Quiller Barracuda

'Did you antagonise him?'

'No. I played him very carefully. He's lost some weight and he's living on his nerves – you'll pick that up in his voice too. Shabby flat, renting it furnished, air-conditioning not working – this was before the storm hit the power off. Very pretty black popsy who left without a word. He's -'

'Tart?'

'No, unless she's flying extremely high, Washington or somewhere like that. She's sophisticated, and potential dynamite. Raw silk dress, platinum Pinochet watch.'

'Yes, the tag reported on her. Did Proctor introduce her?'

'Yes, the name was Monique.'

Talking about her, thinking about her, brought the hint of patchouli back to me and by association something else that had been there in Proctor's flat, something I hadn't seen or heard, some kind of presence, an element, and it was this that had got my nerves strung up, and what I was afraid of most was a question about it from Ferris. He hadn't asked me yet and he might not ask me at all but if he didn't I'd know the worst.

Paranoia.

'Did you arrange to see him again?'

'What? Yes. We're meeting for lunch tomorrow at the Oyster Pick.'

'Despite his hostility.'

'He wants to know more.'

'About?'

The phone rang.

'Why I'm here. He suspects I'm checking on him.'

'Oh really.' He picked up the phone and listened and said, 'Come on up.'

He dropped the receiver back and I asked him where Monck fitted in.

'He's very seasoned,' Ferris said, 'and quite high in the overseas staff echelon, so if he contacts you, listen with care.'

'Is he directing anyone over here?'

'You mean plumbers and people?'

'Yes.'

'He is not. He's too far away and he is much too elevated to look after plumbers. Think of him as a liaison figure between Barracuda and the operations in Zurich and Cape Town and Hong Kong, and in direct signals of course with London – which is why you were sent to Nassau for local briefing.'

'Who's looking after the plumbers?'

Knock on the door and he went over there. By plumbers we mean engineers of some kind, mostly electronic and mostly concerned with bugs and counter-bugs. 'We've got a man called Parks who does that,' Ferris said, and opened the door.

I got off the carpet as he came in, a small man with quick movements, clerical, deferential, terrible tie.

'Truscott,' Ferris said, 'this is Mr Keyes. It shouldn't take long, I know it's late.'

We nodded and Truscott looked around for a chair and got his briefcase unzipped and then Ferris looked at me and said, 'Why do you think, by the way, that Judd should get in?'

Sudden chill and the skin crawling, the senses of reality drifting away.

And the faint scent of patchouli.

'Judd?' Quick. 'Oh, Proctor was full of it – you've got it on the tape.'

'Of course.' As if he'd forgotten.

He hadn't forgotten. 'Actually -' be careful, be very careful – 'anyway, it's all on the tape.'

Ferris had turned away and I said to the man, Truscott, 'You're here to clear me?'

'Yes.' He looked surprised. Well of course, Ferris would have told him but I suppose I was just making conversation while I waited for Ferris to turn round again – I wanted to see his eyes, see what was there. Sweat cold on the skin.

Then he was looking at me, and of course there wasn't anything at all I could see in his eyes because he wouldn't be showing it.

'Is it on?'

As if nothing had happened. Had anything happened, or was it just in my head?

'On?'

Reality creeping back.

'The mission,' he said, watching me all the time.

'Yes.' Said it without thinking, but there was no question, because I wanted him, Ferris, and the Bureau, wanted their help. 'Yes of course.'

'Hot in here,' he said, and went across to the thermostat. Over his shoulder, 'Get him cleared, then, will you?'

I suppose it took ten or fifteen minutes, I don't remember: there's not a lot to do at this stage, just forms to sign.

'Next of kin?'

We started into it, while I watched for Ferris' reflection to come into the bathroom mirror through the doorway, into the glass of the picture on the wall, the seascape, because I didn't want to look at him directly. But the worst was over now and I wouldn't have to think about it until later, in the night perhaps, in the still of the whinnying dark when the dreams bring demons 'The same bequest, sir?'

'What was it last time?'

'Shoreditch, the battered wives' -'

'Yes, right, let it stand.'

Took it from there and got through by 01:00 hours, no weapons drawn, no courier requested, no support, so forth. Signed all the bumph.

Went off, Truscott, bobbing his head, briefcase under his arm, almost too big for him.

'In terms,' Ferris said before I left him, 'of final briefing, your primordial task is to latch on to Proctor and get everything you can from him, get right inside his head and work from there.' His hands held out in front of him with the long fingers spread – 'Proctor is the access we've got to have before we can even start running Barracuda', and I said yes I understood.

But in the morning he phoned me and said that Proctor was missing, cleared out during the night.

Chapter 5: LANGOUSTE

She was below me, looking upwards through her mask.

Two of them had worked all through the night.

Down, with her hands beckoning. I pretended not to see. Looking at all the sea fans, very pretty, so forth.

They'd gone through the flat with counter-snoop equipment and hadn't found a thing, nothing of his, anyway, only the bug that Monck had ordered put in there without telling me, but I'd stopped worrying about that by now because this wasn't going to be like other missions; this was a Classification One they'd got on the board and they were going to run me like a rat through a maze and I couldn't expect any manners.

Down, she was saying with her hands, encouraging me, nodding slowly, her light hair streaming in the current, so I tilted and went down to where she was waiting just above the sand, four atmospheres on the gauge. Okay! with her thumbs up. I made a bit of token fuss with the faceplate and then nodded yes, okay.

I've never seen Ferris move so fast, though he didn't seem to hurry: he just got a lot more done, calling people out of the woodwork and signalling London and Monck, telling me to get to the Cedar Grove on South River Drive and make certain I was clean when I got there; my hotel was blown and Ferris had got my things collected and sent to the new place.