Adam Hall - Quiller Barracuda

In a moment he said without looking at me, 'What's the personal relationship at this point between you and Harvester?'

'None of your bloody business.'

He hesitated a fraction and then pressed rewind and play and got the tape back to hands of people like that and reset for record.

'You ought to know I don't let personal relationships cloud my judgement during a mission.'

'Except for the man you wiped out in the Underground three -'

'That wasn't during a mission. Look -' I hitched round in my seat to face him – 'if you want to make an issue of my relationship with -'

'I don't,' he said, and his eyes stopped me dead.

'What time do we get in?' Making bloody conversation, you notice, to bring the tension down. What annoyed me was that you can't ever win a point with this man. The way I'd reacted to his question about Harvester had told him precisely what he wanted to know.

'Seven,' he said, 'give or take a few minutes.' In the same tone, 'How close did you come to buying it, in the Mafia boat?'

'Oh for Christ's sake, I got my nerve back hours ago.'

Easy, now. You see, my good friend, what I mean? He'd got his answer. I had not got my nerve back hours ago, despite Kim's tender ministrations.

'Do you feel like a little more debriefing?'

'Of course.'

He pressed for record again and I told him about the execution thing on the Mafia boat, naming names and getting the timing right as close as I could remember.

This woman Monique,' Ferris said at last. 'What about her?'

'I don't know. She was with Proctor that night when I went to his place but we didn't say anything more than hello and goodbye – he made it clear he wanted to be alone for the meeting. But on the quay last night she did her best to convince Nicko he'd got the wrong man. Did her very best.'

'Check on the woman Monique,' Ferris said into the mike. To me: 'So you came out of it with the diary. Anything else?'

'My life.' Bridling again, quick to anger.

'It's well understood,' he said courteously, 'that the diary could locate Proctor for us. It's understood that even if you'd brought nothing out of the incident, the life of the executive for Barracuda is of inestimable value. We -'

'You've got Purdom,' I said, 'standing by.' Came out with it very fast and the tone was bitter and the instant it was over I was appalled, because the bloody thing was still running and there was the loud, clear and irretractable record of my hitherto hidden fear: that Purdom had been brought in to follow the mission in the background in case I bought it and he had to take over.

Sweating a little, the nerves heating the blood, debriefing, you see, is not always easy; they'll dig right down into your soul and drag it into the sour light of inspection.

Ferris said quietly, the expression in his amber eyes guileless and to be trusted, 'If Purdom had been down as the executive for Barracuda , I would have refused it, and if he is ever obliged to take over, I would ask London to replace me as the director in the field.'

'Quiller,' with a nod. 'How are you?'

Croder.

'Good enough, sir. And you?'

'Quite well.'

And at this stage of the mission when we didn't yet have certain access to the objective and they'd sent the Chief of Signals out here from London without warning anyone the nerves can get a bit on edge and I was already reading significance into the slightest word: by quite well did he mean considering the executive in the field had made so little progress that the Chief of Signals himself had been sent out here to ask what was happening?

He was the last man I expected to see here, watching me with his black eyes buried into his skull and his thin body held tightly within itself to hide any expression. The last time we'd met we'd had a row over that poor devil Fisher and I wasn't in a mood to put up with any bullshit.

His eyes briefly noting the state of my clothes, 'Shall we sit down, gentlemen?'

She didn't even keep an iron on board, I just hang everything out in the sun, sorry.

Creaking of leather as people moved the chairs around, six of us in here, Ferris, Croder, Monck, a man I didn't know, Purdom and myself, Purdom , dark, big-boned, silent, simmering with frustrated energy, come here to sit on my shoulder like a vulture on a tombstone, damn his eyes, I was not in the mood, I tell you , for being rubbed the wrong way.

'All is well,' Ferris said quietly from the next chair.

My nerves had been showing and I can't stand that: it's appallingly poor security. It had been nothing more than a brush with the infinite out there in that boat last night and I was still alive and it was time to get back into gear for God's sake.

'You've met Mr Monck, of course, but not Tench, have you?'

I hadn't seen him before: short, studious-looking, glasses, almost as held-in as that man Purdom, just nodded to us as we said hello.

'He's here to assist me,' Croder added, which could of course mean anything: he could be a Bureau shrink sent out here to check my condition, note whether my eyes were flickering, whether I was putting out sweat, things like that – they do this sometimes, people like Loman do it, they'll send someone out to the field to give an opinion as to whether the shadow is showing the worse for wear, whether he ought to be recalled before the rot sets in.

But listen, I was still in good shape and Ferris was still in control and I didn't want these bastards -watch it, you'll have to watch it, he's probably nothing more than a cipher clerk sent here to look after signals. Steady the breathing, loosen the hands, go into alpha for a couple of minutes, calm the ego down.

Nice room, it was a nice room, bit modern but not too institutional for a place like this – we were in the Deputy High Commisioner's office in East Street, no one else around or at least not visible: a security guard had shown us in and gone off again. There'd been more security on the way here from the airport, four men deployed at a distance with their jackets bulging and their heads constantly on the swivel, one of them worried when Ferris had wandered off track a bit to tread on a beetle, I wish to Christ you wouldn't do that , but he never takes any notice, It was instantaneous , he's got a laugh like a snake shedding its skin as you know.

'If you'll give me a little time,' Croder said, and began turning the sheets of the debriefing book.

I think I reached alpha but only for a few seconds, felt too restless, got up and walked about to look at the pictures on the wall, tugged at the laces and pulled my shoes off and walked about like that, what a bloody relief, saw Ferris making a note on his pad, new shoes , I suppose, he doesn't miss anything.

The phone rang and Tench picked it up at the first ring and said yes, but was it urgent, and then listened for half a minute and finally said all right and passed the phone to Croder.

'Cocktail , sir.'

I'd seen it on the board before I'd left London: it was Jowett's thing, one of our first in Sri Lanka.

'When was this?'

You can't tell anything from Croder's tone; he talks like a lawyer reading a will. I saw Ferris watching him.

'What are his chances?'

This I didn't need. Jowett had had a wheel come off and his chances weren't worth a damn because the man at the board didn't know how to help him and you do not, you do not raise the Chief through Cheltenham when he's in the next hemisphere with a major mission already on his hands, unless there's a life in the balance.

'Has he got it with him?'

The product. The poor bastard had pushed it right into the end-phase and he'd got the product and he'd been running like hell for the coast on board a plane or in a Hertz or buried under a sack of oats in a truck and someone had blown him or he'd left traces behind and now he was holed up in a telephone box with blood in his shoes and the fear of God in his soul and ringing London, tugging on the lifeline to see if it was still there, still strong enough to get him home, to get him home alive while 'Have you informed Hallows?'