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The voice behind her made a throat-clearing noise. Jefe?

The jefe looked steadily at Hisako. The deep voice rumbled, 'Sucre; check out the engine room. If somebody's… made a mistake with that generator… I want to see him.

Sucre nodded and left quickly. The man at the door must still have been there; she saw the jefe look above and behind her, raising his eyebrows fractionally and giving just the slightest inclination of his head. Si, said the voice. The door closed, and she felt alone; alone with the jefe.

The blond man sighed, looked at the end of his cigar. He tapped a couple of centimetres of ash into an ashtray on the table directly in front of him.

'Havana, he said, holding the cigar up for a moment. He studied the end again. 'You can tell the quality of the cigar… well, by the leaf… but also by how much ash it'll support. He rolled the cigar round in his fingers for a few seconds. 'Rolled between the thighs of señoritas. He smiled at her, and smoked.

He reached down to his waist, pulled out an automatic pistol and laid it gently on the table beside the ashtray. He looked at her. 'Don't be alarmed, ma'am. He put one hand on the gun, running his fingers over the barrel and stock, looking at it. His hands were broad, large-fingered, yet he touched the gun with a sort of delicacy. 'Colt nineteen-eleven A-one, he said, his voice filling the room, bassy and full. She imagined cigar tar in his lungs; vocal cords scarred by smoke. The cello seemed to feel his voice, responding.

The large hands stroked the pistol again. 'Still a damn fine gun, after all these years. This is a seventy-three model. He raised his eyes to her. 'Not as old as your cello though, I guess.

She swallowed. 'No. Not by… two and a half centuries.

'Yeah? He seemed amused, leant back in the chair. 'That much, huh? He sat, nodding. The cigar smoke made a ragged rising line in the air.

She wanted to ask if she was dead now, if seeing him was her sentence, and the light her executioner, but she could not. She bit her lips, looked down at the cello strings again. She tried to finger a silent chord, but her hand was shaking too much.

'You played real good, Miss Onoda. The deep voice shook her, a sympathetic frequency to her trembling hands.

'Thank you, she whispered.

'Ma'am, he said quietly. She didn't look up, but had the feeling he'd leant closer. 'I don't want you to worry. It wasn't my intention you should see me, but now you have, all it means is you can't go back to the others until our job here is finished.

His elbows were on the table, between the lamps, straddling the ashtray and gun. His eyes disappeared behind a veil of smoke. 'I don't want you to worry none, see?

'Oh, she said, looking straight at him. 'Fine. I won't.

He gave a throaty laugh. 'Damn, Sucre said you were cool, Miss Onoda. I see what the man meant now. He laughed again. The seat creaked as he sat back in it. 'I'd just love to know what you thought was going on here, you know that? Strikes me you might have all sorts of ideas.

'None worth repeating. The trembling in her hands was subsiding. She could finger a chord.

'No; I'd really like to know.

She shrugged. One chord to another; the change made just so.

'What if I said nothing you say to me makes any difference? The voice seemed to rise a little, as though stretching. 'My job is to out-think people, ma'am, and I seriously suspect I out-thought you some time ago, so why not — she heard the indrawn breath, could see the cigar glow reflected - just tell me what you think? The hand waved the cigar around, never far from the lying gun. 'Can't be worse than what I already think you think.

All the people who'd gone meekly; all the people who'd gone weakly. Now I am dead, she thought. Well, it had to happen.

She looked into the blue eyes, put the bow down to one side, let the cello down to the carpet on the other and put her hands together on her lap. She said, 'You are American.

No reaction. The man like a still photograph, caught in the light.

'You are here because of the plane and the congressmen. I couldn't see why the venceristas wanted to shoot down the plane; it would be madness; the whole world would despise them. It would be an opportunity for the US fleet to retaliate, the Marines to come in. There would be no sense to it. But for you?… For the CIA?… It might be a worthwhile sacrifice. It was said. The words seemed to dry her mouth as they were spoken, but they came out, blossomed like flowers in the cold smoky air of the room. 'You had us all fooled, she added, still trying to save the others. 'Nobody imagined you'd shoot down your own plane. Steve Orrick was fooled; the young man your men grenaded to death.

'Oh yeah; shame about that. The blond man looked concerned. 'Boy showed promise; he thought he was doing the right thing for America. Can't blame him for that. The jefe shrugged, his shoulders moving like a great wave gathering, falling. 'There are always casualties. That's the way it is.

'And the people on the plane?

The man looked at her for a long time, then nodded slowly; 'Well, he said, putting the hand holding the cigar slowly through his cropped hair, massaging his scalp, 'there's a long and honourable tradition of shooting down commercial airliners, Miss Onoda. The Israelis did it back in… oh, early seventies, I believe; Egyptian plane, over Sinai. KAL 007 was chalked up to the Russians, and we downed an Airbus over the Persian Gulf, back in eighty-eight. An Italian plane probably took a NATO missile in an exercise, by mistake, back in the seventies too… not to mention terrorist bombs. He shrugged. 'These things have to happen sometimes.

Hisako looked down again. 'I saw a banner once, on television, she said, 'from England, many years ago, outside an American missile base. The banner said "Take the toys from the boys".

He laughed. 'That the way you see it, Miss Onoda? The men to blame? That simple?

She shrugged. Just a thought.

He laughed again. 'Hell, I hope we're here a while yet, Miss Onoda; I want to talk to you. He stroked the gun, tapped the cigar on the edge of the ashtray, but did not dislodge the grey cone. 'I hope you'll play for me again, too.

She thought for a moment, then bent down and took up the bow from where it lay on the carpet, and — holding an end in each hand (and thinking, This is stupid; why am I doing this?) — she snapped it in two. The wood gave, like a rifle shot. The horsehair held the pieces together.

She threw the broken bow down the table towards him. It skidded to a halt between the darkened lights, clunking against the ashtray and the gun, where his hand was already hovering.

He looked at the shattered wood for a moment, then took it slowly in the hand that had gone for the Colt, lifting the dark, splintered bow up, one end dangling by the length of horsehair. 'Hmm, he said.

The door behind her opened. One of the others came in, hurrying to the far end of the table, only glancing at her, then leaning to speak to the blond man. She caught enough; aeroplano and mañana.

He stood, taking up the Colt.

She watched the gun. I don't know, she told herself calmly. How do you prepare? How does anybody ever prepare? When it actually happens, you can never find out. Ask an ancestor.

The blond man — tall, close to two metres — whispered something to the soldier who'd given him the message. The background noise in the room altered, increased, humming. The lights flickered on, off, then on again, flooding the room with brilliance, outlining the two men. She was waiting to see what else the whisper was about; too late to take advantage of any surprise caused by the lights. Always too late.