'Want them!' yelled Chinanda. 'You think we want to live with four dirty, filthy, disgusting little animals who shit all over the floor and piss.'
'No,' said Flint, 'I take your point.'
'So you can take the fucking little fascist shit-machines too,' said Chinanda, and slammed the phone down.
Inspector Flint turned to Eva with a happy smile. 'Mrs Wilt, I didn't say it, but you heard what the man said.'
'And he'll live to regret it,' said Eva with blazing eyes. 'Now, where do I undress?'
'Not in here,' said Flint firmly 'You can use the bedrooms upstairs. The sergeant here will tie your hands and legs.'
While Eva went up to undress the Inspector consulted the Psycho-Warfare Team. He found them at odds with one another. Professor Maerlis argued that by exchanging four coterminiously conceived siblings for one woman whom the world would scarcely miss, there was propaganda advantage to be gained from the swop. Dr Felden disagreed.
'It's evident that the terrorists are under considerable pressure from the girls,' he said, 'Now, by relieving them of that psychological burden we may well be giving them a morale boost.'
'Never mind about their morale,' said Flint. 'If the bitch goes in she'll be doing me a favour and after that the Major here can mount Operation Slaughterhouse for all I care.'
'Whacko,' said the Major.
Flint went back to the Communications Centre, averted his eyes from the monstrous revelations of Eva in the raw, and turned to Mr Gosdyke.
'Let's get one thing straight, Gosdyke,' he said. 'I want you to understand that I am totally opposed to your client's actions and am not prepared to take responsibility for what happens.'
Mr Gosdyke nodded. 'I quite understand. Inspector, and I would just as soon not be involved myself. Mrs Wilt, I appeal to you...'
Eva ignored him. With her hands tied above her head and with her ankles linked by a short length of rope, she was an awesome sight and not a woman with whom anyone would willingly argue.
'I am ready,' she said. 'Tell them I'm coming.'
She hobbled out of the door and down Mrs de Frackas' drive. In the bushes SGS men blanched and thought wistfully of booby traps in South Armagh. Only the Major, surveying the scene from a bedroom window, gave Eva his blessing. 'Makes a chap proud to be British,' he told Dr Felden. 'By God that woman's got some guts.'
'I must say I find that remark in singularly bad taste,' said the doctor, who was studying Eva from a purely physiological point of view.
There was something of a misunderstanding next door. Chinanda, viewing Eva through the letter-box in the Wilts' front door, had just begun to have second thoughts when a waft of vomit hit him from the kitchen. He opened the door and aimed his automatic.
'Get the children,' he shouted to Baggish. 'I'm covering the woman.'
'You're what?' said Baggish, who had just glimpsed the expanse of flesh that was moving towards the house. But there was no need to fetch the children. As Eva reached the doormat they rushed towards her squealing with delight.
'Back,' yelled Baggish, 'back or I fire!'
It was too late. Eva swayed on the doorstep as the quads clutched at her.
'Oh Mummy, you do look funny,' shrieked Samantha, and grabbed her mother's knees. Penelope clambered over the others and flung her arms round Eva's neck. For a moment they swayed uncertainly and then Eva took a step forward, tripped and with a crash fell heavily into the hall. The quads slithered before her across the polished parquet and the hatstand, seismically jolted from the wall, crashed forward against the door and slammed it. The two terrorists stood
