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The embassy limousine swept out of Grosvenor Square sixty seconds later. Chuck Moxon drove; his colleague be-side him operated the D/F receiver, a small box like a minia-ture television set, save that on the screen in place of a picture was a single glowing dot. When the antenna now clipped to the metal rim above the passenger door heard the blip emitted from the D/F transmitter in Quinn?sattach? case, a line would race out from the glowing dot to the pe-rimeter of the screen. The car?s driver would have to maneu-ver so that the line on the screen pointed dead ahead of his car?s nose. He would then be following the direction finder. The device in theattach? case would be activated by remote control from inside the limousine.

They drove fast down Park Lane, through Knightsbridge, and into Kensington.

?Activate,? said Brown. The operator depressed a switch. The screen did not respond.

?Keep activating every thirty seconds until we get lock-on,? said Brown. ?Chuck, start to sweep around Kensing-ton.?

Moxon took the Cromwell Road, then headed south down Gloucester Road toward Old Brompton Road. The an-tenna got a lock.

?He?s behind us, heading north,? said Moxon?s col-league. ?Range, about a mile and a quarter.?

Thirty seconds later Moxon was back across the Cromwell Road, heading north up Exhibition Road toward Hyde Park.

?Dead ahead, running north,? said the operator.

?Tell the boys in blue we have him,? said Brown. Moxon informed the embassy by radio, and halfway up Edgware Road a Metropolitan Police Rover closed up behind them.

In the back with Brown were Collins and Seymour.

?Should have known,? said Collins regretfully. ?Should have spotted the time gap.?

?What time gap　 asked Seymour.

?You recall that snarl-up in the Winfield House drive-way three weeks back? Quinn set off fifteen minutes before me but arrived in Kensington three minutes ahead. I can?t beat a London cabbie in rush-hour traffic. He paused some-where, made some preparations.?

?He couldn?t have planned this three weeks ago,? ob-jected Seymour. ?He didn?t know how things would pan out.?

?Didn?t have to,? said Collins. ?You?ve read his file. Been in combat long enough to know about fallback posi-tions in case things go wrong.?

?He?s pulled a right into St. John?s Wood,? said the op-erator.

At Lord?s roundabout the police car came alongside, its window down.

?He?s heading north up there,? said Moxon, pointing up the Finchley Road. The two cars were joined by another squad car and headed north through Swiss Cottage, Hendon, and Mill Hill. The range decreased to three hundred yards and they scanned the traffic ahead for a tall man wearing no crash helmet, on a small motorcycle.

They went through Mill Hill Circus just a hundred yards behind the bleeper and up the slope to Five Ways Cor-ner. Then they realized Quinn must have changed vehicles again. They passed two motorcyclists who emitted no bleep, and two powerful motorbikes overtook them, but the D/F finder they sought was still proceeding steadily ahead of them. When the bleep turned around Five Ways Corner onto the A.1 to Hertfordshire, they saw that their target was now an open-topped Volkswagen Golf GTi whose driver wore a thick fur hat to cover his head and ears.

The first thing Cyprian Fothergill recalled about the eventsof that day was that as he headed toward his charming little cottage in the countryside behind Borehamwood he was suddenly overtaken by a huge black car that swerved vio-lently in front of him, forcing him to scream to a stop in a lay-by. Within seconds three big men, he would later tell his open-mouthed friends at the club, had leaped out, sur-rounded his car, and were pointing enormous guns at him. Then a police car pulled in behind, then another one, and four lovely bobbies got out and told the Americans?well, they must have been Americans, and huge, they were?to put their guns away or be disarmed.

The next thing he knew?by this time he would have the undivided attention of the entire bar?one of the Americans tore his fur hat off and screamed ?Okay, craphead, where is he　 while one of the bobbies reached into the open back-seat and pulled out anattach? case that he had to spend an hour telling them he had never seen before.

The big gray-haired American, who seemed to be in charge of his party from the black car, grabbed the case from the bobby?s hands, flicked the locks, and looked inside. It was empty. After all that, it was empty. Such a terrifying fuss over an empty case ... Anyway, the Americans were swear-ing like troopers, using language that he, Cyprian, had never heard before and hoped never to hear again. Then in stepped the British sergeant, who was quite out of this world. ...

At 2:25P.M. Sergeant Kidd returned to his patrol car to answer the insistent calls coming through for him on the ra-dio.

?Tango Alpha,? he began.

