The speakers in the lobby of the World Bank's headquarters in New Delhi play a plinky-plinky version of the theme tune from Chariots of Fire. It is 6pm on a Saturday evening in August and after a week of back-to-back meetings, receptions and dinners, Paul Wolfowitz has at last found a chance to escape.

The new president of the World Bank has decided he wants to visit a slum where the bank has been sponsoring a project providing computer kiosks to help children learn how to work and play online. He hasn't told any of his security aides about the change in plan. (If you ask anyone about this kind of thing, he tells a colleague, you always get a "no".) Wherever he has been on this trip, 20 or more vehicles have followed him - police vans, an ambulance and sometimes a fire engine. This time he wants a quieter visit. His Washington security chief understands, and after some fast and frank negotiations with the less understanding Indian police, two cars pull up to the door for Wolfowitz and his staff, followed by just three police jeeps. We speed off through Delhi's busy streets in Wolfowitz's car - a white Mercedes with dark bulletproof glass - our conversation punctuated by the constant honking of the horn.