"There is a 1952 directive that's never been superseded," she said deliberately. "The Service should, and I quote: 'be kept absolutely free from any political bias or influence', unquote. A pretty thought, and what it really means is Try, brothers, Try. You can't draw a hard line between international and national politics, not these days. Political influence is what the Other Side wants, as much as anything, and you've got to meet it in that arena. But we did try, damn it. We knew what lay down any other road: a political scandal that made it worthwhile for Parliament to get involved in Security. That's what happened with Charlie's Indians. They'll never get away from Capitol Hill now, and they'll have to keep playing politics just to protect themselves.

"So we tried-and we got a political appointment anyway. Now we're part of government policy, which happens to be hear no evil, see no evil… one bloody monkey's enough if he's in the top job." She snapped her cigarette in her fingers and burnt her knuckle. "I'm getting all bitter and twisted: you'd better feed me. I just don't have many people I can say these things to."

"You didn't say it around the Service?"

"Why d'you think I'm in Washington? It's a nice place, but my job's in London. Oh well: it could have been Gibraltar."

The eating at least was American, at a tiny corner table lit by a single candle in a jar. Agnes chose quiche, Maxim hadn't been in Washington long enough to tire of seafood, so he took crab. On a small stage at the far end, a man with a neat beard began tuning a Spanish guitar to the piano.

After a while, Maxim asked: "Why should this chap Magill tell us anything tomorrow?"

"I don't know that he will: but he was in High Places at the right times, so it's worth trying the Good Old Times routine…" But just why am I doing this? she wondered. Yes, I believe those people exist and they frighten me and I want them destroyed. But I'm sticking my neck out: one squeak from the FBI that I'm breaching the UKUSA agreement and my own Service will swing the big axe… Pity about Agnes Algar, could have gone a long way in the Service, but went charging off on some unauthorised stunt in America, typically female in the end, trying to save the career of some soldier who'd got himself…

Isthat why I'm doing this? For Harry?

She glanced cautiously at him, munching his crab in the candlelight. He had a calm lean face, never to be called handsome, and if he looked up he would put on his quick protective smile, to say Don't ask about me, I'm all right, talk about somebody else…

You're not all right, chum. I know that much about you. But in this one you'reright, and that makes me right, too, without having to decide just why I'm doing this, and perhaps doing more than I'll ever get around to telling you.

"Why did Magill leave the CIA?" Maxim asked. "Was it just retirement?"

Good old Harry: let's get back to facts. "No, he left early. I don't know quite when, some time in the Seventies. It was a bad time for Charlie's Indians: the White House cavalry was charging through the reservation every second day. First Nixon purged them to get the spotlight off himself, then Ford had a go and Carter ran his ownmassacrée. At one point they dropped seven hundred men -seven hundred-think what that does for morale. Think what it could do to security. I think Mo left in the middle of all that. I imagine he just saw the writing on the wall and didn't like their spelling."

Maxim had finished his crab and was pushing bits of salad around his plate, trying to identify them in the dimness, and listening with half-turned head to a tenor saxophonist who had joined the guitar to swap phrases of the Beale Street Blues.

Agnes watched with amusement as his interest quickened or faded with each phrase. When the number ended, he clapped in a careful way, unconsciously trying to say exactly what he felt about it. The other diners, who mostly hadn't been listening, just clapped.

"Not so good, hey?" she asked.

"A bit slick. Too many notes from the tenor, but…"

"You'd better be a Canadian who knows about jazz. And forgive me asking an indelicate question, but how are you off for money-on the whole trip? I don't imagine the Army's too generous."

"I've got my own credit cards. And George gave me abig lump in traveller's cheques. He said money was one problem I didn't have to have."

"Good for him. But he's got it so that it hurts. However, they're all signed Maxim, right? You'll have to cash in some and then buy more signed… We haven't got a name for you yet. How about Winterbotham? I've always wanted to know a Winterbotham."

"I'm damned if I have."

"Good: you'll remember it. Think of all those dreadful jokes you suffered at school. Alan James? I think that'll do: Alan James Winterbotham, this is your new life. Practise a signature-and initials."

Maxim found a radish on his plate and ate it. His expression changed. "That was a strawberry. D'you servestrawberries with crab here?"

"Live a little, or at least die quietly."

The ride down Northern Boulevard from La Guardiaairport to the Queensboro bridge may not be the best way to see New York for the first time, although Maxim caught glimpses of its towers jolting towards them over the grey horizon. But does anybody see New York for the first time these days? Most people have been familiar with its skyline since they were old enough to focus on a TV screen. They may feel New York for the first time, because its fast-dealing busyness is something the screen doesn't catch, and may smell it for the first time, if they come in high summer, but one of the great first sights of the world is gone for ever.

Magill's offices were towards the top of a modest tower on midtown Madison. They were kept waiting for just a couple of minutes-"While Mr Magi U completes a call" -in a cool-warm windowless reception area soundproofed so that even the loudest complaint about a bill would come out as a hushed croak, then ushered through into an office that was almost straight from Charles Dickens.

Agnes stood and looked around, then caught Maxim's thought by saying: "What, no rolltop desk? Cheap, Mo, cheap," and Magill came out from behind his flat-topped mahogany desk with a shout of laughter and hugged her and patted her bottom.

He was a big man, everything about him was big, shoulders, chest, nose, eyes and ears, everything except his near-flat stomach and his hair, which had faded on top and grown to wise-looking grey tufts over his ears.

"Rolltops?" he shouted over Agnes's shoulder. "This is genuine Sheraton, sweetie, except the asshole never made a piece in his life, on account he was into franchising ahead of anybody except the Pope. How're you doing?"-this to Maxim, over Agnes's shoulder, stretching out a big hand -"you must be Major Harry Maxim. Sit down, children, d'you want to get married or divorced or just sue each other? Have some coffee." He poured it from a Victorian coffee pot waiting on a hotplate and launched into a description of a case he'd just won, punctuated by blasts of laughter and big gestures.

Maxim sipped his coffee and glanced covertly round the room, at the shelves of leather-bound legal volumes, a row of Spy's legal cartoons, framed degrees and photographs of Magill as a young soldier and, he guessed, General 'Wild Bill' Donovan, the founder of US intelligence.

"… the guy called me the minute he got back to his office, and he said: 'Mo, do you agree with me that judge was as wet as hell?' and I said: 'If you so say, but he was sure swimming in the right pool.' " He rocked his swivel chair back with more laughter. "Okay then, what can I really do for you?-or did you just want to talk about old times?"

"Just that, Mo," Agnes said. She was sitting in the main client's chair, wearing a dark brown suit with a faint orange check and clutching a huge floppy handbag in her lap. "Just old times. Something's come out of the woodwork… D'you remember Winter Garden?"