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Ilse Hoffmann employed there, and he gave a description that convinced me she was the girl I'd met the night before. The ambassador had sent his deputy to the reception and had told him he could take another member of the staff. Probably Ilse had expressed an interest in going, and the deputy had taken her.
    I tried to remember who'd been sitting beside Ilse at the dinner. I seemed to remember that she'd been flanked by middle-aged men. Either of them could have been the deputy. The fact that she was alone later when she approached me was not remarkable in itself. It was natural that she'd want to find more interesting company.
    Collins tried to contact the deputy at his home, but there was no answer. The fellow was probably out enjoying himself on his day off.
    The girl seemed to check out, but that didn't make me any less suspicious. I still had a bad feeling about this assignment. Hawk had made some recommendations to the CIA and the Venezuelan Security Police. Security now seemed tighter, but the feeling didn't go away. Hawk had it, too. It's not very scientific to have premonitions, but in my business you learn to pay attention to gut feelings. They can develop from a series of small facts that don't amount to enough to jar you on a conscious level but turn on a red light somewhere deep inside you. I don't know. I just know that I've saved my life many times by following my hunches.
    Maybe it didn't have anything to do with the girl or even with the man I'd seen at the café and possibly at the palace. It might be something unrelated to them, lurking deep in the shadow of my subconscious. But the girl, and the mystery man were reason enough to be on my guard, premonitions or no premonitions.
    I had lunch at a cafe near the Plaza Ibarra and just off Avenida Baralt. A parade passed while I ate, and I had a good view of it. There were dancers in costume, floats, papier-mâché heads on poles, and bands. People were out having fun, and I began to relax a little.
    In early afternoon I met Hawk at the restaurant, as instructed. He was sitting outside in the sun, wearing a bright blue sport shirt, open at the neck, with a loosely knotted blue scarf. On his head he wore a navy blue beret, cocked jauntily to one side. He looked like an aging Hemmingway character. I suppressed a smile and sat down across from him at the small table.
    "Make yourself comfortable, Nick, and don t make any cracks about the get-up. I'm trying to blend into the holiday crowd."
    It was still the same old Hawk under the beret. He pulled out one of his long Cuban cigars, bit a chunk off one end, and spat it out. Then he stuck the cigar in his mouth and turned it slowly, moistening it. The cigar seemed incongruous with the beret and shirt. Finally he lighted it and began sucking it into glowing life. It was a kind of ritual with him, and it never ceased to amaze me.
    "You're beautiful, sir," I said, despite his admonition.
    He shot a hard look at me. "Not as beautiful as that raven-haired beauty I saw you dancing with last night. What do you think this is — a paid vacation?"
    "She insisted," I said. "She seemed quite interested in me."
    "Yes, I know," he said. "You've either got it or you haven't." He gave me a wry grin.
    "Actually, she put me on my guard," I said, remembering. "I had her checked out this morning but she seems to be okay."
    "Anything else interesting at the reception?" he said, working hard at the cigar. "I mean, besides the girl?"
    I told him about the man and my encounter with the Venezuelan Security Police. "Of course, I can't be sure it was the same man," I said. "Or if it was, that he has anything to do with the threat. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with a man going to the same café and reception that I went to in the same day. Maybe I'm just jumpy."
    A waiter came, and we both ordered Pernod. We didn't resume our conversation till he'd brought the drinks and left again.
    "The girl practically asked me to meet her at the