"Right."

"The country's in stasis. Useless government, chaps sitting around waiting for elections that may or may not happen. And if they do happen, will likely as not leave 'em worse off than before. So there's a vacuum. Right?"

"Right," I echoed yet again.

"And we're filling it. Before any of the other b.u.g.g.e.rs do. Because they're all at it, the Yanks, the Chinese, the French, the multinationals, the lot. Trying to get in before the elections. We're intervening, and we're staying. And this time, it's the Congo itself that's going to be the lucky winner."

I attempted yet again to voice my appreciation of all that he had said, but he rode through me.

"Congo's been bleeding to death for five centuries," he went on distractedly. "f.u.c.ked by the Arab slavers, f.u.c.ked by their fellow Africans, f.u.c.ked by the United Nations, the CIA, the Christians, the Belgians, the French, the Brits, the Rwandans, the diamond companies, the gold companies, the mineral companies, half the world's carpetbaggers, their own government in Kinshasa, and any minute now they're going to be f.u.c.ked by the oil companies. Time they had a break, and we're the boys to give it to 'em."

His restless eye had switched to Monsieur Jasper at the other end of the fuselage, who was holding up his arm in the manner of the checkout clerk at our Battersea mini-market when she hasn't got enough pound coins.

"Part two of your sealed orders tomorrow," he announced and, grabbing his gas mask case, struck off down the aisle.

When you're under Maxie's spell your brain gets anaesthetised. Everything he had said was music to my bicultural ear. But coming round, I began to hear less compliant voices than my own making themselves audible above the irregular throbbing of the plane's engines.

I had said "Right." Had I said yes?

I hadn't said no, so presumably I had.

But yes to what, exactly?

Had Mr. Anderson informed me, when handing me my job description, that it involved turning myself into a linguistic iceberg with nine-tenths of me below the waterline? He had not. He had said he had a bit of live action for me, and he was sending me into the field where I would be living a lie and not the Bible truth that we had been brought up to. Of water lines and controlled schizophrenia not one word.

Don't be a tart, Sinclair, it's dead simple. Simple how, please, Skipper? Pretending you've heard something when you haven't is relatively simple, I would concede that. People get away with it every day. Pretending you haven't heard something when you have, on the other hand, is in my perception the reverse of simple. Your top interpreter responds without premeditation. He is trained to leap in. He hears, he leaps, the art follows. All right, granted: he will in due course reflect. But the talent comes in the instant response, not in the rehash.

I was still meditating along these lines when one of our unshaven pilots yelled at us to hang on tight. As if hit by gunfire, the plane winced, winced again, and bounced ponderously to a halt. The cabin door banged open, a blast of chill air made me grateful for my Harris Tweed. Our skipper was first to vanish into the void; next went Benny with his kit bag followed by Monsieur Jasper and his briefcase. At Anton's urging I clambered after them, my night-bag leading. Landing on soft earth I inhaled the smell of sea at low tide. Two sets of headlights were b.u.mping towards us over the field. First a half-truck pulled alongside, then a minibus. Anton shooed me aboard the minibus, Benny shoved Jasper after me. Behind us in the shadow of the plane, the anoraks were loading black boxes onto the half-truck. Our woman driver was a mature version of Bridget in a headscarf and fur-lined jacket. The pitted track possessed neither markings nor road signs. Were we driving right or left? By the meagre beam of our dipped headlights, stateless sheep gawped at us from the trackside. We mounted a crest and were starting our descent when, out of a starless sky, two granite gate posts lurched towards us. We rattled over a cattle grid, skirted a coppice of pine trees and came to rest in a cobbled courtyard with high walls.

Gables and roof lines were lost in darkness. In single file we followed our driver to a dimly lit stone porch twenty feet high. Rows of Wellington boots greeted us, their sizes written in white paint. The sevens had lines drawn through them in the continental manner. The ones began on the upstroke. Ancient snow-shoes like crossed tennis racquets were mounted on the wall. Had Scotsmen worn them? Swedes? Nors.e.m.e.n? Danes? Or was our host merely a collector of Nordic bric-a-brac? Little island up north where no one will disturb us. The less we knew, the better we would sleep. Our driver went ahead of us. A label on her fur collar said she was Gladys. We trooped into a raftered Great Hall. Corridors led in all directions. A tea urn and cold collation were on offer to those still peckish after their chow mein. A second woman, a smiler labelled Janet, was directing members of the team to wherever they needed to go. On Janet's orders I perched on an embroidered settle.

A bulbous grandfather clock was set at British time. Six hours since I had left Hannah. Five hours since I had left Penelope. Four hours since I had left Mr. Anderson. Two hours since I had left Luton. Half an hour since Maxie had told me to keep my best languages below the waterline. Anton my good shepherd was shaking my shoulder. Traipsing after him up a spiral staircase, I convinced myself I was about to receive just punishment at the cleansing hands of the Sanctuary's Father Guardian.

