"Steiner was good once, but deteriorated. The press publicity got to him, and that’s always bad for a mercenary. They begin to believe they are as fearsome as the Sunday papers say they are. Roux became bitter when he failed to get the Stanleyville command after Denard’s wounding and claims leadership over all French mercenaries, but he hasn’t been employed since Bukavu. The last two are better; both in their thirties, intelligent, educated, and with enough guts in combat to be able to command other meres. Incidentally, meres only fight under a leader they choose themselves. So hiring a bad mercenary to recruit others serves no purpose, because no one else wants to know about serving under a guy who once ran out. So the combat record is important.

“Lucien Brun, alias Paul Leroy, could do this job. Trouble is, you would never be quite sure if he was not passing stuff to French intelligence, the SDECE. Does that matter?”

“Yes, very much,” said Endean shortly. “You left out Schroeder, the South African. What about him? You say he commanded Fifth Commando in the Congo?”

“Yes,” said the writer. “At the end, the very end. It also broke up under his command. He’s a first-class, soldier, within his limitations. For example, he would command a battalion of mercenaries excellently, providing it were within the framework of a brigade with a good staff. He’s a good combat man, but conventional. Very little imagination, not the sort who could set up his own operation starting from scratch. He’d need staff officers to take care of the admin.”

“And Shannon? He’s British?”

“Anglo-Irish. He’s new; he got his first command only a year ago, but he did well. He can think unconventionally and has a lot of audacity. He can also organize down to the last detail.”

Endean rose to go. “Tell me something,” he said at the door. “If you were mounting an—seeking a man to go on a mission and assess the situation, which would you choose?”

The writer picked up the notes on the breakfast table. “Cat Shannon,” he said without hesitation. “If I were doing that, or mounting an operation, I’d pick the Cat.”

“Where is he?” asked Endean.

The writer mentioned a hotel and a bar in Paris. “You could try either of those,” he said.

“And if this man Shannon was not available, or for some other reason could not be employed, who would be second on the list?”

The writer thought for a while. “If not Lucien Brun, then the only other who would almost certainly be available and has the experience would be Roux,” he said.

“You have his address?” asked Endean.

The writer flicked through a small notebook that he took from a drawer in his desk.

“Roux has a flat in Paris,” he said and gave Endean the address. A few seconds later he heard the clump of Endean’s feet descending the stairs. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Carrie? Hi, it’s me. We’re going out tonight. Somewhere expensive. I just got paid for a feature article.”

Cat Shannon walked slowly and pensively up the rue Blanche toward the Place Clichy. The little bars were already open on both sides of the street, and from the doorways the hustlers tried to persuade him to step inside and see the most beautiful girls in Paris. The latter, who, whatever else they were, most certainly were not that, peered through the lace curtains at the darkened street. It was just after five o’clock on a mid-March evening, with a cold wind blowing. The weather matched Shannon’s mood.

He crossed the square and ducked up another side street toward his hotel, which had few advantages but a fine view from its top floors, since it was close to the summit of Montmartre. He was thinking about Dr. Dunois, whom he had visited for a general checkup a week earlier. A former paratrooper and army doctor, Dunois had become a mountaineer and gone on two French expeditions to the Himalayas and the Andes as the team medico.

He had later volunteered for several tough medical missions in Africa, on a temporary basis and for the duration of the emergency, working for the French Red Cross. There he had met the mercenaries and had patched up several of them after combat. He had become known as the mercenaries’ doctor, even in Paris, and had sewn up a lot of bullet holes, removed many splinters of mortar casing from their bodies. If they had a medical problem or needed a checkup, they usually went to him at his Paris surgery. If they were well off, flush with money, they paid on the nail in dollars. If not, he forgot to send his bill, which is unusual in French doctors.

Shannon turned into the door of his hotel and crossed to the desk for his key. The old man was on duty behind the desk.

“Ah, monsieur, one has been calling you from London. All day. He left a message.”

The old man handed Shannon the slip of paper in the key aperture. It was written in the old man’s scrawl, evidently dictated letter by letter. It said simply “Careful Harris,” and was signed with the name of a freelance writer he knew from his African wars and who he knew lived in London.

“There is another, m’sieur. He is waiting in the salon.”

The old man gestured toward the small room set aside from the lobby, and through the archway Shannon could see a man about his own age, dressed in the sober gray of a London businessman, watching him as he stood by the desk. There was little of the London businessman in the ease with which the visitor came to his feet as Shannon entered the salon, or about the build of the shoulders. Shannon had seen men like him before. They always represented older, richer men.

“Mr. Shannon?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Harris, Walter Harris.”

“You wanted to see me?”

“I’ve been waiting a couple of hours for just that. Can we talk here, or in your room?”

“Here will do. The old man understands no English.”

The two men seated themselves facing each other.

Hams relaxed and crossed his legs. He reached for a pack of cigarettes and gestured to Shannon with the pack. Shannon shook his head and reached for his own brand in his jacket pocket.

“I understand you are a mercenary, Mr. Shannon?”

“Yes.”

“In fact you have been recommended to me. I represent a group of London businessmen. We need a job done. A sort of mission. It needs a man who has some knowledge of military matters, and who can travel to a foreign country without exciting any suspicions. Also a man who can make an intelligent report on what he saw there, analyze a military situation, and then keep his mouth shut.”

“I don’t kill on contract,” said Shannon briefly.

“We don’t want you to,” said Harris.

“All right, what’s the mission? And what’s the fee?” asked Shannon. He saw no sense in wasting words. The man in front of him was unlikely to be shocked by a spade being called a spade.

Harris smiled briefly. “First, you would have to come to London for briefing. We would pay for your trip and expenses, even if you decided not to accept.”

“Why London? Why not here?” asked Shannon.

Harris exhaled a long stream of smoke. “There are some maps and other papers involved,” he said. “I didn’t want to bring them with me. Also, I have to consult my partners, report to them that you have accepted or not, as the case may be.”

There was silence as Harris drew a wad of French 100-franc notes from his pocket.

“Fifteen hundred francs,” he said. “About a hundred and twenty pounds. That’s for your air ticket to London, single or return, whichever you wish to buy. And your overnight stay. If you decline the proposition after hearing it, you get another hundred for your trouble in coming. If you accept, we discuss the further salary.”

Shannon nodded. “All right. I’ll listen—in London. When?”

“Tomorrow,” said Harris and rose to leave. “Arrive any time during the course of the day, and stay at the Post House Hotel on Haverstock Hill. I’ll book your room when I get back tonight. At nine the day after tomorrow I’ll phone you in your room and make a rendezvous for later that morning. Clear?”