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private Lear,
     which is what I’d do, frankly. Having first ordered my special menu in advance
     from the highly attractive hostess in a mini-skirt. Money to burn,
Punter
’s got, according to our amazing top-of-the-range source, right,
     Jeb?’
    From the seaward side, the pitch-dark
     terrace was forbiddingagainst the night sky, the beach a blackened
     no-man’s-land of craggy boulders and seething surf.
    ‘How many men in the boat team?’
     he asked. ‘Elliot didn’t seem sure.’
    ‘We got him down to eight,’
     Shorty replied, over Jeb’s shoulder. ‘Nine when they head back to the mother
     ship with
Punter
. They hope,’ he added drily.
    The conspirators will be unarmed,
     Paul
, Elliot was saying.
Such is the degree of trust between a pair of
     total bastards. No guns, no bodyguards. We tiptoe in, we grab our man, we tiptoe
     out, we were never there. Jeb’s boys push from the land, Ethical pulls from
     the sea
.
    Side by side with Jeb once more, he peered
     through the arrow-slit at the lighted freighters, then at the middle screen. One
     freighter lay apart from her companions. A Panamanian flag flapped from her stern. On
     her deck, shadows flitted among the derricks. An inflatable dinghy dangled over the
     water, two men aboard. He was still watching them when his encrypted cellphone began
     cooing its stupid melody. Jeb grabbed it from him, dowsed the sound, handed it back.
    ‘That you, Paul?’
    ‘Paul speaking.’
    ‘This is Nine. All right? Nine. Tell
     me you hear me.’
    And I shall be
Nine, the minister
     is solemnly intoning, like a Biblical prophecy.
I shall not be
Alpha,
which
     is reserved for our target building. I shall not be
Bravo,
which is
     reserved for our location. I shall be
Nine,
which is the designated code
     for your commander, and I shall be communicating with you by specially encrypted
     cellphone ingeniously linked to your operational team by way of an augmented PRR
     net, which for your further information stands for Personal Role Radio
.
    ‘I hear you loud and clear, Nine,
     thank you.’
    ‘And you’re in position? Yes?
     Keep your answers short from now on.’
    ‘I am indeed. Your eyes and
     ears.’
    ‘All right. Tell me precisely what you
     can see from where you are.’
    ‘We’re looking straight down the
     slope to the houses. Couldn’t be better.’
    ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘Jeb, his three men and
     myself.’
    Pause. Muffled male voice off.
    The minister again:
    ‘Has anyone any idea why
Aladdin
hasn’t left the Chinese yet?’
    ‘They started eating late. He’s
     expected to leave any minute. That’s all we’ve heard.’
    ‘And no
Punter
in sight?
     You’re absolutely sure of that? Yes?’
    ‘Not in sight as yet. I’m sure.
     Yes.’
    ‘The slightest visual indication,
     however remote – the smallest clue – possibility of a sighting –’
    Pause. Is the augmented PRR breaking up, or
     is Quinn?
    ‘– I expect you to advise me
immediately
. Understood? We see everything you see, but not so clearly. You
     have
eyes-on
. Yes?’ – already sick of the delay – ‘Plain sight, for
     fuck’s sake!’
    ‘Yes, indeed. Plain sight. Eyes-on. I
     have eyes-on.’
    Don has struck up his arm for attention.
    In the centre of town a people carrier is
     nosing its way through night traffic. It has a taxi sign on its roof and a single
     passenger on the rear seat, and one glance is enough to tell him that the passenger is
     the corpulent, very animated
Aladdin
, the Pole that Elliot won’t touch
     with a barge. He’s holding a cellphone to his ear and, as in the Chinese
     restaurant, he is gesticulating magisterially with his free hand.
    The pursuing camera veers, goes wild. The
     screen goes blank. The helicopter takes over, pinpoints the people carrier, puts a halo
     over it. The pursuing ground camera returns. The winkingicon of a
     telephone, top-left corner of the screen. Jeb hands Paul an earpiece. One Polish man
     talking to another. They