Petrovitch raised an eyebrow. “Okay. What you’re saying is that because you’re going on your date, and I have to have someone with me at all times, your colleagues will turn up to the wrong room and then just go away again because they can’t find me? Yobany stos, your lot couldn’t find your arse with both hands.”

“I cannot leave you,” said Newcomen. “It’s my duty to stay with you.”

“Then stay.”

“I am supposed to be picking Christine up in fifty minutes. I have not showered or changed, or collected the presents I have for her because I have not been home because you kept me two whole hours extra in New York.” Newcomen’s words came in a deliberate, measured tone that indicated he was ready to burst with impotent rage.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wander down to the restaurant, have something to eat, do some work, then go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” Petrovitch made to carry on.

“If I leave you, I will be dismissed from the Bureau. Instantly. Someone else will be accompanying you north, someone you can’t control.”

Petrovitch stopped again, mid-step. “You know, you actually make a good point.”

“If,” said Newcomen, swallowing hard, “if you do this for me, I will help you willingly.”

Petrovitch gave him a sceptical look, and the agent revised his rash offer.

“Less grudgingly, then.”

“So I spend the night being watched over by a couple of guys – with a few dozen others behind the walls – you get to show your fiancée a good time at a fancy restaurant, and in return, you’ll stop behaving like a spoilt teenager and man up just a little. Is that right?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that.” Newcomen looked at his watch again. “But yes.”

Petrovitch sighed and turned around. “I hate being spied on.” He tramped back up the stairs, reconfiguring his key card as he went, then shouldered his way into the corridor again.

“Thank you,” said Newcomen breathlessly.

“You’re welcome. See this?” Petrovitch held up his left hand and waggled his ring finger. “It is worth it, if you marry the right person.”

“I know.”

“What I’m trying to tell you is, don’t fuck it up. For either you or her.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

Petrovitch swiped his card and threw his bag on to the king-sized bed. “When are these goons supposed be here?”

“Twenty minutes ago.”

After pulling the curtains closed against the northern night, he turned the television on and cycled through the channels, all without touching the remote. “They’re cutting it fine.”

“I know.” Newcomen ground his teeth. “Go and chase them up.”

“You nuked my phone.”

“There’s a landline on the table.”

The agent made a series of quick, futile calls, his voice rising through each one until he was ultimately both shouting and pleading simultaneously.

In lieu of anything hard to break, he dragged his tie off, screwed it into a ball and drop-kicked it into the waste bin. Then he sat on the bed, holding his head in his hands.

The channels kept changing, one every half-second, until Newcomen snapped. “Either pick a programme or turn it off.”

With an exaggerated blink, Petrovitch turned the screen off. “Sounds like you’ve been let down.”

“Gowan and Baxter are nowhere to be found. Buchannan is in a security briefing and can’t be disturbed. There’s no one else. No one with the required clearance to relieve me.” He scrubbed at his cheeks. “I’m…”

“Screwed?” Petrovitch nodded. “Pretty much. You going to call Christine and tell her?”

“I, uh.” The agent didn’t seem able to believe his predicament. “I, uh. What am I going to say?”

“She’s not going to leave you just because you can’t take her out on Valentine’s Day.” Petrovitch started to unlace his boots. “Not if she really loves you.”

“I don’t think you understand. This is a big deal. Like a really big deal to her.”

“And to you.” He forced first one boot off, then the other. He wiggled his toes and inspected his socks for holes. “You want to do this, don’t you? More than anything. You can just go. I am probably the most watched person in the continental United States at the moment. Isn’t that right, guys?”

Petrovitch picked up a boot and threw it against the wall. He imagined an operator clutching his bruised ears and howling in pain.

“I can’t just go. I can’t.”

“Just go next door and sort it out.”

“They won’t answer: they’re not supposed to be there.”

Petrovitch flipped his key card at Newcomen. “They don’t have to answer. You can walk straight in.”

“I cannot take on the entire NSA.”

“You ought to try it sometime. It’s fun.”

Both men stared at each other, one with despair, the other with detached amusement. Petrovitch broke first.

“Come with me.” He pulled the jammer out of the bag and walked into the en-suite bathroom. He turned on the taps in both the shower and the sink, and, for good measure, flushed the toilet.

Newcomen closed the door behind them. “What is it?”

“Okay, it’s like this. Your two friends, Gowan and Baxter? They’re propping up a bar in First Hill. Buchannan’s been at home for an hour. If you ask any or all of them why they’re not returning your calls, they’ll swear blind and pass a polygraph test that they never had a single message. You’re not meant to meet Christine tonight, or any other night.”

“But who would do such a thing? Why would they do it?”

“You mozgoyob. You’ve been left swinging in the wind, and you can’t work out who’s done this to you? First of all you get assigned, quite out of the blue, to go to one of the most dangerous cities in the world – for an American – to meet one of the most dangerous people in the world – me – and you have the temerity to come back home alive. Since that hasn’t worked, you’re now put in a situation where either you leave me here, go on your date and get sacked for it, or stay with me and your girlfriend dumps you. If that doesn’t work, there are a thousand and one different accidents you can have on the North Slope, one of which is bound to kill you.” Petrovitch pushed the toilet seat down and sat on the lid. He flushed again for good measure. “You’re the detective. Work it out.”

“No. Not getting this.”

“Edward Logan. Christine’s father. Honorary treasurer of the Washington State Reconstruction Party.” When he got a blank look, he asked, “You have heard of him, right?”

“Christine’s father?” Newcomen shook his head violently, as if to dislodge an angry bee. “You’re kidding, right?”

“You don’t have to believe me. It’s not compulsory in any way. But I am right. Logan doesn’t want you to marry his daughter. Status and money are everything to him. I bet he’s got a line of eligible suitors ready to go: right after a suitable mourning period, of course.”

“Mr Logan wants me dead?”

“No. If only because he’ll have to spring for a funeral wreath. He just wants you, a lowly government employee, gone, and he doesn’t care how that happens.”

“But I’m a federal agent. He can’t just…”

Petrovitch pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know what? You are too stupid to live. Of course he shouldn’t, but he does, and because he’s a big Reconstruction cheese, he’s going to get away with it. No one is going to investigate him. No one is going to rat him out. No one is even going to look in his direction. This is how your country works now.”

The sound of spouting water filled the deep silence. Newcomen worked his jaw and Petrovitch watched the patterns the steam made as it fogged the mirror. The extractor fan busied itself, venting the air to the freezing weather outside.

“Want to get even?”

Newcomen, sitting on the edge of the bath, looked up to see Petrovitch smiling at him.

“How am I going to do that?”

“You have exactly forty-one minutes before you’re supposed to be picking Christine up. We’ll be right down to the wire, but I have a plan. It takes about twenty-five minutes to get from here to Logan’s place, depending on traffic. I can do something about that, so let’s call it twenty. Ten minutes in the shower, ten getting ready. Yeah, we can do this.”