A professional, with perfect papers. Now that the tension was off the nerves I was able to recognize that Croder wouldn't have arranged things otherwise.

The traffic was moving sluggishly through the rain, the last of the morning rush hour trailing off along the Kurfurstendamm, the smell of a bakery coming through the open window. London had ordered identical Mercedes SSL two-door saloons for us at the Avis desk, and Brekhov was four vehicles ahead of me, driving as steadily as he walked.

The rain was heavy now, coming straight down from a leaden sky, splashing in the puddles and drumming on the roof of the car. Umbrellas were everywhere along the pavements, and people were sheltering in doorways.

Brekhov didn't know I was behind him; we'd checked out at the Avis counter almost at the same time but I'd gone to the far end and turned away from him; he wasn't expecting me to be at the airport. There were two taxis between us and a black Porsche 944 in my driving mirror. When the chance came I overtook the first taxi: there was the risk of losing Brekhov at one of the cross-streets if the lights changed. That wouldn't be important, simply inconvenient; for the sake of good form I was trying for a perfect rendezvous, with the agent bringing the courier under protective surveillance from the time he arrived to the time he reached the meeting place.

Brekhov was also performing by the book, taking two left turns and a right before he came back to the Kurfurstendamm and shook off a dark blue BMW for practice. It was certain, then, that he didn't know I was behind him, otherwise he would have left things to me. There was nothing between us now, but he hadn't seen me before he'd gone through his diversion so I wasn't familiar. That was all right.

But the black Porsche 944 had come up again in the mirror and was still there when Brekhov turned into the Linden Platz and stopped near the entrance to the hotel. The Porsche had the same number plate: it was the one that had been behind me earlier and it hadn't driven straight here from the airport because it must have followed us through the loops Brekhov had made as an exercise. And when I got out of the car I saw the dark blue BMW slowing to a stop across the street and as I went into the hotel behind Brekhov I knew we were in a red sector.

'Hotel Sachsen, may we help you?'

'Please.' We spoke in German. 'I was to meet someone at your hotel this morning, but I've been delayed. Would you give him a message for me?'

'Certainly. Is the person staying here?'

'No. He'll be waiting for me in the lobby. He's medium height, medium build, dark hair, no hat, a light grey raincoat, and he's carrying a copy of Pravda.'

'One moment, sir.'

I waited.

'Yes, he's here. What is the message, please?'

'Do you speak Russian?'

'I'm afraid not.'

'Then I'll have to spell it to you.' Brekhov would possibly speak German, but this message couldn't be passed through anyone who could understand it. 'You have a pencil?'

'Yes, sir.'

I spoke in slow Russian, spelling the words out. 'God bless Queen Victoria… I am here… but you are under close KGB surveillance by four men… if you have the product on you, look at your watch now… I will follow whatever lead you make.'

It took five minutes and the clerk had to break off twice to answer a telephone. When we'd finished I stayed where I was, pressing the contact down but keeping the phone in my hand while I watched the clerk ring off and go across to Brekhov. As he read the message slip he looked at his watch.

1 put the phone down and went across to the magazine stand, moving round to the other side so that I could see the whole of the lobby. Two of the agents were stationed near the front and side doors; a third was by the lift, the fourth near the stairs. They were watching Brekhov in brief sweeping glances and in window reflection.

This wasn't very good because he was sealed in here with the product and if he tried to go anywhere they'd go with him and if he tried to get clean away they wouldn't let him. He was in a trap they weren't ready to spring yet; it could confine him to the lobby here or if he moved it could become city-wide. They could have taken him easily enough on the way here, creating a minor traffic accident to let one of them get into his car while it was stopped. They didn't want him yet. They wanted to know what he was doing here, why he'd come to Berlin. They wanted to know the people he was here to meet, and that was why I didn't approach him. He would understand that.

Correction. The Chief of Control hadn't been able to arrange this rendezvous in perfect safety. In frontier-crossing operations safety can never be guaranteed. But he'd made sure that someone with my experience and qualifications would meet Brekhov at the end of his run, in case something went wrong.

It had. The KGB had been slow in starting after Brekhov. They hadn't known about him, or known that he was on the move. But somewhere along the line they'd been alerted, and suddenly he'd become a fly seen against the vast web of their network, but not yet caught. He might not have realized this. It could have been luck. If he had realized it, he had found a gap, and got through. But they hadn't given up: the KGB network has no frontiers. They had signalled their agents in the West, here in Berlin, and the fly had touched the web, and the web had quivered. They knew about Brekhov now, in Moscow. They knew he was standing here in the lobby of the Hotel Sachsen with a copy of Pravda under his arm and the fear of God in his heart because he knew what I knew, that if he were under the surveillance of four KGB men he had no chance of escape. Until he made a move they'd do nothing but watch: they knew he was a courier, now, but they wanted to know more, much more: whether he was carrying any kind of product, and what it was, and who was to receive it. If he made a move to the stairs, to the street, to the lift, they'd move with him and limit his run and bring him down in the privacy of whatever room he managed to reach, whatever back street or vehicle or doorway.

If he tried to pass on the product they would see it and take it. If he brought the police here the agents would have time, ample time, a whole minute even, to use a needle or hustle him out of sight and leave him dead with his shirt torn open and the adhesive plaster ripped from his skin — because that was where the product was, not in his pockets but on his body.

He would know all this. He was a professional. He would know that the agents watching the gate at the airport had already been told he was coming through, and to let him. It had been the agents mounting surveillance in the main hall, watching the Avis counter, who had been ordered to trap him. They were here now, and they would never leave him.

Somewhere across the frontier, someone had exposed him, perhaps without meaning to. Someone had made a false move, or had talked, or been made to talk, or was missing with evidence left behind, or had gone to ground, or was still on the move. Or somewhere there was a man trying to reach Brekhov and warn him, or save him, if he could. Somewhere we had a friend.

If he were still alive.

Brekhov had seen me now, just my eyes, above the copy of the Berliner Zeitung I'd taken from the magazine rack. He knew where I was. He moved now, walking to the main entrance and standing there, looking at his watch, this time to protect me, to let them believe I wasn't here yet, but late.

I went over the options, putting the Berliner Zeitung back on the rack and taking Vanity Fair, turning the pages. I could call the police and say there were four KGB agents mounting guard over a Soviet national in the lobby of the Hotel Sachsen, ready to kill him if he tried to get away. My name? My. address? My occupation? What gave me to believe such a thing? How could I prove that I wasn't crazy, or perpetrating a hoax?