'You just dare touch her,' said Rawcliff.

Pol shook with laughter. 'My friend, I am too old for that kind of sport! A man of my age and appearance is left to enjoy those few pleasures that remain until the grave - good food, good wine, and from time to time, perhaps, alittle excitement.'

'Like blowing up the latest Soviet plutonium plant in the Middle East?'

'Ah, you and Madame Rawcliff are indeed very astute Again 1 must congratulate you both.'

'So it seems that we both hold the same hand?'

'Not necessarily. The final hand has yet to be dealt' - he winked sublimely - 'and / shall be dealing it.' He gestured again towards the leather case beside him. 'This contains, among other things, your flight-plan. As you see, I entrusted it to no one, let alone the international mails. Instead, I risked bringing it here myself and entrusting it personally to Monsieur Peters, who will duly pa.s.s it on to my lieutenant. Monsieur Serge. As I told you, you will only receive your final orders just before take-off.' He shrugged, 'A standard precaution - one practised by all Air Forces and secret missions in time of war.

'Now, I am not a vindictive man - not, at least, on account of such a minor pecadillo as yours. In fact, I find it rather amusing, rather sportif.

However, this is a serious business. It has already been reported to me that one of your number has been lost, together with his aircraft. That leaves only five of you - and one of those, I understand, is afflicted by bizarre tendencies. Some nervous complaint, yet?'

Rawcliff stared at him, still saying nothing. Pol sipped the last of his champagne. 'But while discipline must be maintained, time is too short, and the stakes too high, for me to indulge in the petty luxury of retribution. I had to pay a relatively large sum to the Saudi Arabian Government to procure your release from prison last night. Your compatriot, Monsieur Thurgood' - he p.r.o.nounced it 'Troged' - 'will have the sum deducted from his final payment.

His behaviour was childish and irresponsible. But in your case I shall be more generous. I admire a man with enterprise, even if it should slightly inconvenience me. You will remain my guest at this hotel, Monsieur Rawcliff, until you are required to complete your role in the operation.

'Meanwhile, you look as though you need some sleep, man cher! And a good meal will do you no harm. You may order what you wish - though I advise against alcohol. Any personal effects you need, you may purchase here through the hotel staff. In due time, a car will collect you and drive you back to the airfield at Larnaca. Your mission will then follow its normal course. At its successful completion, the balance of the agreed sum will be paid into your Swiss bank. I think that is reasonable?'

Rawcliff knew there was a catch: there had to be. 'Thank you. But what's the price?'

'Only the minor inconvenience of having Monsieur Peters here to keep you company. I understand that you are not the best of friends?' - he broke into his giggle - 'but I am sure Monsieur Peters will be very discreet and will leave you alone. I would enjoy having a late lunch with you, but I must return on the next plane. As I have said, time is short, and it moves fast.' He began to heave himself to his feet; the effort brought the sweat glistening to his forehead and round the edges of his goatee beard.

'Au revoir, Monsieur Rawcliff. There is always the chance that we will have the pleasure of meeting again. And just one thing - look after Madame Rawcliff. As I said, she is obviously an admirable woman. It would be unjust if she had to suffer on account of some foolish indiscretion on your part.' Rawcliffs fists tightened at his sides, and he saw Peters reach quickly for his left-hand pocket. He stood up and shook the fat man by his podgy pink hand. He wondered what the Frenchman would say.if he were to be told about Ritchie and Jo - that the ears of Washington and Moscow and Jerusalem, and no doubt London, were already tuned in to every move of the operation? That might just perhaps be Rawcliff's winning card.

Peters nudged him by the arm and led him away to the reception desk.

Nine.

'Hey, Judith, are you feeling okay?' Cy Reynolds had taken off his spectacles and was peering curiously at Mrs Rawcliff.

She had come back to the table and sat down, without a word. She now began to shake.

'Honey, you look ill,' Reynolds said. The others round the table were obviously embarra.s.sed; she was the only woman among them, and while they accepted her as a professional equal, feminine emotion was ill-favoured in the boardroom.

She managed ft> get a cigarette alight and said, 'I'm sorry. Cy. It was long-distance, from the Middle East. I was cut off half-way through. I couldn't get back.'

'Anything important?' Cy Reynolds' voice had become a fraction harder.

'A personal matter, Cy. They tried to get through last night, but all the lines were engaged.'

Reynolds had put his spectacles back on and turned again to his notes. He frowned. 'Now, what have we got? Some idiot here has written, "Extended Binary Code for Decimal Interchange Characters". I've said always use the abbreviation, EBCDC.'

