Quiller Barracuda

'All right,' I told him.

He couldn't say where are you so he said, 'How far are you from where you ditched?'

'More explicit.'

'Five miles?'

'No.'

'More?'

'No.'

'Three?'

'Roughly.'

'Give me a minute.'

Getting a map.

She hadn't moved. Her reflection was in the black lacquered cabinet with the gold inlay, stylised peacocks. She was watching me. She would realise I was shielding the content of my talk with Ferris but I couldn't do anything about that. At worst, it was discourteous: we had established trust.

'You're without transport?'

'Yes.'

'You'll rdv on foot?'

'That's right.'

'Then I'll be at SW 21st Avenue and SW 11th Street, by the school. In ten minutes?'

'No.'

'More?'

'Yes.'

'Thirty?'

'No.'

'Forty?'

'Yes.'

'Right. Look for two vehicles, a dark blue Saab and a black Chevrolet Blazer van, both fairly new. I shall be in the Blazer, and you will therefore rdv with that. You'll take it over. Questions?'

'No.'

'Forty minutes, then, at 03:35.'

'Yes.'

I went back across the room. She was still in the lotus position, her hands spread like fans, a beam of light floating across one of her eyes, brightening its translucent orb like a jewel before it moved away.

'Will you dance more,' I asked her, 'as time goes by? And finally turn in your badge?'

'Think I should?'

'Yes.'

'Look,' she said, and unfurled her legs and rose with the grace of a swimmer surfacing, 'this is the body my spirit chose, but my spirit is feisty and assertive, and I hate men, because they've always called the shots. Most men, sure, not all of them. So it gives me a kick, see, to order them face down on the floor and then have them hustled into the van and sent to the slammer. And it gives me a kick because they're dangerous, and I've got to be good to beat them at the game we play. So maybe I'll dance more, as time goes by, but for now I'm the happiest little gal alive, kicking the shit outa those mother-fuckers. You going?'

'Yes.'

'You don't want to jump in the Jacuzzi with me?'

'Of course I do.'

'But you gotta go.'

'That's right.'

'Some other time. Get you a taxi?'

'I'll find one.'

'Couple of minutes from here,' she said, 'right in front of the hotel, just go left on the sidewalk.' Turning to face me at the door with a quick swing of her hips that went through me like a wave, 'I don't know what it is about you. It ain't the looks – I prefer blacks. I guess it's the brand of pheromones you send out. I'm in most nights, after twelve. Call me?'

I'd asked for forty minutes to give me time to get to the rendezvous absolutely certain I was alone. The taxi dropped me off at SW 11th Terrace and SW 23rd Crescent and I walked from there, covering two blocks and using doorways and double-tracking, making certain, making absolutely certain. Since I've been with the Bureau only three executives have inadvertently blown their directors in the field and the one who survived his mission was fired the day after debriefing.

The Saab and the van were already there and I gave it another five minutes, scanning the whole of the environment until I was sure. Then I walked across the street to the van and got in.

Ferris was alone, sitting at the wheel with his long body slightly hunched, held in on itself, and his hands folded on his lap. I hadn't ever seen him like this before, and I suppose I should have been warned. I began debriefing but he stopped me almost right away and got it over, said I'd been withdrawn from the mission.

Chapter 22: WINDOW

'There are some new clothes for you,' Ferris said, 'in the back. I thought a van would be easier to change in than a car.'

The night was quiet. This wasn't one of the main streets that casino and night-club traffic used. There was only one light that I could see, in a window, apart from the street lamps. The only other vehicle in sight was the dark blue Saab, waiting to take Ferris away when we'd finished the debriefing.

The programme is,' he said, still hunched at the wheel with his eyes on the street, 'to fly you by private jet to Nassau, and put you on a plane for London. You'll be smuggled -'

'Purdom can do nothing.'

First time I'd spoken since he'd told me the news. I think it sounded fairly normal, my tone. Bit of an effort, though, as you can well believe, my good friend.

'You'll be smuggled through to the London plane with great care. For one thing we don't want you seen and shot at before you can get out of the field, and for another thing Croder wants the opposition to believe you're still in operation, in the hope that Proctor will waste his time trying to find you, and Purdom can proceed under the cover of your assumed continuing presence.'

And that is exactly the way that bastard Croder talks, assumed continuing presence, nibbling the words over in his small rat's teeth and then spitting them out.

'You'll be at the airport here,' Ferris said, 'at 06:00 hours, outside the private departure lounge. I'll get into the van and tell you where to go.'

'There is nothing Purdom can do. If I go, the mission goes. You know that.'

I realised I'd got my hands tucked under my folded arms, that I was feeling cold on this sultry Miami night. I suppose that was why Ferris sat hunched over the wheel. He'd directed me in five missions, major ones, and we understood each other, worked well with each other, had mutual respect and trust. It's not always like that – take bloody Loman for instance. But he'd got more to deal with than losing an executive he could rely on. He'd told me that if I got fired from Barracuda he'd go back to London.too. I wouldn't keep him to that – it had been a gesture on his part, bit of civility. But it wouldn't make any difference: if he stayed on here he'd be stuck with a new executive who couldn't make a move. It doesn't always happen but it was true now: I was indispensable to the mission.

'We've got to get Proctor,' I said. 'And we've got to put him under a hood and sweat the whole thing out of him. He's the major objective, in fact the only objective, now that we've lost the Cambridge brief. And the only way we can get Proctor is to let me go on running till I get in his way and draw his fire, expose him, pull him into a trap. Stop me running and Barracuda's dead.'

It didn't hold water but I thought I'd at least try.

I wasn't sure Ferris would trouble to answer, but if he just sat there and let the silence go on it'd leave me looking stupid, and he wouldn't do that.

'It would work,' he said, 'yes, if Proctor were the only danger. But the pre-eminent Mafia family in this town is actively searching for you and they've got your photograph. They total, by the way, ninety-four members. So if you go on moving in the streets it's going to lead to another situation like the one we saw tonight, and that is what brought Croder to his final decision.' He sat back at last and turned his head and watched me with his expressionless amber eyes. 'You've become a danger to yourself, to the mission, and to the overseas Bureau network on this coast, whose main task is to assist the Americans by monitoring British and European underground activity. You are therefore a danger to our hosts, and that is also why Croder has come down on you. It's not London's policy, I hope you'll admit, to run a mission to the point of open street battles inevitably involving the police, which is why Croder had second thoughts on sending in interceptors tonight.' He waited for me to say something. I could think of nothing to say. 'In my opinion he's justified in withdrawing you and sending you home. At least you'll have survived the mission.'