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Finally Kinnaird led the way inside a room that resembled a corporate boardroom. Men sat at a large oval table and the air, thick with tobacco smoke, hung over their heads like ectoplasm. Velvet curtains had been drawn across the windows and little fringed lamps were lit, imparting an atmosphere of genteel clubiness. A liquor cabinet provided a variety of expensive Scotches and vintage brandy. What made this gathering different from any board-meeting was the fact that the table was bare. No papers, no notepads, no folders, no pens. The men here didn't take notes. They were forbidden by their own statutes to create reminders or memoranda of these gatherings.

Enrico Caporelli moved to the empty chair at the top of the table, his place as Director. He sat down, looked round. There was uncertainty here, but Caporelli knew he could play his colleagues like an orchestra. In the past he'd steered them, by sheer force of personality and some theatrical ability, into decisions they'd been reluctant to make.

Apart from himself, there were six dark-suited men around the table; of this number, only the Americans presented any kind of real obstacle. The German, Rudolf Kluger, a sombre, bespectacled man with the smooth discretionary air of a banker from Frankfurt, usually agreed with Caporelli. The French representative, Jean-Paul Chapotin, who was a handsome silver-haired man in his late fifties, generally came into line after some initial Gallic posturing. Freddie Kinnaird, by his own admission, was a foregone conclusion. The thin, unsmiling Japanese member, Kenzaburo Magiwara, who had the appearance of a man who carries important secrets in his skull, frequently agreed with the majority because he believed there was strength through unity. Otherwise why had the Society of Friends endured? Caporelli reflected on how the Japanese had only recently been admitted, a gesture in the direction of changing times.

And then the Americans! Who could predict the reactions of Sheridan Perry and his companion, the gaunt man known as Hurt? They had that quiet arrogance found in some Americans. It was the understated yet persistent superiority of people who think they have invented the twentieth century and franchised it to the rest of the world.

Sheridan Perry, flabby in his middle age like some fifty-year-old cherub, and Harry Hurt, lean as only a compulsive jogger can look – how could they appear so dissimilar and yet both emit a quality Caporelli found slightly sinister? They were an ambitious pair with the ease and confidence of men who come from a reality in which ambition is to be encouraged and pursued. It was no dirty little word, it was a way of life.

Hurt was an athlete who had graduated from Princeton and then spent many years in the military, rising to the elevated rank of Lieutenant-General. Later, he'd been an advisor in such outposts as Nicaragua and El Salvador. He sometimes seemed to be issuing orders to invisible subordinates, men of limited mental capacity, when he talked. Perry, whose jowls overhung the collar of his shirt, came from old midwestern money: railroads and banks and farmlands. He had been educated at Harvard Business School but there was still the vague suggestion of the provincial about him. True sophistication was just beyond him, something that lay over the next ridge. He reminded Caporelli of a man who knew how to talk and how to choose his suits and shirts but in the final analysis some small detail always betrayed him, perhaps his cologne, perhaps his mouthwash.

Caporelli observed the two Americans a moment. He had himself spent many profitable years in the United States and still maintained homes on Long Island and in Florida. He had a great fondness for Americans despite his aversion to their rather unshakable conviction in the correctness of their own moral vision. In this sense, Hurt and Perry were typical. But this narrowness of perception, this self-righteousness, also made the two Americans good capitalists. Unfortunately, though, they tended to think of the Society as something they deserved to own.

Now Caporelli cleared his throat and ran quickly through some items of business that in other circumstances would have been considered important. The manipulation of South African diamond prices, the request of a deposed Asian dictator to launder enormous sums of stolen money, the opportunity to purchase a controlling interest in a score of troubled American savings and loans banks, the question of funding a weakening military junta in a South American republic notorious for political turbulence. These were the usual affairs with which the Society concerned itself during its long and sometimes argumentative half-yearly meetings.

