'Have you seen Lucas?' he asked me.

'No, but I've seen Baldwin. The way I want it is like this. She's leaving here in about fifteen minutes and it's going to take her another thirty to reach her flat. Here's the address. I'm -'

'I know the address.'

'I'm going over there by the bar and wait until I see her leave. I want her tagged and I want you to see if she makes any kind of signal and if she does I want you to see who gets it and what he does, where he goes, if he -'

'Normal routine,' he said.

Starchy bastard, as bad as Ferris, put on a pout when they think they're being told how to do their job, but I liked that because only the real professionals have got that degree of pride and tonight I wanted real professionals about me, my good friend, not yonder Cassius.

'Whatever happens, I'm going to follow her to her flat as if I didn't know any better, and if you people find you've got a lot to deal with I want you to do exactly as much as you need to, including deadly force if you think I'm endangered – has C of S cleared you on this?'

'Yes.'

'What have you got for me out there? Something with smoked glass?'

'A limo, yes.'

'I'll sit in the back. Providing -'

'As long as you don't tell Nancy, you know what I mean?'

'She thinks you don't sleep around?'

'That's exsh – exactly what she thinks.'

Peals of restrained mirth, their voices fading.

'Providing I reach her flat without any diversions, I want all the cover you can give me at the moment when I get out of the car. How many people are there outside her flat now?'

'Four. Crosby, Mace -'

'Where will you be?'

'Following your limo, two cars behind. Black Honda coupe, Florida plates.'

'All right, when you -' broke off to let him concentrate on the two men over there by the reception desk. He turned his head an inch and got a signal from the man standing by the curtains picking at his nails.

'They're okay.'

'Have you seen any Sicilians here?'

'Nine. They haven't seen you, not to recognise.'

'Where are they?'

'Five outside, two of those are in the car park. The others are in here, that one over there, the one on the far side with the cummerbund, those two by the bar.'

He meant he'd seen them before or they'd been seen before by one or more of the other support people here tonight, seen and recognised. There could be a dozen more of them, a hundred, they've got a vote too, got political views, go to political parties, eat cookies, crap, close in on you, aim for the head, splinters of bloodied bone from the site of exit in the skull, you're taking a risk, you're playing Russian roulette again, you -

Oh for God's sake piss off.

'When you see me getting out of the car I shall want your personal signal as to whether you think I should go into the building. You're Hood, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

Seen him before, North Africa, Loman had put him into the field for Tango, he'd impressed me, knew how to drive, how to subdue, a man, how to make no noise, ask no questions, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't send him up to Norfolk for training as a shadow if he lived long enough, though it's a fraction chancy for the troops, as you know, look at the one they got last night in Riverside Way.

'All right,' I said, 'tell someone to get my car moved within sight of her limo. She -'

"That's been taken care of. You're on the west side, three rows from the gates and five cars along from the middle aisle. She's on the same side, two rows from the gates and six along, the gaps counting as cars, because there's a lot of movement down there now with people still leaving. Your driver's waiting for you there, name of Treader. I'd better fade.'

I moved round the room, keeping behind people when I could, watching for Erica. In ten minutes she came through one of the arches with a man, talking intently. I hadn't seen him before. Hood was watching him from the bar. I moved again, this time towards the reception area, and I was outside by the time she came across the porch. She was still talking to the man, listening to him, neither smiling, nothing social, and when they parted she simply turned away and he went back inside.

There were other people drifting across the lawns and along the pathways, dinner jackets, bare suntanned arms, cigars, the glitter of jewellery, sudden laughter, a drunk getting rather loud and then being hushed, chauffeurs coming forward, some of the men in blue serge moving into the crowd, music still coming from the building through the open french windows, a three-quarter moon afloat in a clear sky above the turreted roof, a fine night, windless but close, oppressive.

I didn't know where Croder was, or if in fact he was here by now; he hadn't necessarily been on board the shuttle chopper I'd heard earlier. There was another one on the pad with its rotor turning but I think it was taking off, not landing. Croder might not be here at all, though I assumed he'd be somewhere in Miami by now. There was still a chance that Erica would agree to meet him, give him the whole thing.

That had been Ferris, I think, doing his homework, going through my debriefing on the Kruger Drug meeting and suggesting that Croder follow me in to Miami in case Erica was ready to talk.

She was walking down to the gates, another man with her now, a bodyguard, keeping pace from a short distance behind, his head turning the whole time. Someone was laughing in the little group on the west side of the car park – the chopper was airborne over the pad and some balloons were blowing across the people's heads in the down draught.

I went through the gates not far behind Erica and peeled off to the left, walking five cars along and three rows down. I was in a small open space now, with no one near me, and I saw the man signal me from the limousine. I didn't see anyone looking in my direction, but I'd seen Hood over towards the aisle, covering me, and I felt the pressure coming off, the pervasive fear that had been with me since I'd arrived here.

My shoes – Monck's shoes – slipped a little over the brick-red tiles; I suppose they were new ones. The chopper was passing overhead now and some of the coloured balloons were sent blowing to the ground and bouncing and flying up again in the draught from the rotors as the chopper slowed, hovering, and I looked up and saw the door coming open a few inches and the submachine gun poking through the gap and the dark orange flame as it began firing.

Chapter 19: MAZDA

Picked up the phone and dialled.

'Yes?'

Voice I didn't know.

'DIF.'

'He's not here.'

'Then give me the number.'

Rage, great rage.

'Parole?'

'Barracuda. Give me that number.'

'He's mobile. Here it is.'

Wrote it down on the pad. 'Christ,' I told the driver, 'is this the best you can do?'

'We're jammed solid,' he said. Treader.

Ringing tone.

Smoked windows, I couldn't see much more than highlights outside, glass, chromium, police cars with their roofs lit up. Sirens fading in, a fire truck, an ambulance, rage, great rage.

'Yes?' Ferris.

'Listen,' I said, 'they've hit Cambridge.' Get in control, accommodate it, but Jesus Christ we should have seen it coming. We -'

'Where are you?' Ferris asked.

'In the limo, outside the Yacht Club.'

Good evening. Brilliant smile. This is Erica Cambridge, and these are my views.

The bloody thing pumping out rapid fire and her white silk dress turning crimson and the bodyguard trying to reach her but going down too, his body humped and jerking as the shots went in, then the chopper lifting suddenly and very fast, leaving the balloons blowing across the car park, blue and green and red and yellow, whirling in the wind above the people's heads as some of the women screamed and went on screaming until a kind of silence came, the sound of the chopper fading across the sea.