'The ultimate clam.'

'How well you put it.' He waited, then said, 'But you haven't asked any questions yet. Lack of interest?'

'Not really. Just put the proposition on the line for me and we'll take it from there. I don't like piecemeal information.'

'Quite so.' He looked down for an instant.

Behind me that clod Corbyn laughed. You can set your watch by him.

'I need, then,' Flockhart said carefully, 'someone capable of total discretion to look at certain things in Phnom Penh for me, leaving tomorrow and reporting back to me personally through my private lines at the Bureau and at my home.'

In a moment I said, 'I'm actually looking for a mission. The real thing.'

The espresso arrived and Flockhart dropped the sliver of peel into his cup. 'Yes, I understand that. I didn't bring you down here to waste your time. Let me put it this way: if you are prepared to follow my instructions with reasonable fidelity, and to work — at least for the moment — with no signals board or transmissions through Cheltenham, and with no supports, couriers, or contacts in the field, I can guarantee you a mission. The real thing.'

I suppose it's the way it goes, isn't it — if you lust after something a bit too long you're not sure whether you want it after all when it lands in your hands. But it wasn't really that, I think, this time. I didn't trust this man, and if I let him run me through a mission I would have to trust him with my life.

'I would be operating, then,' I said in a moment, 'under a total blackout?'

'Yes.'

That too was suspect. I'd never known it happen before at the Bureau, and that could simply mean that none of the other shadow executives had ever told me about it, but I didn't think so. There's a grapevine in that place, as in most organizations, and this was something I'd never picked up.