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short.”
    Renwick made a fast decision as he lifted his cigarette case— couldn’t leave it lying there unused, not all the time, he told himself. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll postpone them until you’ve given me your information. Okay?” Moore had been stopped in his tracks. Renwick offered a cigarette, delaying him still more.
    “No, thanks. Never use them. That stuff can kill you.”
    But bullets and whisky can’t? Renwick smiled. So the red lighter and cigarette pack had just been props for the pub scene. Or another subterfuge, like a moustache shaved off—there was a less deep tan over Moore’s upper lip—and completely different clothes? “Come on, Al. Begin! I’m listening.” He took a cigarette, closed the case, laid it once more on the table top.
    Moore glanced over at the bottle of Scotch. “Want me to keep a clear mind?” he asked. “Is that it?”
    “That’s it,” Renwick said brusquely. “Let’s get started.” He pointed to the corner of the couch. “And keep your voice down.” As Moore resumed his seat with a one-finger salute, Renwick flicked his lighter, but it didn’t catch.
    “Get one thing straight,” Moore was saying, leaning forward, elbows on knees, his left hand fingering his heavy signet ring. “I’m no informer.”
    “Just a reliable source of information,” Renwick assured him. The lighter failed again. Renwick dropped it into his pocket and found some matches.
    “And I’m no terrorist. I’m a soldier. That’s my trade and I’m good at it. That’s why Exports Consolidated hired me. Ever hear of them?”
    “Yes.” A report on Exports Consolidated had been on Renwick’s desk for the last month, part of a general survey of armaments sold by Americans and shipped abroad to Third World countries. It was a flourishing business these days, with plenty of competition from European merchants as well as from Soviet Russia and its allies. Renwick’s special interest in such trafficking had been roused by one of the simple questions that, as soon as he asked it, demanded an answer: where did today’s international terrorists get their sophisticated weapons, and how? “Exports Consolidated once exported agricultural machinery, then expanded into military hardware. Nothing illegal about that. Unfortunately.”
    “Nothing illegal?” Moore laughed.
    “You tell me,” Renwick said softly.
    “It began with Vietnam.”
    What didn’t? thought Renwick but restrained himself.
    “A buddy of mine—we were in the same outfit—was killed there. When I got back stateside, I went to see his wife. She was an old friend. She had been running her father’s business, learning everything she could from him. Built it up, made a go of it. Agricultural machinery, can you beat that? When her father died, she owned the shop. Then Mitchell Brimmer came along—you heard of him?”
    Renwick stubbed out his cigarette, compressed his lips. Brimmer was the founder and head of Exports Consolidated. He had been in Vietnam, too. Not as a soldier. Began as an agent, low grade, in the CIA; quit the Agency to become a journalist in Saigon, then business-man. Or perhaps he had been that all along. He made good contacts, helpful friends, but he seemed to have helped them, too. Legitimate business apparently: no drug smuggling, no gems, no official secrets. Interested in agricultural machinery, wasn’t he? Moved back from Saigon to the States, set up a firm there, expanded it and—”
    “That he did. Took over several outlets for agricultural machinery. He made an offer to—to my friend. A good deal. She had brains, and he knew it. Paid her a fair price and offered her more money than any she could set aside for herself. So she took the job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Keeping the books and a chance to rise with his firm. She did, too. But that was during my second tour of duty, when I was at NATO, and after that—well, I was a couple of years with the Green Berets. Then I tried some