“So, Kosigin, had any thoughts?”

“About what? I believe you’re a wanted man in Europe, Mr. Reeve. Not a very pleasant situation.”

“But you could do something about that, right?”

“Could I?”

“Yes, you could hand Jay over to the French authorities, you could tell them he set me up.”

“You two know one another, don’t you?”

“Believe it.”

“There’s some sort of enmity between you?”

“You mean he hasn’t told you? Get him to tell you his version. It’s probably so fake you could install it as a ride at Disneyland.”

“I’d like to hear your version.”

“I bet you would, and at length too, right?”

“Look, Mr. Reeve, this is getting us nowhere. Why don’t you just tell me what you want.”

“I thought that was obvious, Kosigin. I want Jay. I’ll phone later with the details.”

Reeve walked back to the office-supply shop and handed over the mobile, signing some more documents and getting back his deposit.

“Any calls will be charged to your credit card,” the assistant told him.

“Thanks,” Reeve said. He went next door to the coffee shop. Cantona was reading a crumpled newspaper. Reeve bought them both a coffee.

“Hell,” Cantona said, “I didn’t recognize you there.”

Reeve reached into his pocket and drew out a miniature of whiskey. “Here’s something to pep you up.”

“I meant what I said, Gordon.” Cantona’s eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His stubble was silver and gray. “I don’t drink when I’m working.”

“But you’re not working anymore. I’m heading out.”

“Where to?” Cantona received no reply. “Best I don’t know, right?”

“Right.” Reeve handed over the money from his mobile de-posit.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s for looking after Jim, and taking some shit on my behalf last time I was here.”

“Aw hell, Gordon, that wasn’t anything.”

“Put it in your pocket, Eddie, and drink up.” Reeve stood up again, his own coffee barely touched. Cantona glanced out of the window. It had become a reflex.

“There’s McCluskey,” he said.

Reeve watched the detective get into his car. He didn’t look happy. Reeve kept watching. If Jay walked out of the building, Reeve would finish it now. He’d leave the coffee shop, sprint between the traffic, and take the bastard out.

But there was no sign of Jay.

“Go home,” Reeve told Cantona. It was like he was telling himself.

He drove to L.A.

It took him a while to find Marcus Aurelius Dedman’s Auto-Breakers. He’d phoned ahead, and Dedman was waiting for him.

Dedman gave the car a cursory inspection. “She drive all right?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“No problems at all?”

“No problems at all,” Reeve echoed.

“Well in that case,” Dedman said. “I might as well use her to give you your ride.”

Dedman had agreed to drive Reeve out to the airport. He insisted on driving, and Reeve was quite happy to rest in the passenger seat. On the way, Dedman talked about cars, using a language Reeve only half understood. He’d done a course in car mechanics as part of his SAS training, but that had been on elderly Land Rovers, and had been cursory at best. It seemed a long time ago.

Reeve shook Dedman’s hand at the airport and watched him drive off. He didn’t think they’d be expecting him to leave so soon. Kosigin would be waiting for the next call. Reeve walked around the concourse until he found a bulletin board. He scribbled a note on the back of a napkin he’d taken from the coffee shop, then folded the note over, wrote a surname in large capitals, and pinned the napkin to the bulletin board.

Then he checked himself onto the next available flight and made straight for the departure gate. There wasn’t much to do at LAX; it was no Heathrow-which these days was more department store than airport. Reeve ate a pizza and drank a Coke. He bought a magazine, which he didn’t read. There was no duty-free shop, so he sat by the row of public telephones until just before his flight was called.

Then he called Kosigin.

“Yes?” Kosigin said impatiently.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I don’t like games, Mr. Reeve.”

“That’s a pity, because we’re deep in the middle of one. Have somebody-Jay preferably-go to LAX. There’s a public bulletin board in the departures hall, near the information kiosk. There’s a note there.”

“Look, why can’t we just-”

Reeve cut the connection. His flight was being called over the loudspeaker.

He had probably got one of the last places on the aircraft. He was seated by the aisle in a middle row of three. Next to him were an Australian couple heading over to Ireland to trace the wife’s ancestors. They showed Reeve some photographs of their children.

“Old photos, they’re all grown now.”

Reeve didn’t mind. He smiled and ordered a whiskey, and watched the sharp blue sky outside. He was just happy to be away from San Diego. He was glad he was going home. When the in-flight movie started, he pushed his cushion down so it was supporting his lumbar, and then he closed his eyes.

Old pictures… He had a lot of those in his head: old pictures he would never forget, pictures he’d once dreamed nightly, the dreams breaking him out in a sweat.

Pictures of fireworks in Argentina.

IT WAS THE THIRD NIGHT, and enemy activity was increasing still further. There were constant patrols, firing searing pink-burn flares into the sky. An order would be yelled, and a patrol would spray their designated area with bullets. Reeve and Jay knew the tactic. The Argentine soldiers were trying to rile them, flush them out. They were trying to break them.

Reeve understood the shouted orders and would shake his head at Jay, meaning there was nothing to worry about. But they were both nervous. They’d been kept so low by the patrols that sending any more data to the ship was impossible; it had been that way for the best part of the day. They’d been forced farther inland, away from the air base, so that they could no longer see the runway or any of the buildings, and the planes taking off and landing were droning flies.

In fact, not transmitting was the only thing keeping them alive. The patrols were so close they’d have DF’d the two-man team in seconds. Reeve and Jay maintained complete silence throughout. Reeve couldn’t remember the last time either of them had spoken. Muscles were seizing up from being kept still and rigid for hours at a time. The back of Reeve’s neck ached terribly, and he daren’t crack it. The fingers on his M16 felt arthritic, and he’d already had two bouts of cramp.

Whenever he glanced over towards Jay, Jay would be looking at him. He tried to read the look in those eyes. They seemed to be saying, quite eloquently, “We’re fucked,” and they were probably right. But because Jay thought that, he was getting edgier and edgier, and Reeve suspected he might be on the verge of panicking. It was all about nerve now: if they lost theirs, the only possible outcome was “brassing up,” blasting away at anything and anybody until your ammo ran out or you copped one.

Reeve fingered the two Syrettes of morphine which hung around his neck. They felt like a noose. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use them. He’d rather put a bullet to his head first, though the regiment considered that the coward’s way out. The rule was, you fought to the death, and if the enemy didn’t kill you but captured you instead, then you did your damnedest to escape. Both men had been trained to withstand various interrogation techniques, but maybe the Argentines had a few tricks Hereford hadn’t heard of. Unlikely, but then torture was a broad sub-ject. Reeve reckoned he could withstand quite a bit of physical abuse, and even psychological wearing-down. What he knew he couldn’t cope with-what no one could cope with-were the various chemical forms of torture, the drugs that fucked with your mind.