"All right in here, are we, governor?" Anton enquired, pushing open a door. "Not homesick for our wife and veg?"

"Not really, Anton. Just a bit expectant," I said stupidly.

"Well, that's a nice state of affairs, I will say. When's it due?"

Realising we had scarcely exchanged a word since my abortive phone call to Hannah, I thought it appropriate to bond. "Are you really married, Anton?" I laughed, remembering the wife he claimed not to have spoken to for eight years.

"Now and then, governor. Off and on."

"Between jobs, as it were?" I suggested.

"As it were, governor. As it might be. Given the way it is."

I tried again. "So what do you do with your spare time? When you're not doing this stuff, I mean?"

"All sorts really, governor. Bit of prison, when I've got the patience. Cape Town I like. Not the prison, the seaside. I fancy a girl here and there, well, we all do, don't we? Now you say your prayers nice, governor, because we've got a big day tomorrow, and if you screw up, we all screw up, which the Skipper wouldn't like, would he?"

"And you're his second-in-command," I suggested admiringly. "That must be quite a thing to handle."

"Let's just say you can't be Mr. Mercurial and not need a bit of looking after."

"Am I mercurial, Anton?" I asked, surprising myself.

"Governor, if you want my humble opinion, with the height we've got, and those bedroom eyelashes we don't know what to do with, and all the ladies we've got up our sleeve, I would say we are a lot of people under one helmet, which is why we do the lingoes so nice."

Closing the door on him, I sat down on the bed. A blissful exhaustion overcame me. Discarding my borrowed clothes I consigned myself to Hannah's waiting arms. But not before I had lifted the bedside telephone and rattled its cradle several times, only to confirm that it was not connected.

6.

I woke abruptly in my underclothes at my usual early hour, and turned by force of habit onto my right side preparatory to adopting the 'spoons' position with Penelope, only to make the familiar discovery that she was not yet back from a nocturnal a.s.signment. I woke a second time, and with greater circ.u.mspection, to the knowledge that I was lying in the bed of a deceased white relative whose bearded features, set in an ornate Victorian frame, frowned down on me from above the marble fireplace. Finally, to my pleasure, I woke a third time with Hannah curled up in my arms, enabling me to inform her, irrespective of the Official Secrets Act, that I was engaged on a clandestine mission to bring democracy to the Congo, which was the reason I hadn't phoned her.

Only then, with the morning sun peeping between the curtains, did I feel able to take stock of my well-appointed room, which harmoniously combined traditional with modern, including a mirrored dressing table complete with old-style electric typewriter and A4 paper, chest of drawers and armoire, plus trouser-press and early-morning tea tray with plastic kettle and Shaker rocking chair. Venturing into my en suite bathroom, I was pleased to be welcomed by such luxuries as heated towel rail, bathrobe, shower facility, shampoo, bath oil, wipes and all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, but if I was searching for clues to my whereabouts, I searched in vain. The toiletries were by international makers, there were no fire instructions, laundry lists or complimentary matches, no messages of welcome from a foreign-sounding manager with a printed signature you can't read, and no Gideon Bible in any language.

Showered and wrapped in my bathrobe, I positioned myself at my bedroom window and, peering between its granite mullions, examined the view before me. The first thing I observed was a honey-coloured barn owl, wings outstretched and motionless except for the tips of its feathers. My heart swelled at the sight, but birds are of little help when it comes to national markings. To left and right of me rose hills of olive pastureland, and between them, the silver sea, on whose distant horizon I discerned the shadow of a container ship bound for I knew not where; and closer in to sh.o.r.e, a cl.u.s.ter of small fishing vessels pursued by gulls but, peer as I might, I could not make out their flags. No road was visible, save for the winding track that we had traversed the previous night. Our airfield was not in evidence, and I searched in vain for a telltale windsock or aerial. From the angle of the sun I deduced I was looking north and, from the foliage of the saplings at the water's edge, that the prevailing wind was westerly. Nearer at hand rose a gra.s.sy mound topped by a gazebo or summerhouse in the nineteenth-century manner, and to the east of it a ruined chapel and cemetery, in one corner of which stood what appeared to be a Celtic cross, but it could as well have been a war memorial or a monument to a departed grandee.

Returning my attention to the gazebo, I was surprised to observe the figure of a man perched on an elongated ladder. He had not been there a moment earlier, and must therefore have emerged from behind a pillar. On the ground beside him lay a black box similar to those that had flown with us on the plane. The lid being towards me, its contents were obscured.

Was the man repairing something? Then what? And why, I wondered, at this early hour?

