His name is Calvin Weiss, and he is the entertainment director of the cruise ship S.S. Carnival Queen, one of those pathetic vessels that call at ports throughout the Caribbean. Visualize him, Madrigal, alive with a feverish energy, his eyes popping and his face sweating as he strives every night to amuse still another boatload of the brainless. Imagine what the mind of such a man must be like, stuffed full of punch lines and stale gags, blackout skits and rimshot whammos. What a delight he will be on the journey, what a shield against the gloom. Slay him for me, Madrigal. I need him. March first is the date that I give you. Have him for me then.

Your usual fee has been deposited in the Zurich account. Gibraltar Rules apply.

Sammy collected the folders, and returned them to Jessup. There was silence in the room. Jessup said, "First, let me point out the obvious. These people must be stopped. Today is the sixteenth of February, and these assignments are due to go into effect on the last day of the month. So, a certain amount of urgency is involved. And having said that, I'd now like to hear your opinion of the mental condition of the man who wrote these files."

Sammy looked at me, and said, "Ben, around the circle." Which meant that I was to speak first. We all had been born in the same year, but I was the youngest by a month, and it was a tradition with us that the youngest spoke first. So it was me, then Martha, then Vince, then Snake, and then Sammy, who was our eldest by a matter of weeks.

"I have to assume that the man was deranged," I said. "These assignments were made just before he went into the hospital, and the tumors had already taken root in his brain. I don't think that I need to comment on the nature of the assignments, since they were obviously written by a madman. He has ordered, in the name of the Agency, a murder, a rape, an act of arson, and a possible fraud. At the risk of sounding overly technical, David Ogden was a nut case."

Martha said, "Agreed. Totally bonkers."

Vince said, "No question about it."

Snake said, "Crazy weirdo."

Sammy said, "Make it unanimous. The man was brain damaged."

Jessup nodded his satisfaction. "I'm glad to hear that. Those of us who knew David Ogden well, and that includes everyone on the executive committee, knew him to be a decent and honorable man. The David Ogden we knew could never have made those assignments. A different man made them, a man with a damaged brain. And having said that, I will now ask if there are any questions."

"I have one," said Vince. He looked unhappy. "You say that Ogden was an honorable man, and in his right mind he never would have made those assignments. Are you also saying that the DDO, or anyone like him, never sanctioned a killing, or an arson, or a rape, in the name of military or political expediency?"

Jessup stared at him icily. "Do you expect me to consider that a serious question?"

Vince shrugged. "No, I guess not. We both know the answer. It's happened many times, too many to count, but this time it's a friend of yours who did it, a megalomaniac who was gratifying some pretty dark impulses. You may see a difference in terms of morality, but I don't."

"Vince, lay off," said Sammy. It was his turn to look unhappy, for Vince had said the m-word. You don't use a word like morality around people like Jessup and Delaney. For diversion, Sammy rushed into the breach. "Mr. Jessup, what intrigues me most about these assignments is the apparently random nature in which they were made-an unknown girl, an obscure comedian, a tiny college, a run-down rooming house. Do you have any idea how Ogden chose these targets?"

"Not at the moment. We're working on that."

"Any connection between them?"

"Apparently not, but we're working on that, too. Yes?"

Martha had several questions. "What we have here are a set of handwritten notes. Are they copies? Are they memory aids? Were they ever processed? Were the instructions issued orally? Do you know if they were ever actually issued at all?"

"Good questions, all of them, but I can only answer one of them with certainty. These assignments were never processed through any Agency machine, or by Agency personnel. As for the rest of it, we simply do not know, but when it comes to assumptions, we have no choice. We have to assume that the assignments were made, one way or the other. We have to assume that these projects are already in motion."

"What about the time frame?" asked Snake. "Everything goes down between the last day of February and the fourth day of March. Is there any reason for that?"

"Not that we know of." Jessup hesitated. "However, I have a theory of my own. I think that David miscalculated how long he was going to live. Conceding that he was out of his mind, still every madness contains its own interior logic. I think that David wanted his symbols, his sacrifices, waiting for him when he arrived to begin what he called his long, dark journey. He wanted everything to be in place by a certain time."

"But they weren't waiting. There are still two weeks to go."

"As I said, he miscalculated. At least, that's the way I see it. Any other questions?"

"Yeah, one," said Vince. "What's in the right-hand compartment of that box? All we've seen is the left side."

"Nothing important. Some of Ogden 's private papers."

"Could you be more explicit?"

"I'm afraid not. As I said, they're private, and they don't concern us here."

"By private, do you mean intimate?"

"Well… yes."

Vince sighed. "Sammy, do you want to do this, or should I?"

"Go ahead," said Sammy. "Just try to do it without insulting anybody. "

"Not so easy." Vince stood up. He towered. "Mr. Jessup, I don't know yet why you're here, but it's pretty clear that you're going to ask us to do something for you. Which means that sometime soon my ass is going to be on the line because of you. Now I'm not about to risk it without knowing what I'm walking into. You can't feed me half a loaf of information. I have to know everything. And if I haven't made myself clear enough, if you refuse to tell me what's in that compartment I can get the information out of your head in thirty seconds flat."

Vince sat down. Sammy muttered, "Smooth, real smooth. Very diplomatic."

"Yeah, I got the touch."

Jessup's face was set into hard lines. "Very well, since you put it that way. The compartment contains five large envelopes, and each envelope contains… mementoes… of David's relationship with a particular woman. Five women in all." He went on to detail the contents of the envelopes, and he gave us the names of the women: Sarah Brine, Jenny Cookson, Carla MacAlester, Vivian Livingstone, and Maria-Teresa Bonfiglia. He was clearly uncomfortable. When he was finished, he said stiffly, "Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

"For the moment," said Vince. "One more point. Gibraltar Rules. What does that mean?"

Jessup looked surprised. "No contact, no recall, of course."

Delaney, who knew how little attention we paid to formal procedures, said, "Alex, perhaps you'd best explain."

Jessup said patiently, "Under Gibraltar Rules, there is no contact between Control and Field once the assignment is made, and there is no possibility of recall. None at all."

"Are you saying that even if you knew the names of these agents, you couldn't call them off the job?"

"Exactly. Under Gibraltar Rules, the Field is required to ignore any and all orders for recall. Once the project is rolling, it cannot be stopped."

"For how long?"

"For the period of the time frame. Once the time frame expires, the assignment expires as well."

"A five-day frame," Delaney pointed out. "Starting less than two weeks from now."

"Jesus."

I don't know who said it. Maybe we all did. There was silence in the room as the facts sank in. Somewhere out there were four unknown field agents, highly trained and supplied with funds, loyal to the memory of a madman, committed to a series of crimes in his name… and beyond recall.