Kleiber said, ‘Grechko will ask me where those Hitler Minutes are.’

The project chairman turned away to get his coffee cup. There had been several mentions of something called the Hitler Minutes but that was of no concern to him or to the CIA. He was determined not to have any red herrings drawn across the very satisfactory path of this investigation.

‘You tell him the papers were taken off you by the customs officials at Kennedy. We’ll fake you the kind of receipt that the customs use. Give it to Grechko. Let him worry about that.’

‘He’ll be furious,’ said Kleiber. ‘He’ll be furious with Parker for ordering me to bring the stuff back to the USA.’

‘Exactly,’ said the project chairman, wiping coffee from his lips with a paper handkerchief. ‘Now you see what I’m driving at, Willi. We’re going to create a problem for Grechko… and the only way out of it will be to make you the illegal resident.’

‘Illegal resident!’ said Kleiber. ‘Now look… ’

The project chairman stared at him, blank faced. Kleiber ran a finger round inside his collar, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead and in a line along his upper lip.

‘Well, you don’t think we went to all that trouble in there unless it was going to yield something real big, do you, Willi?’ The project chairman scarcely moved his head to indicate the room next to where they were sitting. Displayed in there had been all the accumulated evidence of the murders that Willi Kleiber had committed. There were colour photos of the corpses of Bernard Lustig and MacIver and some black-and-white shots of the two men killed in London. There was other evidence too: the damaged wrist-watch that provided an estimated time of death, the parking ticket and teleprinter messages and other police paperwork. There were even fingerprints; Kleiber had thrown his cotton gloves into the car trunk with Lustig’s body and then closed the lid with his bare hands. There was also a signed statement from someone who had witnessed the MacIver shooting that took place that same evening. The murderer’s description fitted Kleiber exactly. Kleiber had spent fifteen minutes studying the material and then had declared that there was not enough evidence to get a conviction. The project chairman had shrugged. Tell me what else we need and we’ll get it manufactured, he had said. Kleiber believed him.

‘Illegal resident for the Russians? Controlled all the time by the CIA?’

‘Keep the Ruskies happy, and then they won’t release your war-crimes file, Willi.’ He smiled and slapped a fly on his arm. It was a sudden movement and it made Kleiber start in surprise. ‘We’ve got a common interest, Willi old pal, we want to keep those Ruskies smiling.’

‘They’ll suspect me.’ Willi had begun to waver as both men knew he would.

‘We’ll give you some real good breaks, Willi. Don’t worry about that. We’ll keep Moscow happy. We know the sort of thing they so desperately need; undersea warfare technology, computer advances, cruise missile data. We won’t keep you short of stuff to feed them. We’ll make you a big man, Willi.’

Kleiber shook his head. ‘We were talking about my feeding Parker, not replacing him… ’

‘Maybe that’s what you were talking about,’ said the project chairman. ‘But I’m talking about the big one.’

‘It’s something I’d have to think about,’ said Willi Kleiber.

‘Yes. You think about it, Willi,’ said the project chairman in a fruity, avuncular voice which was all the more worrying because of the quiet confidence that it showed.

‘Where the hell are we?’ said Kleiber for what must have been at least the hundredth time. It was the sound of an airliner passing over which made his mind go back to that question. It unsettled him not to know where he was-just as it was intended to do.

The project chairman ignored the question, as he had ignored it all the previous times. He stepped across to where a white plastic fascia panel disguised a stove. The wormy floor of the shack moved slightly under his weight. He scooped some instant coffee and milk powder into a thick white mug he got from the cupboard. ‘Quit worrying, Kleiber. I tell you it will be all right.’

‘What do you know about what will be all right?’ Kleiber grumbled. ‘Were you ever a field agent?’

‘It will be all right, compared to the alternative,’ said the project chairman ominously. He lifted the lid of the vacuum flask and, deciding that the water was still hot enough, poured some into the mug. ‘Coffee?’

‘Why can’t I have a proper drink?’

‘The doc says no.’ The project chairman had no great liking for this arrogant hoodlum. ‘You’d better know this, Kleiber, old sport. There are quite a few people working on this project who’d like to see you arraigned on a murder indictment.’

‘The bible man for one,’ said Kleiber. ‘Yes, he told me that.’

The project chairman nodded. Melvin Kalkhoven had been vociferously opposed to any deal that allowed Kleiber to escape punishment. Kalkhoven had told the project chairman, ‘I called thee to curse mine enemies, and behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times.’ His indignation was fired by the knowledge that Kleiber would be paid at a higher grade than Kalkhoven himself.

‘But not me,’ added the project chairman. ‘I’d XPD you if I had my way.’

In the last two decades the KGB have been less paranoid about their huge Moscow office block with its infamous Lubyanka prison and rooftop exercise yard. Fewer Russians have been arrested for loitering in Dzerzhinsky Square, and it has been a long time since a tourist has had his camera confiscated in this vicinity.

This is not due to any change of policy by the upper echelons of the world’s largest and most powerful political police force. The large grey stone building which before the revolution belonged to the All-Russia Insurance Company now houses only less important echelons of the secret police. A large computer and a specially built telex network have made it possible to spread KGB offices throughout the city. The First Main Directorate’s Section 13, together with the personnel office, now occupies six floors of the thirty-one-storey SEV building. This well-designed modern block is at the Tchaikovsky Street end of one of Moscow ’s widest and most modern boulevards, Kalinina Prospekt, not far from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

The SEV building is sited at a place where the slow-moving Moskva river loops towards the city and back again. From its higher floors there are magnificent views across the city, and away to the south where the gigantic-and hideously ugly-university sprawls across the Lenin Hills. But not many of General Shumuk’s staff of nearly 400 spent much time admiring the view. These floors, occupied by specially selected KGB employees, are noted for cleanliness, industry and silence. Even the telephones are specially muted.

General Shumuk’s office was large, its size emphasized by the lack of furniture. There was only a metal desk, swivel chair and a high-back wooden visitor’s chair with uneven feet which, rumour said, Shumuk himself had designed to cause concern and discomfort to anyone sitting in it. The new linoleum had already cracked around the places where the hot water radiators were let into the floor. On the desk there were two trays, three telephones and a concealed button for calling his secretary. The only picture on the wall was a cheap lithograph of Peter the Great. Shumuk had always been careful not to identify himself with any of the more modern residents of the Kremlin; it was too dangerous. Behind the picture there was the standard steel safe provided for all senior KGB officials. Each evening it was ceremoniously sealed with red wax.

There was a knock at the door and the duty cipher clerk entered. Without a word the clerk put a red folder on General Shumuk’s desk and passed to him the timed receipt. Shumuk initialled it without looking up, and started reading the telex decodes. It was the one from the Soviet embassy in Washington which spoiled his even temper. It was a long message: four pages of text largely concerned with low-grade trivia which should not have been sent on the signature of Yuriy Grechko, the senior KGB man in the embassy. It should have been consigned to the weekly summary. Shumuk read on hurriedly. He had once been an embassy legal himself; he too had learnt how to wrap up bad news.