?Tango Alpha, this is Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cramer. Who?s that　

?Sergeant Kidd, sir.F Division.?

?What have you got, Sergeant　

Kidd glanced across at the cornered Volkswagen, its terrified inhabitant, the three FBI men examining the emptyattach? case, two more Yankees standing back and staring hopefully at the sky, and three of his colleagues trying to take statements.

?Bit of a mess, sir.?

?Sergeant Kidd, listen carefully. Have you captured a very tall American who has just stolen two million dollars　

?No, sir,? said Kidd. ?We?ve captured a very gay hair-dresser who?s just wet his pants.?

?

?What do you mean ... disappeared　 The cry, shout, or yell, in a variety of tones and accents, was within an hour echoing around a Kensington apartment, Scotland Yard, Whitehall, the Home Office, Downing Street, Grosvenor Square, and the West Wing of the White House. ?He can?t just disappear.?

But he had.

Chapter 10

Quinnhad dropped theattach? case into the open back of the Golf only thirty seconds after swerving around the corner of the street containing the apartment house. When he had opened the case as Lou Collins presented it to him before dawn, he had not seen any direction-finding device, but did not expect to. Whoever had worked on the case in the labora-tory would have been smarter than to leave any traces of the implant visible. Quinn had gambled on there being some-thing inside the case to lead police and troops to whatever rendezvous he established withZack.

Waiting at a traffic light, he had flicked open the locks, stuffed the package of diamonds inside his zipped leather jacket, and looked around. The Golf was standing next to him. The driver, muffled in his fur hat, had not noticed a thing.

Half a mile later Quinn abandoned the motorcycle; without the legally obligatory crash helmet, he was likely to attract the attention of a policeman. Outside the Brompton Oratory he hailed a cab, directed it to Marylebone, and paid it off in George Street, completing his journey on foot.

His pockets contained all he had been able to abstract from the apartment without attracting attention: hisU. S. passport and driver?s license?though these would soon be useless when the alert went out?a wad of British money from Sam?s purse, his multibladed penknife, and a pair of pliers from the fuse cupboard. A chemist?s shop in Marylebone High Street had yielded a pair of plain-glass spectacles with heavy horn rims; and a men?s outfitters, a tweed hat and Burberry.

He made a number of further purchases at a confection-er?s, a hardware shop, and a luggage store. He checked his watch: fifty-five minutes from the time he had replaced the phone in Mr. Patel?s fruit store. He turned into Blandford Street and found the call box he sought on the corner of Chiltern Street, one of a bank of two. He took the second, whose number he had memorized three weeks earlier and dictated toZack an hour before. It rang right on time.

Zack waswary, uncomprehending, and angry. ?All right, you bastard, what the hell are you up to　

In a few short sentences Quinn explained what he had done.Zack listened in silence.

?Are you leveling　 he asked. ? ?Cos if you ain?t, that kid is still going to end up in a body bag.?

?Look,Zack, I frankly don?t give a shit whether they capture you or not. I have one concern and one only: to get that kid back to his family alive and well. And I have inside my jacket two million dollars? worth of raw diamonds I fig-ure interest you. Now, I?ve thrown the bloodhounds off be-cause they wouldn?t stop interfering, trying to be smart. So, do you want to set up an exchange or not　

?Time?s up,? saidZack. ?I?m moving.?

?This happens to be a public phone in Marylebone,? said Quinn, ?but you?re right not to trust it. Call me, same number, this evening with the details. I?ll come, alone, un-armed, with the stones, wherever. Because I?m on the lam, make it after dark. Say, eight o?clock.?

?All right,? growledZack. ?Be there.?

It was the moment Sergeant Kidd took his car?s radio mike to talk to Nigel Cramer. Minutes later every police station in the metropolitan area was receiving a description of a man and instructions for every beat officer to keep an eye open, to spot but not approach, to radio back to the police station, and tail the suspect but not intervene. There was no name appended to the all-points, nor a reason why the man was wanted.

Leaving the phone booth, Quinn walked back into Blandford Street and down to Blackwood?s Hotel. It was one of those old established inns tucked away into the side streets of London that have somehow avoided being bought and san-itized by the big chains, an ivy-covered twenty-room place with paneling and bay windows and a fire blazing in the brick hearth of a reception area furnished in rugs over uneven boards. Quinn approached the pleasant-looking girl behind the desk.

?Hi, there,? he said, with his widest grin.

