“Actually, I have another source of capital that will permit me to raise the money for the project without the knowledge of the competition.”

“If I accept your proposal, I would demand complete authority to run the venture as I see fit. Keeping the project secret from the competition will require the use of independent contractors and other freelance personnel. These people cost money. I will require the independent authority to spend money and use resources as I deem necessary.”

“You have it, though overall operational control of the venture will remain with me in Geneva.”

“Agreed. Then there is the matter of my own compensation.”

“I’m afraid you are in a position to name your own price.”

“One hundred and fifty thousand pounds. If the job lasts longer than six months, I will be paid an additional one hundred thousand pounds.”

“Done. So, do we have an agreement?”

“I’ll let you know by the end of the day.”

But it was Peel, not Shamron, who received the news first.

Late that afternoon Peel heard noises on the quay. He raised his head from his schoolwork and peered out the window. There, in the dying twilight, he saw the stranger on the deck of his ketch, dressed in his yellow oilskin and a black woolen watch cap pulled so low that Peel could barely see his eyes. He was putting the ketch in mothballs: taking down sails, removing aerials, locking hatch covers. There was a look of grim determination on his face that Peel had never seen before. He considered running down to see if there was something wrong, but the stranger’s demeanor suggested he was in no mood for visitors.

After an hour the stranger disappeared into the cottage. Peel returned to his schoolwork, only to be interrupted again a few minutes later, this time by the sound of the stranger’s MG starting up. Peel rushed to the window in time to see the car rolling slowly up the lane, rain drifting through the beams of the headlights. He lifted his hand, more a gesture of surrender than a wave. For a moment he thought the stranger didn’t see him. Then the headlights flashed once and the little MG vanished.

Peel waited in the window until the sound of the motor died away. A tear spilled down his cheek. He punched it away. Big boys don’t cry, he told himself. The stranger would never cry for me. I won’t cry for him. Downstairs his mother and Derek were quarreling again. Peel climbed into bed and pulled his pillow around his ears.

Holborn, London

Looking Glass Communications, a multi-billion-dollar international publishing conglomerate, was headquartered in a modern office building overlooking New Square. It was owned by a six-foot-eight-inch, three-hundred-pound tyrant named Benjamin Stone. From his luxuriously appointed penthouse atop the headquarters, Stone ruled an empire of companies stretching from the Middle East to the United States. He owned dozens of newspapers and magazines as well as a controlling stake in the venerable New York publishing house Horton amp; McLawson. But the jewel in Stone’s crown was the tabloid Daily Sentinel, Britain ’s third-largest-selling national newspaper. Among the journalists of Fleet Street, the Daily Sentinel was known as the Daily Stone, because it was not unusual for the paper to publish two stories in a single day about Stone’s business and philanthropic activities.

What his competitors did not know was that Stone, a Hungarian Jew by birth, was also Ari Shamron’s most valuable sayan. When Shamron needed to insert a katsa into a hostile country on short notice, he could turn to Stone and the Daily Sentinel for cover. When a disgruntled former katsa tried to pedal a tell-all book about the Office, Shamron turned to Stone and his New York publishing house to knock it down. When Shamron wanted to plant a story in the Western press, he simply had to pick up a telephone and whisper into Benjamin Stone’s ear.

But Stone’s most valuable contribution to the Office was money. Among the senior staff at King Saul Boulevard, his charitable instincts had earned him the nickname Hadassah. Indeed, money looted from the pension funds of Stone’s companies had been used to bankroll Office operations for years. Whenever Shamron needed funds, Stone moved money through a series of dummy corporations and shell companies into one of Shamron’s operational accounts in Geneva.

Stone greeted Shamron that evening in the garish entrance hall. “Fuck’s sake!” he roared in his trademark baritone bellow. “Rudolf, my love! Didn’t realize you were in town. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have arranged something suitable. A banquet. A human sacrifice.” Stone laid his huge paw on Shamron’s shoulder. “Treasonous bastard! You’re lucky I’m here. Marvelous! Sensational! Come. Sit. Eat. Drink.”

Stone pulled Shamron into the sitting room. Everything was oversized, to accommodate Stone’s mass: deep chairs and couches of hand-tooled leather, a thick red carpet, large ottomans, and broad, low tables covered with fresh flowers and expensive trinkets given to him by other rich men. Stone forced Shamron into a chair as if he were about to interrogate him. He strode to the window, pressed a button, and the heavy curtains drew back. A window washer was working on the other side of the glass. Stone rapped his fat knuckle against the glass and gave the window washer a karate chop of a wave.

“I am the lord and master of all you see, Herr Heller,” Stone announced, admiring his view. “This man washes my window every day. Can’t stand a dirty window. Can you? If I ordered him to jump he’d do it and thank me for the suggestion later. Wouldn’t do it out of loyalty. Or respect. Or love. He’d do it because he’d be afraid not to. Fear is the only emotion that really matters.”

The window washer finished quickly and rappelled down the building. Stone lumbered across the room and opened the refrigerator behind the bar. He pulled out two bottles of champagne-he never opened just one-and slammed the door shut again as though he were kneeing a competitor in the balls. He tried to open one of the bottles, but his thick fingers were ill designed for the task of peeling foil and twisting bits of wire. Finally he threw back his head and roared, “Angelina!”

A terrified Portuguese maid entered the room, her eyes slightly averted.

“Take these,” Stone commanded, holding the bottles by the necks as though he were strangling them. “Remove the corks, bury them in ice. Bring food, Angelina. Mounds of food. Caviar, smoked salmon, and don’t forget strawberries. Big fucking strawberries. Big as a teenage girl’s titties.”

Stone fell into the corner of a couch and put his feet up on an ottoman. He removed his tie, twirled it into a ball, and tossed it over his shoulder onto the floor. He wore a striped shirt, handmade from Egyptian cotton, and maroon suspenders. The gold cuff links were nearly as big as the face on his solid gold wristwatch. Angelina came back into the room, deposited the tray of food, and fled. Stone poured champagne into flutes the size of beer glasses. He grasped a plum-sized strawberry, dipped it into the wine, and devoured it. He seemed to swallow it whole. Shamron suddenly felt like Alice. Everything was too big: the glasses, the strawberries, the slabs of smoked salmon, the giant-screen television silently playing an American financial news network, Stone and his ludicrous voice.

“May we drop the pretenses, Herr Heller?”

Shamron nodded. A technician from the Office’s London station had swept the apartment earlier that evening and found no listening devices.

“Ari, my friend!”

Stone plunged a toast point into a bowl of caviar. Shamron watched as three hundred dollars’ worth of beluga vanished down Stone’s gullet. For twenty minutes he treated Shamron to tales of his business ventures, his charitable activities, his most recent meeting with the Prince of Wales, his active and diverse sex life. He paused only once to scream for Angelina to bring another vat of caviar. Shamron sat with his legs crossed, watching the bubbles rise in his champagne. Occasionally he murmured, “How interesting,” or “That’s fascinating.”