My curiosity aroused, I picked out two other men, also mysteriously engaged: the one on his knees beside a water main or access point of some nature, and the other in the act of shinning up a telegraph pole, a task for which he appeared to need neither rope nor ladder, thus incidentally putting Penelope's personal trainer, who fancies himself quite the Tarzan, in the shade where he belongs. And this second man, I instantly realised, was known to me not merely by sight but by name. He had scarcely reached the top of the pole before I had identified him as my voluble new Welsh friend Spider, team catering manager and veteran of the Chat Room.

My plan was instantly formed. Under the guise of a pre-breakfast stroll, I would engage Spider in casual conversation and afterwards peruse the inscriptions on the headstones in the cemetery with the aim of establishing the local language and hence my whereabouts. Donning my penitential grey flannels and Harris Tweed jacket and with my ill-fitting shoes in hand, I stole down the main staircase to the front porch. On trying the door, however, I found it locked against me, as were all adjacent doors and windows tested. But that was not all. Through the windows I glimpsed no fewer than three bulked-out anoraks standing guard around the house.

It is at this point that I must confess to a resurgence of anxiety regarding the professional demands Maxie proposed to make of me and which, despite my determination to be a player in our great venture, had plagued my sleep at intervals throughout the night, one dream in particular coming back to me. I was snorkel ling out of my depth and the waterline was creeping steadily up my mask. If I didn't wake up, it would reach the top and I would drown. By way of distraction therefore, but also as a means of ridding myself of negative thoughts, I resolved on a fact-finding tour of the ground-floor rooms with the additional aim of acquainting myself with the scene of my approaching ordeal.

The house, true to what I believed to be its original function as a substantial family home, afforded on the garden side a connecting chain of reception rooms, each with French windows ab.u.t.ting onto a gra.s.s terrace which ascended by way of a broad stone staircase to the pillared gazebo at the summit. Keeping a weather eye for anoraks, I tentatively pushed open the door to the first of these rooms and found myself in a handsome library in Wedgwood blue with fitted mahogany bookcases and gla.s.s doors. In the hope that the books within might provide me with a clue to the ident.i.ty of the owner, I placed my head to the gla.s.s and scrutinised the t.i.tles, but was disappointed to be confronted with uniform sets of the world's great writers, each in his original tongue: d.i.c.kens in English, Balzac in French, Goethe in German, and Dante in Italian. When I attempted to prise open the doors on the off-chance of a bookplate or inscription I found them locked against me, top and bottom.

After the library came a panelled billiards room. The table, which I estimated to be three-quarter size, possessed no pockets, thus placing it in the French or continental category, whereas the mahogany scoreboard was by Burroughes of London. The third room was a stately drawing room complete with gilt mirrors and an ormolu clock set neither to British nor continental time but stuck resolutely at the twelfth hour. A marble and bra.s.s sideboard offered an enticing spread of magazines which ranged from the French Marie Claire through the Tatler to the Swiss Du. It was while I was examining these that I heard the sound of a m.u.f.fled French oath issuing from an adjoining, fourth room. The connecting door was ajar. Gliding silently across the polished floorboards, I stepped inside. I had entered a gaming room. At its centre stood an oval, green baize table. Eight card-player's chairs with broad wooden arms were arranged around it. At the furthest end, straight-backed behind a computer screen, sat a tonsured Monsieur Jasper without his black beret, typing with two fingers. A night's gingery growth adorned his long face, giving him the air of a great detective. For a while he examined me with an unrelenting stare.

"Why do you spy on me?" he demanded at last in French.

"I'm not spying on you."

"Then why do you not wear your shoes?"

"Because they don't fit."

"You have stolen them?"

"Borrowed."

"You are Moroccan?"

"British."

"Then why do you speak French like a pied-noir?"

"I was brought up in Equatorial Africa. My father was an engineer," I retorted stiffly, not stooping to comment on his opinion of my French. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I am from Besanc_on. I am a French provincial notary with a modest practice in certain technical spheres of international jurisprudence. I am qualified in French and Swiss taxation law. I have an appointment at Besancon University where I lecture on the charms of offsh.o.r.e companies. I am engaged as the sole lawyer to a certain anonymous syndicate. Does that satisfy you?"

Disarmed by such expansiveness, I would gladly have corrected my earlier fict.i.tious version of myself, but caution prevailed. "But if your practice is so modest, how come you have landed such an important commission?" I enquired.

"Because I am pure, I am respectable, I am academic, I deal only in civil law. I do not represent drug-dealers or criminals. Interpol has never heard of me. I operate solely within the margins of my expertise. Do you wish to create a holding company in Martinique registered in Switzerland and owned by an anonymous Liechtenstein foundation which is owned by you?"

