'If you'll give me a little time,' Croder said, and began turning the sheets of the debriefing book.

I think I reached alpha but only for a few seconds, felt too restless, got up and walked about to look at the pictures on the wall, tugged at the laces and pulled my shoes off and walked about like that, what a bloody relief, saw Ferris making a note on his pad, new shoes, I suppose, he doesn't miss anything.

The phone rang and Tench picked it up at the first ring and said yes, but was it urgent, and then listened for half a minute and finally said all right and passed the phone to Croder.

'Cocktail, sir.'

I'd seen it on the board before I'd left London: it was Jowett's thing, one of our first in Sri Lanka.

'When was this?'

You can't tell anything from Croder's tone; he talks like a lawyer reading a will. I saw Ferris watching him.

'What are his chances?'

This I didn't need. Jowett had had a wheel come off and his chances weren't worth a damn because the man at the board didn't know how to help him and you do not, you do not raise the Chief through Cheltenham when he's in the next hemisphere with a major mission already on his hands, unless there's a life in the balance.

'Has he got it with him?'

The product. The poor bastard had pushed it right into the end-phase and he'd got the product and he'd been running like hell for the coast on board a plane or in a Hertz or buried under a sack of oats in a truck and someone had blown him or he'd left traces behind and now he was holed up in a telephone box with blood in his shoes and the fear of God in his soul and ringing London, tugging on the lifeline to see if it was still there, still strong enough to get him home, to get him home alive while 'Have you informed Hallows?'

I tell you I did not need this, it wasn't exactly what you'd call reassuring was it, I mean Hallows is the man they send for when something has got to be done extremely fast, not, in my private opinion, in a last-ditch attempt to succour the executive but as a gesture of concern, so that it can be spelled out in the final report that they had tried, at least they had tried.

'Tell him,' Croder said, and I knew the words by heart, 'that every endeavour will be made but that he is confidently expected to use his own discretion.'

Discretion, capsule, yes.

He gave the phone back to Tench, who dropped it on to the contact with the sound, I swear, of a coffin-lid closing.

Silence in the room for another ten minutes while Croder got through the rest of the debriefing book and Tench stroked the back of his untidy-looking head and Purdom stared at his hands and Monck sat like a crumpled-looking buddha in the biggest chair and I talked to Croder in the soundless confines of the mind, don't you care about that man Jowett, is that all you can do, send for Hallows to disinfect the final report so that we can all sleep in our beds? You ought to be on that bloody telephone raising all the support you can get for that poor bastard, you should be -

Oh for God's sake spare us the melodrama, there's a ferret in a trap and he can't get out, that's all, it's not the first time it's happened and it won't be the last, RIP, so forth, and let us get on, gentlemen, with the job.

'Very well.'

The coil-spring spine of the debriefing book made a faint discordant medley of notes across Croder's steel hand as he closed it and dropped it onto his lap and looked at me and said, 'Proctor, then. I would value your opinion.'

First obvious question and I'd had the answer ready in my mind. 'I've only met him once, but I'd say he's been suffering the increasing strain of being taken off the active list because of the bullet in his body. It looks as if he's been exposed to some sort of subliminal radionic suggestion, which could have changed his personality at the subconscious level, destroying his sense of loyalty – which used to be very high – and turning him against us. I also found out today that he's been on cocaine for quite a while and manifested illusions of grandeur; he once told Harvester he could have run for the US presidency if he weren't a foreign national. He -'

'Harvester,' with a glance at the book, 'is she a reliable source of information?'

Ferris hadn't moved in his chair but I felt the waves. I think he was expecting Croder to ask me what sort of relationship I had going with Harvester. Ferris likes his fun.

'She was a nurse in England for seven years, she's done some undercover work for the Miami police in their investigations into Mafia operations, and she's currently a civilian volunteer diver the police can call on if they need an extra hand – she was working for them last night when a boat smashed into the quay. I've talked to her over a period of seven or eight hours and in my opinion she's reliable in terms of information and can be trusted.'

'I see.' With care: 'You have a tendency to enter into personal relationships with women, during the course of a mission. I would like to ask -'

'I'd like to tell you that the success I've had in my work for the Bureau indicates a degree of intelligence that would hardly allow my judgement to be swayed in critical situations, but if you've got any doubts about it then you can send me straight back to London so that I don't have to sit here listening to bullshit.'

It was eighty degrees outside but I'm not absolutely sure there wasn't frost on the window. Look, I know I'm rather rude but this bloody man had been going to ask whether I was capable of carrying out the tasks of a senior shadow executive without selling the whole mission down the river at the first sight of a nubile woman and it made me cross, and if you don't understand what I'm talking about it's your problem.

The silence had gone on for an awfully long time. I caught a look in Monck's eyes that could have been amusement; then Ferris said evenly, 'Quiller came very close, sir, to losing his life in the early hours of this morning, and I think -'

'Civil of you,' I said, 'but I can manage my own buttons now.'

Didn't make things any easier, I know, and that was a damned shame. I waited for Croder to ask me for an apology as soon as the smoke cleared a bit, but he did a surprising thing.

'Thank you,' to Ferris, and then to me, 'at this stage of the mission you'll have certain questions in your mind concerning the background, and I think you should have the answers. I'll be brief. Proctor is a British subject and he's become involved in some kind of subversive activity on US soil and seemingly in connection with Senator Mathieson Judd's presidential election campaign.' Waved his steel claw – 'I'm taking this from the debriefing notes and partly from my own information from other sources. The notes, by the way -' to Ferris now – 'for the most part provide a very direct focus on the background data that's been coming in from international sources. You are both closer, I believe, to success in this mission than you're at present able to appreciate.'

I thought that was extremely doubtful because we couldn't get anywhere near the end-phase until we'd found physical access to Proctor. But of course Croder could see the whole picture and I couldn't.

'The fact of Proctor's involvement in US affairs gives us concern that he might cause harm to our ally. It could at least cause embarrassment on a diplomatic level. The American people are at present engrossed and engaged in the elections and any interference by the UK, however unintentional, could hazard the relationship between the two countries. That is one reason why you were sent out here, Quiller, to find Proctor and get him out of the USA as soon as possible and in secret. Another reason is that we cannot warn and advise either the CIA or the FBI and let them take care of the matter, because we've been informed that both those services may have been compromised. Even if that were not so, we are able and prepared to question Proctor, once in our hands, more effectively than could be done in the US, where special methods of inducement could not be practised. And on that subject I have a question. You've been through two missions with Proctor, isn't that so?'