'I will see them next week,' said Werner. He saw the disappointment in her face. 'It's not easy to arrange it without Bernard asking awkward questions. But they are fit and well, I can assure you of that. Bernard is a good father.'

'Yes, I know,' said Fiona, and Werner realized that she had taken it as a reproach. He found it difficult to have a conversation with Fiona these days. She could be damned touchy. She was worn out. He'd told the D-G that over and over again. She said, 'It might be easier if I were in Moscow or China, but it is impossible to forget that everything I love is so near at hand.'

'Soon you'll be home. Here everything is changing,' said Werner. 'I even see diehard communists beginning to discover that man does not live by bread alone.'

'Nothing will ever change,' said Fiona. 'You can't build a capitalist paradise upon a Leninist boneyard.'

'Why so glum, Fiona?' She seldom revealed her personal views.

'Even if you waved a magic wand and declared Eastern Europe totally free, it would not stir. Bret's sanguine ideas about the economy don't take into account the human factor or the immense difficulties of change evident to anyone who comes and looks for themselves. He talks about "the market" but all Eastern Bloc economies are going to remain dominated by the public sector for many many years to come. How will they fix market prices? Who is likely to buy decrepit steel works, ancient textile plants or loss-making factories? Bret says the East will revive its private sector. How? Eastern Europeans have spent their whole working lives slacking off in over-manned jobs. No one here takes risks. Even in the KGB/Stasi office I find people are reluctant to take on new responsibility or make a decision. Forty years of socialism has produced a population incapable of decision-making. People here don't want to think for themselves. Capitalism will not appear just because there is no longer any law against it.' She stopped. It was an unusual outburst. 'I'm sorry, Werner. Sometimes I think I've been here too long.'

'London think so too. The D-G is going to pull you out,' said Werner.

She closed her eyes. 'How soon?'

'Very soon. You should start to tidy things up.' He waited for a stronger reaction and then said, 'You'll be with Bernard and the children again.'

She nodded and smiled bleakly.

'Are you frightened?' he asked, without really believing it was true.

'No.'

'There is nothing to be frightened of, Fiona. They love you, they want you back.'

For a moment she gave no sign of having heard him, then she said, 'Suppose I forget?'

'Forget what?'

She became flustered. 'Things about them. I do forget things, Werner. What will they think of me?' She gave him no chance to answer, and moved on to other things. 'How will it be done, Werner?'

'It might be changed, but at present the plan is to leave a car parked in the street outside. The keys will be under the seat. With the keys there will be an identity card. Use it only as far as the Autobahn then throw it into a ditch somewhere where it won't be found. You'll drive down the Autobahn, dump the car at the roadside and get into one with British plates. The driver will have a UK diplomatic passport for you.'

'You make it sound simple, Werner.' London always made things sound simple. They believed it gave agents confidence.

He smiled and twirled the hat on the finger of one hand. 'London want you to list your contacts here, Fiona.' For years she'd thought of Werner as some soft woolly creature, hen-pecked by his awful wife. Since using him as her contact with London Central she'd discovered that the real Werner was as hard as nails and far more ruthless than Bernard.

'I have none,' she said.

'Contacts: good and bad. I'd give the bad ones careful consideration, Fiona. Office staff? Janitor? Has anyone said anything to you, even in jest?' He pinched his nose between finger and thumb, looking up at her mournfully while he did it.

'What sort of anything?'

'Jokes about you working for the British… Jokes about you being a spy.'

'Nothing to be taken seriously.'

'This is not something to gamble with, Fiona. You'd better tell me.' He placed his hat on the floor so that he could wrap the skirt of his overcoat over his knees.

'Harry Kennedy… He's a doctor who visits Berlin sometimes.'

'I know.'

'You know?'

'London has had him under surveillance since the day you first came here.'

'My God, Werner! Why did you never tell me?'

'I had nothing to tell.'

'I was with him today. Do you know that too?'

'Yes. London tells me of his movements. Working in the hospital means he has to make his plans well in advance.'

'I'm sure he's not…'

'There to monitor you? But of course he is. He must be KGB and assigned to you. Kennedy arranged that first meeting with you in London; Bret is certain of it.'

'Have you talked to Bret? I thought Bret was in California.'

'California is served by scheduled flights, phones and fax.'

'Who else knows?' she asked anxiously.

He didn't answer that one. 'Kennedy is a party member from way back. Don't say you haven't checked him out, Fiona?'

She looked at Werner. 'Yes, I have.'

'Of course you have. I told Bret that you would be sure to. What woman could resist an opportunity like that?'

'That sounds very patronizing, Werner.'

'Does it? I'm sorry. But why not tell me the truth right from the start?'

'Today he said how wonderful it would be if I were Mata Hari escaping to the West with him. Or some tosh of that kind.'

Werner tugged at his nose, got up and went to the window. It was night and, under floodlamps, workmen were decorating the Frankfurter Alice with the colourful banners and flags of some African state. All visiting dignitaries were paraded along this boulevard to see their colours thus displayed. It was a mandatory part of the Foreign Ministry's schedule.

In the other direction, the whole sky was pink with the neon and glitter of the West. How near it was, as near and as available as the moon. Werner turned back to her. Fiona was still as beautiful as she had ever been, but she had aged prematurely. Her face was pale and strained, as if she was trying to see into a bright light.

Werner said, 'If Kennedy happened to be here at the time you were pulled out, he'd have to be neutralized, Fiona.'

'Why would he be here at the time I am pulled out?'

'Why indeed?' said Werner. He picked up his hat, flicked at the brim of it and put it on his head. Fiona climbed up on the chair to connect the microphone again.

25

Berlin. June 1987.

It was his wavy hair that made 'Deuce' Thurkettle look younger than his true age. He was sixty-one years old but regular exercise, and careful attention to what he ate, kept him in good physical condition. He put on his bifocals to read the menu but he could manage most things without them, including shooting people, which was what he did for a living. 'Steak and salad,' he said. 'Rare.'

'The Tafelspitz is on today,' said Werner.

'No thanks; too fattening,' said Thurkettle. He knew what it was, a local version of a New England dinner: boiled beef, boiled potatoes and boiled root vegetables. He never wanted to see that concoction again. It was what he'd eaten in prison. Just the sight or smell of a plate of boiled beef and cabbage was enough to remind him of those years he'd spent cooped up on death row, waiting for the executioner, in a high-security prison along with a lot of other men found guilty of multiple murders.

'Perhaps I shouldn't eat Tafelspitz either,' said Werner regretfully. 'Rare steak and salad: twice,' he told the waiter.