The two hit men watched my hands, which were on my lap again.

The limousine rolled smoothly under the African moon, with the ruby marker lights on radio masts in the area winking against the sky.

Croder's voice came. 'You shouldn't have anything to worry about.'

I felt cold suddenly. He'd thought out precisely what he must say to give me the clearest signal he could.

He'd sent people there.

He'd told me I shouldn't have anything to worry about but that was very different from saying I had nothing to worry about. He would have said exactly that, if the rendezvous were clear. He hadn't. It wasn't.

His voice came again. 'Do you feel you should cancel everything, then?'

He was throwing the ball to me and I tossed it back.

'Do you?'

I waited. He'd say yes or no. If he said yes it would mean he'd sent people there and couldn't get them out. If he said no it would mean he could.

I watched the ruby lights through the windscreen, letting them float through my mind, relaxing, because nothing must show in my eyes when Croder answered me.

His voice came, 'No.'

The ruby lights floated.

'All right,' I said. We'll keep the rendezvous.'

There was silence for a moment except for the crackle of interference on the line. Then Croder said, 'Of course, you'll have to watch out for the airport police. I can't give you any guarantees: this deal is illegal.'

It was a warning. He was going to call off the people he'd sent there – SAS, GSG-9, the Algerian units, whoever they were – but he couldn't be responsible for local forces. He could signal them that the rendezvous had been called off, tell them to leave, but he couldn't make it an order. They weren't under his authority.

'We'll watch out,' I said, 'for the police.'

He said good luck and shut down the call and I reached forward to touch the End button and sat back again and looked at Muhammad Ibrahimi.

'So what do you think? I asked him.

In a moment he said, 'Monsieur Klaus is eager to possess the warhead. Very eager.'

And if Ibrahimi didn't get it for him his life might not be worth very much.

'Then you're prepared to go in?' I asked him.

'Yes.'

The clock on the dashboard flicked to 7:05.

We had ten minutes left.

I said, 'Ibrahimi, I'd like to know something. Whether the exchange is made or not, do you have plans for me?'

I waited.

The hit men watched me. Beyond them I could see in the far distance the floodlit control tower at Dar-el-Beida.

Ibrahimi turned to look at me. 'My lips are sealed,' he said. 'But you should make your peace with Allah.'

Chapter 20: FLASHPOINT

A rose for Moira.

Through the windscreen I could see a twin-engined jet taking off, its splinter-sharp profile aslant against the brilliant haze of the starfields above the airport; it looked very like the company jet we'd flown from Berlin this morning. We'll be taking off at seven, George Maitland had told me at the palace. He and Dieter Klaus. Destination unknown, unknown at least to me.

You should make your peace with Allah.

It would be delivered to Moira, as specified in my will, a single rose, so that she should know.

7:11 on the dashboard clock, but what did it signify? That I should make my peace with Allah.

The driver took the Mercedes in through the gates to the freight area, showing the guard a piece of paper. He waved us through. A line of hangars made a black frieze against the horizon, and five or six aircraft stood at angles, big ones, freight carriers.

I couldn't see any ground crews, any vehicles on the move.

7:12. It was three minutes to the rendezvous. Ibrahimi was checking his jewelled wrist watch.

'Wait,' he told the driver in French.

The tyres whimpered on the tarmac as the big car was turned towards the wall of a freight shed, and we stopped in its shadow. The three-quarter moon was twenty or thirty degrees high, bright in a clear sky; the sirocco had died away towards evening as the air had cooled. There was traffic on the move near the main runway, the strobes of small planes flashing as they rolled.

The two hit men watched me from their jump seats. They hadn't put their guns away after I'd finished my call to London. They were aimed at me now, at the heart. The two men weren't watching my hands any more; they were watching my eyes. They were well-trained, and I knew from this slight but significant shift in their observation that they were expecting me to make some sort of attack on them, or on Muhammad Ibrahimi, very soon now, if at all. So perhaps they understood a little French, had heard what Ibrahimi had told me, and knew from experience that when the subject of an execution nears the moment of truth he tends to panic and strike out in a final attempt to save himself.

I haven't seen Moira for a long time, several months. She travels a lot, making those terrible movies, and of course I travel quite a bit too. I hope she is well.

Croder must have got his signals through extremely fast, but then we expect it of him: he has the attributes of a vampire and will draw blood in the instant if you cross him but when you're out in the field and he's in the Signals room you've got infinitely more chance of bringing the mission home than with anyone else. I didn't know what units he'd sent in to the rendezvous or how many there were, but he'd cleared them out in nine minutes flat, phoning them direct or phoning their coordination unit and telling them the rendezvous was cancelled, cancelled or postponed or moved or whatever. Of course they could still be parked in one of the hangars over there or behind the freight shed. Nothing was certain.

He'd done a good job, Croder, and it looked as if I had an absolutely clear field for whatever last-ditch attempt at salvation I might try. This was what I'd wanted, asked for and got, but at that time I'd thought there'd be something I could do at the flashpoint, turn the car over or go for these people, these monkeys, these stinking monkeys, steady, you'll have to watch it, there's no room for emotion, no room for panic here, it's too dangerous, thought there'd be something I could do at the flashpoint, yes, but in fact there wasn't, take some of them with me of course but that was all, an eye for an eye, but what shall it profit a man when the mission is over before its time, what precisely is the point in taking life out of spite? Pride, yes, but that's no answer.

The mission had ended when that plane had taken off just now. My objective had been to infiltrate Nemesis and stay within it until I'd learned enough to be able to destroy it and get clear, but there hadn't been a chance and Klaus was airborne for Midnight One and tomorrow there would be headlines. Nothing would have changed if I'd let London spring their trap: they'd have got Ibrahimi, that was all. They'd hoped to get Klaus, thought he'd be at the rendezvous. Nothing would have changed.

7:14.

One minute.

Adrenalin coursing through the veins, through the heart where the bullets would go. A feeling of lightness, of time slowing down, feelings that were familiar to me.

Ibrahimi told the driver, 'Go to the hangar over there, the second from the end. Hangar No. 5.'

We moved away, leaving the shadow of the freight building. I could see another vehicle on the move now, a dark-coloured van. It was going towards Hangar No. 5, as we were. London is very good with timing, very reliable.

'That will be the van,' I told Ibrahimi, 'with the warhead.'

'It is good,' he said.

The moonlight flashed on the star mascot as the big Mercedes turned.

'Here,' Ibrahimi told the driver. 'Stop just here.'

We were at the north-east corner of the hangar, not far from one of the big freight planes and a stack of crates with ropes across it. The tyres whimpered again on the smooth tarmac, and we stopped.