'Excuse me, Cy,' someone said. 'Last week you put in a memo to all staff to avoid abbreviations, so as not to cause unnecessary confusion.'

Reynolds seemed not to have heard. 'Judith, you've thrown my thoughts. For Chrissake, try to take your personal calls out of the conference-room!'

She flared up. First her b.l.o.o.d.y husband had b.u.g.g.e.red off, then he'd sent her on a wild chase after a computer 'write-out', and she'd had to raise 200 to pay off some morbid horror in a bowler hat to sell her some info, about a Soviet plutonium plant that was all over the day's papers. She'd got herself chased by some spooky 'chauffeur' in a blue Volvo, then spent an agitated and sleepless night, only to be able to bawl her husband out next morning, and be cut off in mid-sentence. Now she had her flat-footed American employer creasing up his forehead and complaining like a child that she had interrupted his flow of magnetic thought.

'I think you'd better get on without me,' she said, standing up. She turned and walked out of the room.

Back in her office she was informed of what she already knew: that there wasno way of tracing an STD international call, even through the agencies of Interpol. But she had at least something to go on. He had said that he was in Larnaca. A quick check with the Tourist Information Office of the Cyprus High Commission told her that there were only four hotels in Larnaca open in winter.

Again she considered the possibility of the line being tapped. To be absolutely safe, she should put through her calls to Cyprus from the Hilton, round the corner. But the precaution seemed a luxury, and a waste of vital time. But also, secretly, she was unwilling to pander to her husband, in something that might amount to criminal activity. Judith Rawcliff had a certain rect.i.tude where the law was concerned, and it was in an ambivalent mood of wifely concern tempered with b.l.o.o.d.y-mindedness that she made her first call to Larnaca, to the Sun Hall Hotel, which she had been told was the largest in the town, and therefore the most likely.

After a delay, she was told there was no one registered there in the name of Rawcliff. Then she remembered that he'd said something about operating under the suspect cover of an international relief organization. Yes, the clerk at the Sun Hall informed her, there were five members of a Red Cross team staying at the hotel. After another delay, she was put through to one of them.

'Yes?' a man's voice said carefully.

'My name's Judith Rawcliff. I want to speak to my husband.'

'I'm not sure I can help you. Who are you again?'

'Don't be a b.l.o.o.d.y moron! Who do I sound like? - hi; bank manager?'

'I'm not a moron,' Ritchie said with feeling. 'But your husband is not registered at this hotel.'

'Then where is he? Please - I beg of you! It's a matter of life and death.'

'All right. But don't call back here - I take no responsibility. He's at a place called the Lord Byron Hotel. And the line clicked dead.

The man's last words had hardly rea.s.sured her. The Red Cross must be running a very tight little ship down in Larnaca.

She got the number of the Lord Byron from international inquiries, but it was only on the fifth attempt that she managed to get a ringing tone. The line was very bad. Finally a monosyllabic Greek came on the line. 'Mis-tair Rawcleeff?'

it repeated twice, stupidly. 'Okay, I call 'eem! She could hear confused noises in the background, like the sounds of a party.

A strange voice came on the line, sharp, yet laconic. 'Yeah, who is it?'

'I'm Mrs Rawcliff. I want to speak to my husband, urgently.'

'Holy Moses! Where the h.e.l.l are you?'

'I'm calling from London. Please, is my husband there?'

'How the h.e.l.l did you get on to this place?'

'He called me, but we were cut off. Please, this is desperately important.'

'Hang on, I'll get him.' She waited at her desk, limp and trembling. The line cracked and whined; at any moment, she feared, it would go dead again. She had fumbled another cigarette into her mouth and was drawing on it, when the man came back on the line: 'He's not here, lady.'

'Where is he?'

'How the h.e.l.l should I know? I'm not his nanny. He's p.i.s.sed off. Hey, Taki, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d - fill me up again!'

'Will you give him a message?' she cried in panic.

There was a pause. 'What was that?'

'Please,' she said slowly. 'Give him a message. Say I rang. It's private, family business. Ask him to ring me back as soon as he gets in. I'm at the office.''

'All right, I'll tell him.' He hung up.

She sat at her desk staring for several long minutes at the column of figures.

CAP Sugar quotas for the past six months; marching down the page like soldier-ants. She was wondering how much more of this she could take. If he now knew the mission's target, and they had just been cut off, why didn't he ring back? It was now nearly an hour since she had talked to him, and even while her own line had been engaged, the switch-board would have registered any incoming calls. The girl confirmed that there had been none.

The light on her intercom winked and Cy's voice came on. 'Forgive my harsh words, darling! Let's interface over lunch and .think laterally - solve your problem. Club sandwich at the Hard Rock. Collect you in ten minutes.'

