"No, no ... I hoped, later on, we might be able to see each other ... you know, out of work."

Sarah looked at me, and I saw her jaw drop a fraction in disbelief. She said, "I don't think so, do you?"

She must have seen the confusion on my face.

"Come on, Nick, it's not as if we're in love with each other or anything like that. We spent a lot of time together and it was great."

I couldn't bear to look at her, so I just kept my eyes fixed on the page.

f.u.c.k, I'd never felt so crushed. It was like going to the doctor for a routine checkup and being told I was going to have a slow, painful death.

"Look, Nick" there wasn't a hint of regret in her voice "we had a job to do and it was a success. That means it was a success for both of us.

You got what you wanted out of it, and so did I." She paused.

"Look, the more intimate we were, the more you would protect me, right? Am I right?"

I nodded. She was right. I would probably have died for her.

Before she could say another word I did what had always worked in the past, ever since childhood: I just cut away. I looked at her as if I'd just been asking her out for a drink, and said, "Oh, OK, just thought I'd ask."

I'd never been f.u.c.ked off with such casual finesse. I kicked myself for even having considered that she would want to be with me. Just who the f.u.c.k did I think I was? I was definitely suffering from the dreamer's disease.

It was only a month after we'd landed at Heathrow that I left my wife.

We were just existing together, and it didn't seem right to be sleeping with her and thinking of Sarah.

When the Syria job came along I didn't know she was going to be on it.

We met for orders in London, this time in better offices Vauxhall Cross, the new home of SIS overlooking the Thames. She acted as if nothing had ever happened between us. Maybe it hadn't for her, but it had for me. I made a plan. Never again would she, or any other woman, f.u.c.k me over.

I sat up on the bed and put the lid on the shoe box. That could wait. I needed to tune in to this place and try to get a feel of it.

I went back into the kitchen, filled the coffee percolator with water and ground beans and got it going. Then I went back into the living room.

Sperm Bank--or the Sperm, as I now liked to call them--were still rattling along big time.

I slumped sideways in one of the chairs, with my back against one arm, my legs over the other. I'd found nothing at all on the first sweep. I would have to give each room a thorough going over, digging everything out. Somewhere, somehow, there could be a slight clue, a tiny hint.

Maybe. The only thing I knew for sure was that if I rushed it I wouldn't find anything.

As I looked around me my thoughts drifted. Sarah wasn't that different from me really. Everything in my life was disposable, from a toothbrush to a car. I didn't have a single possession that was more than two years old. I bought clothes for a job and threw them away once they were dirty, leaving hundreds of pounds' worth of whatever behind me because I didn't need it anymore. At least she had a photo; I didn't have any mementos of family, schooldays or the Army, not even of Kelly and me. It was something I was always going to get around to, but hadn't.

I went back to the kitchen, realizing I was thinking more about myself than her. And I wasn't looking for me. I was starting to feel quite depressed.

This was going to be a long, long job, but I had to do it by the book if it was going to work.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and went to the fridge, then remembered that the milk was only good for medical research. I couldn't find powdered creamer, so I'd have to have it black. I took the pot with me, and was walking back into the living room just as the Sperm decided to sign off. I threw myself back in one of the chairs and put my feet up again on the coffee table, sipping the hot coffee and thinking, I've got to make a start; it'll be like most things, once you get stuck in, everything's fine.

I finished the first coffee, poured another, got up and wandered over to the sideboard. I plonked the cup next to the CDs, then started to take off my Timberlands. I'd worn boots like this for years; they always seemed the thing to wear with jeans, and I always wore jeans. It felt like I hadn't taken them off for days, and it was time to let my feet and socks add to the apartment's atmosphere.

To work, then. Starting from the top, I opened the first drawer and took out a sheaf of dry-cleaning receipts, theater stubs and folded-up back copies of Time. I studied each item in turn, opening each page of every magazine to check nothing had been ripped out, scored or ringed. Had I found anything missing, I'd have had to go to a reference library and get hold of the issue to find out what was so interesting that it had been removed.

But there was nothing like that.

The second drawer was much the same, just as full of s.h.i.t. The other drawers were completely empty, apart from one solitary safety pin, still stuck into yet another dry-cleaning ticket.