Today Caporelli dispensed with all this quickly. He knew there was only one real item on the agenda and the members were impatient to get to it. He spoke in the kind of voice he reserved for wakes. He summarised the situation, moving nimbly over recent “unhappy events in London” and insisting on the need to look at the larger picture. He reiterated his faith in the plan that had been concocted years before. Why tinker with running clockwork? He admitted Ruhr had brought a volatile element into the situation, but Rafael Rosabal, a trustworthy man, had pledged his word: everything was in place. And the timing was ah,
perfetto
. How long could the Soviets go on funding Castro's private little reality at a time when they were tightening their purse strings all over the globe? Cuba, already an economic leper, was certain to be disowned by its niggardly Russian masters. An orphaned Cuba, weak, neglected. Who could wish for a better opportunity?

When he saw doubtful expressions on the faces of some members he became eloquent, reminding them of the prize to be won. An island paradise presently run by “animals”, Cuba was a prime piece of Caribbean real estate, a tropical delight, a licence to print money. His delivery was good, his manner confident. As a final gesture in the direction of the Americans, Caporelli spoke of the moral imperative involved in the plan. What could be more right than the end of a corrupt regime?

He sat down. He sipped from a glass of water. Not such a bad performance, he thought.

Sheridan Perry spoke in one of those flat voices in which you could hear two things: the winds of the Great Plains and an underlay of Harvard Yard. He said, “As you point out, Enrico, the elements are present. But how can you be sure Ruhr is under control?”

Enrico Caporelli shrugged. “I can't say with one hundred per cent certainty he's going to be a pussycat, Sheridan. There's never such certainty in anything.”

Sheridan Perry had a nice smile and perfect little teeth. “Ruhr screwed up with the hooker in England and God knows he might do it again. Why didn't you let him rot in jail? Why compound the problem by giving the go-ahead to some completely reckless rescue – planned, incidentally, by Rosabal, your man of honour?”

“I exercised my judgment as Director. There were excesses.”

Sheridan Perry raised his eyebrows. “Judgment, Enrico? Excesses? The London incident has shocked all of us in this room. The Society can't condone that kind of violence. Matter of interest, how much did your Shepherd's Bush extravaganza cost us?”

Enrico Caporelli mentioned a figure that was in excess of two hundred thousand pounds. “A drop in the ocean,” he added. “Compared with what's at stake.”

Harry Hurt talked now in his patient, slightly professional way. “Money aside, we don't kill defenders of law and order, because it promotes anarchy. The Society has never done that. We stabilise regimes. We don't
undermine
them. Unless they're run by bandits.”

“Like Cuba,” Sheridan Perry said.

In spite of Perry's hostility, Caporelli had the feeling the Americans would support the plan finally, but they were after something in return. He'd known Perry and Hurt for too many years not to recognise the signs: the air of collusion, the sense that they'd rehearsed their position before the meeting. Caporelli remembered Perry's father from fifteen years ago, a banker with a rough tongue who'd imparted both his position in the Society and his self-righteousness to Sheridan.

“We want your word.” Sheridan Perry stared at Caporelli with an evangelical look, very sincere, as if he had salvation to sell. “We want your
solemn
word, Enrico. If Ruhr blows it again, you'll offer your resignation. We want that promise.”

So that was it. Caporelli wasn't entirely surprised. Perry lusted after the Director's chair, which he'd missed by only two votes last time.

“I give it gladly,” Caporelli said. The Directorship didn't enthrall him. It had some advantages. It gave one a certain freedom to make a decision on one's own. But that same freedom was also a heavy responsibility and he wasn't intrigued by titles these days anyway. All he really wanted was what was owed him – with interest. Accounts had to be balanced before they could be closed, and his Cuban account had gone unsettled for far too long.

Caporelli solicited the other members around the table. A vote was taken: the plan would proceed. If the first stage wasn't completed, the scheme would be aborted. The Director's promise of resignation was noted.

Caporelli, who felt he'd won a tiny victory, looked at Hurt. “Let's go on to the next item of business – Harry's report on the situation in Central America.”