She looked up and smiled back. Tall, stooping, tweed hat, Burberry, and calfskin grip?an all-American tourist.

?Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you　

?Well, now, I hope so, miss. Yes, I surely do. You see, I just flew in from the States and I took your British Airways?my all-time favorite airline?and you know what they did? They lost my luggage. Yes, ma?am, sent it all the way to Frankfurt by mistake.?

Her face puckered with concern.

?Now, see here, they?re going to get it back for me, twenty-four hours tops. Only my problem is, all my package-tour details were in my small suitcase, and would you believe it, I cannot for the life of me recall where I am checked in. Spent an hour with that lady from the airline going over names of hotels in London?you know how many there are　but no way can I recall it, not till my suitcase reaches me. So the bottom line is, I took a cab into town and the driver said this was a real nice place ...er ... would you by any chance have a room I could take for the night? By the way, I?m Harry Russell.?

She was quite entranced. The tall man looked so bereft at the loss of his luggage, his inability to recall where he was supposed to be staying. She watched a lot of movies and thought he looked a bit like that gentleman who was always asking people to make his day, but he talked like the man with the funny bird-feather in his hat from Dallas. It never occurred to her not to believe him, or even to ask for identifi-cation. Blackwood?s did not normally take guests with nei-ther luggage nor reservation, but losing one?s luggage, and forgetting one?s hotel, and because of a British airline ... She scanned the vacancy sheet; most of their guests were regulars up from the provinces, and a few permanent resi-dents.

?There?s just the one, Mr. Russell?a small one at the back, I?m afraid ...?

?That will suit me just fine, young lady. Oh, I can pay cash?changed me some dollars right in the airport.?

?Tomorrow morning, Mr. Russell.? She reached for an old brass key. ?Up the stairs, on the second floor.?

Quinn went up the stairs with their uneven treads, found Number Eleven, and let himself in. Small, clean, and com-fortable. More than adequate. He stripped to his shorts, set the alarm clock he had bought in the hardware store for 6:00P.M., and slept.

?

?Well, what on earth did he do it for　 asked the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Marriott. He had just heard the full story from Nigel Cramer in his office atop the Home Office building. He had had ten minutes on the telephone with Downing Street, and the lady resident there was not very pleased.

?I suspect he did not feel he could trust someone,? said Cramer delicately.

?Not us, I hope,? said the Minister. ?We?ve done everything we can.?

?No, not us,? said Cramer. ?He was moving close to an exchange with this manZack. In a kidnap case, that is always the most dangerous phase. It has to be handled with extreme delicacy. After those two leaks of privy information on radio programs, one French and one British, he seems to feel he?d prefer to handle it himself. We can?t allow that, of course. We have to find him, Home Secretary.?

Cramer still smarted from having the primacy in the handling of the negotiation process removed from his control at all, and being confined to the investigation.

?Can?t think how he escaped in the first place,? com-plained the Home Secretary.

?If I?d had two of my men inside that apartment, he wouldn?t have done,? Cramer reminded him.

?Yes, well, that?s water over the dam. Find the man, but quietly, discreetly.?

The Home Secretary?s private views were that if this Quinn fellow could recover Simon Cormack alone, well and good. Britain could ship them both home to America as quickly as possible. But if the Americans were going to make a mess of it, let it be their mess, not his.

?

At the same hour, Irving Moss received a telephone call from Houston. He jotted down the list of produce prices on offer from the vegetable gardens of Texas, put down the phone, and decoded the message. Then he whistled in amazement. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that only a slight change would need to be made to his own plans.

?

After the fiasco on the road outside Mill Hill, Kevin Brown had descended on the Kensington apartment in high temper. Patrick Seymour and Lou Collins came with him. Together the three senior men debriefed their two junior colleagues for several hours.

Sam Somerville and Duncan McCrea explained at length what had happened that morning, how it had hap-pened, and why they had not foreseen it. McCrea, as ever, was disarmingly apologetic.

?If he has reestablished phone contact withZack, he?s totally out of control,? said Brown. ?If they?re using a phone-booth-to-phone-booth system, there?s no way the British can get a tap on it. We don?t know what they?re up to.?

?Maybe they?re arranging to exchange Simon Cormack for the diamonds,? said Seymour.

Brown growled.

?When this thing?s over, I?m going to have that smart-ass.?

?If he returns with Simon Cormack,? Collins pointed out, ?we?re all going to be happy to carry his bags to the airport.?