name of Theo Dolgikh. He's a top field agent for Andropov. Just thought you'd like to know. There wasn't supposed to be any of this stuff, was there?'
'No,' said Kyle, 'there wasn't.'
'Tut-tut!' said Brown. 'I should be a bit sharp with your man when you meet him tomorrow, if I were you. It really isn't good enough. And just for your peace of mind, if anything were to happen to you - which I consider unlikely - be sure Dolgikh's a goner too, OK?'
'That's very reassuring,' said Kyle grimly. He gave the phone back to the barman.
'Problems?' Quint raised an eyebrow.
'Finish your drink and we'll talk about it in our rooms,' said Kyle 'Just act naturally. I think we're on Candid Camera.' He forced a smile, swallowed his brandy at a gulp, stood up. Quint followed suit; they left the bar unhurriedly and went up to their rooms; in Kyle's room they checked for electronic bugs. This was as much a job for their psychic sensitivity as for their five mundane senses, but the room was clean.
Kyle told Quint about the call in the bar. Quint was an extremely wiry man of about thirty-five, prematurely balding, soft-spoken but often aggressive, and very quick thinking. 'Not a very auspicious start,' he growled. 'Still, I suppose we should have expected it. This is what your common-or-garden secret agent comes up against all the time, I'm told.'
'Well, it's not on!' Kyle was angry. 'This was supposed to be a meeting of minds, not muscle.'
'Do you know which one of them it was?' Quint was practical about it. 'I think I can remember all of their faces. I'd know any one of them again if we should bump into him.'
'Forget it,' said Kyle. 'Brown doesn't want a confrontation. He's geared to get nasty, though, if things go wrong for us.'
'Charmed, I'm sure!' said Quint.
'My reaction exactly,' Kyle agreed.
Then they checked Quint's room for bugs and, finding nothing, called it a day.
Kyle took a shower, got into bed. It was uncomfortably warm so he pushed his blankets on to the floor. The air was humid, oppressive. It felt like rain, and if a storm blew up it would probably be a dandy. Kyle knew Genoa in the autumn, also knew that it has some of the worst storms imaginable.
He left his bedside light burning, settled down to sleep. A door, unlocked, stood between the two rooms. Quint was right next door, probably asleep by now. The city's traffic was giving it hell out beyond the louvered window shutters. London was a tomb by comparison. Tombs hardly seemed a fitting subject to go to sleep on, but .
Kyle closed his eyes; he felt sleep pulling him down, soft as a woman's arms; and he felt -
- something else pulling him awake!
His lamp was still on, its shade forming a pool of yellow light on the mahogany bedside table. But there was now a second source of illumination, and it was blue! Kyle snatched himself back from sleep, sat bolt upright in his bed. It was Harry Keogh, of course.
Carl Quint came bounding through the joining door, dressed only in his pyjama bottoms. He pulled up short, backed off a pace. 'Oh my God!' he said, his mouth hanging open. The Keogh apparition - man, sleeping child and all - turned through ninety degrees to face him.
Don't be alarmed, said Keogh.
'Can you see him?' Kyle wasn't quite awake yet.
'Lord, yes,' Quint breathed, nodding. 'And hear him, too. But even if I couldn't, I'd still know he was here.'
A psychic sensitive, said Keogh. Well, that helps.
Kyle swung his legs out of bed, switched off the lamp. Keogh stood out so much better in the darkness, like a hologram of infinitely fine neon wires. 'Carl Quint,' Kyle said, his skin prickling with the sheer weirdness of this thing he'd never get used to, 'meet Harry Keogh.'
Quint stumblingly found a chair close to Kyle's bed and flopped into it. Kyle was wide awake now, fully in control. He realised how insubstantial it must sound, how hollow and commonplace when he asked: 'Harry, what are you doing here?'
And Quint almost laughed, however hysterically, when the apparition answered: I've. been talking to Thibor Ferenczy, using my time to my best advantage - for there's precious little of it to waste. Every waking hour makes Harry jar stronger and me less able to resist him. It's his body and I'm being subsumed, even absorbed. His little brain is filling up with its own