You take your chances, don't you, old sport? Peters -is rough.'

'He's also stupid. He started to threaten my wife and child.' Rawcliff sat up straighter. 'Let me tell you something, Ritchie. I don't mind you people leaning on me - I can look after myself. But if any of you goes near my family, I'll kill him. That's not a melodramatic threat. I'd willingly go to prison for it.'

Ritchie nodded gravely. 'I'm sorry about that - I really am. I don't know quite how much Newby's told you, but this is a pretty high-powered operation, and sometimes you can't just pick and choose your colleagues. Peters may be a hard b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but from what I hear he's d.a.m.ned efficient. You probably rubbed him up the wrong way. You have to be careful with that sort. You are coming in with us?' he added, not looking at Rawcliff as he said it.

'Do I still have the option?''

Ritchie smiled pleasantly. 'No, I don't suppose you have, now I come to think of it.'

Rawcliff drank some more brandy; the floor had stopped swaying and his head had eased. 'What's the exact pecking order in this business?'

'Newby's the boss this end - though I've no idea who's behind it. And Peters is the senior pilot. If he gives an order, we snap to.'

'Who are the others?'

Ritchie paused; got out a packet of cigarettes, offered one and lit his own.

'There's a chap called Thurgood - you've probably heard of him, from your friend, Mason? He's the radio expert. Very odd fish. Then there's an ex-Army bloke called Grant.'

'That makes five - if you include me.'

'I don't know the sixth. Some a.s.sociate of Peters. Rhodesian mercenary, I understand.'

'Oh G.o.d, not another of those?'

'He's abroad, helping to fix things up.' 'Where's that?'

Ritchie paused again and frowned. 'Look, sport, I'm like you - one of the odds and sods. I don't want to speak out of turn. If they need to tell us something, they tell us in their own time. All we do is carry out orders and collect our fifty thou' at the end of it.' He looked up, with his easy smile, man-to-man, 'And there's Jo, of course. Musn't forget her!'

'What's she got to do with it?'

'Did Newby give you any idea what this operation is about?'

'He said something about a mercy-mission, all wrapped up in secrecy to avoid international red tape.'

'Yes. Well, as I said, Jo's a trained nurse. VSO -57 Voluntary Service Overseas. She's only over here on leave.'

'You mean she's part of the team? Sits up on the blankets and tents and stretchers like the marzipan queen on top of the cake, just to make it look sweeter?'

'Don't underestimate her, sport. Nurses are a lot tougher than most of us - they have to be, they see too much of the dirty underbelly of life. Anyway, she'll be useful if one of us goes sick or gets bitten by a snake. As well as promoting good relations with the natives.'

'What natives?'

'Ah!' - Ritchie laid a broad finger along the edge of his nose - 'there again you go asking questions I can't answer. I don't know. Honestly. Except it's not Greenland or the Arctic Circle.'

Rawcliff looked at his watch. It was nearly five o'clock. His stomach heaved again. 'I've got to go. Get me a taxi -black cab this time - one whose number I can take if he tries to lure me into another w.a.n.ker's club to get me kicked in the goolies.'

'Newby's calling round here at seven. He wants to see you.'

'Well he can't. I've got a family to get back to. And they're a b.l.o.o.d.y sight more important than New by and the rest of you put together!'

Ritchie sat staring at what was left of his cigarette, then pinched it out in an onyx ashtray by the bed. 'Thank G.o.d I'm single.' He looked up and smiled again. 'I'll run you back. Don't worry, I'm not violent!'

As they left, he called good-bye to Jo, who was preparing something in the open-range kitchen. She waved, without looking up. 'Remember what I told you about those headaches, Mr Rawcliff!'

But Rawcliff had other things to remember and worry about. There had been something about the girl that reminded him uneasily of Judith - her calmness and practicality. He wondered how Ritchie had found her. She hardly seemed his type: young Jim Ritchie would prefer his girls dumb and easy, and Jo looked far from being either.

Ritchie had a Jaguar XJ6 which he drove like an aircraft: calm and skilled, with split-second reactions that dulled any sense of danger.He took the South Bank route, where the traffic was lighter.

'What do you fly?' Rawcliff asked him.

'Beachcraft Duke. Four-seater, twin-engine. Know it?'

'Not personally. Way out of my price range. You do pretty well, I gather?'

'So-so. Not as well as I'd like to. People just haven't the money anymore.

