“Ah, well,” Ripster demurred modestly, “it’s what they want to believe.”

Janson laid out what he needed.

Ripster asked, “And what do I get out of this? Other than the pleasure of what I must admit is an interesting challenge.”

“The satisfaction of doing the right thing. And five times your day rate.”

“ That’sgenerous.”

“Not at all. You’ve got one day to do it, starting this minute.”

* * *

ILLYICH HAGOPIAN, WHO had received his Christian name from his doting Russian mother, pedaled a three-speed vintage Raleigh bicycle with a wicker basket round and round London’s Berkeley Square. Hagopian was young, handsome, and had the pouting mouth of a spoiled child. A yellow cashmere sweater was draped over his shoulders, its arms tied carelessly across his chest. The few people seated on park benches who noticed his repeated circles assumed he was posing for a commercial photo shoot or rehearsing until the photographer arrived.

It was a perfect day for setting a magazine advertisement in Mayfair. The afternoon sky was deep blue, immense plane trees filtered the sunlight that shimmered on limestone houses and green grass, and it might have been a long-ago afternoon when Queen Victoria reigned, except for the center-city buzz of taxis, delivery vans, and motorbikes.

On nearby New Bond Street, at the exclusive Graff Jewellers, a security guard and a salesclerk were unlocking the door with pounding hearts. If that wasn’t Mick Jagger climbing out of a black BMW and heading for their shop with a bejeweled blonde on his arm, he surely looked like him. They opened the door and ushered the fabulously wealthy rock star and his expensive-looking girlfriend inside. Seen up close Jagger’s skin looked oddly crepey, even for a performer who had been at it since the sixties. But the pistol he was suddenly holding in his gloved hand seized their attention, as did the blonde’s. She, the clerk reported later, might have been in drag.

The guard, a retired Royal Marine, was having none of it. He grabbed for their pistols but saw reason, the clerk reported, when Mick Jagger fired a single shot into the carpet. Things moved quickly after that. The thieves filled velvet bags with the best necklaces, bracelets, rings, and watches. Guard and clerk were made to lie down behind the counter, and the pair were out the door and into the BMW in moments.

The black car shot down New Bond Street, turned right onto Bruton, and right again onto Bruton Place to Berkeley Square. They jumped out, leaving latex masks, guns, and wigs on the floor, bumped into a bicyclist who was waiting to cross the street, apologized politely, and climbed into a waiting London black cab. The cabdriver pulled into the traffic heading down Berkeley Street toward Piccadilly. The bicyclist untied the sleeves of his cashmere sweater and dropped it in his basket.

As police sirens began echoing shrilly in the narrow streets, he walked his bicycle across Berkeley Street and into the square. Behind him, a yellow and blue Smartcar police car hooked around the corner of Burton Place and stopped beside the abandoned BMW.

The bicyclist, a cool-headed young man—despite appearances and the disappointments he had dished out to his father—stared innocently at the commotion over his shoulder and kept walking the bike. A Flying Squad car came down Berkeley Street at high speed, a large Volvo with siren screaming. Armed robbery specialists jumped out, pistols in hand, and peered into the empty BMW. Pedestrians pointed toward Piccadilly. The Flying Squad roared off.

Having crossed the narrow square, Illyich Hagopian was mounting his Raleigh when two men, one dressed in a pinstripe suit, the other in jeans and windbreaker, rose from their benches and took his arms.

“Don’t yell,” they told him. “Or we’ll call the cops.”

“And show them what’s in your basket.”

A van pulled up. It had room for his bicycle. They snapped a set of handcuffs to his right wrist and the bike, ending any thought of jumping out of the van at a traffic signal. Then they took the velvet bags out of the basket and sealed them in a number of small padded postal envelopes. When Illyich Hagopian saw the printed address labels he thought he had lost his mind.

Graff Jewellers

New Bond Street

London W1

(Attention: Lost & Found)

The van stopped. The man in pinstripes hopped out and stuffed the envelopes through the slot of a post office pillar box and walked away. The van continued on. The mystified would-be jewel thief noted that they were following the signs to the M4 and Heathrow Airport and, once there, toward Airfreight.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Home to Mummy.”

* * *

PAUL JANSON’S EMBRAER flew eleven hundred miles from Port Harcourt, Nigeria, into Luanda, Angola. It landed at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, with Mike and Kincaid, who was sitting in for Ed in the first officer’s seat, paying strict attention to tall oil derricks poking into the sky. They taxied through crowds of giant 747 air freighters and oil corporation passenger charters.

Dr. Hagopian’s Angolan agent, operating under the guise of a translator of Portuguese, met Janson in the terminal and ushered him through a special section of passport control. He was half-Portuguese, half-Angolan, of the Fang tribe, a tall and handsome man in middle age with courtly manners. In the car he professed astonishment at the high regard in which Hagopian held Paul Janson: “The doctor said I am to treat you as if you were he. I will admit freely to you, sir, that he has never said a thing like that before.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll be gone soon.”

They drove twenty minutes to O Cantinho dos Comandos, a restaurant in the Old City, situated on the ground floor of a pink stucco building that housed an Angolan Army club.

The gunrunners themselves were not there but were represented by a young guy in a cheap leather jacket. Janson would have pegged him for a nightclub manager or car salesman. He seemed eager to please and started by saying, “I am in your debt, mister. A very important supplier who has both First Class and Economy Class clients informs me that from this day on I will fly First.”

“My pleasure,” said Janson. “You know what I want. I give you my word we will be no trouble. Just get us onto the island and set us loose. We will not get in your way and no one will ever know that you helped us.”

The young man spread his hands in a gesture that feigned emotional devastation. “If only I could help you, I would. But the ship has sailed.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. She is approaching Isle de Foree as we speak.”

“Why didn’t she wait?”

“The captain, he decided…” The man trailed off. Janson exchanged looks with Hagopian’s agent, who appeared mortified by the screwup or betrayal, whichever it was.

The gunrunner said, “It is as well, my friend—the situation has changed on the island. Iboga has acquired a shipload of tanks.”

“What kind of tanks?”

“Amphibious snorkel-equipped T-72s.”

A tank attack on the FFM stronghold would be bad news for the doctor, thought Janson. There was no time to lose if they were going to get him out of there. “Where’d they get T-72s, the Nigerians?”

Hagopian’s agent nodded. “Nigerian Directorate of Military Intelligence has not, shall we say, kept its fingers out of that pie.”

“You would not want to be there when the tanks come,” said the gunrunner.

“I want to be there.”

“As I say, if there is anything I could do to help, my friend.” He opened hands even wider to Hagopian’s agent. “Anything. You need only to ask. But the ship has sailed.” He turned back to Janson. “Anything.”

“I’m taking you up on that right now,” said Janson, which elicited a tentative, wary, “If I can…”