'The very last we heard was on the Friday,' I said, flicking the folder. 'And that could have been a garbled routine from some other network. So there has been enough time for the contact string.'

Frank raised a schoolmaster's eyebrow at Robin.

'The roll call for survivors,' said Robin patiently. 'But we don't do that from this end any more. These cells are virtually self-contained nowadays.'

'Out-of-contact signals?' I said. 'I suppose that's none of our business either?'

Frank said, 'There have been no out-of-contact signals. None at, all. They have closed down. My best radio man will vouch for that.'

The kid said, 'We just have them send us the reports nowadays. The Stasi interception people are very efficient. The less time spent on the air the better, even with these modem high-speed sets.'

I said, 'Are we still monitoring the Stasi signals?'

'Not the Berlin teleprinter any more, alas,' said Frank. 'We lost Berlin in the big Stasi shake-up last summer, and so far we've made no breakthrough on the new codes.'

'But nothing on the police radio?' I said. 'No general alarm? Not even a suspicious activity alert for the local cops?'

'Nothing at all,' said the kid. 'It may all be a non-starter. You know how these amateur nets blow apart and then come together again. There have been domestic flare-ups before with this group. Two years ago: November.'

'Amateurs have a role to play,' said Frank, enduringly paternal and preparing his response to the reprimand from London that almost invariably followed the collapse of a network. 'Don't underestimate their skills and effectiveness. Amateurs built the Ark, remember; professionals built the Titanic.'

'Are they all Church people?' I asked, after we'd all smiled at Frank's joke. I knew they weren't all Church people — at least one of them was a declared atheist — but I wanted to see what they'd say.

'No. And two of them are chronically difficult. It's a small community. The wives don't all get along and there are the usual feuds and vendettas. It's only the pastor who holds them together.'

Frank said, 'You met the pastor.'

'Yes,' I said. He'd sheltered me and the kid when we were leaving Magdeburg in a hurry.

'The funny old man,' said the kid. 'The turbulent priest.'

Frank said, 'Allenstein is critical. If it was BARTOK or one of the networks in the Dresden area, or those trouble-makers in Rostock, I might say thank goodness, and let them stew in their own juice. But we pass too many people through Magdeburg. It's our most reliable line for people coining and going. We need an active setup in Allenstein to nurse them and pass them back if they get into trouble.'

'Isn't this a problem London Central should deal with, Frank?' I said. 'Any failure in Operations should have the Coordination people watching it to see if it's part of some bigger pattern.'

'London won't wear that, Bernard. I tried that on Monday morning. I went through it all with Operations. But we're not dealing with Harry Strang any more. Operations are more cautious since Bret Rensselaer has been Deputy D-G. London Ops don't want to hear: they spend their time trying to dump their problems on us. I tried hard.'

'I'm sure you did, Frank,' I said, although I wondered to what extent Frank wanted to let London take control, or whether he only wanted London to know how hard he worked. Berlin's power and influence had been eroded over the last year or more. I suspected that he needed to ring all the bells about an occasional crisis out there in the DDR sticks if he was to make a convincing case for Berlin Field Unit's finances next year.

After I'd taken rather too long in offering any comment, Frank said, 'You know how things work over there at ground level. What's the prognosis, Bernard?'

'I went right back through the three years of DELIUS files.'

'Did you? When?'

'This morning.'

'Oh,' said Frank, as if I'd taken unfair advantage of him. Frank never checked back through old files. The Me clerks in the Berlin Registry wouldn't have recognized Frank had he ever knocked on their door.

'Yes,' I said. 'DELIUS has had a lot of arguments and splits and reassembling. I don't like that. Every time a network regroups, more and more people get to see each other. It's the sort of risk the Stasi are good at provoking and exploiting.'

'They are amateurs,' said the kid. 'We can't treat them as if they were trained and experienced professionals.'

'Well that's how the Stasi treat them,' I said.

'Someone will have to go and sort it out,' said the kid, obviously seeing himself as the right one to do it.

'Not necessarily,' said Frank hurriedly. Then added, 'Unless that's what Bernard thinks.'

'Let's leave it for a few more days,' I said.

'I thought you would want to get in there immediately, Mr. Samson,' said the kid.

'Why?'

He looked at Frank before saying to me, 'The Romeo Effect.'

'Oh, Jesus,' I said. 'I don't think so.' Trust the kid to pluck that old joker out of the deck.

'What is the Romeo Effect?' Frank asked.

The kid said, 'Mr. Samson once said that when a network is penetrated, there is a danger that it will simply destroy itself without outside action. Romeo effect. Kill itself in despair, the way that Juliet did when she awoke from drugged sleep to find that Romeo was dead.'

'Too poetic for me,' said Frank.

'Destroy the network in a panic,' explained the kid, giving me a self-conscious glance. 'Eliminate the codes and all traces. Split and destroy the network so that not a trace of any evidence remains.'

'Oh,' said Frank, touching the end of his nose with a pencil. 'I thought it was Juliet who killed herself first.'

'It wasn't my theory,' I said. 'It's a KGB theory and they named it. The Soviets lost two important networks in Washington in the Fifties. The Moscow inquiry afterwards lasted six months, and finally produced a report that said that neither network had been truly penetrated.'

'And had they?' Frank asked.

'Sort of. One net had been under observation for a long time. A new man arrived in town. The FBI banged on his door and found a list of contacts. He claimed diplomatic immunity and they gave him his list back and apologized. But the other one might have gone on forever. Husband and wife, both working in the Pentagon, feeding torn but not shredded photocopies out through a clerk who had the job of disposing of top-secret waste paper. The wife had her handbag stolen; the thief found papers marked secret inside and told the cops. Nothing much more than that would have happened, but once inside the police station the husband panicked and confessed the whole works.'

'The Romeo Effect,' said Frank reflectively. 'What a name to give it. I'll never fathom the Russians.'

'I mentioned it in a lecture at the training school,' I explained. 'Years ago. The real lecturer hadn't turned up. I filled in at short notice.'

'Six more working days before we act,' said Frank, closing the cardboard folder and pressing upon it with his flattened hand like a man testifying on oath.

'All days are working days in the field,' I said.

Frank gave me the sort of smug and distant smile used by VIPs inspecting guards of honor. 'We'll probably hear from them tomorrow,' he announced in a cheerful clubby voice. 'I remember this time two years back. Christmas. Those people in Zwickau went off the air for ten days, and then blandly explained that they had had trouble with their batteries.' He gave an avuncular chuckle to show that he bore them no ill will.

'But they were wiped out the following year,' I reminded him. 'Six months later the Stasi went in and picked them off one by one, like ripe cherries. I've always wondered if that six-month period was the Stasi waiting a decent interval while their own inside man got clear.'