'You said you had a lot to tell me.'

'Ma'am, is this your bag?'

'Oh my God, I've been frantic. Thank you so very – you're Erica Cambridge! I just love your show!'

"Thank you.'

'Well I'm – interrupting.'

'How is Proctor?' I asked her when the woman had gone.

She looked surprised again, wary. One can't always remember, but I think I've never seen a woman so frightened, beneath the maquillage, so close to some kind of brink. 'I didn't see him,' she said.

'But he's on board the Contessa.'

Reaction after reaction, and I began worrying that all she had to tell me was what we already knew.

'I believe I mentioned, Mr – Richard, that I have no one I can really confide in, really trust. I – I suppose I've gone through life antagonising people; at least that's my reputation. So why should I confide in you? Why should I trust you?'

'No earthly reason. You don't even know me.'

'You're not making it easy for yourself.'

I was.

'I didn't ask you to trust me, Erica. There's no obligation. But if you want my guarantee that I won't divulge anything you have to tell me, without your permission, I can give you my word.'

'How much is it worth? I'm sorry, that's not very -'

'It's unbreakable. Would you be prepared to talk to my people?'

'Who are they?'

'Officers of the British government.'

Her hands were on the move again, as they'd been when we'd sat at the table in Kruger Drug. Correction: not frightened beneath the maquillage. Awed. Awed by what she knew, what she'd found out at 1330 West Riverside Way and on board the Contessa.

'The British government,' she said, 'is involved. The entire world is involved. I -'

'Look, if you're willing to see my people, I can arrange it. You'd have more confidence in them than just one stranger. They're much higher than I am.'

It was a get-out but it was logical. If she was ready to talk to Ferris and Croder and Monck I could walk out of this thing and go home with a whole skin and let them put it down in the records, Mission completed, executive debriefed, because if this woman had the information we needed, that was exactly what I'd be doing – completing Barracuda. She was our new objective and I was close to handing her over.

'Whether I agree to see your "people" or not, I've decided to go to the State Department.' Running one violet-lacquered finger-nail along the white rope trim, unable to keep still. 'It would then be for them to consult with the President, and for him to decide whether to summon our allied ambassadors. But I don't know, Richard, this whole thing is -' her hand brushing the air – 'it's so far-reaching. And this is what scares me – I want to help Senator Judd get into the White House and in fact I'm already helping him do that, but now that I've learned what I have, I don't know if it isn't the most dangerous thing I could do. For everyone. For the United States and the rest of the world.'

I didn't say anything.

'I know he went thataway, Simon.' Gusty laughter, much champagne. 'He said the men's room.' Trotting past with uncertain feet, arm in arm. 'But where is Nancy?'

"Not in the men's room, let us hope!' More laughter.

'There are some people I have to talk to, Richard, before I can leave. But not about this. Let's meet on the front porch in fifteen minutes. We'll go to my apartment and I'll show you what I'm talking about. It's actually on paper, duplicated. You know what I'm saying? A whole brief, do you understand?'

The product. Mission completed.

Unless it was a trap.

I didn't know how good an actress she was. I didn't know if the fright in this woman, the feeling of awe, didn't derive from the knowledge that she was about to do what they'd briefed her to do when she was on board the Contessa: lead a man to his death. Proctor had been there on that yacht. Let that be borne in mind, because yesterday he'd asked La Cosa Nostra to put out a contract on me, and they'd come so very close to a kill.

Don't go with her.

You have a point.

'I need to know a little more,' I told her.

'We can't talk now. I asked you to come here to meet that man, not to discuss what I know. My apartment has a security guard, and you'll be absolutely -'

'I'm used to looking after my own security. That's why I need to know more.'

She looked hunted, glancing around her. 'But in a public place like this -'

'It's very private, actually. There are no bugs in the walls. Give me the gist. I need to know how serious this thing is.' Whether, in fact, it was serious enough to force me to take the risk of going to her apartment.

She looked around her again, pressed, frightened. That was my impression. 'All right,' she said in a moment, 'here it is.' She moved back against the wall, against the big mural of sails heeling across a choppy sea with spindrift blowing, and said quickly and softly, 'I told you there were plans, with Senator Judd as the prime mover, to buy America. I know more about it now. On board the Contessa there's a faction calling itself the Trust, frighteningly powerful, awesomely influential in world affairs. It has people like Apostolos Simitis, the shipping magnate, Lord Joplyn of Eastleigh, who controls more than half the mineral deposits in South Africa, Takao Sakomoto, the leading industrialist in Japan. Maybe you haven't heard of these men -'.

'No -'

'Then take it from me, they're the puppet masters behind the scenes of international finance. People like Stylus von Brinkerhoff, the Swiss banker – the man I was hoping you could meet here tonight. They -' she broke off as someone came through the arches towards the rest rooms, passing within a dozen feet of us. In a moment – 'My God, this is so dangerous, talking in a place like this. But you wanted the gist, and it's this, Richard. These men plan to buy America – and sell it to the Soviets. In the declared interests of the final and permanent laying down of arms among nations, they propose the creation of a single world government, behind whose public throne they can exert their private power. And to meet the enormous demands of demographic reorganisation they envisage the setting of that throne to be in Moscow.'

Watching me for my reaction, didn't see anything. But my pulse was elevated: I could feel it. It was going to be worth it, then, worth going to her flat, taking the risk, because she couldn't be making this up: it had the appalling ring of truth.

'We'll go there separately,' I said.

To my apartment?'

'Yes.'

'I have the limo here. We can talk -'

'No,' I said. 'For the sake of security.'

'Yours, or mine?'

It seemed to worry her.

'Both.'

Mine, if this whole thing was a trap. Hers, if they put me in the cross hairs out there and missed, and hit her instead. It wasn't a night for taking chances.

'Okay. You have my address?'

'You gave me your card.'

She got up, straightening the lame belt. 'I'll be there inside of forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic. You'll be alone?'

'Of course.'

She left me.

Setting me up.

She's setting you up.

Probably.

This is a trap, you know that.

Probably.

So don't go there. Don't be such a -

Oh for Christ's sake shut up. I know what I'm doing.

It's a trap, it's a trap, it's -

Shuddup.

Snivelling little bloody organism, scared of its own shadow, one of them over there by the french windows, he'd been there since I'd first come in, another one by the doors, talking to a girl, chatting her up, good cover, another one on the dance floor, engrossed, or seemingly engrossed until he saw my signal and said something at once to the girl and she laughed quickly so I imagine he'd said if he didn't go and wring out a kidney soon there'd be an accident, because he was coming towards the men's room and I went back through the archway and cut across him in the corridor, a small neat-looking man with glasses, never look at him twice unless you noticed his eyes, cold as the eyes of a reptile, the kind of man I like to see when they're meant to be keeping me as far as possible from the slab in the morgue, stretched out under the shroud and stinking of formaldehyde, it's a trap, oh for God's sake bugger off.