“But—”
“I’m sending a couple of the boys along to watch you.” Unciello poured another glass of wine, and his broad face was malevolently bland. “I hear some of our people are worried that one of these days you might get too interested in a reward, if it was big enough. Now, if they see you do something like this, so they can feel they’ve got something on you, it’ll give ’em a lot more confidence.”
“ Sì, Signor,” Buono said whitely.
Then the door behind him burst open again and the room suddenly filled with armed police.
Through their midst stepped a large elderly perspiring man with a superb black handlebar moustache, who surveyed the scene with somewhat pompous satisfaction.
“Everyone here,” he said, not without a trace of awe, “is under arrest.”
The stooped scholarly figure of the Secretary of State followed him in, and Sue Inverest flung herself into her father’s arms.
Simon Templar prudently reached for the Chianti bottle and refilled his glass.
7
Most of what Sue Inverest did not know had been told her while the official limousine was still on its way to the Embassy.