And having had his fun, Personnel did what Osnard knew all along he was going to do. He posted him to Panama. Osnard's inexperience was no obstacle. His precocity in the black arts was well attested by his trainers. He was bilingual and in operational terms unsullied.

'Have to find yourself a head joe,' Personnel lamented as an afterthought. 'Apparently we've no one on the books down there. We seem to have left the place to the Yankees. More fool us. You report direct to Luxmore, you understand? Keep the a.n.a.lysts out of this until otherwise instructed.'

Find us a banker, young Mr Osnard - suck of the Scottish front teeth inside the beard - one who knows the world! These modern bankers put themselves about, not like the old sort at all. I remember we had a couple in Buenos Aires during the Falklands fracas.

a.s.sisted by a central computer whose existence has been roundly denied by both Westminster and Whitehall, Osnard calls up the file of every British banker in Panama but finds only a handful and n.o.body who on closer enquiry can be counted on to know the world.

Find us one of your state-of-the-art tyc.o.o.ns then, young Mr Osnard - wrinkle of the sagacious Scottish eyes - someone with a finger in all the pies!

Osnard calls up the particulars of every British businessman in Panama and though some are young, none has a finger in all the pies, much as he might like to have.

Then find us a scribbler, young Mr Osnard. Scribblers can ask questions without attracting interest, go anywhere, take risks! There must be a decent one somewhere. Seek him out. Bring him to me, if you please forthwith!

Osnard calls up the particulars of every British journalist known to take the odd swing through Panama and speak Spanish. A well-dined, mustachioed man in a bow tie is held to be approachable. His name is Hector Pride and he writes for an unheard-of English language monthly called The Latino, published out of Costa Rica. His father is a wine shipper from Toledo.

Just the fellow we need, young Mr Osnard! - ferociously bestriding his carpet - Sign him. Buy him. Money is no obstacle. If the skinflints of Treasury lock up their coffers, the counting houses of Threadneedle Street shall open theirs. I have that a.s.surance from on high. It is a strange country, you may say, young Mr Osnard, that obliges its industrialists to pay for their intelligence, but such is the harsh nature of our cost-conscious world...

Using an alias, Osnard puts on the guise of a Foreign Office research officer and invites Hector Pride to lunch at Simpson's and spends twice what Luxmore has allowed for the occasion. Pride, like many of his profession, speaks and eats and drinks a great deal, but does not care to listen. Osnard waits until the pudding to pop the question, then until the Gorgonzola, by which time Pride's patience has evidently run out, for to Osnard's dismay he abandons his monologue on the effect of Inca culture on contemporary Peruvian thought and explodes in ribald laughter.

'Why don't you make a pa.s.s at me?' he booms, to the alarm of diners either side. 'What's wrong with me? Got the girl in the b.l.o.o.d.y taxi, haven't you? So put your hand up her skirt!'

Pride, it transpires, is employed by a hated sister service of British Intelligence, which also owns his newspaper.

'There's this man Pendel I talked to you about,' Osnard reminds Luxmore, taking advantage of his gloom. 'The one with the wife in the Ca.n.a.l Commission. I can't help thinking they're ideal.'

He has been thinking it for days and nights, and thinking no one else. Chance favours only the prepared mind. He has drawn Pendel's criminal record, pored over Pendel's criminal photographs, full face and side view, studied his statements to the police though most were patently fabricated by his audience, read psychiatrists' and almoners' reports, records of his behaviour in prison, dug out whatever he could on Louisa and the tiny, inward world of the Zonian. Like an occult diviner, he has opened himself to Pendel's psychic intimations and vibrations, studied him as intently as would a medium his map of the impenetrable jungle where the plane is believed to have disappeared: I am coming to find you, I know what you are, wait for me, chance favours only the prepared mind.

Luxmore reflects. Only a week ago he has ruled this same Pendel unworthy of the high mission he has in mind: As my head joe, Andrew? As yours? In a red hot post? A tailor? We'd be the laughing stock of the Top Floor!

And when Osnard again presses him, this time after lunch when Luxmore's mood tends to be more generous: I am a stranger to prejudice, young Mr Osnard, and I respect your judgment. But those East End fellows end up stabbing you in the back. It's in their blood. Good heavens, we are not yet reduced to recruiting jailbirds!

But that is a week ago, and the Panamanian clock is ticking louder.

