham must have bade him stand, but he had taken refuge in the map. The girl Priscilla had stopped pressing keys.

"All right, hit her in Colombian waters!" Burr almost shouted, jabbing a finger at the coastline north of Buenaventura. "Lean on the Colombian government. We're helping them clean up their shop, aren't we? Rid themselves of curse of the cocaine cartels? Busting their dope laboratories for them?" His voice slipped a little. Or perhaps it had slipped a lot and he only heard a little. "The Colombian government is not going to be exactly overjoyed to see weapons pouring into Buenaventura to equip the cartels' new army. I mean, have we forgotten everything we talked about, Nicky? Has yesterday been declared a top-secret area or something? Tell me there's some logic in this somewhere."

"If you think you can separate the Colombian government from the cartels, you're living in cloud-cuckoo-land," Denham retorted, with more steel than he seemed to possess. "If you think you can separate the cocaine economy from the economies of Latin America, you're barking."

"Wanking," Eccles corrected him, with no apology to Priscilla.

"A lot of people down that way regard the coca plant as a double blessing bestowed on them by God," Denham resumed, launching himself on a paean of self-exculpation. "Not only does Uncle Sam choose to poison himself with it, but he enriches the oppressed Latinos while he's about it! What could possibly be jollier? The Colombians will be frightfully willing to cooperate with Uncle Sam in a venture like this, of course. But they just may not quite get their act together in time to stop the shipment. Weeks of diplomacy necessary, one's afraid, and a lot of people on holiday. And they will want a guarantee of costs for when they pull her into port. All that unloading, the overtime, the unsociable hours." The sheer force of his harangue was producing calm. It is not easy to fulminate and listen at the same time. "And they'll want legal indemnification in case the Lombardy is clean, naturally. And if she isn't, which I'm delighted to believe, there'll be unseemly haggling about whose guns they are once they're confiscated. And who gets to keep them, and sell them back to the cartels when it's all over. And who goes to prison where, and how long for, and with how many hookers to keep him happy in the meantime. And how many thugs he's allowed to have look after him, and how many telephone lines to run his business, and order his assassinations, and talk to his fifty bank managers. And who gets paid off when he decides he's done enough time, which will be in about six weeks. And who gets disgraced, and who gets promoted, and who gets a medal for bravery when he escapes. Meanwhile, one way or another, your guns will be safely in the hands of the chaps who've been trained to use them. Welcome to Colombia!"

Burr mustered the last of his self-control. He was in London. He was in the land of make-believe power. He was standing in its hallowed headquarters. He had left the most obvious solution till last, perhaps because he knew that in the world where Denham lived, the obvious was the least likely course.

"Okay, then." He rapped the centre of Panama with the back of his hand. "Let's grab the Lombardy when she goes up the Canal. The Americans run the Canal. They built it. Or have we got another ten good reasons for sitting on our arses?"

Denham was enthusiastically appalled.

"Oh, my dear man! We'd be infringing the most sacred article of the Canal Treaty. Nobody ― not the Americans, not even the Pans ― has a right of search. Not unless they can prove that the vessel they're after presents a physical danger to the Canal. I suppose if it's full of bombs that could go off, you'd have a case. Old bombs, they'd have to be, not new ones. If you could prove they were going to go off. You'd have to be jolly sure. If they're properly packed, you're scuppered. Can you so prove? It's an all-American thing, anyway. We're only observing, thank God. Leaning a bit where it's helpful. Staying out of their light when it's not. We'll probably make a démarche to the Pans if we're asked. In concert with the Americans, of course. Just to give strength to their elbow. Might even make one to the Colombs, if State twists our arm. Nothing much to be lost, not at the moment."

"When?"

"When what?"

"When will you try and mobilise the Panamanians?"

"Tomorrow probably. Could be the next day." He glanced at his watch. "What is today?" It seemed important to him not to know. "Depends how tied up the ambassadors are. When's Carnival, Priscilla? I forget. This is Priscilla. Sorry not to have made the honours."

Tapping softly at her keyboard, Priscilla said, "Not for ages." Eccles had more telegrams.

"But you went through all this, Nicky!" Burr implored in one last appeal to the Denham he thought he had known. "What's changed? Joint Steering held policy meetings galore! You had every bloody contingency cooked three ways! If Roper does this, we do this. Or that. Or that. Remember? I saw the minutes. You and Goodhew agreed it all with the Americans. Plan A, Plan B. What happened to all that work?"

Denham was unperturbed. "Very hard to negotiate a hypothesis, Leonard. Particularly with your Latin. You should try my desk for a few weeks. You've got to present him with facts. Your Latin won't budge until it's real."

"Won't till it's not, either," murmured Eccles.

