'Wait a minute,' Loman said, and blocked the mouthpiece I and looked at Pepperidge and me and said briefly, 'They've traced the consignment. It's on its way to Prey Veng by air.'

'Where's that?' Pepperidge asked him.

'Across the Mekong from Phnom Penh.' He looked at me now, waiting. Half the component of the mission was in place and I was the second half and he wanted to know if I had any questions. I did. This was a breakthrough.

'Can they open the crates and switch the contents?'

'Can they what?'

'Permission to talk to them.' Strictly formal, right out of the book, because he was a control and the final decision-making was going to be his or Croder's but I'd got the whole thing in my head now, the end-phase, ready to run, and the timing was so critical that we'd have to work by the minute all the way down to zero and that was why I was being formal with Loman because I didn't want to get his back up and put everything in hazard, not now.

He hesitated, then passed me the phone.

'Executive.'

'Salutations.'

My opposite number.

'Listen, this is fully urgent. Can you switch the contents of those crates and let them go through on schedule?'

Short silence. I hadn't made their end-phase any easier.

'You mean shove some pig-iron in them, or something?'

'Yes, whatever you can find. We want them to arrive at their projected destination and ETA as if they'd never been touched. That possible?'

Another silence, then, 'Like fucking things up, don't you?'

Meant yes.

'Christ,' I said, 'I wouldn't mind working with you again.' He'd got us this end of the mission.

'That's not mutual,' he said, 'because you've gone and pissed on the chips, but I suppose that's life.' His tone changed. 'All right, you want everything left intact, shipping labels, manifest, routing, the whole thing. Yes?'

'Yes.'

'And once the crates are there, our end's in the bag and we're completed, that right?'

'Except for getting the Slingshots to the Thai army.'

'Oh yes, we shan't be leaving those things around for the kids to play with in the park, don't worry. Look, can I have confirmation from your control?'

'Hold on.' I turned to Loman. 'You heard what I've asked them to do and they say they can do it and I've worked out our end-phase and it'll give us the only chance we've got, so are you prepared to give me full discretion over this?'

He stood there staring at me with his hands behind him and his feet together and his head on the tilt and I watched him computerising the whole situation including what would happen to him in London if it turned out that he'd let me screw up the mission and drive it into the ground.

Pepperidge had taken a step closer and he was watching me too, his eyes blanked off and his mouth a tight line because he'd catch some of the flak if he let his executive talk his control into a last-ditch spectacular fiasco.

Then Loman made a curt gesture and I gave him the phone and he said, 'Control. I am placing the completion of your operation into the hands of the executive here.'

Gave me the phone back.

'Thank you, sir.'

More than I'd asked for, more than I could have expected, much more - he was giving me immediate responsibility for the whole show.

I said into the phone, 'What's the ETA for that consignment in Prey Veng?'

'21:14 today.'

'Where are you going to make the switch?'

'In Phnom Penh.'

'At the airport?'

'Yes, in a holding warehouse.'

'Clandestine?'

'We've bought two customs people.'

'Not a lot of risk, then.'

'Not a lot. I'd say we've got, you know, around ninety per cent in our favour.'

I whipped through the main essentials to see if I were missing anything, didn't think I was.

'How long is it going to take them to unload the consignment and check on the contents, open up a crate?'

'I can't say, sir. I mean, it's up to them. But it wouldn't take more than a half hour to get the stuff off the kite and then all they'll need is a crowbar.'

So I'd be working inside a time bracket of thirty minutes minimum. But then they'd go through all the crates before they contacted Shoda.

'How many crates are there?'

'Twenty.'

Think. How long would it take to open up twenty crates and go through the whole contents, which was what they'd do before they got on the radio and informed Shoda? An hour. Say an hour. Time bracket, then, of ninety minutes minus an estimated - I looked at Pepperidge - 'From here to the airport, how long?'

'Forty minutes, with the escort.'

Minus an estimated forty minutes and another forty-five minutes for the Shoda jet to start up and taxi and get to the grid. Bracket of five minutes. Five.

Better than zero and I was having to make estimates and I might have longer than that and we still had a chance even if it were shorter below zero. So take the risk, go for it.

'All right,' I said into the phone, 'set it up. Any questions?'