'How did you know?'

'They'd got labels. Honi-du, Syn -'

'What's that?'

'Uh? Skin cream. Syncrest, that's an earphone unit, Pizzarita, that's a chain of chic pizza stops. Discreet, that's pads for gals.'

'Go on,' I said.

'What's so big?'

I was dead-pan, but it must be showing in my eyes. 'It might be nothing,' I said. I didn't think so.

'Okay, there was Orange Sunset, Yummies, and Tuxedo Junction, that's a soft drink and a junk bar and a cologne for men. They're all I can remember.'

'They're all you saw.'

'You got it.'

In a moment I asked her, 'Where is Proctor now?'

'Last time I saw him he was climbing up your ass in a Corvette.'

'If you know where he is,' I said carefully, 'and don't want to tell me, I could understand that. But if you know, and choose to tell me, I could give you much more -'

'I ain't lying.'

She didn't put on any false resentment. I thought it was probably true.

'Is there any way,' I asked her, 'you could go into the house again, the one on Riverside?'

'Not without a warrant.'

'And you can't get one.'

'I don't have no reason.'

'There is no way, then, that you could get hold of one of those canisters.'

'No way. They're private property.'

It was nearly three o'clock when I looked at my watch.

'When are you back on duty?'

'Varies, on undercover. Maybe eight, maybe nine, report in.'

'Can I use the phone?'

'Go ahead.'

I went across the room and dialled.

'Yes?'

'DIF.'

'Hang on.' Tench's voice.

In a moment: 'Yes?'

'Just reporting in,' I said.

'Where are you?'

'Oh, not long.'

Any kind of answer will do, as long as it doesn't make sense. Means someone is listening. Then they've got to take it from there, asking suitable questions until they make a hit.

'You need support?'

'No.'

'Medical attention?'

'No.'

'Congratulations.' The last time we'd talked over the phone I'd been in the limousine, waiting to ditch. 'You need transport?'

'No.'

'A rendezvous?'

'Yes.'

Silence for a bit. 'It will have to be in the open.'

I didn't like that but I'd been expecting it. I'd become a security risk. It happens a lot of the time, when the shadow executive becomes so exposed and so vulnerable that the whole of the field becomes a permanent red sector. He is then a danger to his director, and must keep his distance from every base and safe-house because he could be followed there. He becomes a pariah dog, unwelcome at any door and therefore without shelter. Ferris would have a bolt-hole for me but it wouldn't be an established safe-house because I could contaminate it.

'All right,' I told him.

He couldn't say where are you so he said, 'How far are you from where you ditched?'

'More explicit.'

'Five miles?'

'No.'

'More?'

'No.'

'Three?'

'Roughly.'

'Give me a minute.'

Getting a map.

She hadn't moved. Her reflection was in the black lacquered cabinet with the gold inlay, stylised peacocks. She was watching me. She would realise I was shielding the content of my talk with Ferris but I couldn't do anything about that. At worst, it was discourteous: we had established trust.

'You're without transport?'

'Yes.'

'You'll rdv on foot?'

'That's right.'

'Then I'll be at SW 21st Avenue and SW 11th Street, by the school. In ten minutes?'

'No.'

'More?'

'Yes.'

'Thirty?'

'No.'

'Forty?'

'Yes.'

'Right. Look for two vehicles, a dark blue Saab and a black Chevrolet Blazer van, both fairly new. I shall be in the Blazer, and you will therefore rdv with that. You'll take it over. Questions?'

'No.'

'Forty minutes, then, at 03:35.'

'Yes.'

I went back across the room. She was still in the lotus position, her hands spread like fans, a beam of light floating across one of her eyes, brightening its translucent orb like a jewel before it moved away.

'Will you dance more,' I asked her, 'as time goes by? And finally turn in your badge?'

'Think I should?'

'Yes.'

'Look,' she said, and unfurled her legs and rose with the grace of a swimmer surfacing, 'this is the body my spirit chose, but my spirit is feisty and assertive, and I hate men, because they've always called the shots. Most men, sure, not all of them. So it gives me a kick, see, to order them face down on the floor and then have them hustled into the van and sent to the slammer. And it gives me a kick because they're dangerous, and I've got to be good to beat them at the game we play. So maybe I'll dance more, as time goes by, but for now I'm the happiest little gal alive, kicking the shit outa those mother-fuckers. You going?'

'Yes.'

'You don't want to jump in the Jacuzzi with me?'

'Of course I do.'

'But you gotta go.'

'That's right.'

'Some other time. Get you a taxi?'

'I'll find one.'

'Couple of minutes from here,' she said, 'right in front of the hotel, just go left on the sidewalk.' Turning to face me at the door with a quick swing of her hips that went through me like a wave, 'I don't know what it is about you. It ain't the looks – I prefer blacks. I guess it's the brand of pheromones you send out. I'm in most nights, after twelve. Call me?'

I'd asked for forty minutes to give me time to get to the rendezvous absolutely certain I was alone. The taxi dropped me off at SW 11th Terrace and SW 23rd Crescent and I walked from there, covering two blocks and using doorways and double-tracking, making certain, making absolutely certain. Since I've been with the Bureau only three executives have inadvertently blown their directors in the field and the one who survived his mission was fired the day after debriefing.

The Saab and the van were already there and I gave it another five minutes, scanning the whole of the environment until I was sure. Then I walked across the street to the van and got in.

Ferris was alone, sitting at the wheel with his long body slightly hunched, held in on itself, and his hands folded on his lap. I hadn't ever seen him like this before, and I suppose I should have been warned. I began debriefing but he stopped me almost right away and got it over, said I'd been withdrawn from the mission.

Chapter 22: WINDOW

'There are some new clothes for you,' Ferris said, 'in the back. I thought a van would be easier to change in than a car.'

The night was quiet. This wasn't one of the main streets that casino and night-club traffic used. There was only one light that I could see, in a window, apart from the street lamps. The only other vehicle in sight was the dark blue Saab, waiting to take Ferris away when we'd finished the debriefing.

The programme is,' he said, still hunched at the wheel with his eyes on the street, 'to fly you by private jet to Nassau, and put you on a plane for London. You'll be smuggled -'

'Purdom can do nothing.'

First time I'd spoken since he'd told me the news. I think it sounded fairly normal, my tone. Bit of an effort, though, as you can well believe, my good friend.

'You'll be smuggled through to the London plane with great care. For one thing we don't want you seen and shot at before you can get out of the field, and for another thing Croder wants the opposition to believe you're still in operation, in the hope that Proctor will waste his time trying to find you, and Purdom can proceed under the cover of your assumed continuing presence.'

And that is exactly the way that bastard Croder talks, assumed continuing presence, nibbling the words over in his small rat's teeth and then spitting them out.