There are always prowl cars cruising that district, especially at night, and the first white Sierra with the word POLITIE along the side in blue was there in four minutes. It disgorged two uniformed officers, closely followed by two more from a second car twenty seconds afterward.

Still, it is surprising how much damage two good fighters can do to a bar in four minutes. Quinn knew he could outpace the pug, who was slowed by drink and cigarettes, and outpunch him. But he let the man land a couple of blows in the ribs, just for encouragement, then put a hard left hook under his heart to slow him a mite. When it looked as if the pug might call it a day, Quinn closed with him to help him a bit.

In a double bear hug the two men flattened most of the bar furniture, rolling through the sawdust in a melee of chair legs, tabletops, glasses, and bottles.

When the police arrived, the two brawlers were arrested on the spot. The police HQ for that area is Zone West P/1 and the nearest precinct house is in the Blindenstraat. The two squad cars deposited them there separately two minutes later and delivered them into the care of Duty Sergeant Van Maes. The barman totted up his damage and made a statement from behind his bar. No need to detain the man-he had a business to run. The officers divided his damage estimate by two and made him sign it.

Fighting prisoners are always separated at Blindenstraat. Sergeant Van Maes slung the pug, whom he knew well from previous encounters, into the bare and stained wachtkamer behind his desk; Quinn was made to sit on a hard bench in the reception area while his passport was examined.

“American, eh?” said Van Maes. “You should not get involved in fights, Mr. Quinn. This Kuyper we know; he is always in trouble. This time he does down. He hit you first, no?”

Quinn shook his head.

“Actually, I slugged him.”

Van Maes studied the barman’s statement.

“Hmm. Ja, the barman says you were both to blame. Pity. I must hold you both now. In the morning you go to the Magistraat. Because of the damage to the bar.”

The Magistraat would mean paperwork. When at 5:00 A.M. a very smart American lady in a severe business suit came into the precinct house with a roll of money to pay for the damage to the Montana, Sergeant Van Maes was relieved.

“You pay for the half this American caused, ja?” he asked.

“Pay the lot,” said Quinn from his bench.

“You pay Kuyper’s share, too, Mr. Quinn? He is a thug, in and out of here since he was a boy. A long record, always small things.”

“Pay for him too,” said Quinn to Sam. She did so. “Since there’s now nothing owing, do you want to press charges, Sergeant?”

“Not really. You can leave.”

“Can he come too?” Quinn gestured to the wachtkamer and the snoring form of Kuyper, which could be seen through the door.

“You want him?”

“Sure, we’re buddies.”

The sergeant raised an eyebrow, shook Kuyper awake, told him the stranger had paid his damages for him, and just as well or Kuyper would see a week inside jail, again. As it was, he could go. When Sergeant Van Maes looked up, the lady had gone. The American draped an arm around Kuyper and together they staggered down the steps of the precinct house. Much to the sergeant’s relief.

In London the two quiet men met during the lunch hour in a discreet restaurant whose waiters left them alone once their food had arrived. The men knew each other by sight, or more properly by photograph. Each knew what the other did for a living. A curious inquirer, had he had the impudence to ask, might have learned that the Englishman was a civil servant in the Foreign Office and the other the Assistant Cultural Attaché at the Soviet embassy.

He would never have learned, no matter how many records he checked, that the Foreign Office official was Deputy Head of Soviet Section at Century House, headquarters of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service; nor that the man who purported to arrange visits of the Georgian State Choir was the Deputy Rezident of the KGB within the mission. Both men knew they were there with the approval of their respective governments, that the meeting had been at the request of the Russians, and that the Chief of the SIS had reflected deeply before permitting it. The British had a fair idea what the Russian request would be.

As the remains of the lamb cutlets were cleared away and the waiter headed off for their coffee, the Russian asked his question.

“I’m afraid it is, Vitali Ivanovich,” replied the Englishman gravely. He spoke for several minutes, summarizing the findings of the Barnard forensic report. The Russian looked shaken.

“This is impossible,” said the Russian at last. “My government’s denials are wholly truthful.”

The British intelligence man was silent. He might have said that if you tell enough lies, when you finally tell the truth it is hard to keep an audience. But he did not. From his breast pocket he withdrew a photograph. The Russian studied it.

It was blown up many times from its original paper-clip size. In the photograph it was four inches long. A mini-det from Baikonur.

“This was found in the body?”

The Englishman nodded.

“Embedded in a fragment of bone, driven into the spleen.”

“I am not technically qualified,” said the Russian. “May I keep this?”

“That’s why I brought it,” said the SIS man.

For answer the Russian sighed and produced a sheet of paper of his own. The Englishman glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. It was an address in London. The Russian shrugged.

“A small gesture,” he said. “Something that came to our notice.”

The men settled up and parted company. Four hours later the Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorist squad jointly raided a semidetached house in Mill Hill, arresting all four members of an I.R. A. Active Service Unit and taking possession of enough bomb-making equipment to have created a dozen major attacks in the capital.

Quinn proposed to Kuyper that they find a bar still open and have a drink to celebrate their release. This time there was no objection. Kuyper bore no grudge for the fight in the bar; in fact he had been bored and the scrap had lifted his spirits. Having his fine paid for him was an added bonus. Moreover, his hangover needed the solace of a further beer or two, and if the tall man was paying…

Kuyper’s French was slow but passable. He seemed to understand more of the language than he could speak. Quinn introduced himself as Jacques Degueldre, a French national of Belgian parentage, departed these many years to work on ships in the French Merchant Navy.

By the second beer Kuyper noticed the tattoo on the back of Quinn’s hand, and proudly offered his own for comparison.

“Those were the days, eh?” Quinn grinned. Kuyper cackled at the memory.

“Broke a few heads in those days,” he recalled with satisfaction. “Where did you join?”

“Congo, 1962,” said Quinn.

Kuyper’s brow furrowed as he tried to work out how one could join the Spider organization in the Congo. Quinn leaned forward conspiràtorially.

“Fought there from ’62 to ’67,” he said. “With Schramme and Wauthier. They were all Belgians in those days down there. Mostly Flemings. Best fighters in the world.”

That pleased Kuyper. He nodded somberly at the truth of it all.

“Taught those black bastards a lesson, I can tell you.”

Kuyper liked that even more.

“I nearly went,” he said regretfully. He had evidently missed a major opportunity to kill a lot of Africans. “Only I was in jail.”

Quinn poured another beer, their seventh.

“My best mate down there came from here,” said Quinn. “There were four with the Spider tattoo. But he was the best. One night we all went into town, found a tattooist, and they initiated me, seeing as I’d already passed the tests, like. You might remember him from here. Big Paul.”