'You know I think we may be onto a winner here,' Luxmore declares as he sucks his teeth and leafs through Pendel's compendious file a second time. 'It was prudent of us to test the ground elsewhere first, oh yes. The Top Floor will surely give us marks for that' - the boy Pendel's implausible confession to the police flits by him, owning up to everything, incriminating no one - 'the man's first-cla.s.s material once you look under the surface, just the type we need for a small criminal nation' - suck - 'we'd a fellow not unlike him working in the docks in Buenos Aires during the Falklands difficulty.' His eye settles for a moment on Osnard, but there is no suggestion in his glance that he considers his subordinate similarly qualified for criminal society. 'You'll have to ride him, Andrew. They've a hard mouth, these East End haberdashers, are you up to that?'

'I think so, sir. If you give me the odd tip here and there.'

'A villain is all to the good in this game provided he's our villain' - immigration papers of the father Pendel never knew - 'And the wife indubitably an a.s.set' - suck - 'one foot in the Ca.n.a.l Commission already, my G.o.d. Daughter of a Yankee engineer too, Andrew, I see a steadying hand here. Christian too. Our East End gentleman has done well for himself. No religious barriers to progress, we notice, eh-hem. Self-interest always firmly to the fore, as usual' - suck - 'Andrew, I begin to see shapes here forming before us in the sky. You'll have to look at his accounts three times, I'll tell you that for nothing. He'll graft, he'll have the nose, the cunning, but can you handle him? Who's going to run who? that'll be the problem' - a glimpse of Pendel's birth certificate bearing the name of the mother who ran away - 'these fellows certainly know how to get into a man's drawing room, too, no doubt of that, oh yes. And get their pound of flesh. We'll be throwing you in at the deep end, I fear. Can you handle it?'

'I believe I can, actually.'

'Yes, Andrew. So do I. A real hard customer, but ours, that's the point. A natural a.s.similator, prison-trained, knows the dark side of the street' - suck - 'and the dirty underbelly of the human mind. There's jeopardy here, which I like. So will the Top Floor.' Luxmore slapped the file shut and started pacing again, this time in widths. 'If we can't appeal to his patriotism, we can put the frighteners on him and appeal to his greed. Let me tell you about head joes, Andy.'

'Please do, sir.'

The sir, though by tradition reserved for the Chief of Service, is Osnard's contribution to Luxmore's self-powered flight.

'You can take a bad head joe, young Mr Osnard. And you can stand him before the opposition's safe with the combination ringing in his stupid ears and he'll come back to you empty-handed. I know. I've been there. We'd one during the Falklands conflagration. But a good one, you can dump him blindfold in the desert and he'll sniff out his target in a week. Why? He's got the larceny' - suck - 'I've seen it many times. Remember that, Andy. If a man hath not larceny, he is nothing.'

'I really will,' says Osnard.

Another gear. Sits sharply to his desk. Reaches for telephone. Stays his hand. 'Call up Registry,' he orders Osnard. 'Have them pick us a random codename out of the hat. A codename shows intent. Draft me a sub-mission, not above one page in length. They're busy men up there.' Takes up telephone finally. Taps number. 'Meanwhile I shall make a couple of private telephone calls to one or two influential members of the public who are sworn to secrecy and shall remain forever nameless' - suck - 'those amateurs from Treasury will put their spoke in anything. Think Ca.n.a.l, Andrew. Everything rides on the Ca.n.a.l.' Stops in tracks, replaces receiver on cradle. Eyes turn to smoked gla.s.s window where filtered black clouds menace the Mother of Parliaments. Beat. 'I shall tell them that, Andrew,' he breathes. 'Everything rides on the Ca.n.a.l. It shall be our slogan when we are dealing with people from all walks of life.'

But Osnard's thoughts remain on earthly things. 'We're going to have to work out quite a tricky pay structure for him, aren't we, sir?'

'Why's that? Nonsense. Rules are made to be broken. Didn't they teach you that? Of course they didn't. Those trainers are all has-beens. I see you have a point to press. Out with it.'

'Well, sir.'

'Yes, Andrew.'

'I'd like to get a reading on his financial situation as of now. In Panama. If he's making a pot of money -'

'Yes?'

'Well, we'll have to offer him a pot, won't we? A fellow netting quarter of a million bucks a year and we offer him another twenty-five thousand, we're unlikely to be tempting him. If you follow me.'

'So?' - playful, drawing the boy out.

