'Pencil, Andy, like you told me.'

Osnard fished in the sump of his briefcase and came up with a plain wood pencil. 'Have a go with this next time. Double H. Harder.'

On the screen the two women had abandoned their man and were consoling themselves with one another.

Stores. Osnard handed Pendel the can of fly spray containing spare ca.s.settes of film. Pendel shook it, pressed the top and grinned when it worked. Pendel expressed anxiety about the shelf-life of his carbons, whether they'd lost their fizz or anything, Andy? Osnard handed him a new set anyway and told him to sling whatever he had left of the old lot.

The network. Osnard needed to hear the progress of each subsource and record it in his notebook. Subsource Sabina, Marta's star creation and alter ego, dissident politics student with responsibility for the El Chorrillo cadre of secret Maoists, was asking for a new printing press to replace her defunct one. Estimated cost five thousand dollars or maybe Andy knew where to put his hands on an old one?

'She buys her own,' Osnard ruled shortly as he wrote down 'printing press' and 'ten thousand dollars'. 'It's arm's length all the way. She still think she's selling her information to the Yanks?'

'Yes, Andy, until Sebastian tells her different.'

Sebastian, another Marta construct, was Sabina's lover, an embittered people's lawyer and retired anti-Noriega campaigner who, thanks to his impoverished clientele, provided snippets of deep background on such oddities as the underline of Panama's Muslim Arab community.

'What's with Alpha Beta?' Osnard asked.

Subsource Beta was Pendel's own: a member of the National a.s.sembly's Ca.n.a.l Consultative Committee and a part-time dealer in bank accounts looking for respectable homes. Beta's aunt Alpha was a secretary in the Panamanian Chamber of Commerce. In Panama everybody has an aunt working somewhere useful.

'Beta's up country stroking his const.i.tuency, Andy, which is why he's quiet. But he's got a nice meeting Thursday with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Panama and dinner with the Vice-President Friday, so there's light at the end of the tunnel. And London liked his latest, did they? He sometimes feels he's not appreciated.'

'It was okay. Far as it went.'

'Only Beta did rather wonder whether a bonus might be in order.'

Osnard seemed to wonder too, for he made a note and scribbled a figure and drew a circle round it.

'Let you know next time,' he said. 'What's with Marco?'

'Marco is what I'd call sitting pretty, Andy. We had a night on the town, I've met his wife, we've walked the dog together and gone to the pictures.'

'When are you going to pop the question?'

'Next week, Andy, if I'm in the mood.'

'Well, be in the mood. Starting salary five hundred a week, subject to review after three months, payable in advance. Bonus o' five thousand cash when he signs on the dotted line.'

'For Marco?'

'For you, you a.s.s,' said Osnard, handing him a gla.s.s of Scotch in all the pink mirrors at once.

Osnard was making the kind of signals that people in authority make when they have something disagreeable to say. A pout of discontent settled over his rubbery features, he scowled at the cavorting acrobats on the television screen.

'You seem very sunny today,' he began accusingly.

'Thank you, Andy, and it's all down to you and London.'

'Lucky you've got the loan, then. Isn't it? I said, isn't it?'

'Andy, I'm thanking my Maker for it every day and the thought that I'm working it off puts a spring into my stride. Is there something wrong, then?'

Osnard had a.s.sumed his head prefect tone, though he had only ever been at the receiving end of it, usually before a beating.

'Yes. There is, actually. Quite a lot wrong.'

'Oh dear.'

'I'm afraid London are not quite as pleased with you as you appear to be with yourself.'

'Why's that then, Andy?'

'Nothing much. Nothing at all, really. They have merely decided that H. Pendel, superspy, is an overpaid, disloyal, grafting, two-faced con-artist.'

Pendel's smile underwent a slow but total eclipse. His shoulders fell, his hands, which till now had been supporting him on the bed, came obediently to rest at the front of his body, demonstrating to the officer that they meant no harm.

'Any particular reason at all, Andy? Or was it more the general overview they were taking?'

'Furthermore, they are not at all pleased with Mr Mickie b.l.o.o.d.y Abraxas.'

Pendel's head lifted sharply.

'Why? What's Mickie done?' he demanded with unexpected spirit - unexpected by himself, that was. 'Mickie's not in this,' he added aggressively.

'Not in what?'

'Mickie's done nothing.'

