'Yeah, well, that's the way it goes,' said Thurkettle philosophically. He smiled at Werner. He seemed like a genial fellow and Werner smiled too.

'I didn't realize it was still raining,' said Werner.

'Is that right?' said Thurkettle, who was soaked to the skin.

'Do you want to sit in the car and count it?' Werner asked. 'I don't want to stand here getting wet.' He was going through his keys to find the one for the trunk.

'We'll just take a peek at it so I can see it's real.'

'It's real,' said Werner. 'Used notes. Exactly as you specified. I got it from the Commerzbank on Friday.'

He reached into the trunk of the car to get a leather document case. Carefully he put the case into Thurkettle's hands, saying, 'Don't rest it on the car. The paintwork is brand new.'

Thurkettle smiled pitifully. He was used to the sort of nervousness that Volkmann displayed. Clients were always timorous when dealing with a hit man. He held the case with both hands while Werner bent forward and fiddled with the lock. 'It's a combination lock,' explained Werner. He could smell the blood and filth on Thurkettle's clothes: it was the stink of the slaughter-house. 'You can make the combination into anything you choose. I made it 123. You can't forget 123 can you?'

'No,' said Thurkettle. Werner snapped the lock open, and pulled up the lid. There it was: fifty-dollar bills: line upon line of them. 'You can't forget 1, 2, 3.'

It was while Thurkettle was standing there, holding the new leather document case with both hands, that Werner, gripping the curious-looking gun so it was hidden under the case, pulled the trigger. A strip clip of eight rounds fired as fast as a machine gun. They all went into Thurkettle's belly.

Eight rounds. It was only a little 'expendable', but at point-blank range a weapon doesn't have to be a masterpiece of the gunsmith's art for its effect to prove fatal.

The impact of these little medium-velocity rounds did not knock Thurkettle down, he just staggered backwards a couple of paces still holding the case in both hands and staring at Werner in uncomprehending disbelief. Thurkettle's jerky movements caused the money to spill over, and a gust of rainy wind started to carry it away. Thurkettle watched his money blowing away. He grabbed at some notes but winced in pain. This couldn't be happening to him. He was shot. Thurkettle was a professional killer and this jerk was a nothing…

As he staggered back, more and more money fluttered away and he tasted the blood gushing up into his mouth and knew he was done for. By now he was clutching the document case against his chest as if it might prove protection against more shots or comfort him in his final moments, and he embraced it tight like a lover, and the bloodsoaked money fell around his feet.

It was just before he fell down that Deuce Thurkettle understood exactly how he'd been tricked. His eyes opened wide in fury. Deuce Thurkettle was the only one who knew for certain that Fiona Samson was still alive. Even this clown who had shot him thought that Samson had escaped with Tessa.

Well, he'd tell the world. He opened his mouth to tell the truth but only blood came out. Lots of it. Then he toppled to the ground.

Werner threw away his little 'expendable'. That was the convenient thing about them. He watched Thurkettle die, for he knew that London would want a positive answer. Werner didn't feel compassion for him. He was a psychopath and society is better off when such people are dead. Any last feeling he might have shown for Thurkettle had been removed when he heard that.Fiona was dead. He'd told Thurkettle that getting Bernard and Fiona to safety was of paramount importance and he'd failed to do it.

Werner prodded the body with the toe of his shoe, and kicked it to tip it into the ditch. He'd chosen this spot because of that deep ditch. He moved the motor cycle too. It would be found eventually – someone would spot the dollar bills beflagging the fields – but it was better to get the bike out of sight. He pushed the leather case into the grass, and the rest of the money fluttered aside. He didn't pick any of it up. The notes were probably marked, or counterfeit. London Central had provided the money and the British were very careful about money, it was one of the things he'd discovered soon after starting to work for them.

Bret Rensselaer was at La Buona Nova, the hillside estate in Ventura County, California. He was having an early breakfast by the pool when the coded message came telling him that Fiona and Bernard Samson were on the way to join him in California.

It was a truly beautiful morning. Bret drank his orange juice and poured himself the first cup of coffee of the day. He so enjoyed sitting outdoors inhaling the clear cool air that came off the ocean. Around the pool there were whitewashed walls where the jasmine, roses and bougainvillaea seemed to bloom almost all the year round. There were trees bearing oranges, trees bearing lemons and trees bearing the maja fruit that his hostess called 'Brets'. It looked like a lemon but tasted like an orange, and calling it a Bret was perhaps her way of saying that Bret was sweet and sour. Or British yet American too. Bret didn't know what was implied but he went along with her joke: they had known each other a long long time.

People who had known Bret for a long time would say that he'd aged since being badly wounded at the Berlin shoot-out, but to the casual observer he was as trim and fit and agile as a senior citizen had any right to be. He was swimming and skiing and doing a routine of exercises. He wanted to look good when the visitors arrived.

He could not suppress a smile of satisfaction: they were coming. His plan to get an agent in the Kremlin, as Nikki had sardonically put it, had worked exactly as he'd predicted it would when he first took it to the D-G just after she ran out on him. Now there was only the long and interesting work of debriefing.

Bernard Samson would be here too. He had tried to get the old man to send Bernard elsewhere but it was good security to have him here where he could be supervised. Tessa's disappearance had to be accounted for; the idea that she had run away with Bernard was in every way believable.

This morning Bret would go right through all his notes again so as to be prepared for Fiona's arrival. This would be the last job he'd ever do for London Central and he was determined that it should end perfectly. Werner Volkmann's last report said that Fiona was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but Bret didn't give it much credence. He'd heard that too often about other working agents: it was usually the preamble to a demand for more money. Fiona would be all right. Good food, sleep and the California air would soon bring her back to being her old self again.

Bernard Samson would go nowhere, of course. His career was at an end. It was strange to think how near Bernard had come to a senior position on the SIS staff. That evening long ago when Bret had gone to see the D-G, he had been all set to promote Bernard to German Stations

Controller. From there he would have gone to the top floor and perhaps ended up as Director-General. Heaven knows, he wouldn't be facing any fierce opposition from the line-up of deadbeats that now occupied the top floor. Would Sir Henry and Silas and Frank Harrington, and the rest of that cabal which really ran things, have gone along with Bernard Samson in a top job? They were always saying what a splendid fellow Bernard was, and many of them thought that the Department owed him something for the shabby way his father had been treated. But D-G? Any chance of Bernard as D-G had been eliminated that night when Sir Henry had revealed that Fiona was his choice to go over there.

Bret put down his coffee cup as a sudden thought came to him. The D-G must have known that choosing Fiona meant eliminating Bernard. There were others he could have chosen instead of Fiona: good people, he'd admitted that many times. So, had the D-G's choice of Fiona been influenced by the fact that it would prevent Bernard getting the top job?