'There is no question of confiding our secrets to NATO,' said Bret. 'You know what we decided.'

'Yes, I know.' She was about to tell him of her decision to pull out when there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs and Kessler himself came with the souffle. It was magnificent, a great yellow dome of beaten egg, with flecks of browned cheese making a pattern all over it.

Fiona made the appreciative ohhs and ahhs that old Kessler expected and Bret added his compliments in hesitant German. Kessler served the souffle and the side salad and offered bread rolls and butter and topped up their glasses until Fiona wanted to scream.

Once the old man had gone she tried again. 'I've been thinking of the whole operation: thinking hard and very carefully.'

'And now you want out?' He looked at her and nodded before probing into the souffle on his plate. 'It's exactly right. Look at that, soft in the middle but not raw.'

She didn't know how to react. 'Yes, I do, Bret. How did you guess?'

'I know you well, Fiona. Sometimes I think I understand you even better than your husband does.'

She drank, nodded nervously but didn't answer. That had always been Bret's angle. He understood her: it was the style that any sensible case officer adopted to the agent he ran. She'd seen it all from the other side so she knew the way it was done. She needed a drink and emptied her glass of champagne greedily.

Bret took her glass to refill it. He brought the bottle from its ice bucket, holding it fastidiously as the water dripped from it. Then he poured carefully so that it didn't foam too much. 'Yes, I understand,' he said without looking up from the glass.

'I'm serious, Bret.'

'Of course you are. It's a strain, I know that. I worry about you. You surely must know I worry.'

'I can't do it, Bret. For all sorts of reasons… if you want me to explain…' She was angry at herself. She had decided before coming here that she wouldn't put herself in the position of a supplicant. She had nothing to apologize for. Circumstances had changed. She simply couldn't continue with it.

'There is nothing to explain, Fiona. I know what you're going through.'

'I won't change my mind, Bret.'

He looked up at her and nodded with an affectionate, paternal indifference.

'Bret! I won't change my mind. I can't go.'

'It's the build-up,' he said. 'That's what makes it so stressful, this long time of preparation.'

'Bret. Don't think you can just let it go and that I'll reconsider it and eventually it will all be on again.'

'Ummm.' He looked at her and nodded. 'Maybe a big glass of champagne is what I need too.' He poured more for himself. It gave him something to do while she fretted. 'Every agent goes through this crisis, Fiona. It's not any failure of nerve, everyone gets the jitters sometime or other.' He reached across and touched the back of her hand. His fingers were icy cold from holding the champagne bottle and she shivered as he touched her. 'Just hang on: it will be all right. I promise you: it will be all right.'

It was anger that restored to her the calm she required to answer him. 'Don't patronize me, Bret. I'm not frightened. I am not on the verge of a nervous break-down, neither am I suffering from premenstrual tension or any other weakness you may believe that women are prey to.' She stopped.

'Get mad! Better you blow a valve than a gasket,' said Bret, smiling in that condescending way he had. 'Let me have it. Say what you have to say.'

'I've worked in the Department a long time, Bret. I know the score. The reason that I'm not going ahead with the plan – your plan I suppose I should say – is that I no longer feel ready to sacrifice my husband and my children in order to make a name for myself.'

'I never, for one moment, thought you might be motivated by the prospect of making a name for yourself, Fiona.'

The way he maintained his gentle and conciliatory tone moderated her anger. 'I suppose not,' she said.

'I knew it to be a matter of patriotism.'

'No,' she said.

'No? Is this the same woman who told me,

"There is but one task for all -

One life for each to give.

Who stands if Freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?"?'

She wet her lips. A favourite quote from Kipling was not going to divert her from what she had to say. 'You talk of a year or two. My children are very young. I love them: I need them and they need me. You are asking too much. How long will I be away? What will happen to the children? What will happen to Bernard? And my marriage? Use someone without a family. It's madness for me to go.'

She had kept her voice low but the expression on his face, as he feigned interest and sympathy, made her want to scream at him. Who stands if Freedom fall? Yes, Bret's words had scored a point with her and she was shaken by being suddenly brought face to face with the resolute young woman she'd been not so long ago. Was it marriage and motherhood that had made her so damnably bovine?

'It is madness. And that is exactly what will make you so secure. Bernard will be distraught and the Soviets will give you their trust.'

'I simply can't cope, Bret. I need a rest.'

'Or you could look at it another way,' said Bret amiably. 'A couple of years over there might be just the sort of challenge you need.'

'The last thing I need right now is another challenge,' she said feelingly.

'Sometimes relationships come to an end and there is nothing to be done but formally recognize what has happened.'

'What do you mean?'

'That's the way it was with me and Nikki,' he said, his voice low and sincere. 'She said she needed to find herself again. Looking back on it, our marriage had diminished to a point where it was nothing but a sham.'

'My marriage isn't a sham.'

'Maybe not; but sometimes you have to look closely in order to see. That's the way it was for me.'

'I love Bernard and he loves me. And we have two adorable children. We are a happy family.'

'Maybe you think it's none of my business,' said Bret, 'but this sudden instability – this ring down the curtain and send the orchestra home, I can't go on, nonsense – hasn't resulted from your work but from your personal life. So you need to take a look at your personal affairs to find the answer.'

Bret's words acted upon her like an emetic. She closed her eyes in case the sight of the plate of food caused her to vomit. When finally she opened her eyes she looked at Bret, seeking in his face an indication of what he was thinking. Failing to find anything there but his contrived warmth, she said, 'My personal affairs are personal, Bret.'

'Not when I find you in an emotional state and you tell me to abandon the most important operation the Department has ever contemplated.'

'Can you never see anything except from your own viewpoint?'

Bret touched his shirt cuff, fingering the cuff-link as if to be sure it was still there. But Fiona recognized in the gesture, and in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head, something more. It was that preparation for something special seen in the nervous circular movement of the pen before a vital document is signed, or the quick Umbering up movements of an athlete before the start of a record-breaking contest. 'You are not in a position to accuse anyone of selfishness, Fiona.'

She bit her lip. It was a direct challenge: to let it go without responding would be to admit guilt. And yet to react might bring down upon her the grim avalanche that loomed over her in nightmares. 'Am I selfish?' she asked as timorously as possible, and hoped he'd laugh it off.

'Fiona, you've got to keep to the arrangements. There's a hell of a lot riding on this operation. You'll do something for your country the equal of which few men or women ever get a chance at. In just a year or two over there, you could provide London Central with something that in historical terms might be compared with a military victory, a mighty victory.'