Quiller Barracuda

I said faster than I meant to – 'I'm not signed up yet.'

'I've sent for someone,' Ferris said.

'For someone?'

To clear you and get your signature.' Watching me all the time, his thin mouth set in amusement, not quite a smile, the way it looked, I could easily believe, when he was busy strangling mice. 'But I'm expecting more questions, before he comes.'

Drank some water; the nerves have got a thirst of their own.

'You could be wasting his time.'

'Possibly. We've got Meddick standing by – they pulled him in from Stuttgart tonight.'

'Meddick's all right,' off-hand, 'so long as he can keep his sphincter muscles under control when it comes to the crunch.'

This man Ferris laughs through his teeth, you know, like a snake hissing. 'The questions,' he said, and glanced at his watch.

But I still didn't like it. This, all right, yes, was the moment of truth we all go through when they offer us a mission and it's never easy, because you've got to decide whether to play it safe and turn it down and wait till something more attractive comes along or go for it and pick up the pen and commit yourself to the high likelihood of walking into the cross-hairs or taking amp; curve too fast or hitting the floor before they can get at the capsule and rake it out of your mouth, the moment of truth, yes, and the point of no return.

But this time the nerves were nearer the surface than usual and I didn't know why. Correction, I did know why but I didn't want to face it. Not yet.

Questions, yes. 'All right, what's the field for Barracuda?'

'The Caribbean.'

'Is it exclusively mine?'

'Exclusively.'

'There must be concurrent operations running if this thing's as big as you say.'

'Yes, in Zurich, Capetown and Hong Kong. But they are financial and political, not active.'

Behind the closed teakwood doors and in the private international clubs, not in the midnight streets or the interrogation cells. 'Am I the only active shadow in the whole of the enterprise?'

'Yes. But don't let it phase you. Bureau One is in charge and Croder is in Signals and I am directing you in the field. You can have, of course, any kind of support you need, without number. This', he said softly, 'is Classification One.'

I suppose I should've expected that, with Shepley and Croder running the board in London and Ferris out here with me in the field, but it came as a surprise and I was impressed because Classification One gives the shadow executive in the field total support and facilities – communications, courier lines, the strategic deployment of paramedical units and liaison with the local British embassy or consulate and diplomatic status in case of unavoidable transgression of the host country's laws.

Very few of the top shadows have been offered a C.1 – Thorne, Fosdyck, Barrett and I believe Tasman – because in any case a mission of this size doesn't often break.

'I don't want it,' I told Ferris, and finished the glass of water.

'Too posh for you.' Watching me carefully, 'Even with your degree of arrogance.'

No takers. 'Too bloody busy. Look, I haven't changed, Ferris, and you know I can only work if you bastards leave me alone.' No heat in the tone, but I wanted him to get the message.

'But if you do need help?'

'Then you'd better be there.'

'Well it's nice,' he said, 'to know we're of some comfort, even if you don't want to admit it.'

'Bullshit.'

He was trying to rile me but it wasn't just to amuse himself; the man he'd sent for to clear me for Barracuda could be here at any time and Ferris would need my signature straight away because if I turned this thing down he'd have to bring Meddick in from London to take over – if in fact they'd got that man standing by, which I somewhat doubted because they'll do this to you, you know that? They'll drag every nerve out of your body if it suits their book. I've seen them kick a man headlong into a mission with the absolute certainty that when he'd done the job he'd never get back through the frontier alive and then they'd pulled off the impossible and brought him in still ticking and debriefed him just in time before he went and walked under a bus.

The Bureau is the Sacred Bull and our heads, my friend, are never far from the sacrificial stone.

'So if I'm going in,' I told Ferris, 'I'm going in alone, and if I want help I'll ask for it.'

'Understood.'

Questions. 'What about Proctor? Are you going to put tags on him? Bugs in?'

He got his lean body off the bed and went into the bathroom and broke the plastic off the other glass and turned the tap on. 'I've got a thirst too. You're driving me too hard.' Joke. 'We put a tag on him yesterday and we're mounting a round-the-clock watch. And we put bugs in.'

I asked him: 'At what time?' And waited.

Watching me from the doorway, the glass of water in his hand. 'Just before you went there.'

'On whose orders?'

'London ordered it when -'

'I mean whose orders locally for Christ's sake, who told the man with the screwdriver?'

'I did.'

'And did you know what time I'd be there?'

'Yes. They -'

'You bugged my phone too?'

'I do wish you'd sit down. You'd be much more comfy.'

I had to centre to get the control back before I spoke.

'Not very good manners, was it?'

A sigh. One of his characteristic and calculated sighs. 'I really think this is a job for Meddick, you know. He'd be so much easier to handle.'

I moved around a bit and came back and sat on the floor with my back to the wall, slight smell of carpet and a shift in the acoustics: less traffic noise from the window. 'Fuck Meddick.'

'Now that'll make you feel better.'

'So you've got the whole of my meeting with Proctor on tape?'

'Yes.'

'And you don't, therefore, need to debrief me.'

'Except for the visuals, and the ambience.'

'He's in good shape, works out.' I went on talking normally to let the angst dissipate of its own accord. The only physical alternative for getting rid of the adrenalin would have been to hit Ferris and he'd saved my life too many times for me to touch him and in any case that too would have been bad manners. 'He started off all right but turned hostile. He -'