'If we get what I'm hoping for,' I said, 'they'll want you to come with me to London for special debriefing. Consider this stuff Ears Only for Bureau One, you know what I mean?'

'Crikey.' The kettle was whistling and he said, 'Look, could you -'

'Stay exactly where you are.' I got up and went over to the stool where he'd set up the makeshift canteen, and the ceiling came right down at an angle and I threw a hand out behind me and broke the fall and lay on the floor listening to the constant rush of static and voices, and Parks got off his stool at the console and I told him to sit down again and get on with what he was doing, we mustn't miss, floating in front of me, the canteen floating in front of me, miss a word, not a word.

Got up and tried again.

'You ought to have something to eat,' Parks said.

So I found some bread and made the tea and went back to the armchair. 'Bread?' I asked him.

'Not just now.' Sitting there like a leprechaun on his toadstool, face pinched with fatigue, eyes nickering as he monitored the signals, all I'd offered him was some bread, poor little bugger, as soon as I felt a bit better I'd go and find some eggs or something.

… He is to be eliminated.

But how can that be done? Toufexis is protecting him.

We own Toufexis. He will be given the task of eradicating crime throughout the United States, once the new order is established. He'll do as we tell him.

Interference came in and saturated the voices, then cleared a little.

… He's too dangerous now. We used him to work on the tapes for the selected commercials at the studios and that was fine, but then Apostolos brought him aboard here and gave him too much trust, in my opinion. He's now privy to very sensitive information on the whole project, and his behaviour is becoming a little irrational, as perhaps you've noticed. Brink agrees with me. He is to be allowed to go ashore once more, and Toufexis will be given instructions… This is… but no later than…

We were both crouching, Parks and I, watching the console, but static was coming in overwhelming bursts.

'Talking about Proctor?'

'It sounds like it,' I said.

Parks knew about him; Ferris had sent him in to search Proctor's flat for bugs the day after he'd cleared out and gone to ground. I wasn't surprised they'd decided to put him out of the way. The last time I'd talked to him he'd looked perilously near the brink, with his psyche undermined by cocaine and subliminal indoctrination, and by now he could be coming slowly apart.

… You brought me aboard as your mistress, Baptiste, not as your servant. I would like some sleep, if you'll be so kind… When I have… Otherwise…

Eight. Eight in the evening.

At nine Parks showed me how to adjust the volume and selector controls to keep the stuff channelled as it came in, and went into the kitchen and made us some eggs on toast and some coffee.

By midnight I was feeling stronger, and took over from Parks while he got an hour's sleep. The signals flow was down to a trickle now, mostly comprising private conversations and snatches of speech from the bridge.

I slept between two o'clock and six, and then went through the only tape that Parks said might interest me; but it wasn't anything to do with the project and there was only one reference to a meeting, with no time mentioned.

… And in that case you have my full authority to arrange the takeover. If they wish to contest our offer of three and a half billion US dollars, I'm prepared to listen to a counter offer, but the bottom line must be three and a quarter billion. I am calling Weiner today, to get his opinion…

Ten in the morning.

'Doesn't look too good,' Parks said.

I do wish people wouldn't state the obvious. Of course it didn't look too bloody good when we'd got two hours left, two hours before those bloody batteries ran out, did he think I didn't know the situation? Those bloody things coming at me with their jaws wide open and putting the fear of Christ in me and in the end what'd we got, nothing, nothing I could take to Ferris.

Eleven.

Eleven o'clock.

Most of it was useless. Talk of corporate infrastructures and aggressive trade policies, snatches of talk shows and dirty stories below deck, the imbecilic beat of heavy steel and the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Average on the financial services programmes, long discussions on the advisability or otherwise of asking the Vatican if it wanted limited participation in order to persuade the South American states to accept the proposed status quo without the inconvenience of rebellion.

Nothing I could use, no statement of aims, no commitment to illegal acts, no material on rigging the imminent elections, nothing on Mathieson Judd, nothing on the Moscow connection, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Noon.

Fifteen minutes later Parks said, 'The first one's starting to fade.' He was fiddling with a volume knob, watching a dial.

'Batteries?'

'Yes.'

'You can't amplify?'

'You'd just amplify all the slush as well.'

I let my eyes close, shutting out the glare between the slats of the blind. My arm had started throbbing, and I remembered she'd said I'd have to get the dressing changed in twelve hours. She'd given me some antibiotics but I hadn't swallowed them because I needed a clear head.

… Or not at all. Spain, of course, must be invited.

At twenty minutes past noon the next transmitter began fading and went out.

Limpets.

They were becoming no more than limpets out there, clinging to the hull of the motor yacht Contessa, where the shoals flickered silver in the underwater light and the anchor chain hung like a rope of black pearls.

… And let me reiterate the salient points for you, so that we can go over them later in more detail. The key agent is of course Gordon Schaffer…

The voice of Apostolos Simitis.

… We have persuaded Senator Judd that Schaffer is the best man, by far, to assume the post of his premier aide at the White House. It will be for Schaffer to install the radionic transmitters in the Oval Office itself, in order to bring President Judd under the continuous influence of our directives…

'Parks,' I said, 'stay with that. Don't lose that.'

'If the batteries go, there's nothing -'

'All right. All right.'

It was a time for praying, for what it was worth.

… Hellstrom has estimated that it will require something in the region of twelve months' continuous subliminal suggestion to inculcate the main schema into the President's subconscious, and if that seems a rather long time we should bear in mind that the changes we envisage for the social environment of humankind are greater than any seen since the beginning of man's history.

A thin bar of light leaned from one of the shutters to the linoleum, and motes of dust floated through it, brightening suddenly and going out again as they passed on, in a microcosmic mimicry of the constellations, each star moving from light to darkness, from life to death.

… We will remember that there are certain factions within the Kremlin who could not be counted upon, to say the least, to lend their influence to our project. We have begun to suspect that the Englishman, Proctor, may be in the process of breaking our trust in him, and working for those factions in the role of what may be called a double agent. We have agreed to eliminate this problem at the earliest opportunity.

There was a pause, and we were left with the rush of static and interference, and I looked across at Parks.

'We're starting to lose it,' he said.

'Get the volume up. Slush and all. Keep it up.'

… Joplyn, can you assure us that Great Britain would ally herself to our aims?