'No. He hasn't. That's the point. For too b.l.o.o.d.y long. Apart from graciously accepting ten thousand bucks cash up front as an act of good faith. What have you done? Also nothing. Contemplated Mickie contemplating his navel.' His voice had acquired the saw-edge of schoolboy sarcasm. 'And what have I done? Credited you with a very handsome bonus for productivity - joke - which, put into plain language, means recruiting a spectacularly unproductive subsource, to wit one M. Abraxas, slayer of tyrants and champion o' the common man. London's having a b.l.o.o.d.y good laugh about that. Wondering whether the officer in the field - me - is a little too green, and a little too gullible to mix it with idle, money-grabbing sharks like M. Abraxas and you.'

Osnard's tirade had fallen on deaf ears. Instead of druckening himself, Pendel appeared to be enjoying an easing of the body, indicating that whatever he had feared was past, and whatever they were now dealing with was small beer by comparison with his nightmares. His hands returned to his sides, he crossed his legs and settled back against the bedhead.

'So what does London propose to do about him, we wonder, Andy?' he enquired sympathetically.

Osnard had abandoned his hectoring voice for one of puffy indignation.

'Bleating about his debts of honour. What about his debt of honour to us? Keeping us dancing on a string -"can't tell you today, tell you next month" - getting us all s.e.xed up about a conspiracy that doesn't exist, bunch o' students only he can talk to, bunch o' fishermen who will only talk to the students, blah blah. h.e.l.l does he think he is, for Christ's sake? h.e.l.l does he think we are? b.l.o.o.d.y idiots?'

'It's his loyalties, Andy. It's his delicate sources, same as you. All the people he's got to get the say-so from.'

'f.u.c.k his loyalties! We've been waiting on his precious loyalties for three b.l.o.o.d.y weeks. If he's as loyal as all that he should never have bubbled his Movement to you in the first place. But he did. So you've got him over a barrel. And in our business, when you've got somebody over a barrel, you do something about it. You don't keep everybody waiting for the answer to the meaning o' the universe because some altruistic wino derelict needs three weeks to get his friends' permission to tell it to you.'

'So what do you do, Andy?' Pendel asked quietly.

And if Osnard had possessed that kind of ear or heart, he might have recognised in Pendel's voice the same undertow that had entered it at lunch a few weeks back when the question of recruiting Mickie's Silent Opposition was first raised.

'I'll tell you exactly what you do,' he snapped, once more donning his head prefect's gown. 'You go to Mr b.l.o.o.d.y Abraxas and you say, "Mickie. Hate to break this to you. My mad millionaire chappie isn't going to wait any more. So unless you want to go back to the Panamanian slammer whence you came, on charges o' conspiring with persons unknown to do whatever the f.u.c.k you're conspiring to do, cough up. Because there's a bag o' money waiting for you if you do, and a very hard bed in a very small s.p.a.ce if you don't." Is that water in that bottle?'

'Yes, Andy, I do believe it is. And I'm sure you'd like some.'

Pendel handed him the bottle, provided by the management for the resuscitation of exhausted customers. Osnard drank, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and the neck of the bottle with his podgy forefinger. Then he handed the bottle back to Pendel. But Pendel decided he wasn't thirsty. He was feeling sick, but it wasn't the kind of nausea that water cures. It had more to do with his close collegial friendship with his fellow prisoner Abraxas and Osnard's suggestion that he defile it. And the last thing in the world Pendel wanted to do at that moment was drink from a bottle that was wet with Osnard's spit.

'It's bits, bits, bits,' Osnard was complaining, still on his high horse. 'And what do they add up to? Flannel. Jam tomorrow. Wait-and-see. We're lacking the grand vision, Harry. The big one that's always just around the corner. London want it now. They can't wait any more. Nor can we. Are you reading me?'

'Loud and clear, Andy. Loud and clear.'

'Well good,' said Osnard in a grudging, half-conciliatory tone intended to restore their good relationship.

And from Abraxas, Osnard pa.s.sed to a topic even closer to Pendel's heart, namely his wife Louisa.

'Delgado's on his way up in the world, see that?' Osnard kicked off breezily. 'Press made him up to lord high whoosit of the Ca.n.a.l Steering Committee, I see. Can't rise much higher than that without his toupee burning.'

'I read about it,' Pendel said.

'Where?'

