'Nor we of you - not after tonight's performance. I had mentioned the possibility of finding a permanent niche with us. That's no longer a possibility, it's a guarantee if you're still of the same mind.' 'Of course I'm of the same mind. Tonight, you had a free demonstration. Now, I would appreciate some steady employment.'

'The point I was about to raise. I think you arc now ent.i.tled to be taken into our confidence.'

Van Effen looked at him in silence, took a thoughtful sip of his schnapps and smiled. 'Not, I feel certain, your full confidence. You are not about to tell me your ultimate aims. You are not going to tell me how you came together. You're not going to tell me how you are financed or by whom. You are not going to tell me where you stay- although, if we're to work together in however limited a capacity, you'll have to give me some intermediate contact phone number. You're not even going to tell me why, in what would appear to be an otherwise highly organized set-up, you require my services at such a late date.' Agnelli was thoughtful. 'That's a lot of things you seem to be certain that we're not going to tell you. How come?'

Van Effen let a little impatience show. 'Because that is precisely the way I would behave myself. The need-to-know principle. I'm sure I don't have to remind you of that again. What I do believe -is that you are about to let me into your very limited confidence about your immediate operational plans. No abnormal prescience on my part. You have to. If, that is to say, I'm to be of any use to you.'

'Correct on all counts. Tell me, Mr Danilov, are you in a position to acquire explosives?'

'Good G.o.d!'

'Is that so extraordinary a question to ask of an explosives expert?' 'My astonishment was not at the fact that you ask me. I'm surprised that - well, that such an organized group should embark upon what I take to be an ambitious project without the essentials to hand.' 'We have some of what you call the essentials. We may not have enough. Are you in a position to help?'

'Directly, no.'

'Indirectly?'

'Perhaps. I would have to make enquiries.'

'Discreet, of course.'

Van Effen sighed. 'Please don't be so naive. If it were possible to obtain explosives without official permission in the Netherlands you would already have done so.'

'Sorry. Silly remark. But we have to protect ourselves. Your contact would not, of course, obtain supplies - if he could - in a legitimate fashion?' 'I'm not being indiscreet in saying that, to the best of my knowledge, my contact has never been involved in any legitimate dealings in his life. He would regard it as an affront to his professional code. He is also, incidentally, the only man in the country who knows more than I do about explosives.'

'Sounds like a person whose acquaintance it might be useful to make.' Agnelli studied his gla.s.s then looked at van Effen.

'Not by any chance your friend Vasco? The person who introduced us at the Hunter's Horn?'

'Good lord, no. 'van Effen creased his brow and compressed his lips. 'Vasco is hardly what you might call my friend, Mr Agnelli. I got him out of bad trouble, once, and have employed him occasionally on some none-too-demanding errands. But we are not soul mates. I'm quite certain that Vasco knows nothing about explosives, has no access to them and would find it difficult to obtain a child's cap pistol in a toy shop.' Agnelli turned to his brother and shrugged. 'Had we known that, Leonardo, you wouldn't have spent so much time looking for him this afternoon.' 'Vasco frequently disappears,' van Effen said. 'Has a girlfriend in Utrecht, I believe. You are seriously trying to tell me that you were, also seriously, thinking of engaging Vasco's services?' 'Not exactly, but

'He comes in the front door and I go out the back and that's that,' van Effen said. 'He's unstable, unpredictable and highly dangerous, whether he means to be or not.'

'I don't quite understand what you mean by that.'

'And I don't quite understand you. You mean you've never even bothered to check on him, his background?'

'We didn't check yours.'

'You didn't have to,' van Effen said bleakly. 'Not with all those extradition wan-ants hanging around.'

Agnelli smiled. 'That was this morning and this morning has been forgotten. You obviously know something about Vasco that we don't.' 'Obviously. He's bad. Poison. He's the cla.s.sic example of game-keeper turned poacher. He's treacherous and a man full of hate. He hates the law and the society that law protects - or is supposed to protect. He's that most dangerous of criminals, an ex-cop gone wrong.' 'A policeman?' Agnelli's surprise, van Effen thought, was splendidly done. Police!'

'Ex. No public accusation of wrong-doing, far less a trial. Dismissed without explanation - although doubtless there would have been an explanation made to Vasco. just try making some discreet enquiries at the Utrecht police station about a certain ex-Sergeant Westenbrink and see what kind of dusty answers you get. My friend George is a different kettle of fish entirely. A firm believer in honour -among thieves. An honest criminal, if such a contradiction in terms exists.'

'This George is your explosives friend?' Van Effen nodded. 'He has a second name?'

'No.'

'Do you think he'd work for me?'

'George never works for anyone. He might be prepared to work with someone. Another thing. George never works through anyone. Not even through me. He's a very careful man. His police record is clean and he wants to keep it that way. He talks to princ.i.p.als only and then it must be face to face.'

'That's the way I like it. Do you think you could get him to talk to me?' 'Who knows? I could ask him. Not here though.'

'Why not?

'Because I'd advise him against it. He knows I wouldn't do that without reason. Where can I contact you?'

'I'll contact you. At the Trianon.'

'I won't make any comments about how touching your trust in me is. Tomorrow morning.'

