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soon as you're fit for duty. But you're not going to be any use to me if you overdo it. So relax, take it easy, and try to remember your job is to get well, and maybe see to the other thing." (The other thing being his mission if the Mad Grandmother or the Ice Princess made contact-but Mike had an uneasy feeling that this latter duty was more than slightly deniable.) But there was only so much sitting on his ass that he could do, and after a few days frittered away watching Friends reruns and reading pop-history books about the Middle East, he was ready to climb the walls.
    Hence, the basement.
    Most apartments don't have basements, but the one Mike rented in a converted brownstone was the exception to the rule: A steep staircase opening off one wall of the kitchen led down into the low-ceilinged cellar. With perfect hindsight, Mike had to admit, deciding to clean house while recovering from a broken leg and a nasty little infection was not one of his most sensible moves. But once he'd gotten down those steps, it turned out that filling garbage sacks and trying to figure out how to dismantle the dead drier that had been stranded down here for years was a whole lot more attractive than trying to figure out how to get back up the stairs. Especially because he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it around the tight bend at the top, and having to phone for help to dig him out of his own cellar would really do his self-image no end of good. (You're a special agent working for a secret government organization and you had to call in help to climb a staircase? What is this, the CIA?)
    Hence, the phone ringing while he was stuck in the basement.
    Mike swore. The phone rang twice as he disentangled himself from the cable of the defunct drier and hopped around the workbench, trying to find the extension handset behind the pile of rusting paint cans and the overflowing toolbox. "Yes?" He barked, making a one-handed grab for the phone and simultaneously putting too much weight on his bad leg.
    "Is that Mr Fleming?" It was a woman's voice, a noisy office providing unwelcome background context. If this is a telesales call… Mike felt a hot flash of anger, echoing the pain in his right ankle. About a week and a half ago he'd trodden on a man-trapa mediaeval antipersonnel mine, as Sergeant Hastert had put it-and with the cracked bone, torn ligaments, and nice little infection he'd picked up, he'd been lucky to keep the leg.
    "Who is this?" Mike demanded.
    "I'm Letitia, from Family Home Services. Can I speak to Mr. Fleming, please?"
    The spark of helpless anger passed rapidly. Mike blinked. "Yeah, that's me." He glanced round instinctively. "Free to talk." No, not a telesales call; the background office noise was a recording and the company name a cover. "It's Tuesday today, isn't it?"
    "No, it's Wednesday," said the woman at the other end of the line, who wasn't called Letitia any more than it was any day other than Monday. "You're late for your CAT scan. Dr. James wants to see you as soon as possible, and as it happens we've got a slot free right now-are you free now?"
    Mike glanced round at the dusty basement again, his pulse quickening. "I believe I can fit you in."
    "Good. An ambulance will collect you in fifteen minutes, if that's convenient?"
    "I'll be waiting." The usual pleasantries, and Mike hung up the handset, staring at it in surprise. So the colonel wanted to talk to him? But the colonel knew damn well what shape his leg was in, and the boss-man was in the loop, so what could he want?…
    Mike began to smile, for the first time in days.
     
    The ambulance that pulled up outside his front door twenty minutes later resembled any other one, and the two paramedics made short work of wheeling Mike-sitting up, chatting, no need to alarm the neighbors unduly-into the back of their vehicle. The door shut, and there the resemblance stopped: Normal ambulances didn't have door gunners in black fatigues riding behind the one-way glass windows.