I laughed regretfully.

"Do you wish to suffer a painless bankruptcy at the expense of the French taxpayer?"

Again I shook my head.

"Then maybe you can at least explain to me how to operate this accursed Anglo-Saxon computer. First they forbid me to bring my laptop. Then they give me a laptop with no handbook, no accents, no logic, no The list of omissions becoming too lengthy, he gave a Gallic shrug of despair.

"But what are you working on that keeps you up all night?" I asked, noting the piles of paper and empty coffee cups strewn around him.

With a sigh, his long meagre body flopped back into his card-player's chair. "Concessions. Cowardly concessions at different hours of the night. "Why do you give way to these brigands?" I ask them. "Why do you not tell them to go to h.e.l.l?"

Ask whom? I marvelled silently. But I knew I must tread warily lest I interrupt the flow.

' "Jasper," they say to me. "We cannot afford to lose this vital contract. Time is precious. We are not the only horse in the race."

"So you're drafting the contract?" I exclaimed, recalling that Maxie had declared a contract to be the purpose of the present exercise. "My goodness. Well, that's quite a responsibility, I must say. Is it a complicated affair? I suppose it must be."

My question, though designed to flatter, evinced a sneer of contempt.

"It is not complicated because I have drafted it with lucidity. It is academic and it is unenforceable."

"How many parties are there?"

"Three. We do not know who they are, but the parties know. The contract is no-name, it is a contract of unspecified hypothetical eventualities. If something happens, then maybe something else will happen. If not' Another Gallic shrug.

Cautiously, I ventured to challenge him.

"But if a contract is no-name, and the hypothetical eventualities aren't specified, and it is anyway unenforceable, how can it be a contract at all?"

A smirk of superiority suffused his skull-like features.

"Because this contract is not only hypothetical, it is agricultural."

" Hypothetically agricultural?"

The smirk acknowledged that this was so.

"How can that be? A contract is either agricultural, surely, or it's hypothetical. You can't have a hypothetical cow well, can you?"

Shooting bolt upright in his chair, Monsieur Jasper set his hands flat on the green baize and favoured me with the kind of contemptuous glower that lawyers preserve for their least wealthy clients.

"Then answer me this, please," he suggested. "If a contract concerns human beings but refers to those human beings not as human beings but as cows is the contract hypothetical, or is it agricultural?"

I was wise enough to concede his point. "So what hypothesis are we actually talking about in this case, for instance?"

"The hypothesis is an event."

"What sort of event?"

"Unspecified. Maybe it is a death." A bony forefinger warned me against precipitating the tragedy. "Maybe it is a flood, or a marriage, or an act of G.o.d or man. Maybe it is the compliance or the non-compliance of another party. It is not depicted." He had the floor and n.o.body, least of all myself, was going to take it from him. "What is known is that, in the event of this unspecified event occurring, certain agricultural terms and conditions will become effective, certain agricultural materials will be bought and sold, certain agricultural rights will be a.s.signed, and certain hypothetical percentages of certain agricultural profits will accrue to certain unnamed persons. But only in the event of that event."

"But how did the anonymous Syndicate ever get to you?" I protested. "There you are with this extraordinary expertise, tucked away in Besancon, hiding your light under a bushel'

He needed no further encouragement. "A year ago I negotiated many time share chalets in Valence. I performed superbly, the deal was the summit of my career. The chalets were not built, but delivery was not my responsibility. My client was an offsh.o.r.e property company, now bankrupt, registered in the Channel Islands."

I made one of my lightning connections. Timeshares in Valence. Was this not the scandal that had projected Lord Brinkley onto the front pages of Penelope's newspaper? It was. peer's EL DORADO WAS PIE IN SKY.

"And this same company is back in business?" I asked.

"I personally had the honour of liquidating it. The company no longer exists."

"But the company's directors exist."

His expression of smug superiority, if it had ever left him, returned in full bloom. "They do not exist, because they have no name. If they have names, they exist. If they have none, they are abstract concepts." But either he had become bored with our conversation, or he had decided that we were overstepping the bounds of legal propriety, for he pa.s.sed a hand over his unshaven face, then peered at me as if he had never set eyes on me before. "Who are you? What are you doing in this s.h.i.t-hole?"

"I'm the conference interpreter."

"In which languages?"

"Swahili, French and English," I replied reluctantly, as the waterline once more engulfed my diving mask.

"How much are they paying you?"

"I don't think I'm supposed to tell you." But vanity got the better of me, which it sometimes does. The man had been lording it over me long enough. It was time I revealed my true worth. "Five thousand dollars," I said casually.

His head, which had been temporarily resting in his hands, lifted abruptly. "Five?"

"That's right. Five. Why?"

"Not pounds?"