When I started, I used to get parties flying down to the South of France - even as far as Italy and Morocco. With optional ferry-tanks, of course.

Nowadays you get the occasional bunch of stinking Arabs, or a few millionaires flying back to their tax-havens in the Channel Islands.

'Anyway, I only own forty-nine per cent of the company. The rest belongs to Newby - working out of Lichtenstein. What they politely call "tax avoidance".

All nice and legal, too.' He laughed and overtook a juggernaut on the inside; an air-horn blasted at them and made Rawcliff wince. Ritchie's hands were very steady on the wheel.

'Jim, what exactly do you know.about Newby?'

'Business man. Wheeler-dealer. Import, export. Likes the good life, good food, expensive girls.'

'Is he a crook?'

Ritchie took the roundabout at the Elephant and Castle at nearly fifty, his tyres steaming off the wet surface. 'h.e.l.l, what's a crook these days? If I get three endors.e.m.e.nts or done for drunken driving, the computer at Criminal Records stores me away on tape, et voila! - I've got a criminal record - along with your friendly safe-crackers and s.e.x-fiends, and all the rest of the jolly cons!'

'What I mean is, will he be straight with us? Are we going to get paid?'

'Yes, we'll get paid. Newby's got too much at stake to rat on us. Anyway he only has a percentage of the action.'

'He's not the boss?'

Ritchie's face became closed, concentrating on the thickening traffic as they approached Battersea, pa.s.sing the. ugly sprawl of the New Covent Market at Nine Elms, like some freshly erected concrete internment camp. 'Look, sport, don't push me. I told you - I don't know much more than you. And anything you don't know, you'll learn in good time.'

'You're a trusting fellow, aren't you?'

'If you like.'

'And you believe all this c.o.c.k about a secret mercy-mission?'

Ritchie gave him a grim smile. 'You know, I'm beginning to understand why Peters wanted to work you over this afternoon. I'm not in charge - I don't give a d.a.m.n. But if you want to make real trouble for yourself, don't think I'm going to throw you a life-belt. I don't want to know. See?'

They drove for some time in silence. Rawcliff had a vivid image of six huge heavy-bellied transport planes shimmering on some sandy strip, while Jotrotted between the six mercenary pilots, serving long drinks and binding up snake-bitten ankles and slapping hunks of cold meat on to bruised faces.

'You can drop me at the corner here,' he said, as they came into Battersea Park Road. 'This car might upset the social harmony of the street.'

Ritchie pulled up and Rawcliff climbed out into the evening drizzle. He was about to close the door, when Ritchie leant across towards him. 'A word of advice, old sport. Play it easy. Newby and Peters mean business. They won't tolerate being messed around again. As for Peters, I'll do my best to square it with him - though it might be a good idea to apologize.'

'What should I do - send him some flowers?'

Ritchie gave his manly chuckle. 'He might appreciate that, you never know!

Look after yourself.'

Rawcliff heard the Jaguar's growling whine as he walked under the narrow railway bridge, past the Council estate and down the empty street to his semi-detached. He noticed that there were several slates missing and some of the guttering was gone.

Three.

At five that same evening, Group Captain Neil Batsford, Station Commander of Benson Aerodrome, Oxon, received a visit from the officer in charge of Camp Security, Provost Branch.

'Small item, sir, may be nothing in it. I logged it just for the record. Bit of chit-chat from Number Four. Waley reported it. He'd been briefing the men for the German posting. One of them's Flight-Lieutenant Mason who's been on that special course in London. Wife, three kids. Waley was expecting him to be rather sore, being uprooted twice in one week. Not at all, the chap seemed as pleased as Punch! Waley got chatting to him, wondering if there were any domestic problems. After all, you know what it's like in Germany, wives don't always take too well to the new environment.'

'Go on,' said Batsford quietly.

'He told Waley a rather odd story, sir. Waley said he checked it with him and took some notes. I've got it all here.'

When he had finished, Batsford sat tapping a pen against his teeth. 'When did we last have this happen, Provost Marshal?'

'Two years ago, I think it was, sir. Those Belgians who got hold of Yates - wanted a chopper-pilot to help them take over a mine in Zaire. Thank G.o.d Mason had the good sense to turn this one up. Though he's still not entirely happy about the incident, sir. That's why he's so keen on the German posting, in spite of the upheaval.'

'You say it was a chance encounter? With Thurgood?'

'Yes, sir. Rum fellow, Thurgood.'