'Well, sir, I wondered if one of your friends in the City might get onto Pendel's bank under a pretext and find out the score.'

Luxmore is already on the telephone, spare hand thrust down the seam of his trousers.

'Miriam, dear. Find me Geoff Cavendish. Failing him, Tug. And, Miriam. It's urgent.'

It was another four days before Osnard was once more summoned to the presence. Pendel's wretched bank statements lay about on Luxmore's desk, courtesy of Ramon Rudd. Luxmore himself was standing stock still at his window, savouring a moment of history.

'He's appropriated his wife's savings, Andrew. Every penny. Can't resist usury. They never can. We've got him by the short-and-curlies.'

He waited while Osnard read the figures.

'A salary's no good to him then,' said Osnard, whose grasp on financial matters was a deal more sophisticated than his master's.

'Oh. Why not?'

'It'll go straight into his bank manager's pocket. We're going to have to bankroll him from day one.'

'How much?'

Osnard by now had a figure in his mind. He doubled it, knowing the virtue of starting as he meant to continue.

'My G.o.d, Andrew. As much as that?'

'It could be more, sir,' said Osnard bleakly. 'He's in up to his neck.'

Luxmore's gaze turned to the City's skyline for comfort.

'Andrew?'

'Sir?'

'I mentioned to you that a grand vision has certain components.'

'Yes, sir.'

'One of them is scale. Don't send me dross. No grape-shot. Not "Here, Scottie, take this bag of bones and see what your a.n.a.lysts make of it." Do you follow me?'

'Not quite, sir.'

'The a.n.a.lysts here are idiots. They don't make connections. They don't see shapes forming in the sky. A man reaps as he sows. Do you understand me? A great intelligencer catches history in the act. We can't expect some little nine-till-five fellow on the third floor who's worried about his mortgage to catch history in the act. Can we? It takes a man of vision to catch history in the act. Does it not?'

'I'll do my best, sir.'

'Don't let me down, Andrew.'

'I'll try not to, sir.'

But if Luxmore had chanced to turn round at that moment he would have found to his surprise that Osnard's demeanour lacked the meekness of his tone. A smile of triumph lit his guileless young face and sparks of greed his eyes. Packing, selling the car, swearing allegiance to each of half-a-dozen girlfriends and performing other ch.o.r.es a.s.sociated with his departure, Andrew Osnard took a step not normally expected of a young Englishman setting out to serve his Queen in foreign climes. Through a distant relative in the West Indies he opened a numbered account on Grand Cayman, having first established that the compliant bank had a branch in Panama City.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Osnard paid off the dapped-out Pontiac and stepped into the night. The p.r.i.c.kly quiet and low lighting reminded him of training school. He was sweating. In this b.l.o.o.d.y climate he usually was. Underpants nipping at his crutch. Shirt like a wet dishcloth. Hate it. Cars without lights crackled stealthily past him over the wet drive. High cropped hedges provided for extra discretion. It had rained and stopped again. Bag in hand, he crossed a tarmac courtyard. A naked six-foot plastic Venus, lit from somewhere inside her v.u.l.v.a, shed a sickly glow. He stubbed his foot against a plant-tub, swore, this time in Spanish, and came upon a row of garages with plastic ribbons dangling over their doorways and a low-powered candle bulb lighting each number. Reaching number eight, he shoved aside the ribbons, groped his way to a red pinlight on the far wall and pressed it: the fabled pushb.u.t.ton. A genderless Voice from the Beyond thanked him for his visit.

'My name's Colombo. I booked.'

'You prefer a special room, Serior Colombo?'

'Prefer the one I booked. Three hours. How much?'

'You want to change to a special, Senor Colombo? Wild West? Arabian Nights? Tahiti? Fifty dollars more?'

'No,'

'One hundred and five dollars, please. Enjoy your stay.'

'Give me a receipt for three hundred,' Osnard said.

A buzzer sounded and an illuminated letterbox opened at his elbow. He posted one hundred and twenty dollars into its red mouth, which snapped shut. Delay while the notes were pa.s.sed through a detector, the excess duly noted, the bogus receipt prepared.

'Come back and see us again, Senor Colombo.'