Harry Hurt had jogged all round Kinnaird's estate earlier. Then he'd showered, and meditated for twenty minutes, and now he exuded the glow of sheer good health. He sat at the table like a human lamp. “There are no problems. Everything's primed. Officially, the Hondurans accept the story we're constructing a resort fifty miles from Cabo Gracias a Dios. Unofficially, they know we're doing something else. It's costly to bridge that gap between the official and unofficial perception in Central America. Everybody's schizophrenic down there. We forge ahead, greasing palms as we go. The airstrip's finished. We're rolling.”

“How many men are assembled now?” Chapotin asked.

“Twelve hundred,” Hurt said.

“And what will the total commitment be?” Magiwara asked.

“Fifteen. But we could go with twelve.” Hurt smiled his jogger's angular grin. “In point of fact, we could take the whole goddam Caribbean first thing in the morning and still have time for ham and eggs in Key West. If we wanted.”

The room was silent. Caporelli looked at the faces, waiting for further questions or comments. Harry Hurt always spoke with such authority that he left no doors open. When it came to military matters, he was the resident expert. It was known that he had friends in high places in Washington who had assisted, if only indirectly, in the creation of the military force in Honduras.

Caporelli stood up slowly. He declared the meeting adjourned.

He left the room as drinks were being poured and chairs pushed back. The formality of the meeting diminished in more relaxed small talk. What Freddie Kinnaird had called “the holocaust in London” had already been assimilated by the members and subjugated to the prospect of profit, as if it were nothing more than a delayed cargo or an adverse stock market or a foreign currency plummeting, just another item of business. The Society of Friends had absorbed many shocks in its history. It had always survived them.

Freddie Kinnaird, a gracious host, had placed a bedroom at Caporelli's disposal. Perched at the top of a tower, it was round with slit-like windows. Caporelli removed his suit and silk underwear and lay down naked, listening to the relentless rush of wind and rain on the tower. He closed his eyes.

He remembered Cuba.

He remembered that April morning in 1959 when the three
barbudos
had come to his house in the Vedado. They wore green fatigues. With their beards they might have been cloned from a sliver of Fidel's flesh. They carried revolvers and their boots thudded on the Italian marble entrance. They'd been drinking, still celebrating Fidel's success. It was a twilight time, Caporelli recalled, between hope and fear of disappointment. Soon the Revolution would deteriorate in mass arrests, firing-squads, disgusting show-trials, expulsions, Communism. For the moment it was still something to celebrate, if you were
a fidelista
. The
barbudos
were led by a man who called himself Major Estrada, a fat man with a black beard and a face pitted with old acne. He wore green-tinted glasses. Even now, Caporelli could envisage him with astonishing clarity: the pockmarks, the flake of spinach or parsley lodged in the beard, the brown teeth, the black eyes hidden behind cheap green glass.

Major Estrada flashed a crumpled piece of paper under Caporelli's face, a “document of transfer” so hastily printed the ink was still damp. It was as if the Revolution had rushed to bestow legality on itself. In the name of the Revolution, all Caporelli's property was to be confiscated. This included the house in the Vedado, the Hotel St Clara located on Aguir Street near the Havana Stock Exchange, the apartment buildings on A Street and First, the large General Motors dealership at the corner of 25th and Hospital. They wanted it all.

Major Estrada took his revolver from his belt and waved it in the air. Caporelli, he said, was little better than a parasite sucking the blood of the poor. Caporelli had been thirty years old at the time, brashly confident that his powerful associates could clarify this misunderstanding quickly. But he'd misread the Revolution. Those of his friends who hadn't left the island had smelled the wind and were busy stashing such money as they could before Castro took it from them.

Caporelli made futile phone calls while Estrada's two soldiers ransacked the house. They created a destructive passage through the place – broken glass, mirrors, overturned vases, silk curtains hauled from windows, statues riddled with gunfire.

The American girl asleep in the upstairs bedroom, a dancer called Lynette, a passionate young woman Caporelli had stolen from a floor show, was wakened by the noise of the soldiers. Caporelli remembered hearing her swear at them and then she appeared, wrapped in a peach-coloured silk robe, at the top of the stairs.

“What the hell's going on, Enrico?”