I was becoming bored, p.i.s.sed off and very hungry. It was nearing time for my first Mickey D's of the trip. I'd just heard on the radio that McDonald's mission statement for the U.S.A. was something like that no American was ever more than six minutes away from a Big Mac. In the U.K. that would make most heroin addicts jump for joy: scales were old hat for measuring out deals; McDonald's 100-milligram spoons were absolutely perfect.

Before I went to fill my face, however, I decided to give the bookshelves the once over. I took out each book in turn, doing exactly the same as with the magazines. I got quite excited at one stage because a book on political terrorism had pa.s.sages that had been underlined in pencil and notes in the margin, until I looked inside the cover and discovered it was a textbook from her university days.

It took about an hour, but I eventually got to the bottom shelf. Turning the pages of a photo-history of North Carolina, I admired the tree-covered mountains, lakes and wildlife, with bulls.h.i.t blurb in the accompanying captions, "Deer drink contentedly from the pool, next to families enjoying the wonders of the great outdoors." I could almost hear Kelly groaning a "Yeah, right!"

I took a look at her other books, about Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, but they contained nothing but photograph upon photograph of mosques, cypress trees, sand and camels.

I threw them on the floor to check through later and started flicking through the atlas. Then I had second thoughts, deciding to go back to the chair with the atlas and the other three books and do the lot now. As I started a careful, page-by-page check, I found my attention drifting to the traffic in the street below, which I could just about hear through the double-glazing. But it wasn't just my hearing that was wandering. For some reason my mind kept going back to the book about North Carolina.

It usually pays to listen to that inner voice. I stopped looking at the books and just stared at the wall, trying to work out what it was that I was trying to say to myself. When I thought I understood it, I got up and went into her bedroom.

I picked up the shoe box and tipped the contents out onto the bed.

When I'd found what I was looking for it was back to the living room.

Turning the pages of the North Carolina book, I tried to match the photograph with the terrain the type of trees, the background hills, the lakeside. Nothing. The spark was soon put out. It might not necessarily have meant anything, but it might have been a start. My head was starting to hurt. It was time for that burger. I'd be back in an hour to start again. I went to my boots and pushed my feet in, tucking the laces inside, too idle to do them up.

Two minutes later I was standing waiting for the elevator, staring at my boots, when it hit me.

I ran back to the apartment door, opened up and headed for her dressing room.

Sarah must have been the Imelda Marcos of the Washington section.

She must have had about thirty pairs of shoes in all, but there were no hiking boots. All the times I'd been with her, she had always worn them when out on the ground. Like me, when it came to footwear, she was a creature of habit.

I was starting to get sparked up again. I turned and checked the rails.

Where was the Gore-Tex jacket? Where was the fleece liner? She had always worn that sort of clothing, and she had it on in the photograph.

It wasn't so much what I saw as what I didn't. Her outdoor clothing; it wasn't here.

I couldn't go to McDonald's. I had to keep thinking about this. I went into the kitchen and threw some noodles into a pan, filled it up with water and got it boiling on the stove.

I realized that was what had been bugging me. I'd known it all along but hadn't switched on, and the ironic thing was that it was Sarah who'd taught me.

She was in the middle of one of her very heated, noisy meetings. We'd been stuck in a cave for hours, the smoke from a large fire stinging my eyes and casting dark shadows in the background, just where I wanted to see the most. Two mujahedin were sitting cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in blankets and cradling their AKs. I'd never seen them at other meetings before, and they seemed out of place amongst the other three members of their group who were by the fire.

Sarah was also sitting on the floor, draped in blankets beside the fire with the other three muj. They were all drinking coffee as Sarah got more sparked up with them. The two men in the shadows started muttering between themselves and looking agitated, and eventually they pushed off their blankets and grasped their weapons. In a situation like that there are only seconds in which to make a decision to go for it or not. I did; I put my AK into the aim as I stood over Sarah.

The result was a Mexican standoff, like something out of a spaghetti western. For two or three seconds all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. Sarah cut the silence.

"Nick, sit down. You're embarra.s.sing me."