'Sorry, Cy. I've got to wait by the phone. It's Charles -he's going to ring me back.'

'If there's anything I can do, honey?'

'I'll let you know.'

Ten.

Rawcliff's first, overwhelming temptation, on entering the antiseptic luxury of the Hilton bedroom, was to flop down into a deep dreamless sleep. Even Pol's malign jollity could not jar him out of his bone-aching weariness. He knew now that he was in serious, perhaps mortal, peril - that he was already marked down as a potential traitor to the operation and that his only remaining hope of salvation lay in the far that the fat man and his accomplices could not at this stage afford to lose another pilot.

But as soon as the operation was over - even supposing that they survived - the moment of truth would come. But Rawcliff was no coward. His weaknesses were more those of self-indulgence and sloth, rather than lack of moral fibre But nor was he naturally given to heroics. He knew one thing for sure. He needed an ally. Of all the bunch Ryderbeit was the only possibility. The Rhodesian was a loner, a seasoned adventurer, a wild man, and a killer. He might well take chances, even reckless ones, but he would surely draw the linewhen the odds seemed hopeless Rawcliff felt that as long as the Rhodesian was in on the deal. the hand was not entirely lost.

But there was another reason why he needed Ryderbeit. The Rhodesian evidently enjoyed some 'special relationship' with Pol; and while Pol might be amused to indulge Rawcliff, on a temporary basis, the whim might pa.s.s. Like Robespierre, Pol was a man who would wake up in the morning with a whim, and by afternoon it would be law.

The Frenchman had left Rawcliff with a wish that they might perhaps meet again. But he had also left him with a warning. A warning about Judith.

Rawcliff, in his greed to know the final objective of the operation, had involved her, imperilled her. And the thought of her and Tom, alone in that little house in Battersea, made him feel slightly ill.

He must somehow warn her.

The solution was obvious - it lay right there by the bed. Whatever the power and influence of that fat French gangster, Rawcliff doubted that they extended so far as to corrupt the international sanct.i.ty of the Hilton organization - though the man had not done so badly, he remembered, with the Red Cross.

Rawcliff reached the bed and lifted the telephone. A girl's voice came on immediately and he asked for a call to be put through at once to London. She chimed at him, in her cheerful trans-Atlantic accent, 'Thank you, sir - I'll call you right back!' He put down the receiver and heard a faint click behind him. The communicating door into the next room had opened and Peters stood looking at him. He had the little .22 in his hand, pointing low.

'You're a stupid man, Rawcliff. You answer that phone when it rings and I'll shoot off both your big toes. You'll still be able to fly, after Jo's patched you up, but you won't walk again.'

Rawcliff stretched himself out on the bed. 'You're a charming fellow, Peters.

How have you managed to live so long?'

'I'm careful.'

The phone purred beside the bed. Peters reached it in a couple of strides.

'Cancel that call to London,' he said, and replaced the receiver. His cold brutal face smiled down at Rawcliff. 'It's all right, your end hadn't answered.' He stepped neatly out of Rawcliffs range. 'So there's no chance of your little wife tracing you here - if you haven't told her already. And if you have, too bad. For her, as well as for you.'

Rawcliff closed his eyes. When he opened them again he saw Peters sitting by the window. 'Like a b.l.o.o.d.y night-nurse,' he muttered.

Peters did not move or reply. A moment later Rawcliff was asleep.

He was woken at 6.30 by the floor-waiter, bringing fresh-cut English sandwiches and a pot of black coffee. Peters had still not moved. They ate quickly, in total silence.

At 7.15 exactly they left the hotel together, Peters again just a step behind him, with his right hand in his side pocket, pressed against Rawcliff's side.

In his free hand he carried the small white leather vanity-case.

A smart new BMW, with a Cypriot driver, was waiting for them outside. Petersopened the rear door and climbed in beside Rawcliff, the little gun now pressed hard against his ribs. The driver obviously knew their destination and drove off without a word.

The silence endured throughout the drive, down across the rocky yellow hills towards Larnaca and the sea. The chauffeur drove fast arid skilfully. He took a short cut round the scruffy outskirts of the town and joined the road out to the airfield. On the last stretch they came up in the dusty wake of one of the Suzukis. They stopped together in front of the gate, which was opened for them by Serge. The driver dropped them on the near side of the runway; and, without exchanging a word, turned the car around and drove away.

Peters handed the white leather bag to Serge, who took it with an air of grave ceremony. Rawcliff wondered if the Frenchman already knew about the interlude in Nicosia; but if he did, he gave no sign of it, It was a fine evening and the weather reports from all coastal stations predicted perfect flying conditions for the next twelve hours. The loading and fuelling routines followed the same arduous pattern as two nights ago, except that this time they had to manhandle, with the help of the fork-lift trucks, the segregated drums Which had been earmarked for mining operations in the Indian Ocean.

