I wouldn't of course have stopped there: that would have been the beginning, with two people off balance and wide open and the ship's rail immediately behind them. It could have been quite elegant in a way, though somewhat too easy to claim any credit. I didn't attempt it because there were some unpredictable factors. Nicko and the black would have had their throats well exposed and would have been dead before they went over the rail; but I couldn't have told where that first impulsive shot would have gone: it could have gone straight through Nicko and into me. There had also been no predicting how fast the two men in the control cabin would have reacted and got to their guns. In the end, within those few milliseconds when I was holding the fat man's ankle, I let the subconscious make the decision for me because it could scan the whole range of data very much faster than the forebrain and it would be much more accurate.

I am just telling you this, my good friend, to let you know that I was not just sitting there on my bloody rump awaiting the grim bloody reaper; I was not intending to offer this fat little tick the high privilege of despatching me with a shot from his bloody little gun without first culling whatever grace and favour the gods might have for me and turning it to my cunning advantage, without in simpler terms trying everything.

But there is nothing to try, my good friend. You know that. You've heard of whistling in the dark.

'You want to be funny?' In almost a scream, a scream of rage, getting his balance again and bringing his right leg back and starting another kick, not having learned, and this time I parried the foot and turned and straightened up and let his momentum carry him against the rail and when he span round I slapped him with the back of my hand across the eyes, across, more significantly, the pineal gland. Then I waited while he got his orientation back, and it took a bit of time: he lurched about with a hand to his forehead and his other hand reaching out to grab the rail and then my arm, and when he grabbed my arm I chopped gently across his wrist to make him pay attention, to make him understand that I didn't like to be touched with those little pink hermit-crab fingers.

'Freeze!'

Roget, of course, getting excited, waving the gun;

'Oh fuck off,' I said and went on watching Nicko, waiting for him to get himself in order again; but the pain in his wrist was occupying him so I took the opportunity of talking a little.

'Look, Nicko, there are things we've got to discuss and they could be to your immediate advantage, but you're putting me in the wrong mood with all this fidgeting. Are you listening to me, Nicko? I hope you are, because otherwise you could make a very grave mistake in taking on the whole of the British Government.'

He got his eyes focused at last but their expression showed only confusion. I didn't expect him to fall for the British Government thing but I could be wrong and he might be thinking about it. There were also the other problems he'd suddenly been given to work out – he'd tried to get through with a couple of kicks but it hadn't got him anywhere and he was bright enough to know that if I'd decided to use more force I could have snapped his wrist and knocked him out cold with a backfist instead of stunning the pineal with a slap. People with guns aren't ready for any kind of resistance and it phases them, but I could be making a mistake with this man and he could get rid of his angst by going for his gun and putting a bullet right through my own pineal gland, touche.

'The British Government? The fuck are you talking about?'

An intellectual question: he'd got his emotions under enough control to let him think straight and I liked that because it made him more predictable.

They're the -'

'Wait a minute.'

He was watching something across the water, something behind me, presumably a boat. We'd passed half a dozen lying at anchor as we'd left the shore, no more than their riding lights burning, the moonlight throwing the shadows of their masts across the surface. There had also been another vessel moving under power with lights flooding the control deck.

I didn't look behind me: he might be trying that one.

'Roget,' he said, 'get lower with that thing.'

The afterdeck wasn't lit but the black made a sharp silhouette against the moonlit sea and the Suzuki had a substantial profile.

'Coastguard?' I asked Nicko.

That would be nice.

He didn't answer, just went on watching the boat. I could hear its engine now. One of the men in the control cabin looked round, hearing it too. The waters off this coast were heavily patrolled by the US Coastguard on the watch for drug runners, Cubans and Haitians, and they could stop any vessel they weren't happy about and ask questions.

They were all watching the ship behind me, Nicko and the men in the cabin, and when I looked at Roget I saw that his head was turned away from me and the nerves went into the full-alert phase in that instant and the adrenaline hit the bloodstream as I worked out the distance and the two strikes that were called for, one to deal with the Suzuki and the other to the man's throat – and then it was over and his head was turning back to watch me and I found that my breath was still blocked to power the necessary movement and my right foot was dug against the deck to push me past the inertia and get me across the deck.

Relax.

But Jesus Christ that was Relax, it's over now. Deepen, calm the breathing, let the muscles go loose again. There might be another chance and more time to take it. The three other men had guns but there'd be nothing I could do on board this boat while that Suzuki was here: it could put out four shots a second and blow me overboard if that man starting firing.

'Nicko.'

The man in the cabin, the one who was watching the boat out there.

'What?' He didn't turn, went on watching the boat.

'You'll have to get it over with before we get there.'

Nicko didn't answer. Presumable meaning: you'll have to shoot those two before we make the rendezvous with the supplier.

Nicko still silent. Fidel the Cuban had finished sluicing the deck; he was on his haunches again, his face still pale, his head back and his eyes closed. I would have said he was wishing it were over, wishing for an end to pain.

'Nicko.' The man in the cabin again.

'What?' He turned round now. 'It's okay, they're just a -'

'Nicko, we want you to do what you have to do before we get there. We don't want bodies around, you listening, Nicko?' The man at the helm said something, and the first man nodded. 'And you'll have to do it quietly, Nicko. No guns. There's too much traffic out here.'

'That wasn't Coastguard, it was -'

'You don't listen, Nicko, I said there's too much traffic out here. You do like we say or we don't come out with you the next time, are you listening to me, Nicko?'

Patience in his tone, spelling it out, no four-letter words thrown in for effect, just the message, listen to me, Nicko. Patience and a certain authority. He was a dealer and he was out here on business and he didn't want anything to get in the way. He and his partner, then, the man at the helm, the dealers; Nicko the heavy, the hit man, bringing the half million or the million on board, seeing to it himself, for the others a necessary evil.

'You don't know these people,' he said, his stomach jerking as he pushed the words out. 'I know them. You didn't have me, you wouldn't be out here to meet them, the fuck are you talking about, Vicente?'

I didn't know if they would have started arguing if it weren't for the fact that murder was to be done. Perhaps it worried them, even though they were used to it. I could feel the same kind of tension that develops in a prison when everyone knows that not far away there's a man preparing a rope or a syringe or the straps on the chair and that the clock is moving towards morning.