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'Sir, fish-and-game has better boats for this. Want me to call them to support you?'

'Good idea. You might want to circle around this area some. The water looks pretty clear, and she told us that they've dumped some bodies hereabouts. See the stuff in the fishing boat?' Oreza looked, noticing the fishnet and blocks for the first time.

Jesus. "That's how you do it. Okay, I'll motor around.' Which he did, after making his radio call.

'Hi, Sandy.'

'John! Where are you?'

'My place in town.'

'There was a policeman in to see us yesterday. They're looking for you.'

'Oh?' Kelly's eyes narrowed as he chewed on his sandwich.

'He said you should come in and talk to him, that it's better if you do it right away.'

'That's nice of him,' Kelly observed with a chuckle.

'What are you going to do?'

'You don't want to know, Sandy.'

'You sure?'

'Yes, I'm sure.'

'Please, John, please think it through.'

'I have, Sandy. Honest. It'll be okay. Thanks for the information.'

'Something wrong?' another nurse asked after she hung up.

'No,' Sandy replied, and her friend knew it was a lie.

Hmm. Kelly finished off his Coke. That confirmed his suspicion about Oreza's little visit. So things were getting complicated now, but they'd been pretty complicated the week before, too. He headed off to the bedroom, almost there when there came a knock at the door. That startled him rather badly, but he had to answer it. He'd opened windows to air the apartment out, and it was plain that someone was here. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

'Wondered where you were, Mr Murphy,' the manager said, much to Kelly's relief.

'Well, two weeks of work in the Midwest and a week's vacation down in Florida,' he lied with a relaxed smile.

'You didn't get much of a tan.'

An embarrassed grin. 'Spent a lot of my time inside.' The manager thought that was pretty good.

'Good for you, well, just wanted to see if everything was okay.'

'No problems here,' Kelly assured the man, closing the door before he could ask anything else. He needed a nap. It seemed that all of his work was at night. It was like being on the other side of the world, Kelly told himself, lying down on his lumpy bed.

It was a hot day at the zoo. Better to have met in the panda enclosure. It was crowded with people who wanted to gawk at this wonderful goodwill gift from the People's Republic of China - Chinese Communists to Ritter. The place was air conditioned and comfortable, but intelligence officers usually were uncomfortable in places like that, and so today he was strolling by the remarkably large area that contained the Galapagos tortoises, or turtles - Ritter didn't know the difference, if there was one. Why they needed so large an area, he didn't know either. Certainly it seemed expansive for a creature that moved at roughly the speed of a glacier.

'Hello, Bob.' 'Charles' was now an unnecessary subterfuge, though Voloshin had initiated the call - right to Ritter's desk, to show how clever he was. It worked both ways in the intelligence business. In the case of a call initiated by the Russians, the code name was 'Bill.'

'Hello, Sergey.' Ritter pointed to the reptiles. 'Kind of reminds you of the way our governments work, doesn't it?'

'Not my part of it.' The Russian sipped at his soft drink. 'Nor yours.'

'Okay, what's the word from Moscow?'

'You forgot to tell me something.'

'What's that?'

'That you have a Vietnamese officer also.'

'Why should that concern you?' Ritter asked lightly, clearly concealing his annoyance that Voloshin knew this, as his interlocutor could see.

'It is a complication. Moscow doesn't know yet.'

'Then don't tell them,' Ritter suggested. 'It is, as you say, a complication. I assure you that your allies don't know.'

'How can that be?' the Russian demanded.

'Sergey, do you reveal methods?' Ritter replied, ending that phase of the discussion. This part of the game had to be played very carefully indeed, and for more than one reason. 'Look, General, you don't like the little