These had to be rolled up into the hold of each aircraft and lashed down separately; and when the floor was covered, they were followed by a second layer of the identical but much lighter surplus fuel-drums - five layers in all, two of high-explosives, three of JP fuel - while the fork-lifts finally served each Hercules with one of the crates packed with half a ton of loose nuts and bolts and nails, which were now sprinkled and shovelled down every crevice between the murderous drums, and the floor and walls of the aircraft.

Each a monstrous club sandwich of death.

Rawcliff worked and watched with a sense of suspended morality, as though all his values, his standards and beliefs, had been short-circuited. If, at this late lethal stage, he did pause to wonder, even to question the validity of the task ahead, it was only to ask himself why such a ma.s.sive demolition job should have to include five half-plane-loads of precious high-octane aviation fuel, as well as a heavy seasoning of cheap sharp metal that would rip white-hot [through the skin of each aircraft, travelling at the speed of a bullet, slicing through roasting flesh and charred limbs; while it would be the power of the high explosive - only half the cargo - which would heave up and crack open whole bunkers and underground silos of ferro-concrete.

Matt Nugent-Ross had told him that each plane would become one giant napalm-c.u.m-anti-personnel bomb. If so, half their mission must be to kill and maim, as well as to destroy. A Soviet nuclear installation would mean foreign technicians - Russians, as well as a few ubiquitous Czechs and East Germans; and they might even have tossed in a brigade of Cubans to guard the perimeter.

All of whom might be considered fair game, in the sub-morality of the Cold War. But that would no doubt still leave an array of wretched locals - primitive, innocent tribesmen, press-ganged away from their tents and flocks of sheep, or just left watching helplessly from the touch-line, waiting to be blasted and spattered across the rocky desert of what it pleased some people to call the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen. The mystery was compounded towards midnight, by the sight of Serge coming out of the office at the back of the hangar, carrying the small steel box which was supposed to contain hermetically-sealed serum. He broke it open, in full view of the five pilots, and Rawcliff saw, neatly packed inside a cushion of polystyrene, what looked like six sh.e.l.l-casings, or the magnified tips of ballpoint pens.

Matt Nugent-Ross had appeared beside Rawcliff. Until now, the American hadcontinued to work silently, and largely unseen, fitting the complex electrical circuits of the guidance-systems into the auto-pilot of each Hercules. But the sight of the open steel box seemed to have animated him. either prompting his curiosity or his conscience. He nodded down at the six steel points.

'Barometric detonators. Beautiful! Set to go off when the aircraft sink to a certain alt.i.tude.' He spoke with the detached respect that a professional reserves for a true work of craftmanship.

Rawcliff turned, frowning. So far the American had not even paused to inquire about how his phone call had gone. 'Detonators?' he repeated, nodding up at the row of Hercules, and at the same time remembering the flaming pyre of Grant's aircraft as it blew up on that lava beach in the Sudan. 'To set off that lot?'

'Sure - if you want maximum spread. Zap! Wham!' Matt turned his slim hands palms upward and smiled. 'That way somebody'll be getting up into the Hiroshima stakes.'

He did not give Rawcliff time to comment, but slipped effortlessly away into the shadow of one of the planes. And Rawcliff knew that he should share his knowledge of the target. Expensive, inanimate technology - most of it -probably buried underground. No need for such elaborate devices as barometric fuses, or crude non-essentials like nuts and bolts. Even the blazing heat of the fifty-odd tons of fuel would hardly be sufficient to make much impact on deeply-concealed bunkers.

Rawcliff knew there was something badly wrong here. Something wrong with Judith's information, perhaps? Yet while she was now involved in whatever messy, murderous mission lay ahead - and it wasn't just a few nuclear reactors hidden out in the desert, he was sure of that - he also remembered that Matt still might have an open line to the Americans. All Rawcliff had to do now was condemn Judith, if only by his a.s.sociation with Matt, as a CIA informer.

Oh G.o.d. He rested on a crate, watching dully as Serge began to hand out five of the detonators, to be loaded aboard the fleet of aircraft, each lodged under the co-pilot's seat. They all had timing devices which were explained to the pilots: a circular screw-dial, with a fixed setting, which was only to be turned on when Peters gave the final order. Rawcliff could see little scope here for the odd bit of calculated mischief. The fuses looked very solid, and there appeared to be no way of damaging them, without it being obvious to Peters, or anyone else inspecting them.