'In the papers. Where else?'

'The newspapers?'

It was Osnard's turn to act the smiler, Pendel's to hold back.

'Wasn't Louisa who told you about it, then?'

'Not till it was public. She wouldn't.'

Stay away from my friend, Pendel's eyes were saying. Stay away from my wife.

'Why ever not?' Osnard asked.

'She's discreet. It's her sense of duty. I've told you already.'

'She know you're meeting me tonight?'

'Of course she doesn't. What am I? Daft?'

'She knows something's going on, though, doesn't she? Noticed your change o' life style, all that? Not blind.'

'I'm branching out. That's all she knows or needs to.'

'Lot o' ways o' branching out though, aren't there? Not all of 'em good news. Not for wives.'

'She's not bothered.'

'Wasn't the impression she gave me, Harry. Out there on Anytime Island. Struck me as being a mite exercised in her mind. Wasn't making heavy weather of it. Not her way. Just wanted me to tell her whether it was normal at your age.'

'What was?'

'Needing everybody's company. Twenty-four hours a day. Except hers. Scampering around town.'

'What did you tell her?'

'Said I'd wait till I was forty and let her know. Great woman, Harry.'

'Yes. She is. So stay off her.'

'Just occurred to me she might be happier if you were able to put her mind at ease.'

'Her mind's all right where it is.'

'Just wish we could step a bit closer to the well, that's all.'

'What well?'

'The well. The source. Fountain of all knowledge. Delgado. She's a fan o' Mickie's. Admires him. Told me. Adores Delgado. Loathes the idea of a backdoor sellout o' the Ca.n.a.l. Looks like a dead cert to me. Seen from here.'

Pendel's eyes were prison eyes again, sullen and locked in. But Osnard failed to notice Pendel's retreat into his own interior, preferring to muse aloud about Louisa in an inferential kind of way.

'One o' the absolute naturals of all time, if you ask me.'

'Who?'

' "Target the Ca.n.a.l," ' Osnard mused. ' "Everything rides on the Ca.n.a.l." Only thing London seems able to think about. Who's going to get it. What they'll do with it. Whole o' Whitehall wetting its striped pants to find out who Delgado talks to in the woodshed.' He closed his eyes reflectively. 'Marvellous girl. One o' the world's best. Steady as a rock, grip like a limpet, loyal unto the grave. Fabulous material.'

'What for?'

Osnard let the Scotch slip down. 'Bit o' help from you, sold to her in the right way, proper use o' language, no problem,' he went on ruminatively. 'No direct action involved. Not asking her to plant a bomb in the Palace o' Herons, shack up with the students, go to sea with the fisher lads. All she has to do is listen and watch.'

'Watch what?'

'Don't have to mention your chum Andy. Didn't have to mention him to Abraxas or the others. Don't with her. Stress the marital tie, best thing. The old honour and obey. Louisa hands her stuff to you. You hand it to me. I bung it back at London. Doddle.'

'She loves the Ca.n.a.l, Andy. She's not about to betray it. That's not who she is.'

'She won't be betraying it, you a.s.s! Saving it, Christ's sakes! She thinks the sun shines out o' Delgado's a.r.s.e, right?'

'She's a Yankee, Andy. She respects Delgado but she loves her America as well.'

'Not betraying the Yanks either, Christ's sakes! Holding Uncle Sam's nose to the grindstone. Keeping his troops in situ. Keeping the military bases. What more can she ask? She'll be helping Delgado by saving the Ca.n.a.l from the crooks, helping the Yankees by telling us how the Pans are s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up and there's all the more reason for US troops to stay put. You speak? Didn't catch you.'

Pendel had indeed spoken, but his voice was so choked that it was barely audible. So like Osnard he drew himself upright, then tried again.

'I think I must have asked you how much you thought Louisa was worth on the open market, Andy.'

Osnard welcomed this practical question. He had intended to raise it himself further down the line.

'Same as you, Harry. Even-Stevens,' he said heartily. 'Same basic, same bonuses. Absolute point o' principle with me. Gals are just as good as us. Better. Told London only yesterday. It's equal pay or there's no deal. We can double your money. One foot in the Silent Opposition, t'other in the Ca.n.a.l. Cheers.'

The film on the television had changed. Two cowgirls were undressing a cowboy in the middle of a canyon while tethered horses averted their gaze.