But it wasn't as simple as that. If he'd done nothing for the last five years except duplicate that one tape he'd have earned his keep and we'd have owed it to him to pull him out and see him safely home. But the tape had been blown apart and he was all we had left now, the living evidence of the death of the Cetacea, and even if I couldn't get him across the border I'd have to keep him out of the hands of the KGB, find a haven for him and a new identity and a new life.

Or silence him, of course. They might ask me to do that.

'You think they got close to you? The KGB?'

'No. Not close. I know how to use cover.' There was that shred of pride in him again, waving like a ragged banner.

'Then why are you frightened, Karasov?'

Wrong move — he went back into his shell, looking down, not answering, sitting near the stove with his big hands clasped and his wet brown eyes staring at the things he wouldn't speak of.

What were they? 'Then is it someone else?' I asked him.

He looked up. 'Someone else?'

'Other than the KGB.'

I saw his eyes change but he looked down again quickly.

'Perhaps.'

A log tumbled in the stove, sending out a spark, I brushed it off my coat and from the shadows the chain clinked and I thought Jesus Christ can't I even move my hand?

Nerves not terribly good, you're perfectly right, but apart from that bloody dog I wasn't having a very nice day because I'd had to kill one man just to get here and God knew how I was going to drag this poor wretch to the frontier without having to kill a lot more or winding up in the minefield with my hands a hundred yards apart and this poor bastard here — the objective, the objective — blown out of his bloody shell forever, surely it doesn't take a lot of understanding.

All right, there was more than that.

Much more.

'Who?' I asked him.

'I don't know.'

'Have you ever heard of a man named Ranker?'

He looked up. 'No.'

'Has anyone tried to get at you?'

'I've had — ' he shrugged with his hands — 'suspicions, you know. People watching. Cars following. That sort of thing.'

I didn't believe him. I did not believe him. If the Rinker cell had got onto him he'd have been dead by now or full of aminazin. They would have devoted as much energy to pulling him in as they'd devoted to me, in fact a bloody sight more because their only interest in me was that I could lead them to the objective and he was the objective.

Or he could of course be so frightened of getting caught by the KGB that he was ashamed of it and making up ghost stories to explain it away: when the nerve goes it takes everything else with it.

I was pushing him too hard. He wasn't going to tell me anything unless I could get him relaxed and then creep up on him with the right questions.

'The thing is,' I said quietly, 'to get you home."

His wet brown eyes were turned on me again, this time for longer. 'That's all I want, yes. That's all I want.'

'Of course. It's what I'm here for.' I got up and stretched my legs, keeping away from the corner. 'Has our friend got any kind of transport?'

'What?'

'Car? Has he got a car?'

'No.'

'Then we'll have to hang on here for a bit. My control's getting one through to us as soon as the roads are clearer.' I got the Lithuanian's papers out of my pocket and looked at the photograph and looked at Karasov and read the description but nothing matched; even if we could get the picture changed there was nothing we could do about the measurements: Karasov was five inches taller and looked heavier. 'How much do you weigh?'

'Seventy-one kilos.'

'Have you got any kind of scar across your left shoulder?'

'No.''

I dropped these papers too into the stove and watched the flames. Fane was going to get some good ones for him and until they were in my hands and we had a car to drive we couldn't make a move, but at least it would give me time to coax him out of his shell and find what was frightening him like this.

There was something I was missing or something I didn't know and would have to know before I could get rid of the feeling that there was more, much more, to the routine mission Control had given me, of taking a blown sleeper across.

'We're getting you some effective papers,' I told him. 'Then we can move. Once you're out of Russia you can start making a new life for yourself.'

'Yes.' His eyes hung on me like a grateful dog's.

There'd be people he'd miss, I supposed. His wife. His mistress. 'I phoned Tanya,' I said, 'to let her know you were all right. She was worried.'

'Tanya?'

'Your girlfriend.'

'I don't know anyone called Tanya.'

One of the sailors threw his cards down onto the table and got up and hauled another man off his chair and pushed him into the door and the hinges broke and the door swung down with the man on top of it. A bottle hit the floor by his head with a crash and I put my hand up to protect my eyes from flying splinters of glass.

'Cheating son of a whore!'

The sailor began kicking the man on the floor and some other people stopped him and dragged him away to the bar.

'What's that?' Fane asked me.

'Chap arguing.'

'Where are you speaking from?'

'A workers' club.' It was nearer than the post office.

The man on the floor began crawling outside, leaving a trail of blood. Two or three of his friends went out to help him.

'Debrief,' Fane told me.

'I've located the objective.' We couldn't afford to mention his name; even on an unbugged line there could be an operator with a sharp ear, and Karasov was being hunted throughout {Western Russia. 'He's lost his nerve, as you suspected. Volodarskiy is first class, for your information. Also for your information, the woman Tanya Kiselev is either a KGB swallow or she's with the Rinker cell or some other opposition group.'

I waited. It was a long pause. 'How do you know?'

'The objective denies any knowledge of her, and there'd be no point in his lying.'

'Did he mention his wife?'

'No. But he knows I'm getting him out of the country and if he sees her again it'll be in the West. There was nothing to stop him admitting he had a mistress: I wasn't likely to tell anyone.'

Another pause. 'Have you been in touch with her since your first meeting in Murmansk?'

'Yes. I phoned her to say he was safe and well.'

'You didn't say where he was?'

'Not really. He's the objective.'

'Did she ask where he was?'

'Of course.'

There was silence for another few seconds. 'It's not going to be an easy run for you.'

'Croder wouldn't have sent me otherwise.'

Glass smashed again at the far end of the room where the bar was. I couldn't see what was happening because the place was thick with tobacco smoke. I think they were having trouble with the sailor. The other man hadn't come back. There was a freezing draught coming in and two men were trying to put the door back but the hinges had been torn right out of the moulding.

'I'll signal London,' Fane said on the line. He meant about Tanya.

'Don't let anyone go near her.'

'Of course not.'

She had to go on thinking she hadn't been blown.

'I've got some transport for you,' Fane said. 'It's a black Moscwicz pickup truck loaded with grain. Where do you want it left?'

'Is it available now?'

'Yes.'

'Have it left outside the public reading room behind the main post office. There's a car park there. What's the number?'

He read it to me and I memorized it. 'I'll also need some papers for the objective. His were no good: I burned them.'

'There are some new ones on the way from Moscow by plane tonight. Unless there's any kind of hitch the courier will arrive in Kandalaksha on the 11:15 train tomorrow morning, snow conditions permitting.'