Watching me, Ferris said, 'You're in better condition than I thought.'
He meant that as an executive just thrown out of the mission and ordered home I didn't appear to be ready to cut my throat.
'Never better,' I said stoutly.
'So what's your thinking on these commercials?'
I believe he'd got it, but had decided to leave the big number to me, which was nice of him. I said, 'It could be a long shot, but if you had those ads analysed on the screen for subliminal content, at either visual or audible wave lengths or even both, you might possibly come across things like Vote for Judd in any number of variations. And if you did, you could then work out the potential impact of those programmes on the American population, to the nearest hundred million.'
He let the silence go on for a bit, then said quietly, 'If you're right, this would go down in your records as a major accomplishment.'
'Fuck the records.' I didn't want a pat on the back from those superannuated old farts in the hierarchy, I wanted the mission, I wanted Barracuda.
'I take your point,' Ferris said. 'You think this has been Proctor's main operation?'
'No. This is an educated guess. I think he began using cocaine, lost control, and was got at by scouts working for the Trust, to give them access to a major television network as an outlet for their subliminal signals.'
'Sorry,' Ferris said, and pressed for record. 'Again?' I did it for him and went on, 'I think the Soviet connection began as a developing relationship between Proctor and a KGB agent in Washington, one of the people he would normally meet in the international intelligence watering holes, such as the Gold Hibiscus in Miami. And I think his major operation is working for both the Trust as an active tool well-versed in subterfuge at high levels, and someone in the Kremlin who needs the Trust monitored without its knowledge.'
Ferris pressed for off and sat for a bit without talking. I let the silence go on. There was a lot more I could give him if I felt like it but they'd ask for it in London at the end-of-tour debriefing – that reads end-of-tour, my good friend, and not end-of-mission, you will please understand, there is a difference.
'I wouldn't say,' Ferris said at last, 'that you've left Purdom without a direction. This is very good product.'
'Mostly assumptions.'
'By a highly experienced agent.'
'Civil of you. But the major objective for the mission is still Proctor, and he's still out of your reach.'
We talked about that for a few minutes but it was a dead end and he put away his little Sanyo and we compared watches and he said, 'I'll stay in Miami until they send out someone to direct Purdom, and then -'
'You don't have to,' I said. 'You can direct him better than anyone.'
'He's not quite my type. I'll have to brief the new man, then I'll get a plane.' He looked at all three mirrors and got out of the van and stood for a moment looking down and around him, hoping to find a beetle to tread on.
'They're all asleep,' I said, 'this time of night. Christ's sake leave them alone.'
He looked up at me with a faint unholy light deep in his eyes. '06:00,' he said, 'at the airport, private lounge.'
I watched him going along the pavement, a tall reedy figure with its wispy hair catching the lamplight; his head was down again, looking from left to right, as I'd seen him in Las Ramblas in Barcelona and at Tegel Airport in Berlin and in Monkey Street, Hong Kong. I do wish he'd leave the poor little buggers alone; the sound of that small crisp explosion sickens me.
When he got into the dark blue Saab and it drove away I waited for a little while to let things settle in my mind, and gradually the panic diminished, the panic of finding myself suddenly isolated, abandoned, cut off from the signals board in London, with nothing more important to do now than change my clothes and get a couple of hours' sleep and drive to the private lounge at the airport, there to be led away and smuggled out of sight, the discomfited embodiment of a fall from grace.
Then I shifted behind the wheel and started up and moved off, and when I passed the tall balconied house the light in the dormer window was still burning, so I stopped again and fished for a map in the glove pocket and found one and looked for Chucunantah Road and moved off again and turned east and then south, with the thought in my mind of seeking Parks.
You don't remember him, I know, but I'll tell you this. He was my only chance, and the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings.
Chapter 23: SING
'Will this do you?'
'Yes.'
It stank of rotten eggs or something, and sea-water was lapping at the side as the swell moved against the harbour wall. Flotsam made a multicoloured scum on the surface beyond the rail. 'It's not for long,' Kim said. 'Is that right?'
'Twenty-four hours. Did the hurricane do all this?'
'Most of it.' She ducked her head under the shattered boom and crouched beside me in her frayed sunbleached shorts. It was almost dark here, in contrast to the glare of the morning sun across the water outside. 'The harbour's becoming abandoned, pretty well. Other storms began wrecking it, and people began bringing their boats here, those that were still afloat. Their idea is to do them up, given enough time, but the thing is they haven't got enough money. They're allowed to leave them here; they don't pay dues or anything.'
She pulled a loose timber and shoved it into the flooded hold behind us, then moved away to work at the jammed door of the cabin. Two of the berths were still intact, and she'd brought oil lamps and a keg of water.
She'd been asleep when I'd telephoned the tug just before five this morning from Parks' place, but she'd said straight away that she'd pick me up at the Exxon station three blocks from the harbour and find me shelter. I'd telephoned Avis and told them where I'd left their van.
I would go down in signals as missing.
All instructions to the executive in the field will be followed except where extenuating circumstances are seen to exist, as determined by Administration at the time or at a later date.
Failure to report to a rendezvous was technically a breach of contract and if I ever managed to get back to London I would face a board of enquiry. I hadn't telephoned Ferris from the Exxon station to tell him I was going to ground because that would have put him in an invidious position: technically he would have been expected to inform Croder but he wouldn't have done that; he would simply have accepted the fact that his executive had become a rogue agent and reported to Croder only that I had missed the rendezvous. He would first, of course, have done everything he could to persuade me to change my mind and follow instructions, but there would have been no point in letting him go through an exercise in predetermined futility.
And if I'd told him what I planned to do he would have tried everything to stop me.'
Soon after 06:00 hours today the executive in the field for Barracuda would be posted on the signals board in London as missing. Soon afterwards his name would be removed from the board and replaced by Purdom's.