He was holding my card up, turning it aslant to catch the light. I think I heard Foreign Office, but that could have been because I was listening for it. Then there was Mr Toufexis, and then Proctor again and then Thatcher, be it given that I was only getting snatches.
It was really very frustrating because the executive for the mission was only a telephone number away from the objective and he was three miles out to sea with a man on one side of him with his testicles out cold and a man on the other side waiting to blow his head across the bay if he did anything wrong and a man in the cabin there with orders for his immediate execution.
All I want, Nicko, is that telephone number, you little fat bastard, the one you've just called, and if I ever get you alone you're going to tell me what it is.
The deck rose and fell away to the slow undulations of the swell; the Miami skyline was lifted suddenly from the dark and strewn across the horizon in a cascade of diamonds, then was lost again, blotted out by the profile of the cabin. Assignment … government… janitor – no, Senator… Senator Judd, more clearly now as the man at the helm throttled the diesels back, slowing us.
Nicko cradled the telephone and there was no more to listen to, as I asked the black, 'Are we nearly there?' I wanted to know how he was feeling, how confident or how nervous.
'Keep your fuckin' mouth shut, you know what I mean?'
No reliable data. Nicko was coming back and Roget turned his head a little to look at him so I shifted my feet again, three inches this time because it wouldn't be much longer now.
'You're full of shit.'
Nicko, standing in front of me, the small eyes glinting.
'Did you talk to Proctor himself?'
Got a reaction: we hadn't mentioned his name before.
'There isn't any mistake. There isn't any assignment. You wasted my time, and I don't like that.'
But I'd got the answer. Only Proctor knew enough about me to know I wasn't on an assignment for the Thatcher government in connection with Senator Judd. This man had just been speaking to the objective. I was that close.
'I suggested you telephone Mr Toufexis,' I said, 'not Proctor.'
'What's the difference?'
Perhaps I could have gone on from there, kept him talking if there'd been time, tried a few oblique questions about Monique, Kim Harvester, Erica Cambridge, 1330 Riverside Way, the yacht Contessa, to see if I could get any more information to work on, to give to Ferris, but there wasn't a chance because the man in the cabin, Vicente, was turning round.
'Hey, Nicko. You have to do it now.'
Chapter 13: DANCE
This was the scene. This was the scene of the execution.
We were moving at less than cruising speed and there was less noise from the diesels. The wake bannered from the stern across the sea towards Miami. There was a vessel a mile off, perhaps less; it was difficult to judge distances by moonlight on a reflecting surface. The vessel was marked only by its riding lights. Two or three more stood off our port quarter, farther away, one of them with lights shining on deck and from a line of portholes below. Another looked as if it had way on, and showed both red and green lights. It was heading obliquely in our direction but wouldn't pass close, no closer than half a mile.
Water slapped below the bows; the night was peaceful.
The man Vicente was still turned towards us in the cabin, looking at Nicko. Fidel the Cuban wasn't aware of the moment; he sat humped against the bulwark nursing his pain, his eyes closed and his head on his chest. Across from him, five feet from where I was standing, Roget the black leaned in a crouch to keep the profile of the big Suzuki below the rail. He also was looking at Nicko. The fifth man was at the helm, his back to us. Above the cabin roof the radar scanner-swung, and a penant flew against the stars.
This was the scene.
Nicko pulled his gun.
'Fidel.'
Kicked the Cuban's foot to get him conscious. Fidel lifted his head and looked up into Nicko's bright little eyes, and shrank.
'Get up.'
Didn't move. He couldn't look away from the man above him. His lips began forming words that made no sound.
'Get up!'
It took a little time, a few seconds, because he was in a lot of pain; but he got to his feet and Nicko looked into his face.
Turn around.'
We rose on a crest and there was Miami again, jewel-bright in the distance, riding out the night. I wished Fidel could have turned his head and seen it, because it was so pretty. It might have reminded him of Juanita.
'Kneel. On your knees.'
Somewhere a lanyard was slapping timber to the wind of our passage, strumming in the quietness, passing the time. Flotsam drifted past, a cement bag, I think, or a life-jacket.
'Nicko. Not with the gun.' Vicente, from the cabin.
Nicko turned with a jerk. 'Jesus Christ, we're miles -'
'Not with the gun.'
The tone almost quiet, but with a lot of emphasis, a lot of authority.
Fidel didn't hear them, or didn't follow the meaning; he knelt facing the bulwark, his back to Nicko, praying softly in Spanish. There was nothing I could do for him and I don't think that in any case it would have been wise. If anything happened he would be in the way, fatally, perhaps, in the way.
'Listen, for Christ's sake, one shot won't make any -'
'Nicko. If you use a gun, Mr Toufexis is going to know. He is going to know from me. You've seen Mr Toufexis with people, Nicko. He will be like that with you. So do it now, and not with a gun.'
'Jesus Christ.' But in capitulation.
I suppose Vicente was thinking in terms of numbers, physical numbers. If he didn't want anyone to make a noise there was no point in Roget's holding the big Suzuki on me any more. He'd be better off putting it down and getting his hands ready in case I tried to do anything. Fidel wouldn't do anything: he wasn't in Vicente's reckoning. The way he was working his numbers out, there were four men against one, and that would be enough in the event of trouble.
'Do it, Nicko. Now.'
I don't think Vicente had thought about Roget and the Suzuki yet. He was too concerned with Nicko and the need to get this over soon, at once. He watched Nicko go to the chain locker and come back with a marlin spike.
'Christ sake,' he said, looking up at Vicente in the cabin. 'Think of the fucking mess.'
I thought his tone was interesting. To take a gun away from a man like this, a man who cleans it, loads it, wears it wherever he goes, is like taking his clothes off him. It feels like a different world to him, a world in which he feels exposed. And I believe there was another thing. Nicko was squeamish. To shoot another man from a distance, however short, is to enjoy the remoteness of the act, the technical sophistication of moving the safety catch off, of aiming, holding still, and moving the trigger against the spring. But to take a man's life with the bare hands or with some crude instrument as an extension of the hands is an act of intimacy, of an intimacy greater by far than the act of love, involving as it does the plundering of life itself.
He stood there, Nicko, holding the spike, not sure how he was going to do this without getting blood on his expensive khaki suit. He was holding the thing in both hands, in the horrible semblance of a golfer about to make a stroke.
'Time, Nicko,' from the cabin, 'you're wasting time. Do it.'
I thought I heard Roget's teeth chattering, on my left. Perhaps he didn't really like the act of slaughtering when it came to it; or perhaps he was excited, I don't know.
'Nicko,' I said, 'let the poor little bastard jump overboard, give him a chance to swim. He won't steal again, after this.'