'Finberg knows I'm using a cover?'

'He knows you are operating for a London shadow agency under the aegis of the UK government; he therefore realizes you're not a bona fide journalist. In talking to him you don't have to protect the cover image unless someone else is present — then you protect it.'

I went across to the door of the room and stood there, 'What happens if the EPS tries shaking me?'

'You phone me here and I'll ask Finberg to come to the British Embassy.' He paused.

I opened the door with a jerk.

Housemaids with a trolley of linen at the end of the passage.

I shut the door.

'At the embassy,' Ferris went on, 'we'd open up what would amount to a hot line connection by radio, Finberg to Control. But that's last ditch. Don't let them shake you. More questions?'

'No.'

'Finally, you'll be met at the West Executive Entrance by a security escort and a man named George Ryan Jr. He'll take you to the meeting place, and by the way, he's in the Company.'

'What does he know?'

'Only that you're operating as a British agent. Nothing else.'

I went over to the window.

'How deep is the CIA in this?'

'The CIA isn't in it at all. He happens to be a member, but be knows absolutely nothing about Kobra or our mission. He's a courtesy escort, more or less — service to service.'

The trees were in early leaf below the window but there were still enough gaps between them to take in extreme angles and expose normal cover.

'Ferris,' I said, 'how important is this bloody meeting?'

He gave a soft laugh.

'Not your field, is it? Never mind.'

'I want to get to New York and take over Zade.'

'Don't worry,' he said. They'll hold him.'

The dark grey Mustang looked clean but total security wasn't possible because this was the third floor of the hotel and some of the downward extreme angles were critical or even useless: I wouldn't be able to see anyone sitting in a parked car within a thirty-degree vector from this viewpoint because the top overlapped the scuttle. But they could be checked when it went down there. The rest of the street looked secure.

'But since you asked,' Ferris said in rather precise tones, 'let me say that Robert Finberg probably knows the exact target of the Kobra operation.'

I swung round.

'Oh does he?'

'Probably.'

That could make quite a difference. Satynovich Zade could lead me all over New York for days and I could finish up blown or lost or dead but if Finberg could tell me what the target was I could drop Zade and go straight into the penetration phase with Ferris working out the access. I could be there at the Kobra rendezvous in time to set up support systems, audio surveillance, radio monitoring, the whole bazaar.

So at this moment the mission didn't depend exclusively on our holding down Zade: it depended also on what Finberg could tell me. I suppose I should have known. Egerton wouldn't keep me hanging around the White House if it wasn't fully urgent.

Ferris was checking his watch.

'How's the car?'

'It looks clean.'

'We'd better synchronize.'

'What's local?'

'Ten thirty-nine. Leave for the embassy in six minutes.'

I turned the knob and reset.

'Ready when you are.'

He picked up his mackintosh.

'Want to recap anything?'

'No, I've got it.'

Ferris saw me through the clearance at the embassy and then left for the hotel in a cab, leaving the Mustang outside. He didn't want to stay away from the base phone too long because New York could come through at any time, The EPS people didn't try to shake me on my cover but they were top professionals and some of their questions were throw-aways, casting for slips, and I couldn't relax.

There was a solid front at the West Executive Entrance to the White House and I cut the engine and got out and a man came forward and said he was George Ryan.

We shook hands.

'It won't take a moment, Mr Wexford.'

Medium height, crew cut, pleasant blue eyes and freckles, the knife-edge of his right hand calloused by practice. He watched the pass being stamped and signed, a fixed half-smile on his face to let me know that this was all a ridiculous formality and that if it was up to him he'd usher me through this gate without any hesitation.

I didn't think he would.

'We've been wondering if it would ever end, Mr Wexford. Then the clouds rolled away this morning and now look at it. How was it in London?'

'Bright intervals.'

Another security agent signed his name on the pass and gave it to Ryan, who checked the stamping and signatures and handed it to me with a gesture of formality, 'Keep it to show your grandchildren, huh?'

I could hear the gate guard using the radio to the west lobby door as I went back to the Mustang and got in. Ryan came with me and talked most of the time as we took West Executive Avenue to the parking lot near the White House.

'I was in London a couple of months ago, took my wife along this time — she'd never been there before. First thing we took in was the Horse Guards' — er — '

'Parade?'

'Sure, parade. We really flipped over that, you know? Fantastic precision.'

'I think your majorettes are sexier.'

He gave a big laugh and we got out and began walking.

'What do you think about our security here, Mr Wexford?'

'It looks like a hundred per cent. Are these chaps all EPS?'

'Some of them. The others are PPD.'

'I don't think I know that one.'

'Huh? Oh, there's the Presidential Protective Division.'

I counted sixteen agents within sight of the west lobby entrance.

'Are there normally this many?'

'Well yes.' He invited me inside. 'If you've read our history, you'll know the office is vulnerable.'

He asked me to show my pass to the sergeant at the door and took me deeper into the building, talking about London again and nodding sometimes to one of the agents posted in the cavernous 'hallways. There were footsteps behind us at every stage of the journey but he never looked round.

'In here,' he said and opened a plain white-panelled door.

Dark blue carpet, polished mahogany, framed and coloured photographs of various monuments. The acoustics were dead in here, in contrast with the high-ceilinged corridors and marble floors outside.

Assume bugs.

Ryan checked his watch.

'Mr Finberg should be along in just a few minutes, so why don't we sit down while we talk a little? The meeting will take place in the adjoining room: I'll show you in there and introduce you.' He took a chair and tugged at the creases in his slacks and sat down and crossed one knee over the other. 'It's a pleasure to meet somebody from — uh — a British agency.' He gave a sudden white smile. 'How's business?'

'Catch-as-catch-can. How's yours?'

Another big laugh.

'We keep busy, though we don't get much help, that's for sure. Guess you read the newspapers.'

'Not often.'

'You know what bugs me right now? These goddamn KGB people crawling all over the Capitol! Guess you've read about that.'

'No.'

A very faint whining began and I couldn't place it.

The air-conditioning was going but the sound came from somewhere near the window. Or against the window.

That place is a safe house for Moscow, no less,' said Ryan, not smiling any more. 'Hoover made a fuss in 1960 putting the Capitol off-limits for the FBI's counter-intelligence personnel, can you imagine that?'

It was a siren, that was all. Emergency vehicle, 'I suppose he had his reasons.'

He gave a brief snort. 'Who knows what goes on at the top, Mr Wexford? Who knows what reasons people have? Obviously I don't suggest Hoover wasn't a hundred per cent loyal to his office and his country that'd be ridiculous. But frankly I can't think of any useful reason why Capitol Hill should be swarming with KGB men at the express invitation of the FBI.' He turned his head as he heard the siren, then turned back. 'The thing is, it's created an invisible power bloc: a nucleus of thirty or forty KGB officers who deal with the Congress staff on a daily footing. Now if you take this situation to its logical-'