Tomorrow's ghost

'Mrs Fitzgibbon - ' The smile vanished from Colonel Shapiro's face: he came from a race and a generation less crude, far less prone to such juvenile familiarity ' - forgive me my deplorable manners. I am sorry to disturb you with not a word of warning, but your phone here isn't secure.'

This was the grey country again: that was exactly - almost word for word exactly -

what Sir Frederick had said to her twenty-four hours before, to the minute; the old-fashioned courtesy giving her an apology which Paul Mitchell would never have rated, but the new-fashioned equality of the sexes putting her in the front line of necessity, in which a woman could do a man's job to the death.

'That was your man in the woods behind the house, I take it?' said Paul conversationally, but pleased with himself.

'Yes.' This time Shapiro's irritation was plain. The poor devil in the woods would soon find himself somewhere even less pleasant than England on a dripping November night after this, said the irritation.

'I thought he might be one of ours. Or just a copper.' Paul was merciless: he had been too good for the man in the woods, and he liked being better than Mossad, who were good - and they were good because Shapiro was here now, within hours of one phone call; and that could be either because they were technologically good, or because they had an inside man somewhere; but however good they'd been, Paul had been too good for them, his sight- and-sound in the wet darkness had been better; if it had been a killing matter, he would have killed, and that would have been an end of it, not to be boasted about; but it had only been a passing in the dark, and he couldn't resist exulting in it -

None has ever caught him yet, for Paul, he is the master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet faster.

His confidence offended her. If Paul died before his time, it would not be because he wasn't good enough; it would be because he chose to test his excellence to an impossible invulnerability, giving the enemy the first shot because he had to believe no bullet had his name on it. He would die uselessly then, simply to test a theory, not by accident, like Robbie.

She felt the iron in her soul again. She had nothing to lose.

'Have you contacted David, Colonel Shapiro?'

'Yes.' The deplorable manners were forgotten now, thank God: now they were on equal terms. 'Not personally. But ... yes, Mrs Fitzgibbon, we have spoken with him.'

Our Man in Washington. The Israelis had Washington sewn up tight as a drum when it came to contacts, even if they no longer called the tune in the Administration and Congress.

'And he's coming back?'

Shapiro nodded. 'The ClA's bringing him in.' Then he smiled, a touch of wolf under the sheep-dog. 'They owe him one.'

Everybody owed David one: David was both a Godfather and a Godson. Half his strength lay in those unpaid debts.

'He's made a proper bog-up of this one, all the same,' said Paul, dryly superior.

Shapiro nodded again, to Paul this time. 'Ye-ess ... I'm afraid that with this one ...

desire has finally out-run performance.' Another nod. 'As you say - a bog-up. A proper bog-up.'

He sounded as though he'd never heard of a bog-up before, but that the onomatopoeic meaning of it appealed to him as being self-explanatory.

Frances was aware simultaneously that she was being ignored and that she didn't know what they were talking about. She scowled at Paul. 'What d'you mean - David has made a ... bog-up?'

Paul looked over his shoulder at the door to the TV room.

'Let's go back into the library. Princess.'

* * *

'A bog-up?' repeated Frances.

Colonel Shapiro looked around him, just as Paul had done - just as she had done.

Then he looked at Paul.

Damn them all! thought Frances. The great male conspiracy of knowing too much was in that look.

'David thought he had it all cut-and-dried before he went to Washington?' Paul nodded at the Israeli. 'Right?'

Slow nod. 'That's about the size of it. Yes.'

'Had what cut-and-dried?' snapped Frances at both of them.

Paul thought for a moment before replying. 'You drew the top brass last night. Who was it?'

Frances kept her mouth shut. He'd fished for that name once already. He certainly wasn't going to catch anything now.

'All right. Let's put it another way. Who wasn't it?'

Who wasn't it?

Frances saw her error of the night before. She had been so overwhelmed by Sir Frederick's arrival, and then by her own cleverness in connecting it with Colonel Butler, that she'd clean forgotten to ask herself one very important question, even though it had been half-formulated in her mind after he had said You are not reporting to Brigadier Stocker.