He rocked gently on his swivel chair.

'Care for a spot of tea?'

'Is Carslake in the building?'

'He's running the Irish thing.'

'Well, get me some orders.'

It's the routine reaction: most of the shadow executives get it the minute they know there's a mission lined up with their name on it. We call it the shakes, the blues, the doom-clangers, but it's the same thing, a kind of sudden love-hate relationship with the job that's been giving you the kicks you asked for all along the line, the same job that's going to kill you off one day when your guard's down or your luck's out or you've finally lost that fine degree of judgment that has so far kept you alive.

So when you know there's a mission you get an urge to run the other way and you can't do that because you're committed, so you run to meet it instead, head down and blood up but with that little cold knot in the stomach.

'The only orders I know, old horse, is that you're to piddle off home.'

'What did they get me here for, then, so bloody fast?'

'We just wanted to know you were physically available for this one, and wecouldn't be sure of that if you were mooning around Tokyo.'

It made sense and the speed went out of me and I crossed to the open window and stood with my back to the rain, watching his face now because I wanted all the info I could get without asking too much.

'What were the signals you just cancelled?'

'We were going to warn Smythe and Bickersteth to stand by. One's in Bucharest and the other's hanging around in reserve on the Pakistan show.'

'You were going to pull them out for this job?'

'If you couldn't make it.' He flattened his pink hand and tilted it, watching the light flash across his nails. 'And now you have. Or have you?'