"Mind you," said Denham encouragingly, "from all one hears, the Cousins are absolutely busting a gut to make this one stick. The little we do isn't going to alter the price of fish one farthing. And of course Darling Katie will be pulling out all the stops in Washington."

"Katie's fantastic," Eccles agreed.

Burr had one last, terribly mistaken shot. It came from the same locker as other rash acts that he occasionally committed, and as usual he regretted it as soon as he had spoken.

"What about the Horacio Enriques?" he demanded. "Only a small point, Nicky, but she's headed for Poland with enough cocaine on her to keep the whole of Eastern Europe stoned for six months."

"Wrong hemisphere, I'm afraid," said Denham. "Try Northern Department, one floor down. Or Customs."

"How are you so sure she's your ship?" Eccles asked, smiling again.

"My source."

"She's got twelve hundred containers aboard. You going to look in all of them?"

"I know the numbers," said Burr, not believing himself as he spoke.

"You mean your source does."

"I mean I do."

"Of the containers?"

"Yes."

"Bully for you."

At the main door, while Burr was still raging against all creation, the janitor handed him a note. It was from another old friend, this time at the Ministry of Defence, regretting that, owing to an unforeseen crisis, he could not after all make their promised meeting at midday.

* * *

Passing Rooke's door, Burr smelled aftershave. Rooke was sitting stiff-backed at his desk, changed and immaculate after his journey, a clean handkerchief in his sleeve, a copy of the day's Telegraph in his pending tray. He might never have left Turnbridge.

"I telephoned Strelski five minutes ago. The Roper jet's still missing," Rooke said before Burr had a chance to ask. "Air surveillance have produced some cockeyed story about a radar black hole. Bunkum, if you ask me."

"Everything's happening as they planned it," Burr said. "The dope, the weapons, the money, all heading nicely for their destinations. It's the art of the impossible, perfected, Rob. All the right things are illegal. All the lousy things are the only logical course. Long live Whitehall."

Rooke signed off a paper. "Goodhew wants a summary of Limpet by close of play today. Three thousand words. No adjectives."

"Where have they taken him, Rob? What are they doing to him at this minute? While we sit here worrying about adjectives?"

Pen in hand, Rooke continued studying the papers before him. "Your man Bradshaw's been cooking the books," he remarked in the tone of one clubman censuring another. "Ripping off the Roper while he does his shopping for him."

Burr peered over Rooke's shoulder. On the desk lay a summary of the illegal purchases of American weapons by Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw in his capacity as Roper's nominee. And beside it lay a full-plate photograph taken by Jonathan, showing pencilled figures from Roper's filing tray, in the state apartments. The discrepancy amounted to an informal commission of several hundred thousand dollars in Bradshaw's favour.

"Who's seen this?" Burr asked.

"You and I."

"Keep it that way."

Burr summoned his secretary and in an angry rush dictated a brilliant précis of the Limpet case, no adjectives. Leaving orders that he was to be informed of every development, he went back to his wife, and they made love while the children bickered downstairs. Then he played with the children while his wife did her rounds. He returned to his office and, having examined Rooke's figures in the privacy of his room, called up a set of intercepted faxes and telephone conversations between Roper and Sir Anthony Joyston Bradshaw of Newbury, Berkshire. Then he drew Bradshaw's voluminous personal file. starting in the sixties when he was just another new recruit to the illegal arms business, part-time croupier, consort of wealthy older women, and the unloved but zealous informant of British Intelligence.

For the rest of the night Burr remained at his desk before the mute telephones. Three times Goodhew called for news. Twice Burr said, "Nothing." But the third time he turned the tables:

"Your man Palfrey seems to have gone off the air a bit too, hasn't he, Rex?"

"Leonard, that is not a subject we discuss."

But for once Burr was not interested in the niceties of source protection.

"Tell me something. Does Harry Palfrey still sign the River House's warrants?"

"Warrants? What warrants? You mean warrants to tap telephones, open mail, put in microphones? Warrants must be signed by a minister, Leonard. You know that very well."

Burr swallowed his impatience. "I mean, he's still the legal wallah there. He prepares their submissions, makes sure they fall within the guidelines?"

"That is one of his tasks."

"And occasionally he does sign their warrants. When the Home Secretary's stuck in traffic, for instance. Or the world's ending. In dire cases, your Harry is empowered to use his own judgment and square it with the minister later. Right? Or have things changed?"

"Leonard, are you wandering?"

"Probably."

"Nothing has changed," Goodhew replied, in a voice of restrained despair.

"Good," said Burr. "I'm glad, Rex. Thank you for telling me." And he returned to the lengthy record of Joyston Bradshaw's sins.