They drove slowly. Phillips really was an excellent driver, unshowy but never losing his prey. He had been a watchman for just over a year, but was already busy, Miles knew, trying for one of those ‘lateral promotions’ so beloved by Billy Monmouth.
‘Turning into the Strand.’
The Arab’s code name was Latchkey. Miles wondered just who was responsible for these absurdities. Someone had to sit at a desk all day doing nothing else but inventing code names. In the past few months, Miles had been detailed to watch a real rogues’ gallery: Ivanhoe, Possum, Conch, Tundish, Agamemnon. And now Latchkey, who was perhaps the main assassin for a group of lesser-known oil-producing states in the Gulf. Conceivably, however, he might be merely what his public image and his passport showed, a well-placed civil engineer, in London to advise his embassy on possible contracts for British companies in the Gulf. Some very high-tech refineries were about to be built — were, as Billy had put it, ‘in the pipeline’ — in order to extract every last drop of commercial goodness from the crude natural product. And that was why no toes were to be stepped on, no possible evidence of interference left lying around. Discretion was paramount if the contracts were not to be endangered, and the burden belonged to Miles.
‘Taxi signaling and stopping,’ said Phillips. ‘I’ll drop you and park the car.’
Miles slipped out of the car and followed Latchkey into the Doric, one of the capital’s grandest hotels, feeling uncomfortably shabby. His shoes were scuffed and unpolished, his trousers just a little too creased. Well, he could always pretend to be American. In Philly, we always dress down for dinner, he thought to himself as he pushed through the revolving door. The Arab was gliding into the cocktail bar, smoothing down his tie as he went.
‘Would you have a light?’
The girl who barred his way was blond, petite and very pretty, with a trained voice and a trained smile. Everything about her looked trained, so that her movements told the prospective customer that she was a professional girl. Miles had no time to waste.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, moving past her.
She was not about to waste time herself, time being money in her world. She smiled again, drifting off toward another tired-looking traveler.
The bar was busy with early-evening drinkers, not those who leave their offices tired and thirsty, but those who feel it a duty to consume a few expensive drinks before an expensive meal. Miles pushed an earpiece into his ear as he walked, the slender cord curving down his neck and into his top pocket. He found a chair with his back to Latchkey, who was seated alone at a table for two. Having ordered a whiskey, miming to the waiter that he was partially deaf, Miles took a notebook from his pocket and produced a silver pen from the same place. He looked like the perfect accountant, ready to jot down a few calculations of profit margins and tax contributions.
In poising the pen, an expensive-looking fountain model, Miles angled its top toward Latchkey, and through his earpiece came the chaotic sounds of the bar. He cursed silently the fact that there were so many people around. Latchkey, having coughed twice, ordered a fresh orange juice from the waiter — ‘as in freshly squeezed, you understand’ — while Miles, appearing to mull over his figures, listened.
Jeff Phillips would be calling for assistance, though it still seemed unlikely that anything important was about to take place. The really important meetings always occurred either in obscure, well-guarded rooms or else in parks and on heaths, preferably with a storm raging in the background. Nothing that the constantly ingenious technical-support experts could rig up in their dark chambers was of much help on a windswept hill.
The pen, however, was superb, a tiny transmitter inside the cap sending information to the receiver inside his pocket, and from there to the earpiece. It was as close to James Bond as the firm’s scientists ever came, but it was not perfect. Miles was hard pressed to hear what Latchkey was saying to the waiter who had brought him his drink. A couple nearby, thinking themselves involved in the most intimate dialogue, kept interrupting, the woman’s voice of just sufficient flutedness to block out the Arab’s soft inflections. Miles, listening to their conversation, hoped that they would turn words into deeds and slip upstairs to their room. But then Latchkey wasn’t saying anything yet, so where was the harm in trying out the equipment on other couples in the vicinity? No one, however, as a quick sweep revealed, was saying the sorts of thing that the fluted woman was saying to her partner.
Miles’s great fear was that Latchkey and his contact would speak together in Arabic, for he knew that his Arabic, despite Phillips’s protestations, was a little rusty. The meeting had been arranged in Arabic, but with English pleasantries at the end of the dialogue. Tony Sinclair had worked quickly and accurately on the transcription, and Miles would remember that. He tried to ignore the niggling feeling that he had been stupid to come here tonight, stupid to have insisted on playing a role in what was not his drama. He should have gritted his teeth and gone home. His own fears for his marriage had caused him to make an error of professional judgment. That was the most worrying thing of all.
The woman shrieked suddenly, laughing at her partner’s lubricious joke, and looking up, Miles saw that Phillips was standing in the doorway, looking around as though for a friend. Their eyes met for less than a second, and Miles knew that the backup had arrived. At that moment, a swarthy man brushed past Phillips and walked across to Latchkey’s table. Miles, nodding as a drink was laid before him by the sweating waiter, concentrated hard on the table behind him.
‘Salaam alaikum.’
‘Alaikum salaam.’
‘It’s good to see you again. How is the refinery project progressing?’
‘There have been some difficulties.’
As their conversation continued — in English, praise Allah — it became obvious to Miles that he was wasting his time. The two men discussed what introductions were to be made to what companies. They even spoke about bribes that might be offered to them by certain work-hungry corporations in return for a slice of this or that contract. It was all very businesslike and aboveboard. The contact was Latchkey’s man in the City, nothing more. They drank little and spoke slowly and clearly.
It was just after ten o’clock when they rose to shake hands. Both seemed pleased with the money that would be slipped into their hands sub rosa in the days to follow. Latchkey told his friend to wait for him outside, and then went into the toilet, looking back and smiling as he did so.
‘Drinking alone?’
It was the girl again, not having much luck tonight, but determined to keep on trying. Miles tucked the earpiece back into his pocket while she pulled a chair across from where the Arab’s contact had been sitting.
‘Just finishing,’ he said, watching her cross her legs as she sat down.
‘What a pity,’ she said, her bottom lip full. ‘What else are you doing tonight then?’
‘Going home to my wife, that’s all.’
‘You don’t sound very happy about it. Why not stay here and keep me company? I’d make you happy.’
Miles shook his head.
‘Not tonight,’ he said.
‘Which night then?’
‘A year next Saturday.’