'It's my name. Are they clever?'

He smiled a humourless little smile. 'I'm forty, and still a major. Slim chance now for a colonel's badges. I'm not a wunderkind, Samson. I won't end up a general with a department to myself and a nice big office in Moscow, and a big car and driver who takes me home each night. Even I have begun to admit that to myself.'

'I thought you liked Berlin,' I said.

'I've been there long enough. I've had enough of Berlin. I've had enough of sitting in my cramped little house watching West German television advertise all the things my wife wants and can't get.' Another wave broke across the bow. He throttled back so that the boat just rode the waves with enough power to hold the heading. The boat slid about, tossed from wave to wave, and I had to grab a rail to hold myself steady. 'I'm going to get a divorce,' he said, suddenly occupying himself with the controls so that it seemed to be an aside without importance. 'Did London know anything about that?'

'No,' I said.

'No, of course not. Even my own people don't know yet. The Directorate don't like divorce… instability, they call it. Domestic instability. Anything that goes wrong in a marriage is categorized as "domestic instability". It can be child beating, wife beating, keeping a mistress or habitual drunkenness. It's called "domestic instability" and it gets a black mark. It gets you the sort of black mark that results in long talks with investigating officers, and sometimes leads to a short "leadership course" with political indoctrination and physical training. Wives of KGB officers get to depend on it, Samson.'

'I don't like physical training,' I said. Perhaps London are clever, I thought. Perhaps they did know. That's why they were in such a hurry. I wondered if Dicky had been told. I wondered too how many of those black marks Stinnes was eligible for; not child beating, wife beating possibly, mistress keeping highly likely. He was the sort of man who would attract some women. I looked at that hard, unyielding face, smooth like a carefully carved netsuke handled by generations of collectors, and darkening as elephant tusk darkens when locked away and deprived of light.

'You wouldn't like this sort of physical training,' said Stinnes. 'The KGB Field Officers' Leadership School is nearly one hundred miles from the nearest town on Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk. I went there once when I was a young lieutenant. I was part of a two-man armed escort. It was in September 1964. A captain from my unit had been assigned to the school for the four-month course. He was sent there because when very drunk one night he told a roomful of officers that Nikita Khrushchev was not fit to be Prime Minister and certainly should not be First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. It's a grim place, Samson; I was only there two hours but that was enough for me. Unheated rooms, cold-water showers and 'candidates' have to run everywhere. Only the staff are permitted to walk. Not the sort of place that you or I like. The funny thing was that a few weeks later Khrushchev was denounced in far stronger terms and replaced by Brezhnev and ousted.' Stinnes gave a brief, humourless smile. 'But the captain wasn't released. He served his full sentence… that is to say he did the whole leadership course. I wouldn't like to be sent there.'

'It sounds like a strong argument for marital fidelity,' I said.

'Yes, I haven't officially asked for a divorce. I was only thinking about it. But everyone knows that I no longer get along so well with my wife Inge. I am bored with her and she is bored with me and there is nothing to be done except that I must get out before I begin to loathe her. Do you understand?' He looked at me. We both knew what had happened to my wife: she'd become his boss. And he didn't seem like a man who would enjoy working for a woman boss. I wondered if that was a part of the real story.

'Have you got any other children?' I asked.

'No, just the boy, eighteen years old. He is at an age when he realizes how I fall short of the Daddy he once revered. At first it made me angry, then it made me sad. Now I've come to see it as the natural progress of youth.'

'You married a German,' I said.

'I was lonely. Inge was only a few months younger than me. You know that special sort of magic Berlin girls can wield. Sunshine, strong beer, short skirts, long lazy evenings, sailing boats on the Muggelsee. It shouldn't be allowed.' Stinnes laughed, a short dry bitter laugh, as if he still was in love with her and resented it.

'Coming to the West would solve all your problems,' I said. I didn't want to rush him; any suggestion of haste now could make him change his mind. Maybe he would come to us, maybe he was just humouring me, but I knew it was important to keep pressing forwards. I knew what sort of ideas must be going through his mind. There would be so many things he would have to do. There would be good people he'd want to transfer away so they weren't tainted by his treachery.

'What a wonderful offer. How could anyone resist a future without problems.'

'It's your life,' I said. For a moment I didn't care what he did but immediately my professionalism overcame my anger. It was my job to enrol Erich Stinnes and I would do everything I could to land him. 'But say no and I doubt if London will come back to you again. It's now or never.'

'Very well,' said Stinnes. 'You tell your people that I said no. I want that to go to London through your Mexico City embassy in the usual coding.' I nodded and tried not to show my surprise that the Russians had broken our codes. In future we'd have to make sure that everything important went to London via Washington and used the NSA's crypto-ciph B machines.

He waited until I grunted my assent. He knew he'd given me an important piece of intelligence.

'I will report an approach. I won't identify you, Samson. I'll make it vague enough for Moscow to think it's some low-grade local agent trying to make a name for himself. But you go back to London and tell whoever is the desk man on this one that they've got a deal.'

'What will the timing be?'

There are things I have to do. I'll need a month.'

'Yes,' I said. He'd want to get his hands on some secret paperwork, so that he'd have something to bring. He'd want some time with his wife, a last talk with his son, a meal with his family, a drink with his secretary, an evening with old friends. He'd want to imprint them upon his memory. 'I understand.'

I felt the hot sun on my arm; it was on the starboard bow. Only now did I notice that he'd been turning the helm in tiny expert movements that had brought the boat round until it was heading back home again. Stinnes did everything with that same professional stealth. It made me uneasy.

'My people will be impatient,' I warned.

'We all know what desk men are like. You'll keep them warm?'

'I'll try,' I promised. 'But you'd better bring something good with you.'

'I'm not a beginner, Samson. That's what I need a month to arrange.' He got a small black cigar from his top pocket and took his time lighting it. Once he got it well alight he took the cheroot from his mouth and nodded as if confirming something to himself.

If he really intended to come to us he'd be grabbing as many secret documents as he could find, and locking them away somewhere, a Swiss bank vault perhaps. Only a fool would come without having some extras tucked away somewhere. And Stinnes was no fool.

'What sort of material are they looking for?' he asked.

'They'll expect you break a network,' I said.

He thought about it. 'Is that what London says?'

'It's what I'm saying. You know they'll expect it. It's what you'd want if you had me in Moscow.'

'Yes.'

'I'll give you a word of advice,' I said. 'Don't withdraw a net and then come over to us with a list of people who have left no forwarding address. That would just make everyone bad-tempered, and they'll start to think you're still on salary from Moscow. Understand?'