"I'm in the, shall we say, security business. I work for the government. Some thing very strange happened at a little think-tank outside of Washington some time back. It seems an ex-Nazi got killed in a chess game. A parachute instructor lost his chute on the way down. A gang of toughs was beaten up by one man, and just before that a former employee at the think-tank was found with his head in a paint-can shaker

"My department was watching the think-tank carefully because the Russians were interested in it. Well, to make a long story short, we were told to drop the search for the security officer there who disappeared, a Remo Pelham. That was the first clue.

"Then there was the China incident when our department was called off the disappearance of General Liu. Very interesting, because my department ordinarily would have prime responsibility.

"So, I and a few other people decided to check back further, especially when bodies-internationally related bodies-turned up very rapidly during that China incident. And there were other strange things. The sudden fortunate disappearance of the executioner of the Cosa Nostra in New York. Here one day. Gone the next. And we ran into the record of an old employee who killed himself in a hospital by tearing out tubes with his hook. You should know the name of the gentleman. His name was Conrad MacCleary."

The man who called himself Magrudder finished the glass and poured himself another, savouring the first sip.

"So I checked. And would you believe that this MacCleary was listed as working for us at that moment, and we had no record of what he was doing.

Oh, we had a record all right. It was false. It had him in Bangkok. And my department head said never mind, some secret presidential mission or something. Does this story interest you?"

"Sure, Mr. Magrudder, but I'd like it a lot more if I could listen to it outside of this contraption."