The big engines throbbed with a note so low that the sound was less apparent than the vibrations through the soles of my shoes. Stinnes looked round without much sign of delight or admiration. I suppose it was everything a communist hated. Even a lapsed fascist like me found it a bit too rich.

'Now who would like a drink?' asked Biedermann, in a voice that had the cheerful vibrancy of the perfect host. He had unlocked the bar and was pulling various bottles of drink from the cupboard. 'Scotch. Brandy. English gin.' He held up a bottle and shook it, 'Robert Brown – that's Mexican whisky, and if you've never tried it it's quite an experience.'

Stinnes walked across the lounge and very quietly said, 'Better if you took Mr Volkmann back up to the house, Paul. If Pedro shows me the controls I can handle the boat.' It was a typical KGB trick; carefully planned but unexpected. They could not learn spontaneity but they contrived ways to do without it.

Paul Biedermann looked up at him and bunked. 'Sure. If that's the way you want it.'

'It's the way I want it,' said Stinnes. He took off his straw hat and smoothed his sparse hair by pressing the flat of his hand against his skull.

'And I'll take Pedro and his kid too. Or do you want them with you?' When Stinnes didn't reply, Biedermann gave a nervous smile and got to his feet. 'Pedro. Show Mr Stinnes how to manage the boat.'

I was sitting on the far side of the lounge, watching Biedermann carefully. Either he was scared of Stinnes or it was a very good act. Werner was watching the whole scene too. Typically he was hunched in an armchair with his eyes half closed. It was always like that with Werner; he liked to know everything that was going on, and guess the things he didn't know. But he liked to look half asleep. Werner would have made a very successful gossip columnist, except that he would have missed a lot of deadlines.

Stinnes looked at me and, although his expression didn't change, he waited for me to nod before going up to take over the controls. 'And, Paul,' said Stinnes. 'No drinking, Paul. Better we all kept clear heads.'

'Oh, sure,' said Paul Biedermann. 'I just thought somebody…'

'Better lock it away,' said Stinnes. 'You take Mr Volkmann up to the house and have more coffee.'

'Before you lock it away,' I said, 'leave a little something to one side, would you?'

I poured myself a good measure of malt whisky from the bottle Biedermann had put aside for me and sipped it neat. I never really trust drinking water anywhere but Scotland; and I've never been to Scotland.

I heard the whine of the electric motor that brought the anchor up and felt the boat wallow as the current took a hold. Through the porthole I could see the dinghy containing Werner and Paul Biedermann and the two Mexicans returning to the pier. It was being tossed about. I wondered if Werner was feeling okay. He hated the sea in any shape or form. It was a notable gesture of friendship that he should offer to come along.

The engines vibrated right through the boat as Stinnes – sitting upstairs at the controls – increased the revs and engaged the screws. The sound of waves pounding against the hull changed to the noise of water rushing past it, and a large patch of sunlight raced across the veneered bulkhead as Stinnes turned the wheel and headed the boat out to the open sea.

I let Stinnes play with the controls while I continued to drink my malt and ask myself what I was doing out at sea in this floating Cadillac in the hurricane season with a KGB major at the helm. He pushed up the revs after a few minutes, and soon there was the crash of shipped water spewing across the deck, and the boat heeled over so that green ocean dashed against the glass for long enough to darken the cabin. Stinnes corrected the steering, more gently this time. He was learning. Best to leave him alone for a few minutes.

I left him for what seemed a long time. By the time I went across the cabin to pour myself a second drink, I had to plant my feet wide apart because the boat was reeling. We'd reached the point where the cool equatorial stream of the Pacific was affected by the very warm summer currents that follow the coast. I held tight to my drink as I went upstairs to where Stinnes was at the controls. The sunlight was behind him, turning his sparse hair into a bright halo and edging his white cotton jacket with a rim of gold. There was the muffled sound of Mexican music coming from the little plastic radio.

'Suppose I take you seriously?' said Stinnes, greeting my appearance on the bridge. 'Suppose I say, yes I'd like to defect? Is it some kind of joke? Or are you really able to negotiate?'

'Where are you taking us?' I said with some alarm. 'We're out of sight of land.' I had to talk loudly to be heard over the noise of the sea and the music from the radio.

'I know what I'm doing,' said Stinnes. 'Biedermann has radar and sonar and depth-finding gear and every other luxury.'

'Does he have anything to cure a fatal drowning?' I said.

'Volkmann says you have some sort of deal,' said Stinnes. He glanced down at the instruments and rapped the barometer with his knuckles.

'Are you just crazy about Mexican music, or are you waiting for a hurricane warning?' I said. He turned down the volume of the little radio until it was only a whisper heard faintly against the sound of the wind and the throb of the engines. 'There is a deal,' I said. 'Ready and waiting.'

'Why me?' said Stinnes.

I'd asked myself that already and got no answer. 'Why not?' I said.

'Your government has not sent you all this way without a motive, a good motive.'

No mention of Dicky Cruyer, I noticed. Did that mean that Dicky was unknown to him? It could be useful. 'There were other reasons for my being here.'

He looked at me and his face was blank but I knew he didn't believe me. He was suspicious, just as I would have been in his place. There could be no half-measures. I would have to work very hard to land this one. He was like me, too damned old and too damned cynical to fall for anything but innocent sincerity or a cynicism even more profound than his own. 'You are targeted,' I said. 'Starred by London as an exceptional enemy agent.'

The sun was brighter now, coming over his shoulder and falling on the instrument panel so that I could see the controls reflected in the lenses of his spectacles. 'Is that so?' His voice was flat, but I had the feeling he believed me and was proud to be starred by London. This was probably the right way to tackle him. It would be like a love affair; and Stinnes had reached that dangerous age when a man was only susceptible to an innocent little cutie or to an experienced floozy. And the stock-in-trade of both was flattery.

'London are like that sometimes,' I said. 'They decide they want someone and then it's rush, rush, rush. I hate this sort of job.'

'I want no mention of all this in your signals traffic,' said Stinnes. 'Especially not in your embassy signals from Mexico City. I insist on that right from the start.'

I didn't want him to think London was too keen. If Stinnes said no we might have to snatch him and I didn't want him prepared for that sort of development. I kept it very cool. 'We'll have to act quickly,' I said. 'If we don't get everything settled in the next week or so London might lose interest and drop the idea. It's the way they are.'

It was fully daylight now and, although the sun had still to eat through the morning haze, there were no clouds. It was going to be a very hot day. The wind was at about eight to ten knots, so that the waves were lengthening and breaking here and there to make scattered white horses. On the westerly horizon I could see two ships. I watched the compass. Was Stinnes going to turn the tables on me. Were they Russian trawlers, waiting for Stinnes to deliver me to the ship's side, with a KGB interrogation team leaning over the rails? Perhaps Stinnes understood what was going through my mind, for he swung the wheel gently to head well south of them. As he changed the heading, an extra big wave broke over the bow and dashed spray so that the air was full of the taste of it. 'Your people are clever, Samson… Is that your true name – Samson?'