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economic climate. But I will take you first to your hotel where you can freshen up after your flight. We have a suite for you at the Holiday Inn. Will that be satisfactory, sir?”
    Now I had the feeling that she was playing to a very specific audience, but I was damned if I could see it. The crowd had fanned out and thinned now and the car park, towards which we were headed, was almost deserted. I said, “Fine,” in a normal voice, and left it at that. I could not see the supposed third member of the reception committee, but guessed he would be around somewhere. Brown appeared nothing if not thorough.
    As we walked, at something of a rocketing pace, I glanced over the open space at the old police fort, except that it was not there anymore. It had been a mess, in any case, the last time I had seen it; the result of our lobbing thirty or so mortar shells into it. Prior to that it had been quite a handsome building. In point of fact, there was nothing I recognized about the area; a few new structures going up here and there, in varying degrees of completion, plus several mounds of rubble that may well have been all that remained of the army barracks, but that could just as easily have been mounds of builder’s debris.
    The car was a current model dark blue Renault with tinted windows. I could see the vague outline of a man behind the wheel. The third member, probably. Sammy had the trunk open and was stowing my case. The girl opened one of the rear doors and the sound of the car’s stereo escaped into the atmosphere. I was about to ask why it had to be so loud when the girl, her mouth set in a tight smile, hissed, “Say nothing, colonel. Just get in the car. We have a directional microphone trained on us!”
    I was quick on that uptake; but, as I climbed in, the sight of a man sprawled on the floor between the front and rear seats, did faze me for a moment. He was a European in a business suit, and he beckoned me in with an urgent gesture. Perhaps it was the tension trying to find a way out, I don’t know, but I had an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh at it all. I wanted to yell at them that it was all useless and stupid; that the gaff was blown in any case. Why the man was sprawled there, I didn’t know, but it seemed ridiculous, senseless. Even childlike.
    “Get in, for God’s sake!” spat the man.
    I climbed in. Wearily. Mai Chan nudged me further over on the seat and climbed in beside me, as Sammy slid in beside the driver who, mercifully, brought the stereo down to a more normal level.
    “Please do exactly as you are told, colonel,” said the girl, which had me wondering how many times a day I would hearing that instruction. “When we pull out of the car park we will drive into that street.” She pointed. I looked, nodded, and reserved judgment. “The car will stop. You will immediately get out and this car will drive on. Another car, a red Volvo estate headed the opposite direction, will stop. The door will open and you will get in.” Then, to the driver, “Go, Ranjid!”
    We slid forward and headed for the exit. The girl went on, “All this is vitally important, colonel. Please treat it as such. Mister Luang will be in the other car. He will explain.”
    Cops and Robbers, I thought. The classic “switch”. The man on the floor was to be me. I looked down at him. He smiled crookedly up at me. “Welcome to the Congo, sir. Land of opportunity and stealth. I don’t always travel this way, but when - “
    “Shut up!” spat the girl, and he shut up. “Get ready, colonel. We are almost there.”
    The driver swung the car into the designated street, rolled on for a few yards, then stopped hard.
    “Go! Go!” yelled the girl.
    As I slid across the seat I saw the red Volvo cruising down the road towards us. There was no other traffic about. Neatly done, I thought. As I swung my legs out the door my heel caught the European’s shoulder and I heard his grunt of pain. But before I could mutter an apology