14- Quiller Barracuda by Adam Hall

Author:Adam Hall [Hall, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783404132980
Publisher: Bastei-Lübbe
Published: 1991-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Page 111

Telephone to his head. I could only hear a word or two as his voice rose and lowered against the throb of the diesels, but I think he was asking to speak to a man called Joshua. Or Foster. Or of course Proctor because the vowels carried more clearly than the consonants. Perhaps Proctor.

The immediate objective for Barracuda .

He was holding my card up, turning it aslant to catch the light. I think I heard Foreign Office , but that could have been because I was listening for it. Then there was Mr Toufexis , and then Proctor again and then Thatcher , be it given that I was only getting snatches.

It was really very frustrating because the executive for the mission was only a telephone number away from the objective and he was three miles out to sea with a man on one side of him with his testicles out cold and a man on the other side waiting to blow his head across the bay if he did anything wrong and a man in the cabin there with orders for his immediate execution.

All I want, Nicko, is that telephone number, you little fat bastard, the one you've just called, and if I ever get you alone you're going to tell me what it is.

The deck rose and fell away to the slow undulations of the swell; the Miami skyline was lifted suddenly from the dark and strewn across the horizon in a cascade of diamonds, then was lost again, blotted out by the profile of the cabin. Assignment . . . government . . . janitor - no, Senator . . . Senator Judd , more clearly now as the man at the helm throttled the diesels back, slowing us.

Nicko cradled the telephone and there was no more to listen to, as I asked the black, 'Are we nearly there?' I wanted to know how he was feeling, how confident or how nervous.

'Keep your fuckin' mouth shut, you know what I mean?'

No reliable data. Nicko was coming back and Roget turned his head a little to look at him so I shifted my feet again, three inches this time because it wouldn't be much longer now.

'You're full of shit.'

Nicko, standing in front of me, the small eyes glinting.

'Did you talk to Proctor himself?'

Got a reaction: we hadn't mentioned his name before.

'There isn't any mistake. There isn't any assignment. You wasted my time, and I don't like that.'

But I'd got the answer. Only Proctor knew enough about me to know I wasn't on an assignment for the Thatcher government in connection with Senator Judd. This man had just been speaking to the objective. I was that close.

'I suggested you telephone Mr Toufexis,' I said, 'not Proctor.'

'What's the difference?'

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