'Quite. Most unsatisfactory character.' 'I wonder if they know about those headaches of his?'

'I don't suppose he's volunteered the information. Are you recommending that I take this further?'

. 61 'We might mention it to Special Branch, just for the record, sir. And the Ministry had better know, in case they go sniffing around any of our other bases.'

'Quite. If they strike again, we don't want to find ourselves with egg all over our faces. But if it's a really big op, the Ministry may have a whiff of it already. Six C-130s are pretty difficult things to keep hidden. Waley's report may just help tie up the ends.' He pointed his pen at the Provost Marshal. 'Give me those names again - besides Thurgood's.'

At 7.42 that evening Sergeant Bates, of Military Police, Benson, took a radio call from a Thames Valley Panda Patrol: 'Man identified as Flight-Lieutenant Terence Mason, RAF Benson, victim of hit-and-run driver on A 428 to Warborough. Unconscious, multiple injuries, taken by ambulance to Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.'

Batsford was about to go into the Mess. He said into the phone, 'I want Security up here right away. And put me through to Oxford Central, Senior Officer, priority.' Then he called the Mess and told them to send up sandwiches and a pot of tea.

The Inspector said: 'He was found by a young couple driving a van. The girl stayed with him while the man called us from Warborough. Seems he was conscious at first. Said he was. .h.i.t from behind by a Range-Rover, T registration, though he didn't get the number or a sight of the driver. The girl was quite sure about that - sharp, very articulate - will make an excellent witness. In the ambulance Mason was already in a coma. He was admitted to the Radcliffe with fractures to the skull and ribs, and possible internal injuries.'

'Is he expected to live?'

'1 have no information about that, sir. Two officers are by his bed, in case he regains consciousness.'

'Thank you. And keep this line clear.' Batsford looked at the Inspector, then at the Provost Marshal. 'His wife's been informed, I a.s.sume?'

'One of our men drove her to the hospital, sir.'

'Right. I want the local press kept away from her. And I want them kept away from here, too.' He turned to the Inspector. 'I'd appreciate it, under the circ.u.mstances, if you'd play this close to the ground. Simple case of hit-and-run, one of our men injured. No mention of his ident.i.ty, or of the Range-Rover.'

'I'll do my best. But I'm afraid that if he dies, the hospital will release his name.'

'Not if the Special Branch put in the boot, they won't. I'm sorry, Inspector, but there are certain aspects to this case which, in my judgement, should be pa.s.sed to higher authority. If your men can meanwhile establish all they can about the accident - road conditions, why Mason had stopped - breakdown, puncture - usual drill.' 'It's already been done. Slow puncture in the rim of the rear off-side tyre.

Sort of thing you get from vandals, made by any small sharp instrument.

Unlikely to have been an accident. No skid marks, but a dangerous bit of road.

Blind bend for oncoming traffic.'

Batsford nodded. 'I want to know the moment you hear anything more from the hospital.'

As he spoke, the telephone rang. Batsford s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, nodded and thrust the receiver at the policeman. 'For you -urgent.' He sat back and watched the Inspector holding the receiver with one hand and clumsily jotting down notes with the other. He finally hung up.

'Well that's a break, sir. They've got the Range-Rover.'

Four.

'Oh you poor fool! I can just about put up with you feeling sorry for yourself, but now you want to be a hero! You talk about this wonderful Swiss bank account, and all you bring back is a b.l.o.o.d.y great black eye and a sore head.' She was sitting half up in bed, with the light on, while Rawcliff lay-facing the wall.

'Do keep your voice down,' he said, 'you'll wake Tom.'

'Yes - Tom! I'm glad you've given him a thought. I suppose it doesn't matter if he's left without a father and I'm a widow?'

'Oh don't be b.l.o.o.d.y silly.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y silly! Who's talking? You said yourself you don't know what the h.e.l.l it's all about. A mercy-mission, so they told you? Whoever heard of a mercy-mission that was set up with secret phone calls, dangling illegal Swiss numbered accounts in front of your nose, and not telling you what it's all about? Except you've got to fly a plane fifty feet above the ground. That's to avoid radar and missiles - even I know that much! Does that sound like an ordinary mercy-mission to you? Or perhaps you're kidding yourself that you're going into World War Three? G.o.d, you ought to be back at prep school.'

'Do turn out the light, love. I want to sleep.'

'You just want to avoid the issue. I'll tell you something, Charles Rawcliff.