'Whatever the terms.'

'Very well. As a matter of fact they've improved. When I talked to Yasolev on the phone while you were airborne, he believed he'd lost you. He was therefore ready to listen when I made a few demands on your behalf.' His head swung up. 'What would they have been, if you'd made them yourself?'

'Contact with Yasolev alone, with no KGB people in the field.'

'I've got that for you.'

A lot of weight came off and I took a breath. 'I'm impressed.'

'I thought you would be. What else?'

'Signals direct from me to London, not through his field posts.'

'I've got that too. So you're beginning to see how keen he is to have you. What else?'

'My option to drop the whole operation and get out, given your own sanction.'

'Yes, he wasn't terribly keen on that one, but I managed to get it for you. What else?'

'That's all. That's first class.'

'Thank you. Now there's a man called Hood. That's his real name, but we believe he's using the cover name of Horst Volper in East Berlin, where he may be using very deep cover as a German national. Don't you want to sit down?'

I shifted the paperbacks and dropped onto the bed. 'He's my objective?'

'Yours and Yasolev's. We know very little about him. He's a lone operator, linked by underground rumour to the Aquino assassination and that of the Swedish prime minister in 1986, also with various high-level wet affairs in Paris, Rome and the Orient. He is known to have been in London until three years ago, a socialite moving mainly in government circles as an international financier, under a different name.' He'd begun reflectively massaging the pockmarked skin below his left ear; I'd seen him do it in Berlin. 'We know he left London at that time en route for Geneva, where he sank without trace. We'd been keeping a record on him simply because he's a major figure in clandestine operations, even though he covers his tracks with the greatest efficiency. The next we heard of him was a week ago when the KGB got in touch with the Foreign Office through the Soviet embassy. A request was made to me personally to find, fix and strike, by whatever means.' He'd said that last bit slowly. 'Questions?'

'Is there a dossier?'

'For what it's worth. They'll give it to you when you go through Clearance.'

'When I find him, whose responsibility is it to cut him down?'

Shepley looked away. 'That will depend on the circumstances. You might have the option of handing him over to the KGB or taking care of it yourself. Again, you might not have any choice at all. You know better than I do that we can't foresee the situation.'

I didn't take him up on it, though he probably expected me to. The only time I'd killed except in self-defence had been for personal reasons, to avenge a dead woman, and it had happened between missions. Shepley knew that, but there was no point in talking about it now. I'd make my own decision at the far end of Quickstep, and God knew where that would be or how it would come, or whether I'd still be alive.

'Can I have Ferris?' I asked him.

'No. He's been over there too often. I'm giving you a new man for your director in the field, cover name Cone. I'm sure you don't need his credentials, since I picked him myself.'

'Where do I meet him'

'In Berlin. He's there now, finding you a base.'

'And a safe-house?'

'Your safe-house at any given time will be the nearest KGB headquarters.'

I didn't take him up on that either. I'd find my own safe-house when I got over there. There are times when you've got to vanish, if you can.

'This hostage,' I said. 'He's a major-general?'

'In the Red Army.'

'Where is he now?'

'In Belgrave Square, technically under house arrest.'

'I'd like him released and sent back.'

Shepley tilted his head an inch. 'Why?'

'A major-general isn't very big, with a mission this size on the board. And I want to get Yasolev's trust.'

In a moment, 'Well, now.' He got off the chair and pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and looked everywhere but at me, absorbing the idea and testing it out. His head lifting, eyes on the ceiling — 'You like sailing close to the wind, don't you?'

'I'm not suggesting it for a dare.'

He looked down at me. 'I realise that. So you believe Yasolev is a man of honour?'

'I don't think that matters. It's a question of pride.'

His pale eyes rested on me. 'And you know all about pride, don't you… The problem is, do I let you risk the mission. If — '

'It'd give us a big advantage, if I'm right. We'd be able to trust him, in turn.'

'And if you're wrong?'

'I don't think we'd lose anything. They'd sacrifice one little major-general if it'd pay them.'

He turned away. 'I'll let you have my decision before you're sent out. Have you any more questions?'

'Is there a dossier on Yasolev?'

'Yes. You'll be given that, too, when you go through Clearance. Anything else?'

'Not for now.'

He moved to the door. 'Please know that I shall be controlling Quickstep personally, from my office and from the signals room. I'll be available to you at all times. At all times.' He opened the door. 'Phone me before you leave if you need to.'

Doubts.

'Weapons?'

'No weapons.'

She turned a paper on the desk. 'Initial there, will you?'

She gave me a pen and sat worrying her nose with a small rumpled handkerchief.

'Here?'

'No. This box. Would you like an immunisation shot?'

'What for?'

'So you don't catch this,' her watery blue, eyes concerned.

'I eat too much garlic to catch a cold.'

'Does that help?'

'Never fails. Lose all your friends, that's the only thing.'

'Who needs friends like that? Beneficiary or beneficiaries, any change?'

'No. Home Safe.'

'I checked on that. They've gone out of business.'

'Any other battered wives' home, then. I don't care which.'

'There's the Shoreditch Refuge.'

'That'll do.'

She wrote it down. 'Everything you possess?'

'For what it's worth.'

'Sign here, will you?'

Doubts, following me through the building as I left her and checked in at Codes and Ciphers, certain now that they were setting me up, both of them, Yasolev and Shepley, not necessarily in collusion but each in his own way and for his own ends.

'Give me a plain substitution crypt.'

'One of the alphas?'

'No. A ten-character limit. An aristocrat.'

He flipped through the clear plastic sheets, going from blue to red printing, the light from the window passing through one of his thick lenses and casting a pool across the file. 'What about Little Mary?'

I started to feel trapped, forced into using a code that could blow me if it'd been filched. This room had a steel door and a security man outside and you had to draw a special pass to get in here, but suppose this clerk had been got at by — oh Jesus Christ, is there an immunization shot for paranoia?

'Look, give me Beta-3, the short version for the field.'

'Fair enough.' He swung round and pulled a drawer open and gave me the pad. 'Have you got the Cheltenham scrambler prefix?'

'If I haven't now, I never will.'

'Sorry, I'm new.'

'We've all got to start somewhere.'

Walking through the corridors like a rat in a maze, the subject of an experiment, not a rat, a guinea-pig. It had been too easy; Yasolev had given in too fast — I did not believe a seasoned KGB colonel would partner an operation on East German soil with an agent from the West unless he'd got the entire field staked out with his own little army.

Well, there was this: the instant I got one whiff of his people anywhere near me I'd use my option to pull out and ditch the mission.