Maxim considered. "He'd fired three aimed shots already, and it would take him a couple of seconds to work the action and get his aim back… We saw on television how people were ducking. No, I should think he'd lost his chance by then."

"So he behaved quite reasonably in running?"

"Probably." Maxim squinted at George, wary about being invited into yet more speculation.

"The primer in the cartridge had fired, the main charge hadn't. Does that tell us anything?"

"It happens. If it was old ammunition and hadn't been stored properly…"

"Itwas old ammunition, like the gun, like the grenade. Now let me ask you something: could you fix a cartridge so that that happened?"

"Are you suggesting somebody sabotaged the ammunition?"

"I'm asking you a straight question: how would you do it?"

Maxim considered, cautiously. "The simplest way would be to pull the cartridge apart, take out the propellant, and fire the primer, then tap it with a hammer and nail. Then put it all together again."

"Excellent! And the nail mark wouldn't show under the firing pin mark later. I hadn't thoughtofthat."Grinning with excitement, George took a large swallow of his drink. "So what you're telling me is that the gun could have been rigged to fire only three shots, then stop, by putting a dud cartridge fourth. And it would be near impossible to prove afterwards."

"I'mtelling you?" Maxim gaped. "I'm not telling you a blind thing. All this is your bright idea."

"But a good wheeze nonetheless."

"Hold on. If I wanted to sabotage that shooting, I could have doctored the first three rounds. The first shot's the most important, it's going to be the best aimed, I mean notthe fourth…"

"But suppose Person X had doctored it himself?-and the first shot had done all he'd really wanted to do?-kill Paul Barling? Then a couple to give himself a margin, in case the first missed, which he fired off against a pillar near the President, then the gun jams on cue and he runs. How about that?"

The thought snapped into perfect focus in Maxim's mind. "With the President and everybody around, nobody would think of Barling as the target. They assume it's a mistake and there's no political blowback. Yes, I like that."

Now George was looking astonished. "You do, do you? It's nice to be agreed with, but wasn't that a little fast for a simple soldier?"

Maximsmiled. "It was something an instructor up at the Fort was talking about: arranging assassinations to look accidental. No reprisals."

"You'd say it was a widely accepted practice, then?"

"In a not-very-wide circle, yes. But why Barling? He wasn't very important, was he?"

"That could be why; if it were somebody more important there'd be bound to be suspicions it was intended. But somebody had to be killed to prove how callous the Bravoes are-if the whole thing was planned to smear the KGB. Sprague told me about something last night, another thing that could be a smear on the Bravoes. He assumed Charlie's Indians were behind it, but… I stayed up thinking, then did a little paperwork today."

"Are you saying the Abbey was just part of a pattern?"

"It might be, just might-and that does make your fake copper more real. Less likely to be a one-man affair… but I'm not really an expert on these things, and I don't think you are, either. And we'll have to move canny on this, with the Steering Committee resolutely steering in the opposite direction… This instructor at the Fort: was he military or civilian?"

"Civilian, and a she. Miss Tuckey, Dorothy Tuckey."

"Ah yes." George had, of course, heard of her.

The reception at the American Ambassador's residence had been planned as a cheery thank-you for making the President's visit so smooth and uneventful. It was now doomed to be as cheery as watching a chess match in the rain. Probably like George himself, most of the guests had first decided to stay away, then decided that would look bad, and finally that perhaps things would seem brighter after the fifth drink. Certainly this theory was being given every chance.

George grabbed the one full glass off a tray and looked round for cover. In one corner there was a television personality wearing a television personality shirt, just in case you couldn't place the face; another corner was full of political lords, faded or bloated according to their own tastes. Then, thankfully, he saw Scott-Scobie of the Foreign Office wedged on a sofa between an American songwriter and a woman in gold Lurexscales that turned her into a gilded lizard. Scott-Scobie caught George's eye and smiled desperately.

"I told him," the songwriter was saying, "'Why are you putting the accents in the wrong places in my lyrics?' So he said, 'Okay, I'll change them.'Just like that."

"He never did breathe right," the woman said.

Scott-Scobie muttered an apology and heaved himself upright; he was mid-forties, plump and pink with curly dark hair and usually known as 'Swinging S-S', but there was no swing in him tonight. He drained his glass. "Welcome to the funeral of the Special Relationship."

George looked around for a tray. "What're you drinking?"

"Everything. And it doesn't seem to make a whit of difference. Have you ever noticed that?-colds and miseryseem to sop up alcohol, leaving you stone cold sober. Scientific fact. Why didn't I run away to Australia as a lad?"

"You wouldn't have liked it: it's got Australians in it."

"Into each life some Australians must fall. Anyway, they'll probably be the only allies we've got by the end of the year, being too far away to have heard of Berlin."

The reminder settled on George like a wet overcoat. "Did they go ahead with the ODCommittee then?"

"They did," Scott-Scobie said grimly. "We're going to talk to the Russians. Unilaterally."

"Lord." George made a iwo-handed grab at a scurrying tray. "I thought they might have postponed it, with Barling not yet in his grave…"

"He wasn't part of the ODCommittee." Scott-Scobie gulped and then peered into his glass to see what he was gulping. "And do please remember I've said nothing."

"What's the next move?"

"My lips are sealed. If they weren't, I might tell you that a Russian delegation will arrive here disguised as caviare salesmen to work out the preliminaries, then there'll be some sort of crash conference in Helsinki or Vienna. My side's been pleading to go slow, bury it in the Geneva talks-damn it, the Russians will play along. They've got half of what they want just by an agreement to talk. Splits us off from"-he flapped a loose hand at the room, the Americans, the French, the West German Minister-Counsellor explaining British education to a Dutch Admiral-"all of them. But the PM wants some signed paper to wave at the House and prove he's got a diplomatic breakthrough even if it only says Peace In Our Time in Russkie. Oh well, maybe somebody'll assassinate the delegation when it gets here."

"Scottie, don'tsay such things."

"No, I suppose it wouldn't be for the best. So you'd better see to it that nothing happens."

"Security details are not my province," George protested, recalling just how much, together with Culliman, he had made it his province. But my God, he thought, if Barling really had been the target, could the visiting Russians be next? He shuddered.

There was a sudden hush in the big, crowded room. The Ambassador and his wife had come in from receiving guests in the hall and the crowd was parting in front of them as for Royalty-although mainly because nobody wanted to talk to him. However resolutely one chattered of the weather and education, the sole topic of the evening was written in haggard lines down the Ambassador's pale face.

Then two elderly women stepped bravely forward -American, from the determination to look their best at any age which set them so far apart from the comfortable dowdiness of the British wives. The crowd relaxed into babble again, but the reshuffle had revealed their corner to James Ferrebee, who was broad-shouldering his way towards them. George didn't much want to meet Ferrebee again so soon.