The word reached him during a government newsreel. FROM CLOAK-AND-DAGGER TO CROAK-AND-STAGGER, the sequin title twinkled to all the convalescent souls gathered for another long night of cinema without schedule—shot of a little street-crowd staring in a dusty show-window, someplace so far into the East End that no one except those who lived there had ever heard of it… bomb-tilted ballroom floor of the ruin slipping uphill behind like a mountain meadow, but dodgy as a trampoline to walk upon, conch-twisting stucco columns tilted inward, brass elevator cage drooping from the overhead. Right out in front was a half-naked, verminous and hairy creature, approximately human, terribly pale, writhing behind the crumbled remains of plate glass, tearing at sores on his face and abdomen, drawing blood, scratching and picking with dirt-black fingernails. “Every day in Smithfield Market, Lucifer Amp makes a spectacle of himself. That’s not so surprising. Many a demobilized soldier and sailor has turned to public service as a means of keeping at least body and soul together, if nothing else. What is unusual is that Mr. Amp used to work for the Special Operations Executive….”

“It’s quite good fun, actually,” as the camera moves in for a close-up of this individual, “only took me a week to pick up the knack of it….”

“Do you feel a sense of belonging now, that you hadn’t when you came, or—have they still not accepted you out here?”

“They—oh the people, the people have been just wonderful. Just grand. No, no problems there at all.”

At which point, from the bishopwise seat behind Pirate, came an alcohol smell, and warm breath, and a pat on the shoulder. “You hear? ‘Used to work.’ That’s rich, that is. No one has ever left the Firm alive, no one in history—and no one ever will.” It was an upper-class accent, one Pirate might have aspired to once in his rambling youth. By the time he decided to look back, though, his visitor was gone.

“Think of it as a handicap, Prentice, like any other, like missing a limb or having malaria… one can still live… one learns to get round it, it becomes part of the day—”

“Being a d—”

“It’s all right. ‘Being a—’?”

“Being a double agent? ‘Got round’?” He looks at the others, computing. Everyone here seems to be at least a double agent.

“Yes… you’re down here now, down here with us,” whispers Sammy. “Get your shame and your sniffles all out of the way, young fellow, because we don’t make a practice of indulging that for too long.”

“It’s a shadow,” cries Pirate, “it’s working under a shadow, forever.”

“But think of the free-dom?” sez Merciful Evans. “I can’t even trust myself? can I. How much freer than that can a man be? If he’s to be sold out by anyone? even by himself you see?”

“I don’t want that—”