It looked as though Rinker had followed me down the steps at about the same time as I'd reached the corner. His coat was still only half on because the two KGB men from the lobby had moved in on him and two more had come across from the van to help. It was a typical street snatch: they hadn't wanted to do it inside the hotel. It looked as if Rinker was trying to fight them off, which wasn't very bright for a professional spook, but when I got closer I saw what he was really doing, and they weren't in time to stop him. One of them tried to catch him as he fell, but he went down like a dead weight with his arms flung out across the snow and his skin already turning blue from the cyanide as he stared up at me and saw no one.

'Were you seen coming in here?'

'Not by any professionals.' We kneeled together, our heads bowed.

'He's made contact,' Fane said.

My nerves tautened, then rebounded and went slack.

'We haven't got much time.' His hand dug into his coat.

I'd thought it would never happen, but now it was here with us, a cold fact, and the mission was suddenly swinging into a new phase, the most difficult, the most dangerous. We had access to the objective and now it was possible, achievable, after that first long run without real direction, four deaths in five days as we'd circled blindly in the dark with nothing to do but wait. Now the waiting was over. The sleeper had wakened.

I would remember the Church of Saint Peter for a long time, and the way we had kneeled together on the cold marble while the others chanted around us, mostly women — white hair and black shawls and worn mottled furs, boots caked with snow — and one old man alone but not far from us, weeping as he prayed, perhaps for peace through the days whose number was growing small for him now in the chill of these deathly winters.

I would remember the scent of wood smoke and incense, and the prismatic light flowing from the coloured glass windows above the dais where the priest stood, a white-bearded man of immense height, a brass ikon jangling on a chain from his neck as he moved in incantation. I would only know later why I would remember this time and this place so well, as a haven for the spirit that I would soon want desperately, and in vain, to return to.

'Take this,' Fane said. 'It's your train coupon.'

I put it away. 'Where to?'

'He's in Kandalaksha, two hundred and twenty kilometres south of Murmansk, on the shore of the White Sea.'

'What the hell is he doing there?'

'He was trying to reach Leningrad and catch the Red Arrow to Moscow.'

'Why Moscow?'

'I think he just panicked and wanted to run.'

Karasov had surfaced and we had access to the objective and on the board in London where the red lamp had been glowing since I'd accepted the mission there were hieroglyphs going up: Northlight was now proceeding as planned, but I' felt sudden anger because panic's got no place in deep operations and Karasov had made things more difficult for us all 'What condition is he in?'

'He sounded frightened, on the phone. Badly frightened. You'll have to handle him with care.' He shifted on his knees. 'Tell me about Rinker. Are you absolutely certain it was a capsule?' I'd reported to Fane first thing this morning from the post office, but we'd been cut off; the snow was causing havoc to the telephone lines.

'Yes. I was there when it happened.' I'd seen capsules used before, when Hideo Matsuda thought he was blown when he came through London airport and saw me waiting for him, and when Clifton had lost his nerve in the run out from Beirut. In the Caff they're called blue babies but it's not very funny..

'So he was making sure the KGB didn't interrogate him,' Fane said. 'He was following instructions.'

'Yes. A real pro.'

He'd know what I meant. Rinker hadn't been operating alone: he was with a cell and it was highly disciplined. Only I the really professional networks can demand of an agent that he gives his life rather than information.

'Have you any clues?' Fane's tone below the chanting of the faithful was very quiet, very controlled, and I knew by now that this was characteristic and consistent with the pressure that had come down on him. We'd assumed that our only opposition to getting Karasov across the frontier would be the KGB, and that was bad enough; but we knew now that some other network was putting its agents into the field. Rinker would be replaced — would already have been replaced.

That was why Fane had asked me if anyone had seen me come in here. The KGB wasn't alert to us. Some other organization was.

'No,' I told him. 'No clues at all.' That was his job, not mine: it was for local control to find out if the field had been breached. 'All I know is that he was Swiss-French with an address in Geneva, but that doesn't mean much: he could be working for any one of a dozen masters and on any level, from secret service to terrorist group."

The priest began leading a canticle, and we all stood up.

'He wasn't CIA,' Fane said. 'They're very keen to get our reports but they wouldn't put surveillance on you: that's been agreed in London.'

I took a prayer-book from the ledge and opened it. 'I want instructions. If you think they've sent in a replacement it might not be possible to get on that train.'

He gave one of his pauses. 'You've got to reach Karasov and get him out. That's paramount. So if anyone gets in your way…'

'You'll have to spell it for me, Fane.'

London is very touchy about taking life, unless the executive's own is endangered.

'If anyone other than the KGB gets in your way, you must get him out of it by whatever means are available, including terminal.'

'Understood.'

He began briefing me, while the singing filled the cavernous stonework of the church, his voice a monotonous undertone as if he were reciting a psalm of his own faith. 'Your train leaves at eight tomorrow morning. It's the earliest available but you'll be quicker than going by road. Don't check out of the hotel: the lobby is under KGB surveillance, as you know. I'll try to get a courier to pick up your things before the staff reports your absence. Have you got a spare key to the room?'

I gave it him.

'I'll try to get someone to take your car down to Kandalaksha if the roads are still open, so that you'll have transport if you need it. I can't guarantee that: he might not get through. Your rendezvous is at noon tomorrow in the main post office. It isn't with Karasov: he's sending a contact.'

'Why?'

'I told you. He's badly frightened. The contact will be wearing smoked glasses with the left lens cracked, and using a white stick. You'll ask him where you can find imported cigarettes, and he'll tell you that those things, are only fit for women. He'll take you to Karasov.' His breath clouded against the prayer-book. 'Karasov told me he changed his identity when he left his unit at Severomorsk, and got someone to do him some new papers. They might be sloppy: you'd better check them over. I'm doing everything I can to get some good ones for him in Moscow, but it'll take time and we'll need a courier to fly them in by hand. Then I've got to send them from here to Kandalaksha. Your own clandestine papers are absolutely foolproof for the whole of the peninsular region, but if Karasov's look unreliable, hold him underground until I can get the new ones to you. Questions?'

'I'll need a bag.'

'Leave the car unlocked tonight outside the hotel. The bag will be put into a rear seat-well, packed for five days.' This time he paused so long that I half-turned to look at him. 'I hope you won't need that amount of time,' he said. 'Control wants the objective over the frontier just as soon as you can get him there.'