I knew. I'd seen him park his horse outside that type of church half a dozen times. It labelled the film Spanish New World faster than you could speak it aloud.

The cameraman said: 'Puerto Rico – I did a documentary there once. It's full of-'

J.B. said:'Not Puerto Rico. We'd be back in US labour laws. The budget'll blow to hell and we'll never make Eady.'

The director said: 'Walt – we can get Roddie down here and he'll build you one in a week.'

J.B. said: 'Roddie costs money. He's another American salary, Boss.'

'Will you let the man speak?' Whitmore roared. Everybody shut up. He nodded to me. 'You're the local boy, fella. Let's hear from you.'

'Nothing like that in Jamaica: we've been British too long.' I shut my eyes, pinned up a mental map of the Caribbean, and started touring. 'Cuba's the nearest, but… Mexico's seven hundred miles, the nearest point in South America's a good five hundred. There's Haiti just down the road, but I've never heard of anybody getting any work done in Haiti.'

The director said: 'Let's get Roddie down.'

'And there's the República Libra.'

Whitmore and Luiz looked at each other. Luiz gave another slow shrug. 'We could take a look this weekend.'

'Yeah. ' Whitmore looked at the cameraman. 'You wanted to do some servicing on the cameras anyway, right? So we won'tshoot Saturday and Sunday and our friend'll fly us down to the República. There'll be' – he counted round the table: himself, the director, Luiz, a delicately dressed young man who hadn't said anything yet, and J.B. "There'll be six of us. Fix a hotel, will you, J.B.?'

'Hold on,' I said. Everybody looked at me. 'The Republica's having a little trouble right now. I don't know how they're reacting to strangers: they may want to keep them out, they may want to let them in just to prove everything's nice and normal. I just don't know.'

Luiz said gently: 'But we can find out.'

'Yes. But you've got an extra problem with me. They seem to have taken against me: decided I've been helping the rebels. A couple of their jets bounced me the other day. So however they take to you, they may not be too glad to see me in Bartolomeo.'

'You don't wanna go?' Whitmore asked bluntly.

'Not quite that.' It might be the best thing to go – a chance to argue it out with the Repúblicaauthorities when I could offer them solid proof that I might bring profitable trade to the country. It might put the Republic back on my map – and I certainly needed places on that map.

'Not quite that,' I said again. 'Just that they might not think I'm adding tone to your business.'

'I guess they won't put me in jail,' Whitmore said. Then his face tightened into a thin, slightly crooked smile. I knew that expression: it came when the unshaven character at the far end of the bar announces that he can't stand the smell of lawmen. 'Just stick close to me, fella. We'll manage.'

The director caught my eye and took a deep, weary breath. He knew that expression – and the scene that came after it: the bar-room brawl.

Film companies don't seemto mind getting up at crop-spraying hours, so they were waiting for me when I put down at Boscobel at seven on Saturday morning.

They made an assorted bunch. J.B. was in a crisp blue-and-white striped linen suit and dark-blue blouse; Luiz in a dark-blue silk suit with a yellow scarf at the neck; Whitmore looking like a big-game hunter in fawn beach trousers, an army shirt, and the same broad hat he wore in the film. The director just looked English in an open-necked shirt under a tweed jacket, and the art director looked very art directorish in a waisted crocodile-skin jacket, tight trousers, and high boots.

I got everybody and a few suitcases on board and we took off around seven-thirty.

I'd been a little worried about how to announce our arrival to Santo Bartolomeo without issuing Ned aninvitationto come and breathe jet fumes down my neck – or worse. I could just appear over the end of the runway, of course; that wouldn't be difficult. But it would also give them a reasonable cause for complaint: you're supposed to file a flight plan. So in the end I'd just sent a cable the night before saying I'd be in by noon carrying several important American businessmen, repeat important. Flight plans usually carry both less and more than that, but I could say the cable office had cocked it up.

Whitmore spent most of the trip up beside me, crammed into the co-pilot's seat and staring out through a huge pair of binoculars whenever there was anything to stare at. I held off radioing an estimated time of arrival until we were almost crossing the coast, ten minutes from landing. If Ned could scramble a section of Vamps in that time on a Saturday, he'd been working even harder than he claimed.

As I turned north to angle round the city, the dark cross of asphalt runways came up a couple of miles to our left.

Whitmore leaned across. "That the field?'

'The military air base. The civil airport's over on the east, the other side of town.'

'Yeah?' He peered through the binoculars. 'What they got?'

'Squadron of Vampire jets, two or three DC-3s for transport, some light trainers and communications jobs. And the usual old prop fighters rotting for lack of spares.'

'Yeah. I can see the jets. All lined up.'

I could just about see them myself: a line of sparkling silver dots. I tried to count them, to make sure they were all safely on the ground, but the sparkle blurred them into each other.

Whitmore asked: 'Can we get closer?'

I thought he was overdoing the little-boy-watching-trains act a bit. 'No. They get pretty touchy about people looking over the fence on this island.' I was clear of the city by now. 'Turning starboard,' I warned him.

There was a sudden shadow over the cockpit and a thump as we rode into a blast of hot jet exhaust. Then a Vampire pulling out of its pass and climbing ahead.

Without thinking, I yanked the Dove's nose savagely around and pointed it: if there was a gunsight on the windscreen, a gun-button on the control wheel… There wasn't. My stomach clenched into a knot of helpless anger. Damn you, damn you, damnyou; nobodydoes that to me!

The door behind me swung open and the art director asked: 'What was that?'

'We got bounced. Tell everybody to fasten their seatbelts.' He hesitated, then Whitmore said calmly: 'Shut the door, fella.' The door slapped shut.

I glanced across. The big man was firmly pulling his own belt tight. He caught my eye and gave a small twist of a smile. 'You're the boss here, fella.'

We were at only 2,000 feet. About a thousand feet higher, and out to the left, the Vampire was levelling out of his climbing turn and coming back past me before diving in behind for another pass.

Ned had said: 'Next time I could get orders to shoot.' And now was next time… But – it wasn't Ned in the Vamp. Hisfighter pilot instinct went too deep to have allowed him to pull up ahead of me, to turn his back on another plane even if it was unarmed.

I yanked back the throttles and pushed the Dove's nose hard down. The Vampire saw it and turned in a little earlier and a little steeper than he should have. No, it wasn't Ned.

I swung hard left, into and underneath him, forcing him to tighten and steepen his turn even more if he was going to bring his guns to bear. But coming down-hill in a jet, he was going too fast. His wings swung vertical for a moment as he tried to make it, then he levelled and soared away up to start again from scratch.

'Missed, you bastard.'

Whitmore twisted around, watching the Vampire over his shoulder. 'You figure he's going to shoot?'

'I figure on keeping out of his sights.'Was that all 1 figured?

We were below 1,500 feet now and still going down in wide spirals. But the Vampire had learned something. He'd positioned himself only about five hundred feet higher this time and – as far as I could judge – he'd slowed down a lot. He circled in a gentle turn outside our spiral, waiting his moment.