"What did Harbinger tell you?" Neale asked briskly.

"Just that you wanted to see me and that it was confidential," Neale grunted. "That's about all I said to him but I expect he dressed it up a bit. He comes of a good family, but I sometimes wonder if he takes his job seriously enough. Well…" he passed Maxim a cup; "… as you may know, one of my interests is tourism. I'm on the Authority board and I chair the House committee on tourism. A couple of years ago I was with a delegation to Prague, promoting Britain, you understand, and I met… a young lady." A slight hesitation, a careful choosing of words.

"She worked for Cedok, their tourist bureau," Neale went on. "Usually she was stationed in London, but she'd come back especially for our visit, partly as an interpreter."

"Yes," Maxim said, in a voice so flat and dull that Neale looked at him sharply.

"I'm not entirely a bloody fool, you know. Major. All Czechs abroad are working for their government, even if they're not actually members of the STB. I assumed that from the start."

Start of what? Oh God, has a British MP been leaping into bed with a Cezech agent, in Prague itself, with full sound and camera coverage, son et lumiиreas the professionals say?

"Her name is Zuzana Kindl." Neale folded his face into a cool smile. "And I was quite right: she was working for the STB itself. But now she wants to come over, to defect to us." He took a large mouthful of coffee and watched Maxim carefully.

There was something he hadn't said, yet. An ace up the sleeve.

"When did she get in touch with you?" Maxim asked.

"This morning. At about nine o'clock."

"Has she actually jumped off? Committed herself?"

"Yes, Major."

"Do you know where she is?" Then suddenly he realised. "She's here?"

"Yes."

Maxim sat back in the dainty little chair. "Well… thank you for telling us. I'll ring George and he'll pass it on to Security, and they'll-"

"No." A simple word of command. "One thing Miss Kindl told me was that the Soviets, not her people but the KGB itself, have got a line into our own security service. That was why I called you in." He looked satisfied; he had played his ace and won.

Maxim took his time thinking it out. Then: "Did you learn what sort of work she was doing for the Czechs?"

"Well, I don't think she was exactly a top-level agent. I'd say she worked mostly on research, background research."

No mention of any bed-and-breakfast work, setting up ex-military members of parliament for possible blackmail. But maybe this time a fairy godmother had got her spell right. Victim recruits agent. Love makes the world go backwards.

"Would you mind if I had a word with Miss Kindl before I ring Number 10?"

"I'll ask her to come down."

Zuzana Kindl was around thirty years old, on the short side and with a full cottage-loaf figure and a perky, pleasant face. There was something immediately sexy about her, but it was country sex, not city. Her dark hair was cut short and straight and she wore very simple clothes: a blouse with a shirt neck, full calf-length skirt, a single gold chain around her neck.

They shook hands formally. "I have heard of you," she said. "The major who goes to advise the Prime Minister. We wondered what it was about."

"If you ever find out, let me know as well, will you?"

She smiled briefly. Her face looked as if it should have more colour in it; her big dark eyes were restless and one hand plucked and twisted at the fold of her skirt.

They sat down, and Neale went to get more coffee.

Keeping his voice low in that tiny house, Maxim asked: "Will your service know you've gone by now?"

"Yes. Yes, they must believe it."

"When would they have known?"

"Oh… I think-" she looked at a large plain wrist watch; "-I think at perhaps nine-thirty."

About two hours ago. There would be a standard procedure for defections, but how much of it could swing into operation in two hours? For all that, the gallant Wing-Commander had given them those hours and denied them to his own side.

"Does your service know about Wing-Commander Neale?"

She blinked and hesitated, not looking at him.

"I have to know. You must tell me the truth."

"Yes. Yes, they know."

"And do you keep any tame baboons in this country?"

"What baboons?"

"Tough guys, thugs, hit men-"

"Oh yes. No. For such affairs they would bring in a team."

That was certainly standard procedure. Then if a baboon got caught with a dripping knife, there was no traceable connection with the resident service in this country.

"Will they bring them in?"

"I do not… they would not usually, but now – yes, I think." She shivered.

"Why this time?"

"Because they are worried about Mother Bear."

"About who? Ah, I see." The Czech secret service had long experience and a high reputation, but there were strings attached – and Moscow Centre held the far end of those strings.

"Is there any special reason why the bears should be angry about you?"

"I will tell you everything, everything I know!" she suddenly burst out. "But please, are you going to let me stay and be safe?"

"Stay where? Here?" Maxim was puzzled.

"In England."

"Good God, yes. Of course." It hadn't occurred to him that she might believe they could send her back, to a certain and imaginative death.

Hearing her raised voice, Neale came back and stood behind her chair, looking sternly at Maxim.

He got up. "Can I use your phone, sir?"

"The bloody woman could just be spreading alarm and despondency," George said viciously; "we've had phoney defections before. Or they might have told her they'd penetrated us specifically to dissuade her from Seeing The Light. Oh blast it. But we'll have to take her seriously, we don't have a choice. Can you get her away from there?"

"If she agrees to come. I rather think the Wing-Commander's idea is for her to stay on while I play watchdog."

"No bloody fear!" George erupted. "Get her out. And you'd better tell him to get away, too. He can go down to the House and spend a day thinking he's governing the country. Damn it all, if he Had His Way with her in Prague, his is the first place they'll come looking."

"What about the police?"

"I don't want them. They'll need to know why they can't turn her over to Box 500, and that'll leak and then we'll have a security scandal even if there isn't one. The Headmaster is not going to enjoy this. You just get her away, take her to an afternoon at the movies, a drive in the country, anything, while I whisper in a few well-bred ears."

"She's pretty frightened. She's expecting rough stuff."

"If they've only had two hours, I wouldn't expect anything too uncouth just yet. Their first reaction is usually to run around counting the spoons. By the by, did she bring any paperwork or photographs?"

"I haven't asked her."

"Well… are you armed?"

"It was you who said I wouldn't need it."

"Let's hope I was right."

"The Prime Minister is being told about Miss Kindl at this moment, sir. George is sure he'll be delighted with the way you've handled things." Maxim was choosing his words with the dishonest care of a man hand-picking his ammunition for a Bisley shoot. "But he does think she ought to be got to somewhere more secure. You did exactly the right thing in calling me in, that's just why the Prime Minister appointed me, so now…"

I've mentioned the PM twice and you didn't call me in, George sent me. You pompous old nirk, anybody would think you were retired as an Air Marshal instead of just a… No, that's why you never made Air Marshal.

Mollified, Neale went to try and phone a taxi.

Maxim examined the mews from behind the nylon net curtains. It was narrow, too narrow to do a U-turn, and ended at a tall blank wall about a hundred yards to the left. The only way out was through an ornate arch onto the main road, a hundred yards up to the right. A single watcher beyond the arch could see everybody who went in and out of the mews, and if he were watching for Zuzana Kindl, he'd already know which house she'd gone to.