'What the hell are you trying to sell me, a world war?'

He tilted his head, regretfully.

'In any case, I appreciate your having considered the mission.'

'Hope it goes off all right'

'Thank you, yes.'

I went to the door and a phone rang and he stretched his thin hand down to take it. I could hear the voice at the other end, but not the words. It wasn't a voice I knew. Egerton glanced at me once, then looked away again. When they'd finished he sat down slowly with the phone in his hand. His tone was courteous, as always.

'Quiller is at present engaged in my services, and is unable to report to you. Please allow me to add that the Directorate would appreciate being left to pursue its affairs without interference of this nature from the Administration.'

He lowered the phone and looked at me.

'I assume you unwittingly offered some kind of — provocation.' He gave a wintry smile.

'They got it ballsed up,' I said. 'Someone in Room 6 thought I was a trainee.'

'In that case the provocation was surely theirs,'

'No hard feelings.'

I turned to go again.

Sometimes you do things you never mean to do. You work it all out, size it all up, make a decision and then go and do the very opposite, either because you've got some kind of obsession or because you're being run by gut-think instead of brain-think or because some totally irrelevant factor gets suddenly in the works and sends you the other way.

He needn't have done that. He could have just said: 'They want to see you in Administration.' Their lordships had sent for me because an executive doesn't just turn his back on them and walk out and leave the door open: he's expected to say excuse me, sir, but I think there's some little mistake, so forth. They'd wanted me up there for a lecture. But Egerton hadn't known that. He didn't care in the least what they wanted me for. He'd just realized they wanted me on the carpet, and he doesn't like his executives interfered with by the non-active staff.

So he'd told them to go and screw themselves, And this was a totally irrelevant factor.

I came away from the door.

'I forgot to ask. Who was Harrison's local director?'

He lifted his eyebrows slightly.

'Dewhurst.'

I stood looking at one of the mugs. God Bless Our Glorious Queen.

'Who are the others?' I asked him. 'You don't mind if I — '

'Not at all. They are Hunter, Brockley and Smythe. I'm sending Ferris out to look after the fifth executive,'

In a minute I said: 'All top rankers.'

'Oh yes.' He looked slightly deprecating: there's a degree of modesty about this ruthless and brilliant man that almost shocks you, sometimes. 'As I explained, this is quite a substantial undertaking.'

I sat down slowly in the Louis Quinze chair.

'Feel like telling me a bit more?'

Macklin got up and wandered across to the cabinets and got out a file and kicked the drawer shut and came back, lighting another cigarette, 'Didn't imagine you'd be accepting this one,' he said.

'Why not?'

'Not quite your style, is it?'

'That's none of your bloody business,'

He gave a lopsided smile.

'Fraction touchy today, are we?.'

'Come on, for Christ's sake get me briefed.'

Now that I'd made up my mind, I wanted to get out of here.

Macklin opened the file and I waited, trying to cool down. He wasn't going to let me rush him so it was no good trying: he was a topliner at this job and when he sent me out of here I'd be briefed to perfection.

The fluorescent tubes sizzled faintly across the ceiling, casting an ashen light and leaving a tracery of shadow across his face where the tissue didn't quite match. He'd been one of our best executives until a couple of years ago, when something had blown up; and now he was one of our best briefers.

'All right,' he said, and squinted at me through the smoke of his cigarette. 'How much did Egerton tell you?'

'Not much,' I went through it for him.

He nodded, spreading the file flat These five men. One: Ilyich Kuznetski, freelance saboteur, mercenary, guerilla. Set up the bombing of the Simplon Tunnel, worked three months with French counter-espionage, arrested last June in Rome and shot his way out of gaol, disappeared. Smythe is now with him, last reporting from Cairo. Two: Carlos Ramirez, terrorist, explosives expert, worked for half a dozen groups and now takes on anything that appeals to him politically. Three: Satynovich Zade, undercover agent for Palestinian factions, once ran with a group affiliated to the Fourth International, at present wanted by the Dutch police on homicide charges. We have Brockley with him. Four: Francisco — '

'Harrison was watching Ramirez, is that right?'

He looked up, 'You didn't tell me Egerton had briefed you on that.'

'Didn't I?'

I suppose you don't talk about what you'd rather forget He looked down.

'Number Four is Francisco Ventura, once a member of the Basque Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna, now operating freelance for anyone who'll pay him enough, including Black September and the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes of Guatemala. Connections in Moscow and strong sympathies with the Arabs. Hunter is local-controlling the surveillance, last signals from Geneva. Five: Sabri Sassine, trained in Palestine and now an international, twice called in by the FLQ in Canada, spent five years in prison in Argentina until released as a political prisoner in exchange for a Ford Motor Company vice-president. Ferris will local-control Perkins on that one,'

He picked up a telephone.

'Who kidnapped the Ford man?' I asked him.

'Splinter group, believed to be the Argentine Trotskyite Organization.' He said into the phone: 'Have you located Perkins yet?'

I couldn't see how any group made up of these widely differing agitators could find a common cause — or seek a common rendezvous. There'd have to be something that triggered an identical response in all of them.

'It's no good beating your gums about it,' Macklin said into the telephone. 'He's down for priority briefing and I want him, so please get him.'

He put the phone down and looked at me, 'Who would he be with, do you think?'

'Corinne. Or maybe Laura.' Possibly both, knowing Perkins.

He scribbled their names down.

'Okay so far?'

'Satynovich Zade,' I said. 'Wasn't he the one they found in Paris a couple of weeks ago?'

'Yes. Shot an informer and two Deuxieme Bureau men when they knocked at the door. Anything else?'

'No.'

'Fair enough.'

He went into the routine phase of the briefing: probable access, communication modes with agents-in-place, signals facilities through Crowborough, liaison with directors in the field, fallback systems, security, suggested cover, suggested identify, so forth. He'd be passing a lot of this on to Clearance, as soon as I'd indicated preferences where the area was flexible: the drawing of weapons, agreement on codes and things like that. He already knew most of my preferences but he wouldn't take anything for granted because we're a nervy and superstitious lot and have a tendency to change our minds about something quite radical: Perkins is a case in point — for a long time he never drew a cyanide capsule because it gave him the willies just to think about it; then he saw what they did to Fawcett under interrogation in Leningrad prison hospital and he's drawn a capsule ever since, won't go into the field without it.

'We come to general theory,' said Macklin, and shut the file. 'As Egerton told you, we believe the Kobra group will start moving in a specific direction soon after it's come together. Excuse me.'

The yellow telephone was buzzing and he took it General theory my arse. They don't put out five executives into the field and five top rank controls to run them unless they've got a pretty accurate idea about what's going to happen. Possibly Macklin didn't know but if he knew anything he wouldn't necessarily pass it on to me. Except for operations with strong political overtones the executives are sent in without a lot of material stuffed into their heads, and this is particularly the case with penetration agents: we want to go in and do the job and get out so fast that nobody has time to stop us, and we can't concentrate if we're thinking about all the ramifications in the background: it'd put us right off our stroke.