'What were the instructions?'
To go to 1330 West Riverside Way.'
Quickly – 'Did you go there?'
'No.'
I waited, thinking there was a chance still, but he said, 'Whatever happened, I've become a valued member of an organisation that can give us a new world. And all you can offer me is the old one, if I come home. They want me for debriefing, don't they? That's what your real mission is – you're here to blow the Trust. That bloody woman Thatcher's given this one to the Bureau to look after.' He left his eyes on me for another five seconds and then looked at his watch.
'You're wasting my time.'
'I haven't finished.'
'Yes,' he said, 'you have.' He swung his head and stared along the perspective of the street. A man was standing by the nearest vehicle, an armoured limousine, smoke curling from a cigarette under one of the lamps.
Ice in the blood, the scalp shrinking.
I don't like it when there's only one last throw.
Turning back to me he said, 'You knew the risk. Have you got a capsule on you?'
'I don't need one.'
'It'd be less noisy,' he said.
I brought my foot down off the little wall and leaned away from the railings, wanting, I suppose, to be standing up straight when they did it, or perhaps I was just stretching my legs, felt so bloody tired. 'There's something I meant to ask you, Proctor. How far do you trust those people?'
'Toufexis's?'
'No. Simitis and Lord Joplyn and the others.'
His eyes were excited again. 'Why?'
'You think they're putting you in charge of their intelligence, don't you? Their global intelligence network.'
It had been on one of the tapes.
'How do you know?'
'I know everything. But look, work it out for yourself, for Christ's sake. That's a job they'd offer Bureau One, yes, or Croder, even Loman, or the chief of MI5 or MI6 or the CIA. But a shadow? A ferret in the field? You're not even thinking straight.'
He watched me without saying anything for so long that I thought the coke had phased him out in some way; but his eyes were still very bright. God knew what was going on inside his mind, but I think I'd found another focus, and this time it was trust. It had got to be.
'Think about it, Proctor. The minute you've done what they recruited you for they'll throw you to the dogs.'
Very quietly, 'You can't say that.'
I'd hit the nerve.
He'd already suspected it; he'd seen the signs and chosen to ignore them. We believe what we want to believe.
'You're trusting those people with your life, you know that?'
I think he might have started listening, at that point, but the months of continual indoctrination had left him unable to think for himself. He looked along the street at the man standing by the limousine, and said again, 'You knew the risk,' and turned away.
Last chance.
'Proctor, you'd better have this.'
I went for my pocket and then froze, not thinking fast enough: God knew how many guns were trained on me here.
'Get it out of my pocket. This one. Tape recorder.'
He hesitated, his dark eyes narrowed, then did as I'd told him.
'Push the play button.'
Last chance, yes. It would depend, really, on how much control he'd still got, control of himself, his persona, how much he'd be able to understand what he was listening to.
He is to be eliminated.
Lord Joplyn.
'You recognise the voice?'
'Yes.'
The lamplight pooling in the street, the men watching us from their cars.
But how can that be done? Toufexis is protecting him.
His eyes darkening as he listened.
We own Toufexis… He'll do as we tell him.
I'd asked Parks to make a new tape, this one, putting it all together and bridging the gaps, all the stuff about Proctor.
He's too dangerous now. Apostolos brought him aboard here and gave him too much trust, in my opinion.
It began just then, a kind of fever in him, in Proctor. He'd suspected this already: he was an experienced shadow, trained to look into mirrors within mirrors, and he'd caught an incautious glance, picked up a careless word, and begun piecing things together. All I was doing tonight was giving him the substance and the proof, and he was shaking now, swinging his head, and I felt the energy coming off his thick strong body as the rage took hold.
He's now privy to very sensitive information on the whole project, and his behaviour is becoming a little irrational, as perhaps you've noticed.
He turned from side to side, swinging like a trapped bear, and I took the recorder from him as he went to the railings and took hold of them, the knuckles of his big knotted hands going white as he shook the bars.
Brink agrees with me. He is to be allowed to go ashore once more, and then Toufexis will be given instructions.
Shaking the railings, not saying a word, returning to the primitive, a wounded animal. I was worried that he might turn and vent his rage on me; he was a big man, strong, and at the moment I could hardly stay on my feet, lost more blood than I'd thought, lost too much sleep, call it accumulated mission fatigue, it had been a hard five days since I'd flown out here from London.
Let the matter rest with me…
Von Brinkerhoff and I will take full responsibility, if any question arises afterwards…
When it was finished I put the recorder away.
'You'd better get control, Proctor. They're watching us.' I looked along the lamplit perspective of the street, and saw the man by the limousine turn and reach through the window. 'Listen, this is your last trip ashore and they can get those instructions any time now and that man down there is answering his phone. We're playing it too bloody close – get in the car.'
We stood at the corner of Bayshore and 22nd street, traffic going past, long hair blowing in open cars, the night still young under the bright Miami moon. There was a club just here, with music floating out across the sidewalk.
'We'll be going home,' I said, 'through the Bahamas, take it easy round the pool for a couple of days.'
He stood shivering, head down, buried in himself. God knew how long it was going to take them to straighten him out, but that'd be their problem, in London.
Then he said an extraordinary thing.
'I apologise.'
For making life so difficult for me, I suppose. Civil of him.
That's all right. Happens in the best of families. You know Monck, don't you, in Nassau?'
'Yes.'
'We'll be looking in on him while we're there.'
For major debriefing, the definitive debriefing on Barracuda. Then I'd drop those tapes on the table. I didn't think there'd be any trouble with Proctor, but one man's testimony wouldn't be enough to blow an organisation that size. They'd need first-hand evidence, recognisable voices, and that's what we'd got.
'Good club,' I said. 'Popular.'
Didn't answer, head on his chest, perhaps didn't hear.
Cabs pulling in, dropping people off at the marquee, some of them in fancy dress, some sort of gala. Then a car stopped by the kerb and Ferris got out and came across to us, people going by, a flurry of girls, giggling, covered in streamers, pretty dresses, silks and coloured plumes, a bit tiddly, I wouldn't wonder, one of them touching my arm as she trotted past – 'Oh boy, have you had a hard day last night!' A gust of laughter.
'Hello Proctor,' Ferris said, 'long time no see,' and we got into the car.
Elleston Trevor
