Quiller Barracuda

This was briefing. He hadn't debriefed me yet on the meeting I'd had with Proctor and that was the next thing he'd do but he wouldn't necessarily do it tonight. 'Question,' I said. 'Has Barracuda got anything to do with the American elections?'

I think it worried him a bit but I didn't know why. Possibly I'd touched on part of the information he'd been instructed to hold back from me. 'Indirectly,' he said in a moment, 'yes.'

'Because that's the Proctor connection. He's gunning for Senator Judd, and it sounds as if he's right.'

Ferris was watching his hands. 'Yes, London knows that.' A beat. 'I mean that he's gunning for Judd.'

He was watching me now instead of his hands, and I felt a tremor in the nerves. I'd missed a point somewhere but Ferris hadn't. I didn't flinch when the telephone rang but it felt like that.

He swung across the bed. 'Yes?'

I couldn't hear the voice at the other end.

'When?'

His thin body was bent over the phone. I don't think he was looking at me but I couldn't telclass="underline" the light was across his glasses. I'm never completely comfortable with this man, even though I've always asked for him as my director in the field every time out and even though he's handled me with total expertise and brought me home still functioning. Opinions and preferences vary among the shadow executives but I count him the most brilliant DIF in the Bureau, and there are seven or eight of them in operation at any given time.

'It's running now?'

What makes me uncomfortable is the man himself, the way he treads on bugs and the way he'll look at you with his quiet amber eyes for so long without blinking that you start getting paranoid. It had happened just now.

'No. But there's been contact made.'

Searched my room, yes, and tagged me from Proctor's place. This could be Monck on the line.

Quite a few other people don't like him either -I mean Ferris. They say that when he's bored with the telly he strangles mice.

'I'll tell him.'

He put down the receiver and got off the bed, pushing his long pale hands deep into his pockets and moving around, stooping like a don.

'Other questions?'

Not going to tell me who'd phoned or why. Not good for the little ferret he was about to shove down the hole, down there in the dark where the tunnels were, a chill along the nerves still because of the slip I'd made.

Had it been a slip? What kind? What did I have to hide?

'Yes,' I said. 'What are we doing out here in the US?'

'You mean where do we stand vis-a-vis the FBI?'

'And the Company.'

He gave a sigh, releasing tension, and I knew that in one second flat he'd had to scan right through the not-for-my-eyes material and decide how much it was safe to unclassify.

'They could have been compromised.'

Mother of God.

'You weren't meant to know that,' Ferris said with his head at an angle, 'at this stage. But it was a good question and I've got a certain amount of leeway in terms of discretion. We don't know the FBI and the CIA have been compromised at any particular level, so I want you to keep things in perspective; but there's a risk, so we're not liaising with them or reporting to them or requesting their help at this point.'

The scene was coming into focus for me now. Let me put it this way – Monck – if the extent of things proves as far-reaching as we've begun to believe, I shall find it difficult to sleep soundly in my bed. And Ferris, a few minutes ago – The overall picture is vast, and as yet undefined.

'Can I get some water?'

Technically he was my host.

'What? Yes.'

I went into the bathroom and unwrapped one of the glasses.

'Would you like some tonic or something? There's probably some in the fridge.' He was in the doorway and I caught sight of his face in the mirror, watching me as I turned on the tap, and I didn't know what he was thinking, what was on his mind.

'It's just a thirst.'

When I came back into the room he said again, 'Other questions?' That was all right; he normally briefed like this – the general picture and then questions, to save time.

'Yes. The two major intelligence organisations of the United States of America could possibly be compromised, and London's sent one little ferret in here to check up on one little sleeper?'

'I know what you mean, but life is a local affair. The problem, you see, with Barracuda is that there's so much going on in the background that the communication data's started to jam the computers. That's why London – Croder, under Shepley's personal direction – is working the analysts round the clock before the networks start crossing wires and picking up other people's signals and going to ground. One by one,' he said with soft emphasis, 'the stations are switching codes and channels and frequencies as they get scared of leaking their data, and at any time at all the analysts in London are going to be sitting there on their hands with the computers shut down for want of input. The onus is already on you to provide it.'

I said faster than I meant to – 'I'm not signed up yet.'

'I've sent for someone,' Ferris said.

'For someone?'

To clear you and get your signature.' Watching me all the time, his thin mouth set in amusement, not quite a smile, the way it looked, I could easily believe, when he was busy strangling mice. 'But I'm expecting more questions, before he comes.'

Drank some water; the nerves have got a thirst of their own.

'You could be wasting his time.'

'Possibly. We've got Meddick standing by – they pulled him in from Stuttgart tonight.'

'Meddick's all right,' off-hand, 'so long as he can keep his sphincter muscles under control when it comes to the crunch.'

This man Ferris laughs through his teeth, you know, like a snake hissing. 'The questions,' he said, and glanced at his watch.

But I still didn't like it. This, all right, yes, was the moment of truth we all go through when they offer us a mission and it's never easy, because you've got to decide whether to play it safe and turn it down and wait till something more attractive comes along or go for it and pick up the pen and commit yourself to the high likelihood of walking into the cross-hairs or taking amp; curve too fast or hitting the floor before they can get at the capsule and rake it out of your mouth, the moment of truth, yes, and the point of no return.

But this time the nerves were nearer the surface than usual and I didn't know why. Correction, I did know why but I didn't want to face it. Not yet.

Questions, yes. 'All right, what's the field for Barracuda?'

'The Caribbean.'

'Is it exclusively mine?'

'Exclusively.'

'There must be concurrent operations running if this thing's as big as you say.'

'Yes, in Zurich, Capetown and Hong Kong. But they are financial and political, not active.'

Behind the closed teakwood doors and in the private international clubs, not in the midnight streets or the interrogation cells. 'Am I the only active shadow in the whole of the enterprise?'