“You don’t look it.”

“What’s a little waterboarding between friends?”

Milton looked at him anxiously. He wasn’t okay. Far from it. Every cough seemed to end with him swallowing back fluid, as if his lungs were waterlogged. He was feverish, sweating and shivering simultaneously. Milton had seen plenty of men with pneumonia and that was what it looked like to him. Christ, he thought. Pneumonia. If he had that he wouldn’t survive a week in the north.

“What about you?” Pope wheezed out. “What are you doing here?”

Milton told him about his arrest, about Anna breaking him out and about the proposition she had put to him. “You need to keep it together, Pope,” he said when he was finished. “I’m going to get you out.”

“Don’t be an idiot, John. That’s not your job any more.”

“What else am I going to do? Leave you to rot?”

He looked at him, his eyes burning beneath their rheumy film. “You leave it to the diplomats. I do a little time, they swap me for someone we nabbed that they want back. You know how it works. You can’t do anything,” he coughed, “and we both know you can’t trust them.”

“I know that. But I can listen.”

“To what?”

“To what he has to say.”

Chapter Twenty

Shcherbatov watched as Milton came back into the sitting room; it was almost dizzily warm compared to the frigid cellar. A silver platter had been left out on the table: a tea pot, a samovar of hot water and two cups. The civility was a stark contrast with the cold and the darkness below. Milton knew that Shcherbatov was making a point: it had been necessary to take him down there in order to underline the point he wanted to make. Pope’s future would be unpleasant and short if he did not cooperate. Shcherbatov poured tea into the cups and topped it up with hot water from the samovar. He left a cup on the table within Milton’s reach and took his to the opposite armchair.

“Do you like tea, Captain Milton? It an English passion, yes? This is Russian Caravan blend: oolong, keemun and lapsang souchong. It has malty, smokey taste. Very nice, I think.” Shcherbatov sipped his tea carefully, watching Milton over the lip of the cup.

“He’s ill,” Milton said. “He has pneumonia.”

“He will be cared for.”

“Like you’ve cared for him already?”

Shcherbatov waved that off. “He will be cared for properly. You have my word.”

“Nothing happens to him,” Milton said.

“Or?”

“Let’s leave that unsaid, shall we? I’d rather be civil. But you know what I’m capable of.”

Shcherbatov smiled his best, conciliatory smile. “I understand you are angry, Captain Milton, but there is no need. We are friends. You help us, he is returned to you.”

His voice was cold and blank. “Who is it you want me to find?”

“Member of team responsible for the attack. Intelligence says this agent has means and opportunity to assist. We want you to find agent, find proof of Control’s corruption, and bring proof to us. If you do that, Captain Pope will be released. If not”, he spread his arms and left a pause, “if not, Captain Milton, your friend has long and unhappy stay in Siberia.”

“Who is the agent?”

“Her name is Beatrix Rose. At the time of attack she was Number One.”

Milton’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw; Shcherbatov noticed. “And you know where she is?”

“We do,” Shcherbatov confirmed. “Hong Kong.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The cab drew up to the rank outside the terminal at Sheremetyevo airport. Milton got out and collected his new suitcase from the trunk. It had been waiting in his room for him, together with its contents, when he had returned to the Ritz-Carlton after the long drive back south yesterday afternoon. There was another new suit, three plain white shirts, underwear, two new pair of shoes.

He had a little time to kill and he would have appreciated the chance to speak to Anya Dostovalov again but he decided against it. He had lost his tail easily enough the first time around, and it would be tempting fate to think that they would not have boosted his detail now, especially since he knew now what they wanted him to do. He was not prepared to risk compromising her anonymity just to salve his unease. Instead, he did as he was told: he stayed in his room, ordered room service and was in bed and asleep by eleven. He had a feeling he might need his sleep.

Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko was waiting for him inside the terminal.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“It’s not up for discussion. The colonel wants me to come.”

“To keep an eye on me?”

“You can understand that he doesn’t trust you, Captain?”

“You’ll get in my way. You’ll make it more difficult.”

“We’ll just have to manage.”

Milton thought about insisting but he knew there was little point. If she had a ticket for the same plane to Hong Kong that he did, there would be nothing he could do to stop her getting onto it. It would be easier to get rid of her on the other side.

* * *

The Russians had bought him a first class ticket. Air Astana 929’s itinerary called for two stops in Kazakhstan en route to Hong Kong: the first after three hours in Astana and the second, after another two hours, in Almaty. The plane was an Airbus A320 and, thankfully, it looked like it was in decent condition. Milton’s seat was on the aisle with Anna opposite him. He stared out of the porthole as the plane accelerated away down the runway, climbing into the angry black sky that had remained over Moscow since their arrival. The vast city, covered over with white, disappeared from view as they climbed into the dark clouds and then, after fifteen minutes, they broke through into the clear vault of midnight blue above. The stewardess, statuesque and with the Asiatic cheekbones and complexion of a typical Eastern European beauty, pushed the trolley down the aisle, the bottles clinking with their promise of oblivion. Milton hadn’t been to a meeting since he left San Francisco and he felt the familiar temptation even more keenly than usual. The bottles rattled joyfully, the stewardess bending closer to his head and asking whether she could get him anything. Milton looked at the miniatures of gin, whiskey, and vodka for longer than he had for months but, when she asked him again, he shook his head. When she left, he found that he was gripping the armrests so tightly that his knuckles were white.

A moment later he realised he was about to have the dream again. The first time in months. He closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing, the urge to gasp and gulp, focussing everything to keep it inside, keep it hidden so that Anna— close enough to touch if he reached out an arm — didn’t see his weakness. That familiar feeling of fatigue, of being hollowed out, like a beaker into which misery and pain would be poured. He felt the muscles in his shoulders lock and set, as if petrified, and then his thighs and his calves. He held onto the armrests again. Then he was gone, barely conscious, standing in a blasted desert, the heat rising from the sand in woozy waves, and the smell of high explosives cloying in his nostrils. Time passed; he had no idea how long. He heard a lone, anguished cry and it sounded so strange because he should have been alone in the desert, but then he turned and it all flooded over him.

The desert.

The village.

The madrasa.

“Captain Milton?”

The children in their Western football strips.

The plastic football, jerking in the wind.

“Captain Milton?”

The young boy.