Ferris sat down again and got his pad. Off-handedly, not looking at me, 'Have you any more instructions?'
The nerves sent a tremor through the organism. In a moment, 'What instructions?'
Still not looking at me, busy writing, 'I mean is there anywhere you've got to go, anything you've got to do? It's only a thought, you don't need to worry about it.'
Time going by, while the skin chilled under the sweat and their faces watched me, not with their eyes, with their heads turned, listening.
Instructions.
After a long time, 'No. I don't think so. I don't know.' And then I was on my feet suddenly and looking down at Alvarez. 'How much stuff have I got in there, for God's sake? How much more?'
He said: 'We may never know.'
03:14.
Ferris made a final note on the debriefing pad and put it into his briefcase and looked at Alvarez. 'May I use the phone, Doctor?'
'By all means.'
'I need to call London.'
'I understand. The switch is just under the desk here.' At the door he said, 'I shan't be far away, if you need me.'
Did he expect me to go berserk or something?
Control, yes. Mea culpa.
Ferris went behind the carved redwood desk and picked up the phone and sat with it, elbows on the big green blotter, his eyes nowhere, thinking. Then he dialled.
I got up again, not wanting to go on sitting there waiting, moved about a little, took another look at those bloody elephants, God what a waste of a good tusk.
We may never know.
Like an echo in the mind. How big, then, was the worm in the apple, how healthy, how vigorous? As big as a snake? As a dragon?
'Miami,' Ferris said. 'Get me Board 3.'
Board 3 was for Barracuda.
8:15 in the fair city of Londinium, with the double-deckers jamming Piccadilly Circus and the taxis dodging through the gaps, their black tops bright with rain.
'Yes, good morning. I'm switching to scramble.'
I have no wish, not the slightest wish, to go to London, whatever they say, whatever they decide.
Purdom moved now, got out of his chair. He was like me, couldn't just sit still nursing his nerves. If you were to ask me for whom the bell tolled, I would tell you that it tolled for him too.
'Is Mr Shepley there?'
He would make a good psychiatrist, this man Ferris, looks the part, thin, ascetic, totally calm, though perhaps he is a shade too cold-blooded, and of course might even find it not abnormal for a patient lying there on that bloody couch to explain that his problem was that he couldn't stop strangling mice.
'Yes, sir. There's been an unexpected development, and I've asked Monck to fly in from Nassau. He'll be here in twenty minutes. I haven't worked with him before, and I need to know whether he qualifies for major Classified One decision-making.'
Purdom was standing by the bookshelves looking at the titles, if that's what you want to believe. I suppose I hated him in an infantile way, because there was nothing in his square balanced-looking head, I mean nothing coiled there, no worm.
'Yes, I can give him the whole picture. We've just interim-debriefed the executive.'
Upjohn hadn't budged from his chair. I didn't like him much either, not because of his acne or his broom-head haircut of course; I disliked his detachment, or rather his ability to detach himself from what was going on. I could believe his blood was colder than Ferris's, if there were any in his veins at all.
'All right, sir. Understood. Do I fax the debriefing?'
He said a few other things that weren't important. The important bit was over now, I knew that, but I hadn't heard Shepley's answer to the question. I wasn't looking at Ferris when he put the phone down, had my back to him. I heard him flip the scrambler switch and get out of the chair.
'Monck was in Croder's place,' he said, 'before he left London. He's still on that level, overseas section.' I'd turned round and was facing him. 'Whatever decisions have to be made, he has the power to make them.' Getting his briefcase, looking at his watch. 'I'm meeting him at the airport, cutting it a bit fine. Why don't you catch up on some more sleep at the hotel? It's still secure. Upjohn will take you there.'
Didn't really want an answer: these were orders.
Then everyone was moving about and Ferris called Alvarez back and thanked him for his hospitality and then came with me to the alleyway at the back of the house where there were two cars standing in shadow.
Try not to give it any more thought,' he told me. 'Just try to sleep. When I've talked to Monck and asked him what we're going to do, I'll contact you, probably in an hour or so.' Got into his car.
'But I like the town, because it's crazy.'
Upjohn drove through the lit streets, knew his way. I sat beside him, like an aristo in a tumbril. Ferris knew what was going to happen already, but couldn't give London the whole picture without faxing it and there wasn't really time even for that. Barracuda couldn't go on running without an executive and the only executive it had was a man who might at any time break loose and start following instructions he wasn't even aware of at this moment – and instructions that could tell him to blow the whole thing up.
Shivering a little, not unexpected.
'It's got everything, after all. Drug trade, casinos, refugees, the mafia, you name it. Sight more interesting than Streatham.'
I suppose I answered him now and then on the way, but I don't remember clearly. When we got to the hotel he opened the gates at the back and drove the car through and got out to shut them again before I left the car.
'Feel like company? Play some poker?'
I thanked him and said I needed some sleep, and he nodded and stood there in the half-lit yard until I was inside the hotel.
Lying in the dark with my clothes on, watching the reflection of the traffic lights at the corner of the street below, listening to the creak of the plumbing and the thin whistling of the first jet landing as the night drew towards dawn, I looked at this thing in the face and got rid of illusions.
There would be only one thing worse, yes, than being sent back to London and seeing my name gone from the board and the final entry on the form I'd have to sign, executive recalled from mission, only one thing worse than losing Barracuda and handing over to Purdom, and that would be for them to order me to stay with it and do what I could.
Because the only reason for their doing that would be to find out what I would do if they gave me room, where I would go if they set me running again, how they could profit if the worm in the apple went on eating and drove me across hazardous ground, into a red sector, into a trap.
And that would be terrible, to run through these streets not as the shadow for the mission but as a rat in a maze, an experiment, a subject for sacrifice.
That would be their only reason for keeping me in.
Red to green, amber to red, a toilet flushing on the floor above, a jet turning onto the taxying lane with its sound and the echoes fading, red to green and the silence settling in and then the explosive shock of the phone bell jarring the nerves.
I reached for the receiver.
'They're leaving you in,' Ferris said.
My hand clammy on the smooth plastic, the dark room crowding me, a sense of disbelief. I suppose I wanted it spelled out for me, so that there shouldn't be any misunderstanding.
'My name is still on the board for Barracuda?'
Someone was whistling, down in the yard, as daybreak came.
'Your name is still on the board for Barracuda.'
So help me God.
Chapter 9: NEWSBREAK
She's petite, strawberry blonde, violet eyes, great cheekbones, very trim. Age thirty-one.