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chair.
    Caulton had a pillowlike belly and a round, perpetually flushed face, but his eyes were steel-blue and catlike. The third man, slender and hawk-faced, seated in one of the dim corners of the room, went unintroduced. Taskins assumed him to be a functionary, most likely there to take notes, and ignored him.
    “Of course,” Taskins said. “What can I do for you, Mr. Somerset?”
    “I wonder if you would answer a question.”
    “Certainly, if I can.”
    Somerset waited until he had performed the minor ritual of retrieving and lighting another cigarette before continuing. “Does your government have nuclear warheads in the British Isles?”
    His tone was casual, but the question rocked Taskins back on his heels. Indecision made him hesitate, and when he did, Somerset went on.
    “I hardly expected a direct answer. Let me attempt to discourage any evasions by telling you about a most interesting report I received yesterday afternoon from MI-5. Four times in the last year, it seems, various of our agents have made reports suggesting that American agents might be trying to smuggle some sort of nuclear armaments into the country.”
    “Mr. Somerset, I—”
    “The most interesting part of this is that K was instructed by the Home Secretary to seal the reports and not pursue the matter,” Somerset continued. “I assume that this was done with the PM’s knowledge and consent—”
    Taskins stared at the man in the corner with new realization. The director of MI-5, the British Security Service, had gone by the code name “K” for more than sixty years. But the changing faces that went with that name had always been hidden behind a high wall of secrecy.
    “—so tell me, Mr. Ambassador, if you will: Did you have an arrangement with my predecessor that he would look the other way while you brought nuclear weapons into the British Isles? Or to put it plainly, what the hell is going on?”
    Instructions be damned .
    “Yes,” Taskins said, meeting Somerset’s direct gaze. “Yes to both. We had such an agreement. And there are nuclear weapons in the British Isles.”
    Caulton grunted in surprise and stirred in his seat. K did not react at all.
    “You see, Bennie, they are that untrustworthy,” Somerset said casually. He flicked the ash from his cigarette into the bowl, then looked back to Taskins. “How many, and what type?”
    Swallowing hard, the Ambassador forced himself to answer. “Ten at the moment, with five more to come. Weasels.” When Somerset’s face showed no flicker of recognition, he went on. “Thirty-four-foot solid fuel intermediate range missiles, on mobile carriers. They have a maximum range of fifteen hundred miles—just enough to reach Moscow.”
    Somerset was still unreadable, his questions measured, his demeanor calm. But Caulton was growing more agitated with every word.
    “Let me understand this,” Caulton sputtered. “You’re not talking about bombs that can be carried by our Hawkers or missiles for the Vigilance frigates. You’re talking about a guerrilla nuclear force owned and controlled by the American military but hiding on British soil.”
    “Not hiding. Granted shelter,” Taskins said.
    “Madness! Not only do you take it on yourself to violate our treaties with the Soviet Union, but instead of doing it in a way that provides us with strength in times of crisis, you embark on… on rocket terrorism. Have you no respect for us, for our sovereign rights, for our historic partnership—”
    “Enough, Bennie,” Somerset said calmly. “Where are the missiles, Ambassador?”
    Taskins regarded Somerset with curiosity. There was something going on here that he, Taskins, did not grasp. But the cues he was receiving as the discussion progressed were beginning to dissipate his alarm.
    “I don’t know the specifics, and in any event, they’re always changing,” he said. “They’re mobile, after all. But I believe that most of them are somewhere along the eastern