And there was saying "Hi" to Scranton from Pure Intelligence, and "Hi" to Rukowski from the prosecutor's office. And there was wondering how the fuck Pure Intelligence got to arrive on the scene ahead of you. And there was saying "Hi" to anyone who looked as if he might block your path, until you somehow elbowed your way to the most brightly lit part of the auction house, which was what the crowded apartment was like, except for the stench: everyone looking at the objets d'art and making notes and calculating prices, and not a lot of attention being paid to anyone else.
And when you had reached your destination, you could see, not a likeness, or a waxwork, but the authentic originals of Dr. Paul Apostoll and his current or late mistress, both undressed, which was how Apo liked to spend his leisure hours ― always on his knees, as they used to say, and usually on his elbows ― both greatly discoloured, kneeling facing each other, their hands and heels tied and their throats cut, and their tongues pulled through the incision to make what is called a Colombian necktie.
* * *
Burr had known at the moment when Strelski took the message, long before he knew what the message said. Just the awful relaxation in Strelski's body as the message hit him was enough, and the way Strelski's eyes instinctively found Burr's and then dismissed them, preferring some other subject to fix on while he listened to the rest. The glance and the glance-away said everything. They were accusing and valedictory, both at once. They said: You did it to me, your people. And: From now on, it's a nuisance we're sitting in the same room.
While Strelski was listening, he jotted down a couple of notes, then he asked who had made the identification, and absently scribbled something else. Then he tore off the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket, and Burr supposed it was an address and, from Strelski's stony face as he stood up, that he was going there and that it was a filthy death. Then Burr had to watch while Strelski strapped on his shoulder holster, and reflect how in the old days, in different circumstances, he would have asked Strelski why he needed a gun to visit a corpse, and Strelski would have found some supposedly Anglophobic answer, and they'd have got along.
So as Burr remembered the moment forever afterwards, he was actually being told of two deaths at once: Apostoll's, and that of their own professional companionship.
"Cops say a man's been found dead in Brother Michael's apartment up in Coconut Grove. Suspicious circumstances, I'm going to check it out."
And then the warning, given to everyone except Burr, yet directed at Burr particularly:
"Could be anyone. Could be his cook, his driver, his brother, who the fuck. Nobody moves till I say. Hear me?"
They heard him but, like Burr, knew it wasn't his cook, his driver or his brother. And now Strelski had called from the scene of the crime, and yes, it was Apostoll, and Burr was doing the things he had prepared in his mind to do as soon as the confirmation came, in the order he had planned. His first call was to Rooke, to tell him that the Limpet operation must as of now be considered compromised. And that accordingly Jonathan should be given the emergency signal for the first phase of the evacuation plan, which required him to escape from the company of Roper and his entourage and go to ground, preferably in the nearest British consulate, but, failing that, in a police station, where he should give himself up as the hunted criminal Pine as a prelude to fast-lane repatriation.
But the call was too late. By the time Burr tracked Rooke down in the passenger seat of Amato's surveillance van, the two men were admiring the Roper jet lifting into the rising sun as it took off for Panama. True to his known behaviour pattern, the Chief was flying at first light.
"Which airport in Panama, Rob?" Burr asked, pencil in hand.
"Destination to the control tower was Panama, no details. Better ask air surveillance."
Burr was already doing so, on another line.
After that Burr called the British Embassy in Panama and spoke to the economic secretary, who happened also to represent Burr's agency and had a line to the Panamanian police.
Lastly he spoke to Goodhew, explaining that there was evidence on Apostoll's body that he had been tortured before he was murdered, and that the possibility that Jonathan was blown must be regarded, for operation purposes, as a certainty.
"Oh, yes, well, I see," said Goodhew distractedly. Was he unmoved, or was he in shock?
"It doesn't mean we can't go for Roper," Burr insisted, realising that by breathing hope into Goodhew he was trying to keep up his own courage.
"I agree. You mustn't let go. Grip, that's the thing. You've plenty of it, I know."
It always used to be we, thought Burr.
"Apo had it coming to him, Rex. He was a snitch. He was living on borrowed time. That's the name of the game. If the Feds don't eat you, the crooks will. He knew that all along. Our job is to pull out our man. We can do that. It's not a problem. You'll see. It's just a lot happening at once. Rex?"
"Yes, I'm still here."
Wrestling with his own turmoil, Burr was filled with a feverish pity for Goodhew. Rex shouldn't be subjected to this stuff! He's got no armour, he takes it too much to heart! Burr remembered that in London it was afternoon. Goodhew had been lunching with his master.
"How did it go, then? What was this important news?" Burr asked, still trying to beg an optimistic word out of him. "Is the Cabinet Secretary coming over to our side at last?"
"Oh, yes. thank you, yes, very pleasant," said Goodhew, terribly politely. "Club food, but that's what one joins clubs for." He's under anaesthetic, thought Burr. He's wandering. "There's a new department being set up, you'll be glad to hear. A Whitehall Watch Committee, the first of its kind, I'm told. It stands for everything we've been fighting for, and I shall be its head. It will report directly to the Cabinet Secretary, which is rather grand. Everyone's given it their blessing; even the River House has pledged full support. I'm to make an in-depth study of all aspects of the secret overworld: recruitment, streamlining, cost effectiveness, load sharing, accountability. Pretty well everything I thought I'd done already, but I'm to do it again and better. I'm to start at once. Not a moment to be lost. It will mean giving up my present work, naturally. But he did rather imply there was a knighthood at the end of the rainbow, which will be nice for Hester."
Air surveillance was back on the other line. The Roper jet had dropped below radar level as it approached Panama. The best guess was it had turned northwest, heading toward the Mosquito Coast.
"So where the hell is it?" Burr shouted in his despair.
"Mr. Burr, sir," said a boy called Hank. "It disappeared."
* * *
Burr stood alone in the monitoring room in Miami. He had been standing there so long the monitors had ceased to notice him. They had their backs to him, and their control panels to play with, and their hundred other things to worry about. And Burr had the earphones on. And the thing about earphones is, there is no compromise, no sharing, no talking the material down. It's you and the sound. Or the lack of it.
"This one's for you, Mr. Burr," a woman monitor had told him briskly, showing him the switches on the machine. "Looks like you got yourself a problem there."
That was the extent of her sympathy. Not that she was an unsympathetic woman; far from it. But she was a professional, and other matters needed her attention.
He played the tape once, but he was so stressed and fuddled that he decided not to understand it at all. Even the label confused him. Marshall in Nassau to Thomas in Curaçao. Who the devil was Marshall when he was at home? And what on earth was he doing calling my joe in Curaçao in the middle of the night, just when the operation was beginning to spread its wings?