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good-naturedly. “You aren’t going to cheat me out of a story, are you?”
    “I think you’d better clear that with Jaromir Kusak. If he doesn’t want any publicity about his daughter joining him in exile, he doesn’t get it. Understood?”
    “Understood.” Bohn was smiling. “I’ll outlive the old boy. The story can be told someday, and I’ll be the only one who can do it. Say—look at the hour! Better get back into town, Hugh. I want to call Vienna as early as possible tomorrow morning, let them know we’re all set. That should give them enough time to bring Irina safely out of Czechoslovakia by the beginning of August.”
    McCulloch nodded. He was watching David. “Something wrong?”
    “No,” David said. “Just puzzled.”
    “By what?”
    “Jaromir Kusak. Is the place where he is living in exile so well hidden that no one knows where it is? Not even his publisher?”
    “It’s the best-kept secret since the atom bomb,” said Bohn.
    “He has his reasons,” McCulloch said very quietly. He hadn’t touched the brandy. “I’m driving,” he explained with a grin, and finished his third cup of black coffee. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dave.” The slip-over to a first name was unobtrusive.
    David nodded, walked with him into the living-room. Bohn was already on the front porch, pulling on his jacket. McCulloch lifted his briefcase from the side of the armchair, opened it. He took out two or three sheets of paper, typed clearly, lines well spaced, easy reading. “If you have time tonight, you could glance over these notes. And burn them once you’ve read them.”
    “Top-secret?” David asked with a smile.
    “My own special brand. Let’s say they are a greater risk, if anyone left them lying around, than you and I accidentally meeting on a plane tomorrow. By the way. I’ll take the liberty of changing your space from economy to first class. That’s much quieter at this time of year. Any objections?” David had none.
    There was a general handshaking but no talk on the dark porch. McCulloch produced a pocket flashlight: Bohn and he made their way easily to the car. A last wave from Bohn, and they were off.
    David stood for some moments, listening to the sea, looking at the sky. A clear and beautiful night. A strange and fantastic night.
    He came back into the house, sat down at his desk, pushing his manuscript aside, placing McCulloch’s pages in front of him. They consisted of three crisply written but fairly detailed biographies: Jaromir Kusak: his wife, Hedwiga Kusak; Jiri Hrádek, Irina’s husband. When he finished reading, he burned them in the fireplace and stirred up the black ashes with a poker until they were crumbled into powder. Now he knew some of the background to Irina’s life in those last sixteen years. Sadly, he shook his head, gathered up his own papers, and began packing them for New York.

4
    David settled himself comfortably in his new location. Hugh McCulloch had managed the change-over to first class on the flight to Amsterdam-Vienna. It wasn’t that McCulloch was a sybarite or a wild spender. It turned out that his under-statements had double meanings. “Quieter,” he had said yesterday, which meant simply a better chance of finding last-minute space for himself and his travelling companions. McCulloch was a planner, no doubt about that. He had even got the seat next to David.
    McCulloch gave a casual but friendly nod as he took his place. Just one stranger briefly summing up another who would share close quarters with him on a long journey. David took his cue, nodded back. Where were Jo Corelli and Walter Krieger? he wondered. He had made several amused guesses while waiting at Kennedy for the usual business, nowadays, of getting on board: individual searches—this airline was really careful, thank God—for concealed weapons on possible hijackers. And anyone who looked Neanderthal, or muttered to himself, or talked aggressively, or shifted his eyes like a spooked