"Spur is dead," I told him, and saw a spark come and go in his colourless eyes. "The opposition did a chain job on me and set up a street ambush and I went into the river with the car; they tried hard this time, really hard, but if you call that information I'm happy for you. Tell them I want Ferris and a new cover before the police pick me up and ask for papers."

He hadn't looked away from me now for the last ten seconds, and the toothpick had stopped moving. "How did they do Spur?"

"They put a snake round his neck."

"That thing," he said softly.

"That thing. Who gave you the instructions to meet me?"

"I clean forget." He gazed at me obliquely for a moment and added: "It wasn't through the Embassy."

"Fair enough." It was all I needed to know. In any given operation the executive in the field has communications access to the Embassy and to whatever other facilities are as signed to him (they gave me Spur); but there are always others that he never knows about, because it would endanger them. The executive is something like a leper: nobody wants to go near him, because if the opposition can trap him and put him under that bright white light before he can get to his capsule he's liable to break and expose people and they won't know it until they switch on the ignition and come down in fragments: two years ago a stamp dealer in Dresden was put into direct touch with the executive making his final run at the end of a sticky mission and the whole thing happened: the executive was tripped and grilled before he could cyanose and two weeks later the stamp dealer lost his footing on a crowded underground platform in the rush hour and the train didn't have time to stop. And that man had been a Bureau sleeper in Dresden for twelve years before someone in London panicked and told him to make direct contact with an executive.

What had happened now was that Croder had signalled a facility unknown to me in Seoul, and that facility had passed on the instructions to the man who was watching me now, his eyes narrowed against the flying dust as a train came in from the tunnel.

"Are you dead or alive?" he asked me.

"What?"

"After the river."

"I don't know. I heard some sirens when I was climbing out of the water, so they've probably sent divers down or pulled the car out by now; all we can say is that I'll be down as missing, officially."

His bland eyes were watching people getting off the train: I could see some of their reflections, a girl in red, a man with a cap. "Dead would be good," he murmured. "I mean convenient."

"I'm going to stay dead until they pick up my tracks again."

"If that doesn't sound," he said, "like a contradiction in terms." His wide mouth smiled over the toothpick.

He wasn't just a contact, I knew that now. A contact is a tea boy and he doesn't cheek the executive. I said: "Are you Youngquist?"

He stopped watching the people getting off the train and looked at me instead. "We vary," he said, "don't we?"

So this was why.

"Tell Ferris I want to see him at South Gate in two hours," I told him. "I'll be at the north kerb. And do something about communications, for Christ's sake: the Embassy's out and I haven't got anywhere else. Give me a number to phone."

This was why Croder had sent a contact to meet me instead of Ferris: this man wasn't just a contact; this was Youngquist, my potential replacement, and London thought it was a good idea for us to meet and get to know each other, by way of easing the transition. As we stood together with the drone of the train filling the station as it pulled away, its lights throwing a chain of yellow oblongs across the walls, it occurred to me that I couldn't find any rage to help me through this moment of truth; all I can remember thinking was that I'd got away from the opposition five times now, but I couldn't get away from Croder.

Youngquist gave me a number. "Ferris wants to see you too. He left the specifics to you, so I'll tell him it's South Gate, the north kerb, 11:00 hours. Look for a light-green Toyota with CDs on it. Anything else?"

"Yes. In future, keep out of my bloody way."

"They told me you were like that," he said.

I got in and slammed the door and we drove five blocks to the elevated car park and went up to the seventh floor and found it deserted.

Ferris switched off the ignition and said: "They've told me to call you in."

"They can't do that."

The rage came now and I got out and hit the door shut and sent echoes among the concrete pillars. Ferris followed me out and paced in a tight circle with his hands in his pockets and his eyes down, looking for something to crush: I'd never seen him like this before.

"Those are my instructions," he said thinly.

"When did you get them?"

"Half an hour ago."

After I'd seen Youngquist. After Youngquist had passed on the information that I'd been got at for the fifth time and survived. Not his fault: he'd been there to pass on whatever I told him. But London was panicking now.

"They didn't like the bit about Spur, did they?"

I saw his eyes flicker. "It's a setback, you ought to know that. He was our main source."

"He'd got something for me. That's why he told me to go and see him. What he can get, we can get."

"I don't think I follow," he said. I could feel the chill.

"There's a source. He had access to it. All we've got to do is find it."

He looked at me for a moment and then turned away, pacing again in his tight little circle; I suppose he knew that was the worst thing he could do as an answer: to ignore what I was trying to tell him; but then, he knew that what I was really trying to tell him was that I'd never been called in from a mission before and I didn't know how to handle it.

"If you could give me any reason," he said, "why they should leave you in the field…»

"I'll give you a dozen reasons. I've taken on jobs that no one else would touch; I've let those bastards use me as a sacrifice when it was the only way we could get through to the objective, and I've done that simply because I've got the alley-cat savvy to survive, and no thanks to them; I let Croder pull me out of hospital and kick me into the pitch dark with no background information and no specific objective and now he's breaking out in a rash because I'm not getting anywhere. Doesn't he know I've only been in the field three days?"

Ferris stopped pacing and watched me for a moment as if something I'd said had got through to him. But it hadn't.

"I didn't mean personal reasons."

"They're all I've got."

"They won't do. Croder didn't have to con you into this operation. You'd been out of action for three months and you were burning to hit back for Sinclair. You wanted this job badly. All you didn't want was Croder, because he told you to eliminate Schrenck in Moscow and you wouldn't do it, and it nearly blew up the mission. It would be rather cosy," he said and took a short step towards me, "if you'd regard Croder as the most efficient Control that anyone could hope for, instead of the kicking boy for your own guilt-feelings."

"For Christ's sake leave Freud out of it. What sort of reasons do you want me to give you?"

"Technical."

"I haven't got any. You know that. We couldn't get anything out of Jason, in time. We couldn't get anything out of Spur before they went for him. They're always one step ahead of us. But give me a bit of time, can't you?"

He looked down. "I'd leave you in, if it was my decision. It's not."

"You'd leave me in?"

He considered this, as if he had to make sure. "Yes."

"Then tell that bastard —»

"All I can tell Croder is that we're not making any progress here in the field. We've never been up against anything so difficult as the Triad — and this is Croder's thinking: we need more support out here; the mission's changing shape — it's not the kind of operation we thought it was; London thought they could get you some kind of access when the action started, but they can't; we're losing ground, day after day, and all you've been able to do is stay alive. Croder thought he was sending an executive into the field through planned routes and with extensive communications, but now he knows that all he did was to push one lone man against a battalion. We don't know how many people Tung Kuo-feng has got working for him; it could be hundreds."