A shaft of white light half blinded him, a crimson welcome rug appeared at his feet, an electronic Tudor door clicked open. A fug of disinfectant fumes slapped him like a blast from an oven. An absent band struck up 'O Sole Mio'. Sweat pouring off him, he glared round for the air-conditioners at the same moment as he heard them crank themselves into action. Pink mirrors on the walls and ceiling. A convocation of Osnards glowering at each other. Mirrored bedhead, crimson flock counterpane shimmering under nauseous lighting. Freebie spongebag containing comb, toothbrush, three French letters, two bars of US-made milk chocolate. Television screen showing two matrons and a forty-five-year-old Latin man with hair on his a.r.s.e cavorting naked in somebody's drawing room. Osnard looked for a switch to turn them off but the flex ran straight into the wall.

Jesus. Typical.

He sat on the bed, opened his shabby briefcase, set out his wares on the bedspread. One sheaf o' fresh carbon wrapped as locally-produced typing paper. Six reels o' sub-miniature film concealed in can o' fly spray. Why do Head Office concealment devices look as if they've been bought in Russian government-surplus stores? One sub-miniature tape recorder, undisguised. One bottle Scotch, head joes and their case officers for the use of. Seven thousand bucks in twenties and fifties. Pity to see it go but think of it as seed money.

And from his pocket, in all its undestroyed glory, Luxmore's four-page telegram, which Osnard laid out page by page for easy reading. Then he sat frowning at it with his mouth hanging open, selecting from it, memorising and rejecting simultaneously, the way a Method actor might read his lines: I'll say this but say it differently, I won't say that at all, I'll do this but my way not his. He heard the rumble of a car pulling into garage number eight. Rising, he tucked the four pages of the telegram back in his pocket and placed himself at the centre of the room. He heard the clunk of a tinny door and thought 'four-track'. He heard footsteps approaching and thought 'walks like a b.l.o.o.d.y waiter' while he tried to listen beyond them for sounds that might not be so friendly. Has Harry sold and told? Has he brought a bunch of heavies to arrest me? Of course he b.l.o.o.d.y hasn't, but the trainers said it was wise to wonder so I'm wondering. A knock at the door: three shorts, one long. Osnard slipped the lock and drew the door back, not all the way. Pendel, standing on the doorstep, clutching a fancy holdall.

'My goodness me, whatever are they up to, Andy? Reminds me of the Three Tolinos at Bertram Mills Circus when my Uncle Benny used to take me.'

'Christ's sake!' Osnard hissed as he bundled him into the room. 'You've got P&B plastered all over your b.l.o.o.d.y bag.'

There was no chair so they sat on the bed. Pendel was wearing a panabrisa. A week ago he had confided to Osnard that panabrisas would be the death of him: cool, smart and comfortable, Andy, and cost fifty dollars, I don't know why I bother. Osnard went into the routine. This was no chance encounter between tailor and customer. This was a full-scale, twenty-five-thousand-mile service conducted according to the cla.s.sic spy-school handbook.

'Got any problems with being here?'

'Thank you, Andy, everything is hunkydory. How about you?'

'Got any materials that are better in my hands than yours?'

Groping in a pocket of his panabrisa, Pendel produced the ornamented cigarette lighter, delved again for a coin, unscrewed the base and shook out a black cylinder which he pa.s.sed across the bed.

'There's only the twelve on there, Andy, I'm afraid, but I thought you'd better have them all the same. In my day we'd have waited till the film was finished before we took it to the chemist.'

'n.o.body follow you, recognise you? Motorbike? Car? n.o.body you didn't like the look of?'

Pendel shook his head.

'What do you do if we're disturbed?'

'I leave the explanations to you, Andy. I take my departure at my earliest convenience and I advise my sub-sources to get their heads down or take a foreign holiday and you wait for me to contact you when normal service is resumed.'

'How?'

'The emergency procedure. Callbox to callbox at the agreed times.'

Osnard obliged Pendel to recite the agreed times.

'How about if that doesn't work?'

'Well, there's always the shop, isn't there, Andy? We are somewhat overdue for a fitting on our tweed jacket, which provides us with a cast-iron excuse. It's a corker,' he added. 'I can always tell a nice jacket when I've cut one.'

'How many letters have you sent me since we last met?'

'Just the three, Andy. That was all I could manage in the time. Business is coming in you wouldn't believe. The new clubroom has really tipped the balance in my opinion.'

'What were they?'

'Two invoices and one invitation to a preview of new attractions in the boutique. They came out all right, did they? Because I worry sometimes.'

'You're not pressing hard enough. Writing gets lost in the print. You using ballpoint or pencil?'