Barbados. You’ll be watched all the time. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m only afraid that somehow Drevin is going to get off the hook. Seven more days, Alex. Then we can make the arrest and you can go home.”
“What about Paul?” It was only now that Alex thought about Paul Drevin. He wondered if he knew the truth about his father.
“Nothing will happen to him. He’ll be well looked after. I guess he’ll go back to his mother.” Alex didn’t speak. He wanted to refuse but something was stopping him. He didn’t want Byrne to think he was afraid. Maybe it was as simple as that.
“One week,” Byrne promised. “Drevin won’t suspect a thing. And just in case you do run into trouble, we’ve got someone here who might be able to help you.”
“Who?”
“He’s waiting for you outside.”
He stood up and Alex followed him out of the office and down a corridor to an open-plan area. There was a man sitting at a table and Alex recognized him instantly. It would have been hard not to. The man was enormously fat. He was bald with a black moustache and a round, smiling face. He was wearing a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt that couldn’t have looked more inappropriate among the dark suits of the CIA operatives. Alex had never seen so many flowers on one piece of material.
“Hello, Alex!” the man boomed.
“Hello, Mr Smithers,” Alex replied.
“What a great pleasure to see you again. You’re looking tremendously well, if I may say so. Mrs Jones sends her best wishes.”
“She knows I’m here?”
“Oh yes. We’ve been keeping an eye on you. As a matter of fact, it was she who sent me here.” Smithers lowered his voice, although it could still be heard across the room. “We thought you might like one or two new gadgets, and although the Americans do produce a few of their own, I rather think we lead the field.
Not that they’d agree, of course!”
“Gadgets…” Alex watched as Smithers reached down and lifted a briefcase onto the table.
“Absolutely. It wouldn’t be any fun without gadgets, would it? And I’ve come up with some quite interesting ideas. This, for example.” He produced an object that Alex recognized immediately. It was an inhaler, identical to the one Paul Drevin used. “Now, we happen to know that Drevin’s son has one of these,” Smithers explained. “So if anyone notices this in your luggage, they’ll simply assume it’s his. But it’s fingerprint sensitive and I’ve programmed it for your personal use. When you press the cylinder, it’ll send out a puff of knockout gas. Effective up to about five metres. Alternatively you can twist the cylinder round twice clockwise; that turns it into a hand grenade. Five-second fuse. I tested it on one of my assistants. Poor old Bennett … he should be out of hospital in a couple of months.” He passed it across and dived back into the case.
“Eavesdropping,” he went on. “Part of your brief is to listen to anything interesting that Mr Drevin may be saying, and for that you’ll need this.” He brought out a slim white box with a set of headphones. Alex picked it up. It was an iPod. At least, it looked like one. “This uses microwave technology,” Smithers explained. “Point the screen at anyone up to fifty metres away and listen through the headphones. You’ll hear every word they say. You can also use it to contact the CIA. Rotate the click wheel three times anticlockwise and speak into it. I’ve got another version, by the way, packed with enough plastic explosive to blow up a building, but Mr Blunt said you weren’t to have it. Shame, really. I call it the i-x-Plod.
“And one last thing. Flamingo Bay is a tropical island with lots of creepy-crawlies. So this might help…” Once again he reached into the case and this time came out with a glass bottle marked: STINGO
Jungle-strength mosquito lotion
“Mosquito repellent,” Alex said.
“Absolutely not,” Smithers replied. “This is a very powerful formulation and it actually does the exact opposite. It attracts mosquitoes. In fact, once you open the bottle, it’ll attract just about every insect on the island. You might find it useful if you need a diversion.” He closed the case and stood up. “I’m off to St Lucia,” he announced. “A little holiday—and it’ll give me a chance to test my shark-repellent swimming trunks. So I won’t be too far away if you need me, although I’m sure you won’t. Chin-chin!” Smithers wandered off down another corridor. Alex was left with Joe Byrne.
“So will you do it?” Byrne asked.
Alex stared at the three gadgets on the table. “It looks like everyone’s already made up my mind for me.”
“That’s great, Alex. Thank you.” Byrne gestured and the blond-haired man who had brought Alex from the airport came over. “You’ve already met Special Agent Shulsky,” he said.
“Call me Ed,” the agent said. Without the dark glasses and the intimidating manner, he seemed a lot more pleasant. Alex guessed he was still in his twenties; he looked as if he hadn’t long graduated from college.
“Agent Shulsky will be heading the back-up operation,” Byrne explained. “He and a dozen people will be based on Barbados. That’s where you’ll be landing, by the way. Flamingo Bay doesn’t have its own airstrip.
The moment you call, they’ll come running.”
Shulsky smiled. “It’s a real pleasure to be working with you, Alex,” he said. “They showed us your file. I have to say, it’s more than impressive.”
“Is there anything else you want to know?” Byrne asked.
“Yes. There is one thing,” Alex said. “This all came about because I just happened to be in the room next to Paul Drevin at St Dominic’s Hospital. But it was no coincidence, was it? Mr Blunt put me there because he hoped I’d meet Paul and become friends with him.”
Byrne hesitated. “I can’t answer that for sure, Alex,” he said. “But I will say this much: Alan Blunt does have a knack of making events work his way.”
So it was true. Alex could have been taken to any hospital in London. But even as he lay there bleeding with a bullet in his chest, the MI6 chief had been planning ahead, engineering his next assignment. It was almost beyond belief. No. Where Blunt was concerned, it was to be expected.