'Tonight. Ten o'clock.'

'You are in a hurry. No point, I suppose, in asking you the compelling nature of this deadline you so obviously have to meet. Besides, I told you, I have a nine-thirty appointment.'

'Ten o'clock.' Agnelli rose. 'You will of course try to see your friend immediately. I'll put a car at your disposal.'

'Please, Mr Agnelli. Don't be so naive.'

Seven.

'That's an Esfahan rug you're standing on,' Colonel de Graaf said. 'Very rare, very expensive.'

'I've got to drip on to something,' van Effen said reasonably. He was standing before the fire in the Colonel's luxuriously furnished library, steam gently rising from his saturated clothing. 'Not for me a door-to-door chauffeur-driven limousine. I have to cope with taxis that go home to roost when the first drop of rain falls and with people who seemed anxious to know where I was going. It didn't seem clever to let them know that I was going to the house of the Chief of Police.'

'Your friend Agnelli doesn't trust you?'

'Difficult to say. Oh, sure, it was Agnelli who had me followed - couldn't have been anyone else. But I'm not sure that he's suspicious of me - I think that, on principle, he just doesn't trust anyone. Difficult character to read. You'd probably like him. Seems friendly and likeable enough - you really have to make an effort to a.s.sociate him with anything like blackmail and torture - and even then you find it difficult to convince yourself. Which means nothing. I a.s.sume you had a comfortable evening, sir - that you didn't have to cope with the elements or the thought that you might be shot in the back at any moment.'

De Graaf made a dismissive gesture which could have meant either that such considerations were irrelevant trifles or that they could not possibly apply to him in the first place. 'An interesting meeting, but only to a limited extent. I'm afraid Bernhard wasn't in a particularly receptive or co-operative frame of mind.' Bernhard was Bernhard Dessens, the Minister of justice.

'A dithering old woman, scared to accept responsibility, unwilling to commit himself and looking to pa.s.s the buck elsewhere?' 'Exactly. I couldn't have put - I've told you before, Peter, that's no way to talk about cabinet ministers. There were two of them. Names Riordan and Samuelson. One - person calling himself Riordan - could have been in disguise. The other had made no attempt at any such thing which can only mean that he's pretty confident about something or other. Riordan had long black hair - shoulder-length, in fact, I thought that ludicrous style had gone out of fashion ten years ago - was deeply tanned, wore a Dutch bargee cap and sun-gla.s.ses.'

'Anything so obvious has to be a disguise. 'van Effen thought for a moment. 'He wasn't by any chance very tall and preternaturally thin?' De Graaf nodded. 'I thought that would occur to you at once. The fellow who commandeered that ca.n.a.l boat from - who was it?'

'At Schiphol? Dekker.'

'Dekker. This must be the man Dekker described. And d.a.m.ned if I don't agree with your bizarre suggestion that this fellow - Riordan or whatever - is an albino. Dark gla.s.ses. Heavy tan to hide an alabaster complexion. Black hair to hide white. Other fellow - Samuelson - had white hair, thick and very wavy, white moustache and white goatee beard. No albino, though - blue eyes. All that white hair would normally bespeak advanced years but his face was almost completely unlined. But, then, he was very plump, which may account for the youthful skin. Looked like a cross between an idealized concept of a US Senator and some bloated plutocrat, oil billionaire or something like that.'

'Maybe he's got a better make-up resin than Riordan.' 'It's possible. Both men spoke in English, from which I a.s.sumed that Samuelson couldn't speak Dutch. Both made a point of stating that they were Irish-Americans and I have no doubt they were. I don't have to be Hector or one of his professorial friends to know that - the north-east or New York accent was very strong. Riordan did nearly all the talking- '

'He asked - no, he demanded - that we contact the British government. More exactly, he demanded we act as intermediaries between the FFF ' and Whitehall on the basis that Whitehall would be much more likely to negotiate with another government than with an unknown group such as they were. When Bernhard asked what on earth they could possibly want to discuss with Whitehall they said they wanted to have a dialogue about Northern Ireland, but refused to elaborate further until the Dutch Government agreed to co-operate.'

De Graaf sighed. 'Whereupon, alas, our Minister of justice, seething and fulminating, while at the same time knowing d.a.m.n well that they had him over a barrel, climbed on to his high horse and said it was inconceivable, unthinkable, that a sovereign nation should negotiate on behalf of a band of terrorists. He carried on for about five minutes in this vein, but I'll spare you all the parliamentary rhetoric. He ended up by saying that he, personally, would die first. 'Riordan said that he very much doubted that Dessens would go to such extraordinary lengths and further said that he was convinced that fourteen million Dutchmen would take a diametrically opposite point of view. Then he became rather unpleasantly personal and threatening. He said it didn't make the slightest d.a.m.n difference to anything if he, Dessens, committed suicide on the spot, for the Oostlijk-Flevoland d.y.k.e in the vicinity of Lelystad would go at midnight if the government didn't agree to talk terms by ten o'clock tonight. He then produced a paper with a list of places which, he said, were in immediate danger of going at any moment. He didn't say whether or not mines had already been placed in those areas - the usual uncertainty technique.