This was the end-phase and there was the target: the Kobra rendezvous. When I reported to Ferris in a few minutes from now he was going to throw me the final directive and I knew what it was.
I steadied the field glasses again. The right shoulder was still inclined to ache if I kept it still too long: it had taken most of the impact when I'd hit the ground in the alley in New York. One of the group — Sassine — was moving about restlessly and I wanted to keep them all in sight in case anyone thought of coming up here to my room. They shouldn't do, because security was totaclass="underline" they'd never seen me before and I'd made no specific surveillance of them except from my room and behind adequate cover. But I had believed security to be total when the wall had blown out in Phnom Penh.
Note in passing: James Burdick could say nothing to anyone because his daughter's life was in hazard. The converse must also be true: his daughter had been warned that if she tried to leave the group or seek the help of the police she would bring about her father's killing.
I watched them for another fifteen minutes and then signalled Ferris.
Code-intro. No bugs.
I made my report and he started putting questions: did it look as if any exchange were to be made here in Brazil; did it look as if they were waiting for other members of the Kobra cell; did it look as if they felt on top of the situation they had created; so forth, No, no and yes.
He was silent for half a minute.
'They've still got the road up,' he said at last.
'Have they?'
Directive. He'd been in signals with London, 'This is really quite big. Quite substantial,'
Egerton's word for it I began worrying.
The phase had only just opened and there wasn't much I could do: to get as close to the target as this I'd had to present a frank image and rely on cover and this was very limiting. There hadn't been time to get any leverage, any kind of counter-force that we could apply against the group as a whole: Satynovich Zade was clearly the top kick and I'd obviously go for him as soon as I could arrange something workable but it'd have to be a hundred per cent effective because a stalemate wouldn't be good enough — they still had the girl in their hands.
I thought I could get at Zade and keep him alive and use him to argue with but it might take hours or even days because a lot would depend on luck.
They told me,' I said, 'that it was substantial. What are you trying to do, for Christ's sake-put the fear of — '
'There's nothing to worry about,' he said.
I shut up.
It had just sounded so bloody silly to remind me the mission was 'substantial' because Egerton used that kind of word where people like Parkis or Sargent would say 'hot-war level' or 'Minister's priority' or whatever term they picked on to express something that was going to make a lot of waves, win or lose.
But Ferris doesn't ever say anything bloody silly and he'd just told me he'd been in signals with London through the consulate in Manaus and London had instructed him to remind me that we weren't on just another field exercise and that meant they wanted me to do something difficult, and what Egerton really wanted me to understand was that it was going to be worth it.
Not in terms of any reward, of course: apart from a living wage and a bit extra for roses for Moira we don't ask any reward for doing something we couldn't live without doing even though we know it's going to kill us in the end. Egerton meant in terms of making the necessary effort.
Bloody London for you: they think that when you've finally got the target in your sights and you're set up to go in and get the objective you're either too dead-beat or too ready to chicken out if the going gets rough.
Gut-think: not precisely true.
Egerton was a worried man, that was all. The red light was on the board and he was sitting up there in Signals with his legs hooked over that crate of stuff they hadn't unpacked yet and his shoes covered in clay from down there in the street and he was developing purpose-tremor: with the executive on the target and 'substantial' considerations in the balance he didn't want anything to go wrong. So he'd sent his little ferret a shot in the arm.
'I'm not worrying,' I told Ferris.
'Of course you're not.'
Ramirez had moved and I watched his head vanish and reappear beyond a gap in the leaves. I wasn't using the field glasses because I had the phone in one hand and wouldn't be able to control their movement: any terrorist in the international class is constantly sensitive to surveillance and will catch the glint of a lens if care isn't used, 'Just give me a directive,' I said.
I didn't want to stay on the phone too long because that group down there could split up at any minute and I'd need to keep track of them as long as I could.
'Yes,' I heard Ferris saying. 'We want you to get the objective for us as soon as you can do it safely.'
'The girl,' I said.
He didn't answer right away. I could hear something like static from his end: he was probably in the wireless room at the consulate, and not at the Hotel Amazonas. Conceivably he was getting stuff direct from Control while he had me on the line. I didn't know, and I wasn't going to ask because if he wanted me to know then he'd tell me.
'No,' he said in a moment, 'not the girl. We want the whole group.'
In a couple of seconds I said:
'You want the whole of the Kobra cell.'
There are always a lot of repeats when a major directive is being put on the line, especially when it's being done on the phone. It's not a time for mistakes.
'The whole cell,' Ferris said, 'yes.'
Another mosquito was whining faintly near my head, but I didn't think, for the moment, about swatting it 'Alive?' I asked Ferris.
He answered straight away because he'd expected the question and had already got a directive on it.
'That's immaterial. But if you can get the girl out, everyone would appreciate it,'
Chapter Thirteen: SHADIA
'The damned creature was twenty feet long, can you imagine?'
Van de Jong broke some bread.
'Who came out of it?' I asked him.
He'd come to join me for dinner at my table and it suited my book: he was a compulsive talker so I didn't have to listen, and he provided good cover. The solitary image is always suspect They both came out of it, of course! He does it for the tourists, when there are any. Listen to me — the anaconda does not crush its victim. It merely throttles it. So all this fellow does is to keep the coils away from his throat. In any case, man is not its habitual prey, so it is just confused when a man comes to wrestle with it, you see.' He gave a laugh, showing a gold tooth. 'But it is fun to watch. You should see it I will take you tomorrow.'
The Kobra cell was across the room: the five men and the woman they called Shadia. The Burdick girl was sitting in the corner with someone on each side of her. They were eating, but seemed more to be waiting.
The Indian boy came to our table again.
'Voce precisa alguma coisa?'
'Nada. Tudo esta bem.'
We were eating paiche with farinha and de Jong was on his third rum punch: he had so far made three jokes about the ulcer I was using as an excuse for not drinking.
The Burdick girl looked pale in the light of the oil lamps. She didn't talk very often but sometimes I could make out a few of the words. The woman was asking her about life in an American college and the answers were token and desultory:
'It's okay, I guess,' and 'you can get into a whole lot of subjects,' mat kind of thing. The Kobra policy was consistent: it was public knowledge mat Pat Burdick was on an expedition in Brazil with selected companions, and she could even be seen there if anyone were interested. The conversation I had so far overheard was about the Amazon, insects, and American college life: all subjects appropriate to the cover. The party wasn't keeping to its quarters upstairs, but was eating openly in public, and I assumed that if anyone went over to the table in the corner and said excuse me but aren't you Pat Burdick she would say yes, I am.