I was very confused as she talked to all the mujahedin. She sounded like a parent apologizing for her toddler's behavior in the playground.

Everyone looked at me and started to laugh, as if I were some sort of schoolboy who'd got it all wrong. All weapons were dropped and the talking continued. Even the two boys sitting at the back looked on me as some sort of mascot. I was expecting them to come over and ruffle my hair at any moment.

It was only when we were on our way back to Pakistan that she explained.

"There was no danger, Nick. The old guy the one we saw last month?" She smiled as she thought about the event.

"He is the only one with the power to have me killed, and he wasn't there. Those guys at the back were just showing face. Nothing was going to happen." She sounded like a teacher as she added, "It's not only what you see, Nick. Sometimes what isn't there is just as important as what is."

She might have been right that time, but in a similar situation I would still have done the same. Shame on her that she hadn't remembered her own lesson.

I sat down to work out what I wanted to say to Mickey, and the way to say it. I'd already forgotten where I'd put his card, so I got out the 3C, tapped in his name and rang his number.

"h.e.l.looo." He was eating by the sound of it.

"h.e.l.lo, mate, it's Nick."

"Oh, so soon." He sounded quite surprised. I could hear soft rock in the background and an American voice, just as camp as his, inquiring who was on the phone. His voice became distant.

"Gary, go and do something useful in the kitchen. It's the office."

Gary, it seemed, took the hint.

"Sorry about that, he is sooo nosey." I could hear drink being poured and a sip being taken.

"Michael, remember what you were saying about Sarah and Jonathan going to the middle of nowhere?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can you remember exactly where it was? I need it for the report."

He took a quick swallow.

"Yes. Falls Lake." He broke into a terrible Southern accent.

"North Carolina, y'all."

"Do you have an address, or the contact number? You did say that you had a number, remember? You used it to call her."

He laughed.

"Sarah took it off file when old Jonny boy got his comeuppance."

I had reached another dead end.

Then he added, "But I think I can remember most of the number; it was almost the same as my mother's old one. Tell you what, give me five and I'll ring you back, OK?"

"Give it three rings, put down, then ring again. I wouldn't want to pick it up and find I'm talking to her mother or anything like that.

OK?".

"Ooh, just like James Bond." He giggled.

"No problem, Nick. Talk soon, byeee."

I flicked through the book again. Falls Lake did exist, but it covered a vast area. What a d.i.c.khead! Why hadn't I asked him for more detail when he told me the story? Just as well I wasn't in the security cell.

Something was smelling bad. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. The water had boiled away and I pulled a pan of very hot and smelly black noodles from the stove.

I couldn't be a.s.sed to clean it up, just put the pot to one side and turned the cooker off. The phone rang. I walked back into the room, counting. It stopped after three. Good news, I hoped. I let the new call ring twice before picking it up.

"h.e.l.looo, Michael here." I could hear Gary singing to himself in the background.

"h.e.l.lo, mate, any luck?"

"The last four digits are exactly the same as my mother's old number in Mill Hill. Isn't that freaky?"

I really didn't have an answer for that. I contained my eagerness.

"Oh, and what was it?"

"Double four six eight."

"Thanks, mate. You sure that's all you know?"

"Fraid so, Nick. I was just given the contact number. Sorry."

"No problem. I'll let you get on with your evening."

"OK. I'm here if you need me. Byeee."

I looked at my watch. It was about half-past nine--according to my body clock, 2:30 a.m.--and I was starting to feel knackered. In the absence of any noodles, it was soon going to be time to RV with Ronald McDonald, but first I had a phone call to make.

I rang a London number. A very clear female voice answered immediately.

"PIN number, please?" The tone was so precise she sounded like the speaking clock.

"Two four four two, Charlie Charlie "Please wait." The line went dead; five seconds later the voice was back.

"Charlie-Charlie. Details, please."

I gave her the same details as Metal Mickey had given me and asked for the address. I could hear the clinking of keys as she entered the details.

She checked with me: "To confirm. North Carolina, address that ends with call number 4468, perhaps in the vicinity of Falls Lake. It should take approximately thirty minutes. Reference fifty-six, fifty-six. Goodbye."