but as the man leaned forward to retrieve the second post he settled his right boot half a metre beyond the track. As he bent and reached, his weight transferred to his right leg.
The clap of the sound dinned into Husein Bekir's ears, the brightness of the flash seemed to blind him, the wind caught him, and he heard the foreman shriek.
When the Eagle came out of the hotel's lift, Atkins saw his face: it was pale, wiped with a deathly pallor, and shock was written on it. His eyes were dulled and his mouth slack.
They had killed the day on another tourist drive, but the Eagle hadn't been interested. They had driven, again, out towards Pale, and back again after lunch.
At Reception there had been six message slips in the Eagle's pigeon-hole, and he'd taken them upstairs.
'What's the problem? Seen a ghost?'
'We're late.'
They were late for the appointment to meet Ismet Mujic. They drove towards the old quarter. The Eagle's head was bowed.
'Do you want to talk about it?' Atkins asked.
'Talk about what?'
'Talk about whatever your problem is.'
'It is a problem,' the Eagle said quietly. 'A unique problem in my experience. My clerk's been on the phone for me. Under pain of death by garrotting, my clerk is not supposed to contact me unless the world's falling in.'
'Has it fallen in?'
'My home was raided. it dawn this morning. The Church came mob-handed with a warrant, all legal, and turned it over. Had my wife out of bed, woke the kids, stripped the place
'What did they find?'
'They found nothing, they look away nothing.'
Atkins trieid to smile, to reassure. 'Then there's no problem.'
'You know very little, Atkins. You jump when you should stand still. The Church – God, give them credit for a modicum ol intelligence know there's nothing in my home, and nothing in my grubby little office.
I'm not that bloody stupid… What matters is in safety deposits, and in my head. They wouldn't have expected to find anything.'
'So, what's the big deal?'
'Posting a letter to me felling me where I stand. A man said lo my wife 'We have to be lucky once, you have to be lucky every time.' That was the text of the message, Atkins Wife traumatized, girls in shock, neighbours wondering what the hell's going on, at dawn, at good old Henry's pad, Turning the bloody screw, squeezing till it hurts. Going for the weak spot, tightening the wire to breaking point… That's my problem.'
'Can you cope?'
A wintry little grin played at the Eagle's mouth.
'Probably not much better, but better than you.'
'What does that mean?' Atkins turned, confused, gazed at the Eagle. Hadn't seen the pedestrian who screamed, waved a stick angrily at them.
'Please, watch the road – the Church did your address yesterday.'
Atkins hissed, 'Why wasn't I told? Christ! You didn't tell me.'
'Mister's decision, because you're only on probation.'
'That is so bloody insulting.'
The Eagle pointed to a gap in the cars parked in the narrow street, overhung with narrow balconies.
'There's a space there, you can get into it. You were on the treadmill, you could have got off, you didn't, so don't whine. I've been on the treadmill twenty-something years. It goes faster. Get off, and you fall on your bloody face.'
They left the Mitsubishi, both sombre. They rang the bell, were let in and escorted up the stairs. They heard the dogs pawing the inner door. They saw the big teeth and the snarl in the set of the jaws. They were shown into the bedroom. The bed, Atkins thought, was big enough for a family. Enver was on his stomach and the sheet had ridden down to expose his bronzed back and his buttocks. Serif wore a T-shirt, and the sheet covered his groin. Serif said they were late, and they both apologized. He took a sheet of paper, rested it on a magazine, drew a map for them, said where they should be the next day, and at what time, and they both thanked him. Serif's question: where was Mister? The Eagle's answer: engaged in Ugandan practices. What were Ugandan practices? 'Oh, sorry, just slipped out, beg pardon, Ugandan practices are an expression we have in London for pursuing business contacts.' They were dismissed.
On the pavement, Atkins asked, 'If I was to jump off the treadmill, what would I get?'
'Mud on your face. If I were representing you, I'd urge you to plead. Seven years to ten years. But I wouldn't be representing you, I'd be beside you and looking at twelve to fifteen. That's why we don't jump.'
The talk was in the bedroom when the visitors came, not the living room And after they'd gone, Maggie's frustration grew because the talk stayed in the bedroom. The giggles. gasps, and the whine of the springs were enough to activate the microphone in the living room's telephone, but the talk was too muffled, too dominated by the sounds of the loving and the bed's heaving for her to comprehend what was said. She'd given the earphones to Frank and his expression had screwed into a sneer. He'd passed the earphones to each of the Sreb Four. Frank was closest to her, in the rented room, and sometimes his hand rested on her hip. She knew now the names of each of the survivors of the Srebienica massacre, Salko and Ante, Muhsin and Fahro. They'd have seen Frank's hand on her hip, but they showed no sign of it. being with them, feeling the pressure of his hand, softened the frustration
… Then the telephone bell. Then the padding of bare feet. Her pencil was poised.
She scribbled,
Da?
Serif?
Da.
(Russian language) It is Nikki, I come tomorrow, the agreed schedule.
(Russian language) OK, Nikki, I meet you. I take you.
(Russian language) It is all OK?
(Russian language) All OK.
The call was cut. She heard the feet pad away, then the springs sang, and there was distant laughter.
Maggie Bolton was fluent in Russian. She had an Italian coming to a meeting, and a Russian, but she did not yet know the location of the meeting. Quite deliberately, she took Frank's hand from her hip and laid it on her thigh.
The lights had been in the mirror through Ustikolina, and when they'd gone by the nowhere turning to the bombed bridge of Foca, on the open roads before and after Milievina, and when they climbed on the ice surface for the gorge that led to Tvorno. Always the lights were with them, holding their intensity because the distance between them did not grow and did not close.
Each time Mister looked in the mirror he saw the lights of the blue van.
She did not speak. The road and its ice held her attention. She did not hold his hand any longer. She had the wheel and the gearstick and she searched ahead for the longer thicker stretches of ice. Water ran down the rock faces beside the road and spilled onto the tarmac.
Always the lights were with him, and with the mirror.
'Would you stop, please?'
'What?'
'Sorry – Monika, could you stop, please?'
'What for?'
' I am just asking you to stop, please.'
'Ah, I understand. You want aa pee stop. You can say so.'
'Please stop.'
Very gently, not using, the foot brake but going down through her gears, she stopped. He stepped out.
His feet slipped and he steadied himself against the vehicle.
The headlights shone hard at him, and Mister walked towards the lights. If the Secretary of State had not been at the hotel, if there had not been a metal detector arch in the hotel lobby, if his pistol had not been left in the
