Loman knows this. It takes a long time to rear a good ferret. So I couldn't understand what the hell they were doing.

'What the hell are they doing?'

'Who?'

'Control.'

'Doing?'

'Throwing us this bloody auction.'

He walked about again while I stood there sweating and listening to the hot fluttering wind that was hitting the top of the atrium and shaking the sword-blade leaves, sending them rattling with a dry dead sound.

Then Loman stopped and stood neatly in front of me with his hands tucked behind him and his alert bird's head lifted to look me in the eyes and I knew he was going to keep me in this operation and work me to death if he had to, or save my skin if he had to, because there was no choice, because it was too late to call in someone else, simply because of that.

'I want you to know two things, Quiller.'

Prissy, fussy voice, talked like a bloody schoolmistress.

But I knew he'd get me.

'One is that you can dismiss entirely your fears that we are engaged on a mission that has started off badly. O'Brien and Fyson were trying to pick up intelligence and pass it back to Control, and they failed. But you are not taking over from them: the original field — Sidi Ben Ali in Algeria — has been closed from operations and our base will be the oasis town of Kaifra in Tunisia.Our mission is to examine the wreck of Tango Victor and report on it. The operation is exclusively ours, and the task of inspecting the aeroplane exclusively yours.'

Bird's eyes bright, watching me. Giving me a lecture, Loman all over, not even trying to talk persuasively because he didn't have to, all he had to do was work on my weak point and he knew what it was. Couldn't ever stand the little tick.

'The second thing is that although our objective for the mission is a small commercial aircraft forced down in the desert, and nothing more than that, the importance of the operation is very great.' He was watching for my reactions and he knew he wouldn't got any and he wasn't getting any but he went on watching. 'An hour agoI was in the radio room of the British Embassy here, talking to the Prime Minister himself. He wished to inform me personally that your mission is the key to a critical situation of the highest international proportions.' Head on one side, the tone informative, impersonal. 'I had been told that before, of course, on the highest authority. The fact that they were asking a director of my experience to take charge of the operation confirmed its importance.'

He turned away and took a pace and took a pace back and stood with his feet neatly together and finished me off.

'This task calls for the highest professional talent. I accepted it on the sole condition that I could have you, Quiller, as my executive in the field.'

Little bastard.

He was in shock.

'You mind if we don't have the lights on?'

This was why Loman had hesitated when I'd asked him if Fyson was still in the operation.

'It was so bright down there.' I suppose he meant in Sidi Ben Ali. 'It's done something to my eyes.'

He went and sat down, hurrying a little to reach the chair. He sat with his hands on his knees, as if he had to hold his body together, looking straight in front of him. In the dull light coming from the bathroom I could see he was shivering.

You see them like this at the Bureau when a mission's blown up or they've just been too long in the field; they come in like a rag doll and Tilson says hallo old horse, bit of a rough time, was it?

'Just give me the essentials,' I told him, 'then I'll buzz off.'

'It's all — 'it sounded as if he was afraid of stuttering — 'I dunno.' Best he could do, I suppose, for the moment. I looked interestedly around the room, print of a fourth-century tapestry, coloured photo of a mosque, a slight gap in the curtains so I went to fix it and he saidDon't! in a kind of sob and I left it. He thought I'd been going to open them.

But he couldn't have been tagged here or Loman wouldn't have let me contact him. It was just his nerves.

There was a bottle of Scotch on the bedside table and he'd already hit it for half but it hadn't done anything, he was ice-cold sober. I poured some out and he took it and drank and squeezed his face shut and I got the glass before he dropped it.

'Six months' leave,' I said, 'marvellous, think of the fishing.'

In a minute he made a big effort, jerking a hand out, pointing to the bottle. 'Drink?'

'No, thanks.'

I told him about London so that he'd think of home, lot of tourists in, gawping at the Guards, bloody hot when I Ileft but nothing compared with here of course, nice in the parks, took me damned nearly half an hour before he could straighten out enough to talk properly. He asked me:

'You're not going there? Sidi Ben Ali?'

'No.'

'Loman said it's Kaifra, next.'

'That's right.'

'He wasn't directing me.'

'I know.'

On the sole condition that I could have you, Quiller, as my executive in the field, little bastard, working on my weak point, professional pride — vanity, if you like, what's the difference, but at least he hadn't been lying: if London picked a man like him it was strictly business and if he picked a man like me it meant this op was in the extreme-hazard classification and he'd wanted someone who was in this game for kicks and with nothing to lose.

'They got O'Brien,' he said.

'I know.'

'There's not much I can tell you. We didn't — '

'There's a long gun somewhere, is there?'

Because even in this light I could see there were no marks on the hands or the face and he could hold a glass and walk all right, and he'd been afraid I was going to open the curtains.

'Yes.'

He'd flinched just at the mention of it.

We've all got our little ways: some of the executives can't cope with unarmed combat but they'll fiddle with a bomb till they've got the spring out; others can stand hooding for days on end but touch them with a cigarette-end and they'll break. But none of us like the telescopic rifle: once you know the opposition's hired a crack shot and he's looking for you in the sights it begins to worry you because you can't walk into the sights or get out of your car or move across a window and it's inhibiting. You start thinking about how to stay alive instead of how to do the job and every time a door slams you miss a breath and in the end you finish up like Fyson.

He'd known they were serious, because of O'Brien.

'How long did it take them,' I asked him, 'to blow you?'

'Three days. I know it doesn't sound — '

'Don't worry. Loman says you did bloody well.'

Loman hadn't said anything of the sort.

'Pissing me about.' He managed a faint grin. 'He wouldn't say a thing like that, even if I'd — 'he shrugged with a hand and said — 'but they're very active, you know. I couldn't get much sleep because we didn't even have a safe-house.'

'They know the plane's there?'

'They know it's in the area, the rough area.'

'Because you were there? You and O'Brien? Or d'you think they've got info from the UK?'

From what Loman had told me about the Special Branch I thought there must have been some arrests, but the link with Algeria was plain enough because of Tango Victor's course and there could be some signal lines out.

Fyson had become quiet and I knew I was pushing him too hard.

'It doesn't — '

'No, I'm okay.' With another effort he said: 'The Algerian Air Force did a search about a week ago. Didn't Loman tell you?'

'He hasn't briefed me yet, not fully.'

Loman had made the rdv in Tunis because of the airport, I knew that. He hadn't been certain of me and it would have been quicker to bring someone else in London-Tunis direct than from down south in Kaifra where there was probably only an airstrip. Otherwise he'd have made our rdv in Kaifra straight away.