'Sheer bloody blackmail.'

'I'm sorry it strikes you like that.'

'What made you think I'd need "persuading" to stay in?'

'I knew that the moment you saw me here you'd start giving us trouble.' He came and picked up the letter and put it away. 'So you refuse to stay with the mission?'

'No.'

The nerves went slack, suddenly, relief I suppose, I'd got somewhere to go now.

'Do you mean you'll stay in, under the Bureau's direction?'

'Yes. I'll do what I can. That's all I can say.'

I wasn't looking at him, just heard the tone in his voice, nothing triumphant, just very quiet, very cool now. 'That's all we require.'

He'd done well. He'd put a five-star ferret down the hole again without touching the sides and he hadn't expected to do it and it had left him impressed.

'Just find her,' I said. 'That was the deal.'

'Of course. We shall start immediately.' He went across to the double gilt-panelled doors and I heard him calling for Flood, talking about signals, or something.

Pepperidge came up, padding quietly. 'Good show. I know they're bastards to work for, but can you think of anyone better?'

'Not really.'

'Their genius,' he said, 'is in the way they know their shadow executives.' He talked quietly, and I could hear Loman's voice out there on a phone, caught the name Croder. 'You've been working under their direction,' Pepperidge told me, 'since the day you came out here. You know that now. But what I like,' he put a hand on my arm, 'is the way they just gave you the clues and let you run. It's how you work best, and they're well aware of that. Take the Kishnar situation.'

I didn't want to think about the Kishnar situation because the depression was still haunting the psyche but the left brain was catching onto something and I took a look at it and said, 'Jesus Christ. Was that briefing?'

Faint smile. 'Yes, old boy.'

All right. First class. First class direction in the field and not from Pepperidge, not from Loman, but from the Chief of Control, London, Croder, because only he had the authority to push the executive for the mission right to the brink and leave him there.

Unless you can think of a quicker way.

Pepperidge, at the clinic. And I'd said I could. And when he'd left there last night he'd known almost for certain that I was going to do the only thing that could be done at this phase of the mission because whatever new direction they found for me I wouldn't be able to take it until Kishnar was off my back and out of the way. It had been the first action conceivable and they'd known I'd see that and they'd left me there at the brink to make up my mind and that was why Pepperidge had set up a new safe-house - this place - and had it ready for me and got Loman here waiting to put the whole thing on the line.

'First class,' I said.

Pepperidge gave a brief nod. 'I rather hoped you'd say something like that. Because it was.'

Something else they'd done, but I didn't want to think about that.

'Look,' I said, 'I need some sleep now. Is there any kind of bed in this place?'

'I'll show you.'

He shepherded me through the rooms, solicitous, avuncular, which was what a good local director ought to be, hit a shoulder on a doorway going through, not him, I mean I did, hand on my arm.

'Been a busy day,' he said. 'There's a registered nurse here, by the way, if you need any attention.'

'She pretty?' Fell on the bed and slept.

'No. But you should leave that to us.'

Damn him.

She went on soaking the blood away.

I'd simply asked him if there were any news of Katie.

'How are you feeling, old boy?'

Pepperidge, on the couch, looking taut, confident. He'd got a ferret to run and felt ready.

'Operational.'

'I'm so glad.'

Understandable: Loman was going to handle the main briefing in very close liaison with Croder in London but when the final action phase began it'd be Pepperidge who'd have to judge whether I was fit enough to go in.

I was. I'd slept well, nearly seven hours, woke once to find Kishnar bending over me - shadow on the wall, that was all - then it was morning and Flood brought me some coffee, life beginning again, I'd come close to losing it.

'I want to assure you,' Loman said, 'that there'll be no repercussions regarding what occurred last night. Briefly, neither the UK nor Singapore want to see the stability of Southeast Asia compromised and they're more than willing to protect the clinic from bad publicity and order the police to hold off. The media never even caught a whiff.'

The rest of the dressing came away and she dropped it into the bowl. Same nurse as last night and obviously Bureau or she wouldn't be here.

'I've arranged to have the body of Manif Kishnar delivered in a plain coffin to the house in Saiboo Street. I deemed this not only courteous, since he was in effect an adversary defeated in the field, but also a gesture of the greatest possible provocation to Shoda personally, since she apparently came here to claim your head, not his.'

Yes, she'd get the point.

Bitch!

He could have killed me.

'Hurt?'

'What?'

'Sting?'

'No.'

Bloody iodine, felt like razor blades.

She began on the dressing.