It mustn't happen a third time. This was the last thought I wanted to put into their heads – that I couldn't keep my control.

Silence opening like a grave.

Then Ferris said gently, 'Experience in the United States. He hasn't worked here.'

Of course. Entirely reasonable. But the thought was still there, chilling the nerves. I'd heard of Purdom, seen him in the Caff now and then, seen his name on some of the boards, certainly the board for Pagoda and the one for Mirage and possibly others: he was one of the high-echelon shadows and no one had sent him out here from London just to 'get experience'.

Looking at the wall, not at me, the wall or the door or whatever was there behind me, a dark man, big-boned, his body hunched in the chair, thick hands folded and his legs crossed, almost twisted together, a quietly-ticking bomb with some clothes round it and some hair on top, an exaggeration, of course, but you get the picture – it was his nerves I was picking up on, his held-in energy. I watched him for a moment, taking him in, not wanting to look at Ferris because if I looked at Ferris I was liable to put it straight into words, get it over with.

Is Purdom out here to replace me?

Someone was speaking, his voice very soft, reaching me as if from a distance. It was Ferris. 'You're among friends, Quiller.'

He didn't know what he was saying because he hadn't been there in London when that bastard Loman had said exactly the same thing: You're among friends.

Friends? Loman had flinched. It was the time when they were trying to get me to think twice about resigning because they'd put that bloody bomb under the driving seat of that truck in Murmansk, deciding that I was expendable. I still couldn't trust these people.

Not even Ferris?

'Am I?' Among friends.

'But of course.' His voice still gentle as he watched me with his pale honey-coloured eyes. I'd have to think, you know, think a little more carefully, because this man had saved my skin so many times – Berlin, Hong Kong, Murmansk – where other people would have left me to rot in the red sector and vouchsafed their sleep with a lie. Communications compromised, opposition in control, executive unreachable…

Trust, then, perhaps, this one man among them all. Because, in any case, if you can't trust your own director in the field you're dead. I'd proved that in Northlight: I hadn't been able to trust Fane and I'd come close to getting blown into Christendom in that truck.

'All right,' I said, heard myself saying, meaning all right, I was ready to believe I was among friends. 'I'm a bit tired, that's all.'

'Of course.' His voice still gentle. 'And there's a bit of delayed shock hanging around, according to Greenspan.'

'Possibly.'

'So you might not feel quite ready for debriefing.' Paused, giving me a chance to say no, not quite ready. I said nothing. 'But if you're willing, we could make some progress. London's a tiny bit fidgety.'

'Why?'

In a moment, 'First Proctor was missing. Then you.'

I sank into the chair, letting the muscles go, trying to centre. It wasn't going to be easy. 'You sent signals?'

'I had to. I didn't know where you were.'

'It was only for a short – ' and left it. I didn't remember how long it had been, didn't want to.

'I need to know,' Ferris said, 'why you left the hotel covertly.'

'I wanted to walk for a bit, without a whole troop of people around me. You know I hate support.'

The other two were looking at me now; I'd noticed their heads turn, the light catching their eyes. They shouldn't watch me. It made me nervous. Ferris ought to tell them not to watch me. He was unzipping a flat pigskin briefcase and getting a book out, a ballpoint from his pocket, opening the book.

He asked me: 'To walk where?'

'Oh, just around, for the exercise.'

1330 West Riverside -

'You were shot at,' Ferris said, 'and were therefore revealed as a target for the opposition, whose intention it was to kill. Having been recognised, then, and set up as that target, you obviously realised that this town has become a red sector for you.' A beat. 'Yet you went for a walk in the open street, "for the exercise".'

I got out of the chair and turned my back on him because it was the only way I could talk to him without letting him see my eyes. 'Is this a debriefing, for Christ's sake, or an inquisition?' Wheeled on him, anger in the eyes now and I wanted him to see it. 'You don't consider that the executive hand-picked by Bureau One himself for this mission isn't capable of deciding whether he can safely walk in the bloody streets or not?' Folded my arms, wrong posture because defensive but too late to change it, not one of these bastards looking at me, all looking down or into the middle distance, embarrassed perhaps because my voice was hitting back from the glass panels of the display case and the lacquered Chinese screen in short-range echoes, shouting, you might call it, you might call it that. 'I'd been cooped up in that stinking hotel for hours on end and I was still full of adrenaline from the lark on the quay and I wanted some exercise, yes, and I didn't want half a regiment keeping me under mobile surveillance because it could have attracted attention.' Tried to keep my voice under control, failed. 'I think that makes sense but if you think I'm out of my mind then you'd better send for your bloody shrink.'

Watching me now, Ferris was watching me.

'Why don't you come and sit down? You'll feel more comfortable.' Turning his head to the man on his left, Johnson, no, Upjohn, saying quietly, 'See if he'd mind joining us for a few minutes.'

The man got up and went out through the door behind him, not the one I'd come in by, leading to the hall, the other one. I looked down at Ferris. He was making notes in the debriefing book.

I said: 'The shrink?'

'Yes,' Went on writing.

A quietness on me suddenly, the anger fading. 'You said you weren't going to send for him.'

He looked up. 'Only if you asked. I think you just did that.'

I turned away, moved about. He was perfectly right. Then you'd better send for your bloody shrink. It had come right out of the subconscious because I knew I needed help and I'd been frightened to ask for it in so many words. I could have gone on lying, trying to protect my ego, but I didn't, because we'd got a mission running and something had gone terribly wrong and I had to face it, deal with it somehow. Listen, if nothing else I am a professional, for God's sake give me that.

'Can I have a drink?'

The thirst still burning.

'But of course.'

Ferris got up and went over to the table by the couch, where there was a decanter and a glass. I suppose that was what it was, the classical psychiatrist's couch; I'd only ever seen them in cartoons. If he asked me to lie down on it I would twist his head off at the neck and – steady, lad, you need this man, you need him.

'Thank you.' Glass of water.

He looked at me, Ferris, with his pale amber eyes, concerned that I should understand, if I read them right. 'All is well, my dear fellow. There will be no misdirection.'

A word normally used in the context of a courtroom, but within the Bureau the connotation is different: a director in the field will sometimes, if he's incompetent or devious, misdirect his executive, and if things are running close it can be fatal.

'I'm Dr Alvarez.'

A short man in striped pyjamas and a dressing-gown, dark eyes not smiling, serious. Taking me in, evaluating me, reaching for my hand.

This is Keyes,' Ferris told him.

'Good, yes,' not taking his eyes off my face, 'why don't we all sit down? You have some water. Would you prefer a glass of wine, some whisky?'