Mexico Set

'We'll walk to the end and see what else there is and then come back here and try some,' Dicky suggested. Dicky could always surprise me. Just as I had decided he was the archetypal gringo tourist, he wanted to have lunch at a fonda. 'So what's your theory?'

'I have no theory,' I said. 'Agents come in many shapes and sizes. Some are waiting for the socialist mille

'Guilt,' said Dicky. 'He feels guilty about his wealth.'

'If you'd ever met Paul Biederma

'Blackmail, then?'

'About what?'

'Sex.'

'Paul Biederma

'You let your acute dislike of Paul Biederma

'Oh, he's an agent,' I said. 'But he's not the sort of agent that a man such as Sti

'Your experience makes you over-estimate what qualities an agent needs. Try and see it from their point of view: rich US businessman – someone the local cops would be reluctant to upset – isolated house on a lonely stretch of beach in western Mexico, not too far by road from the capital. And not too far by sea from Vladivostok.'

'Landing guns, you mean?'

'A man with a reputation for drinking who gets so rough with his servants that he's left all alone in the house. Wife and children often away. Convenient beach, pier big enough for a big motor boat.'

'Come along, Dicky,' I said. This is just a holiday cottage by Biederma

'So for half the year the house is completely empty. Then Sti

'It doesn't smell right,' I said. But Dicky had put together a convincing scenario. If it was the house they were interested in, it didn't matter what kind of aptitude Biederma

'If it doesn't smell right,' said Dicky with heavy irony, 'I'll tell London to forget the whole thing.' He stood up straight as he looked at the selection of pictures for sale, and I realized he was studying his reflection in the glass-fronted pictures. He was too thin for a large, bright-green safari shirt. It made him look like a lollipop. 'Is it going to rain?' he said, looking at the time. He'd bought a new wrist-watch too. It was a multi-dial black chronometer that kept perfect time at 50 fathoms.

'It seldom rains in the morning, even during the rainy season.'

'It will bucket down on the stroke of noon, then,' said Dicky, looking up at the clouds that were now turning yellowish.

'I'm still not sure what London wants with Sti

'London want Sti

'Enrolled?' It could mean a lot of things from persuaded to defect, to knocked on the head and rolled in a carpet. That would be difficult.'

The bigger they are the harder they fall,' said Dicky. 'You said yourself that he's forty years old and passed over for promotion. He's been stuck in East Berlin for ages. Berlin is a plum job for Western intelligence but it's the boondocks for their people. A smart KGB major left to rot in East Berlin is sure to be fretting.'

'I suppose his wife likes it there,' I said.

'What's that got to do with it?' said Dicky. 'Would I take an intelligence job in Canada because my wife liked ice hockey?'

'No, Dicky, you wouldn't.'

'And this fellow Sti

'You talked about all this with Frank?'

'Sure. Frank has to be in on it because Sti

'Christ, Dicky,' I said, as I came to terms with this bombshell. 'Did you know all this when we left London?'

'Enrolling Sti

'Yes, enrolling Sti

'It looked as if it might go that way.' That was Dicky on the defensive. He'd known all along, that was obvious. I wondered what else he knew that he was not going to tell me about until it happened. 'London Central put out a departmental alert for him, didn't they?' We had reached the carnitas stand by now. He selected a chair that didn't wobble and sat down. 'I'll have mine wrapped in a tortilla; pork skin is very fattening.'

'London Central puts out departmental alerts for clerks who make off with the petty cash.'

'But they don't send senior staff, like us, to identify them when they are spotted,' said Dicky.

'Enrolled,' I said, considering all the implications. 'A hot-shot like Sti

'Only if you start thinking it's madness,' said Dicky. 'My own opinion…' Pause. 'For what's it's worth…' A modest smile. '… is that we stand an excellent chance.'

'And when did you last enrol a KGB major?'

Dicky bit his lip. We both knew the answer to that one. Dicky was a pen-pusher. Sti

'Isn't London proposing to send someone over here to help? This is a complicated job, Dicky. We need someone who has experience.'

'Nonsense. We can do it. I don't want Bret Rensselaer breathing down my neck. If we can pull this one off, it will be a real coup.' He smiled. 'I didn't expect you to start asking London for help, Bernard. I thought you were the one who always liked to do everything on his own.'

'I'm not on my own,' I said. 'I'm with you.' The stallholder was stirring his cauldron of pork and arranging suitable pieces on a large metal platter.

'And you'd prefer to work with your friend Werner, eh?'

I could hear danger signals. 'We were at school together,' I said. 'I've known him a long time.'

'Werner Volkma

'Officially that's right,' I said. 'But he's worked for us from time to time.'

'Because you give him jobs to do,' said Dicky. 'Don't try to make it sound as if the department employs him.'

'Werner knows Berlin,' I said.

'You know Berlin. Frank Harrington knows Berlin. Our friend Sti

'Werner is a Jew. He was born in Berlin when the Nazis were ru