Proctor had been turned and gone over to the Soviets and for all we knew he could be at the very centre of the opposition network, the centre of an organisation that had moved in on me the instant they felt I was a danger – the instant when I'd telephoned Proctor to say I wanted to see him. They'd searched my room and tagged me through the streets and put me in the cross hairs and infiltrated my brain within hours of my arrival in Miami. Whoever Proctor was operating for now, they were important, perhaps international, even multi-national, and he would have a major role to play.

'I can tell you,' Erica Cambridge said, 'the places where he used to go, yes, but I doubt if you'll find him there.'

'We could find traces. That's all we need.'

'I think I should tell you -' a moment of hesitation, but she decided to go on – 'I think I should, tell you that my need to find that man isn't… personal.'

She was looking down again; she did it a lot. I said, 'Are you sure?'

'Oh yes. Yes, in spite of my asking you -' she left it.

Asking me about the woman.

'If it's not personal,' I said, 'it's political?'

'In the United States of America within ten days of the presidential election, the way a dog scratches a flea is political. But with George Proctor -' hesitation again – 'it's something even more than political. There's something going on that -' this time she broke off and her eyes became wary. 'Mr Keyes – did I get your name right? – I don't have the slightest idea who you are or what you were doing in the Newsbreak studios.'

'I'm looking for George Proctor.'

'Sure, but a minute ago you said that "we" could perhaps find traces of him.'

'My organisation.'

'There's no deal, Mr Keyes.' Her eyes were hard now. 'Unless you're prepared to name names.'

'I may do that later,' I said. 'Not now.'

Her head turned to look at the bodyguard, then back to me. 'I have to go soon, Mr Keyes. I come here sometimes to – you know – unwind, be by myself.'

I didn't get up. 'You won't find him,' I said, 'by yourself.'

'Will you?'

'Not immediately. Not for a day or two. But we'll find him.'

'Then why did you come to me?'

'Because you might have helped us to find him sooner. If we pooled our information we'd shorten the time. We'd rather not wait two days, but it won't be more than that. You'll need longer, and you may be too late.'

Looking down, running a fingertip round and round the rim of the little espresso cup, her breath quickening, the lift and fall of her breasts under the white silk catching the light from overhead, a vibration in her that I half-caught through the senses, half-felt across the space between us at the small round table, an emanation from her etheric body, from her nerves.

Then she looked up, and I caught a touch of fear. 'Only two days?'

'No more than that.'

'When you find him, what will you do?'

'We'll get him out of the country, very fast.'

Watching me steadily, the fright still there. 'It's – important for me to see him first.'

'We couldn't allow that.'

Looking away now, trapped. I waited.

'Hi, Erica!'

A woman waving, the bodyguard on his feet and turning for instructions, Cambridge giving a quick little shake of her head.

It was going to be all right but I put three dollar bills onto the check as a gesture.

'It would be very helpful to you,' Cambridge said, leaning closer, 'if you let me see him before he leaves. I have a great deal of information on him.'

'Then give it to me now and you'll see him before he leaves. That's guaranteed. I'm sorry, it's the best I can do.' Stood up, buttoned my jacket.

'Mr Keyes, is your "organisation" the British government?'

'I would have thought it was rather clear. Proctor's a British national. But look, get in touch with me some time tomorrow, if you want to – though I'm not easy to reach. We -'

'May I see some kind of ID?'

I chose the card with the Foreign Office crest and dropped it onto the table and she looked at it carefully.

'May I keep this?'

'By all means.'

Took a purse out of her snakeskin bag, put the card away. 'It's difficult to talk to you if you're standing up.'

'We've talked enough, I think, and you were working late. It was a pleasure -'

'Mr Keyes.' The fright in her voice now. She was looking down again, her small hands flat on the marble top of the table with the fingers spread, the voilet nail varnish glinting under the light. 'I'd be glad if you'd sit down for a moment – is that too much to ask?'

I was surprised because I hadn't expected her to break so completely, but this was simply because I didn't know the Proctor background and her connection with it. It looked critical, because as I sat down again I could see that she was having to make an effort to keep control, and her voice was shaky now.

'Look, you've caught me at a crucial time. I – I need help, if that doesn't sound too melodramatic.'

She waited for me to say something.

Said nothing.

'There's no one I can trust, you see. I mean I've got friends, sure, associates,' pressing the table hard, 'and they're all good people but – but I don't know how strong they'd be if things got really rough. And none of them know about George Proctor – okay, we were close, yes, but they don't know about – this thing that's happening.' Driving her hands against the marble, her eyes wide now, then changing, narrowing as she caught an inward glimpse of herself and looked up at last and around her in case anyone were watching, her eyes coming back to me, her voice soft, suddenly, fierce – 'Are you listening to me, for God's sake?'

'Yes.'

'You goddamned British, you won't give an inch will you?' Her hands off the table now, restless, brushing the air – 'But I'm going to take a risk and trust you because I'm gullible enough to feel reassured by the Queen of England's crest on the card you gave me.'

No. Going to trust me because she desperately wanted information on Proctor and I'd guaranteed her a meeting with him as soon as we found him.

Looking around her, then back to me, 'The next ten days are going to be critical for the United States of America and by extension for the rest of the world. Not politically critical because Mathieson Judd is a Republican and if he gets into the White House there won't be any change. But critical internationally, globally. I have a question, since you know George Proctor. Is he a small fish, or a big fish?'

'It depends on the pond.'

'It's a very big pond, so let's try this: would you say he's capable of becoming a big fish, in a very big pond?'

I looked away. One of the Bureau men near the doors was different. Midnight shift. 'Proctor,' I said, 'is capable of anything that requires cold courage, risk and endurance. He shouldn't be underestimated.'

'That's also my opinion. He and I -' she looked down, spreading her hands on the table again, perhaps wanting to feel its stability, wanting to borrow from it – 'he and I were close personally until -quite recently, close enough for me to be quite sure he wasn't the advertising man he purported to be – though he used his connections with Newsbreak pretty well as a front. But he still had a reserve I couldn't get through, and I believe he was doing things unknown to me that would have surprised me – correction, alarmed me, frightened me – not just personally, I mean on a geopolitical scale.' Pause. 'I want to get this right. On a clandestine geopolitical scale.'

'For instance?'

'I'm not saying he's the biggest fish in this thing, by any means, but I believe he's being used as the prime mover. You remember a man called Howard Hughes?'

Said I'd heard of him.

Someone over there was pointing in this direction, one of the waitresses.

'He had a mad dream,' Cambridge said. 'He wanted to buy America.'