'Don't be a sadist, Dicky,' said the man from the embassy. 'I'm hoping my transfer comes through. Else I might be stuck here until Christmas or New Year. I have no chance of leave.'

'You shouldn't have joined,' said Dicky.

'I mustn't complain. I had an enjoyable six months learning the lingo and I get up to Los Angeles now and again. Mind you, these Mexicans are a rum crowd. It doesn't take much to make them awfully cross.' Henry said 'crorss'.

'No matter. You won't be here for ever. And now you're Grade 4 you're certain to end your career with a K,' said Dicky enviously. It was Dicky's special grievance that equivalently graded SIS employees could not count on such knighthoods or even lesser honours. Everything depended upon where you ended up.

'As long as I don't spill drinks over the President's wife or start a war or something.' He laughed again.

Quietly I asked Dicky if he'd told the embassy about their intercepted signals.

'Ye gods,' said Dicky. 'Bernie has just reminded me of something for your very private ear. Something for your Head of Station's very private ear, in fact.'

Henry raised an eyebrow. Head of Station was the senior SIS officer in the embassy.

Dicky said, 'Strictly off the record, Henry old bean, we have reasons to believe that the Russians are listening to your Piccolo machinery and have learned to read the music.'

'I say,' said Henry.

'I suggest he tells your Head of Mission immediately. But he must make it clear that it's only a suspicion.'

'I don't get to talk to the boss all that often, Dicky. The top brass stagger off to Acapulco every chance they get.' He went to the window and said, 'It's coming in now. She'll turn round quickly. Better get your luggage checked through.'

'It might be a hoax,' said Dicky. 'But we hope to be in a position to confirm or deny within a couple of weeks. If there's anything to it you'll hear officially through the normal channels.'

'You London Central people really do see life,' said Henry. 'Have you really been doing a James Bond caper, Dicky? Have you been crossing swords with the local Russkies?'

'Mum's the word,' said Dicky. 'We'd better get some of these airline chappies to haul this baggage over to the check-in.'

'But where will we sit then?' said ever-practical Werner.

Dicky ignored this question and snapped his fingers at a passing slave, who readily and instantly responded by tipping Werner off his perch and grabbing Dicky's other cases to swing on to his shoulder.

Dicky stroked his expensive baggage as if he didn't like to see it go. 'Those three are very fragile – muy fragil. Comprende usted?'

'Sure thing,' said the porter. 'No problem, buddy.'

'So those Russian buggers are reading the Piccolo radio traffic,' mused Henry. 'Well, that might explain a lot of things.'

'For instance?' said Dicky, counting his cases as the porter heaved them on to a trolley.

'Just little things,' said Henry vaguely. 'But I'd say your tip-off is no hoax.'

'One up for Mr Stinnes,' said Werner.

The TV monitor flashed a gate number for our flight, and we hurriedly said goodbye to Henry and Werner so that Dicky could follow closely behind the porter to be sure his cases didn't go astray.

'Henry did modern languages,' said Dicky, once we were airborne and heading home with a glass of champagne in our fists and a smiling stewardess offering us small circular pieces of cold toast adorned with fish eggs. 'He was a damned fine bat; and Henry's parties were famous, but he's not very brainy and he wasn't exactly a hard worker. He got this job because he knows all the right people. To tell you the truth, I never though he'd stick to the old diplomatic grind. It's not like Henry to have a regular job and say yes sir and no sir to everyone in sight. Poor sod, sweating out his time in that hell-hole.'

'Yes, poor Henry,' I said.

'He's desperately keen to get into our show but quite honestly, Bernard, I don't think he's right for us, do you?'

'From what you say I think he's exactly right for us.'

'Do you?' said Dicky.

Dicky had arranged everything the way he liked it. He'd put his three fragile parcels on to a vacant seat and secured them with the safety-belt. He'd taken off his shoes and put on the slippers he'd taken from his briefcase. He'd swallowed his motion-sickness tablets and made sure the Alka Seltzer and aspirin were where he could find them easily. He'd read the safety leaflet and checked the position of the emergency exits and reached under his seat to be sure that the advertised life-jacket was really there. These airline blighters speak their own language,' said Dicky. 'Have you noticed that? Stewardesses are hostesses; it makes you wonder whether to call the stewards "hosts". Safety-belts are lap-straps, and emergency exits are safety exits. Who thought up all that double-talk?'

'It must have been the same PR man who renamed the War Office the Ministry of Defence.'

I held up my glass so that the stewardess could pour more champagne. Dicky put his hand over his glass. 'We've a long journey ahead,' he said with an admonitory note in his voice.

'Sounds like a good reason to have another glass of champagne,' I said.

Dicky put down his glass and slapped his thigh lightly, like a chairman bringing a meeting to order, and said, 'Well, now I've got you to myself at last, perhaps we can talk shop.'

The only reason we'd not spent a lot of time talking shop was because Dicky had spent every available moment eating, drinking, shopping, sightseeing and extending his influence. Now he was going to find out what work I'd been doing so that he'd be able to persuade his superiors that he'd been working his butt off. 'What do you want to know, Dicky?'

'What are the chances that Comrade Stinnes will come over to us?'

'You're skipping the easy ones, are you?'

'I know you hate making guesses, but what do you think will happen? You've actually met with Stinnes. What sort of fellow is he? You've handled this sort of defection business before, haven't you?'

I didn't hate making guesses at all; I just hated confiding them to Dicky, since he so enjoyed reminding me of the ones I got wrong. I said, 'Not with a really experienced KGB official, I haven't. The defectors I've dealt with have been less important.'

'Stinnes is only a major. You're making him sound like a a member of the Politburo. I seem to remember you were involved with that colonel… the air attaché who dithered and dithered and finally got deported before we could get him.'

'Rank for rank, you're right. But Stinnes is very experienced and very tough. If we get him we'll have a very good source. He will keep the debriefing panel scribbling notes for months and months and give us some good data and first-class assessments. But our chances of getting him are not good.'

'You told me he said yes,' said Dicky.

'He's bound to say yes just to hear what we say.'

'Is it money?' said Dicky.

'I can't believe that money will play a big part in his decision. Men such as Stinnes are very thoroughly indoctrinated. It's always very difficult for such people to make the change-over to our sort of society.'

'He's a hard-nose communist, you mean?'

'Only inasmuch as he knows he mustn't rock the boat. I'd be surprised to find he's a real believer.' I drank my champagne. Dicky waited for me to speak again. I said, 'Stinnes is a narrow-minded bigot. He's one of a top-level elite in a totalitarian state where there are no agonizing discussions about capital punishment, or demos about pollution of the environment or the moral uncertainties of having atomic weapons. A KGB major like Stinnes can barge into the office of a commanding general without knocking. Here in the West no one has the sort of power that he enjoys.'