“Oh that,” Harris shrugged. “He’s not a contact. This is just a one-time deal. Besides, don’t worry about it. We’ve bigger fish to fry.”

“Worry is what keeps people like me alive,” the Scorpion said quietly.

“Of course. Sorry,” Harris said, with an understanding grin. He had a smile for every occasion, like Hallmark cards, the Scorpion thought. He sat down on a hassock, positioning himself so he could watch the doorway and Harris at the same time.

Harris was tall and fair, his boyish face alive with the mischievous charm of an urchin who has gone to all the better prep schools. In his spanking-new safari jacket and pith helmet, Harris looked as if he had just stepped out of the window of Abercrombie & Fitch. The Scorpion scratched his five-day growth of beard and tried to remember the last time he’d had a hot bath. Harris always managed to make him feel that way, like the character in the commercial who uses the wrong kind of deodorant soap.

But seeing Harris, he knew that whatever it was had to be top drawer. Harris was the DCI’s protégé, so he wouldn’t have been sent out unless someone very high up was interested. Harris handed him a glass of iced lime juice and he sipped at it, hoping it would help to dissolve the knot he felt at the pit of his stomach. The last time he had seen Harris was in Abu Dhabi, when Harris had roped him into Operation Eagle Claw, the Blue Light Brigade’s abortive attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran. “A Pentagon Blue Plate special,” Harris had called the operation. He had tried to squirm out of it, but Harris had hooked him and he had been lucky to get out of Teheran in one piece, just two steps ahead of the Revolutionary Guards. The brass had handled the fiasco in the usual way, by handing out posthumous medals, and Harris had wound up with a promotion. That was Harris all right, the Scorpion mused. Throw him into a manure pile and he’d come out sniffing a rose.

“There’s a little job we’d like you to do for us,” Harris said in his best briefing-room manner. The only things missing were the wall maps and pointer.

“Another Blue Plate Special?” the Scorpion couldn’t resist asking. Harris gave him his patented “Come on, don’t be that way” smile, a lop-sided grin that had toppled more women into bed than champagne.

“No, you’ll like this one. Money-back guarantee,” Harris said.

“If it’s as good as the last one, I can hardly wait.”

Harris pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face. The heat was starting to get to him. He looked around at the cramped storeroom with distaste, then sighed to show he was ever the good soldier and stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket.