“Coming up, sir.”

Doyle picked up the Times and the Daily Mail from a side table and passed them over. Both featured Putin’s visit, also the press release announcing details of the Belov Protocol.

“My God,” she said, as she looked at the Mail.

“My God, indeed.” Roper poured another whiskey. “This is purely medicinal, I assure you, but a toast to Russian barefaced cheek.”

She read the piece quickly and looked up. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, come on, you’ll never get away with it.”

“That’s what you think. Ashimov passed Max Zubin off in Paris the other year with no trouble. Not only does Zubin really look like Belov, he’s a damn good actor. Ashimov told me he handled it really well. It fooled everybody. French intelligence, the CIA, the Brits.”

Doyle had come in with a trolley and laid a table by the fire. She carried on talking.

“If it worked then, it will work now.”

He wheeled his chair to the table and started on the bacon and eggs. “Come on, eat up, it’ll get cold.”

She took his advice. “Say, this is good. But you must understand, Roper, we Russians are used to the cold.”

“Well, you didn’t do too well in the Cold War.”

He was pushing her now, and she flared. “We did all right. Gave you your share of bloody noses, you and the Americans both. And some you don’t even know about.”

Doyle brought a bottle across and two glasses. “I’m sorry, Major Novikova. Major Roper told me a vodka usually starts a Russian breakfast. I forgot.”

“It certainly does, he’s right there.” He poured, she took it down in one go. “Another, Sergeant.” She was on her mettle. “I’ve invented a new breakfast for you English. Vodka and bacon and eggs.”

“Actually, I’m Irish, Major.” Doyle smiled. “What they call Black Irish.”

“God, I can never understand this. Why do you Irish always fight for the English? You should hate them.”

“Not really, Major.” He slipped another vodka in her empty glass. “I mean, they’re a bit like your mother-in-law. An inconvenience when she calls.”

She fell about laughing and finished the third vodka. “Your mother-in-law? I like that. Do you like it?” she asked Roper.

He pushed his plate away. “If you do, but enough of this chat. I’m telling you, this Belov Protocol will never work.”

“Why not?”

“Too many people know what happened to the real Belov, know about Zubin, I mean, everybody who worked with him at Station Gorky.”

She exploded, almost in fury. “Are you stupid or something? Don’t you understand? To everyone at Station Gorky, Max Zubin is Josef Belov.”

There was a moment’s stillness, and Roper said, “Is that really true?”

“But of course. Only a handful of us know the truth – Ashimov, me, General Volkov, and through him, the President.”

“And we do.”

“Because Dillon pressed a button and killed Belov.”

“So when you present Zubin at Station Gorky…”

“He’s got to be Belov.” She shook her head. “Surely you can see that? Even his chauffeur in Moscow thinks he’s Belov. People accept. And what can you do?” She held her glass up to Doyle. He refilled it obediently.

“Is Ferguson going to stand up at the Dorchester and say, ‘Excuse me, this isn’t Josef Belov, we assassinated him with American connivance’?” She took the vodka down. “I think not.”

“An amazing situation,” Roper said. “When you think of it, he could be Josef Belov for the rest of his life.”

“I don’t understand.” She was befuddled with too much vodka now.

“It’s just an interesting point. You know, the appearance of things and people believing in it.” He smiled. “Anyway, I’ve got work to do. Take Major Novikova back to her quarters, Sergeant.”

She got up, staggered a little and leaned on the table. “What was all this about? What were you after?”

“I’d go back to bed if I were you. Greta, have another sleep.”

She staggered slightly and Doyle caught her. “Steady now, miss, just come along with me.”

Roper lit a cigarette and thought about it, then turned back to the computers. The last message on his screen was the one about transportation to the Belov Complex, where his chauffeur, Ivan Kurbsky, would meet the plane and convey him to the Kremlin before the Excelsior Hotel. That would be for Volkov to give him a final briefing.

He sat there brooding, thinking of every aspect, and it all started to come together, make sense. He thought about it some more and phoned Ferguson and found him still at home at Cavendish Place.

“I need to see you.”

“Why?”

“How would you like to make the Belov Protocol into a total balls-up? How would you like to leave the Russians with nothing but egg on their faces?”

“Tell me more.”

Which Roper proceeded to do.

When he was finished, Ferguson said, “Totally mad and also quite brilliant. It could be absurdly simple.”

“The old Swiss watch syndrome. If it all worked.”

“All right, what do you want?”

“A meeting with you at the soonest with me, Dillon, Billy, Squadron Leader Lacey and Parry.”

“Is there anything I should know before we meet?”

“Yes, I’ve got a few requests.” He went through them. “There are a number of things I can sort out via my computers. I’ll take care of those aspects. Can we meet in, say, two hours?”

“Absolutely. Holland Park?”

“I think so. It’s useful if we need to refer back to computer information.”

“Of course. There is one thing I’ve got to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“Max Zubin – it would all depend on his willingness to play ball.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.”

Roper switched off and went back to his screens.

At Holland Park, Roper was doing the briefing. “This whole thing hinges on some sort of contact being made at the Dorchester with Max Zubin. It seems obvious to me that he’ll return to Moscow still playing his role for the sake of his mother. That means the day after tomorrow, he’ll be seen on the world stage signing the Belov Protocol. The only way to prevent that would be to get Zubin out of Moscow with his mother.”

“And how do we do that?” Billy asked.

Roper turned to Lacey. “You know the Belov Complex in Moscow?”

“Of course. We’ve been there a few times. It’s close to the main airport, handles private traffic, executive aircraft and courier planes. We’ve done it for the Embassy run a few times.”

“So if the great Josef Belov turned up there with his mother and had a walk around, how do you think he’d be treated?”

“With fear and great respect. I know Russia.”

“And if they ended up on your courier plane and you got out of there fast, how long would it take you to leave Russian airspace?”

“If I was given the Citation X, half an hour at the most. Since the demise of Concorde, it’s arguably the fastest commercial plane in the world.”

“So you’d be out of it, in effect, probably before they’d even had a chance to scramble another aircraft to see what you were up to?”

“With any kind of luck, yes.”

“If you volunteer for this, you’d be in uniform, RAF rondels on the plane and so on, everything to confuse the issue.”

“That’s good, sir, and by the way, we do volunteer.”

“My God,” Billy said, “it could work. It’s so bleeding simple.”

“Which only leaves us with the problem of getting Max Zubin to agree,” Roper said.

“I’d say you’ve already worked that out.” Dillon smiled.

“There’s plenty of security at the hotel, both Russian and British. You, Billy, have your identification, so that’s all right. The fact that you speak Russian, Sean, could be useful. You could growl your head off at any unfortunate room service waiter as much as you want and carry your copy of the Putin warrant just in case, to confuse any Russian security people.”

“But meeting Zubin will be difficult.”