'I see, yes.' He was sitting very still.

I got a pencil and made out a slip. Fleou qoanptn skkmao plqcv mzoplexk. 'Put this last signal through for me.'

He took it and folded it. 'Through the cypher-room?'

'I've switched the code.'

'I see.'

First series, prefix and transposed dupes. Now going into red sector. It was one of their bloody rules: when you found a hole you'd got to go into without any chance of getting out again they wanted to know. Among the riff-raff rank and file of the shadow executives it's known as the clammy handshake and we call it that to make fun of it because it scares us to death.

'Make sure it goes out.'

With that fledgling courage of his he said: 'You can rely on me.'

I got up and paid for the soup and he followed me to the door. 'We shan't be in contact again.' I told him. 'See you in London some time.'

When we came on to the platform I saw four of them, K.G.B. types in civilian clothes, standing in pairs, two on the left and two on the right, their hands in the pockets of their black coats, facing towards me. Along the platform, parked behind the mail van, was a dark-windowed saloon.

I looked back through the glass doors of the buffet and saw that two other men had come in through the other door, from the street. Then I looked at Merrick.

He stood rather stiffly, his face white and his head down a little and his eyes squeezed half shut as if he were expecting me to do something to him though he knew I could do nothing. It wasn't much more than a whisper and I only just heard.

'I'm sorry.'

14: DEADLINE

'This is Bodkin.'

'Oh hello, old boy. How are things going?"

The line wasn't very good.

'Mustn't grumble.'

'That's the stuff.'

I heard someone being sick, outside. It was probably Merrick.

They watched me the whole time, rather like crows when you cross a field. They weren't dangerous now. They would have been dangerous if I'd tried to run or throw some of Kimura's pet numbers at them but there wouldn't have been any point: it would have been a waste of time and I had a lot to do.

I suppose they didn't expect me to pick up a telephone: it had floored them a fraction and one of them had got excited, showing me his gun. Guns are no bloody good, they only make everyone jump.

'This line's lousy,' I said. 'Can you hear me all right?'

'On and off.'

Give them credit: they hadn't actually let me make the connection myself in case I was calling the Navy in. I gave the receiver to the thin one who looked as if he was in charge and said if he didn't get me Comrade Foster in double quick time he'd lose his rank when they found out from me he'd refused. It was nice to realise that Foster hadn't bothered to change his name, though the nearest the thin man got to it was Vorstor. In London it had meant another cosy party with lots of booze but in Moscow it made a much bigger noise. That was where I was now, right in. the middle of them; I might as well be standing in Red Square.

He wasn't at the Commissariat. He was at the Hotel Cracow.

A stray thought came: they'd probably done it with photographs.

'Look,' I said, 'you're rocking the boat.'

'Sorry about that, old boy.'

'You should be. It's your own boat.'

'Ah.'

He sounded quite interested. The helpful thing was that I was talking into a brilliant brain that could add up things for itself once it was given the data. If I'd had to talk to some cow-eyed clot they wouldn't have understood what I was saying and that would have been fatal.

'Let me know if you can't hear me, Foster, because this is important to both of us.'

'Loud and clear at the moment.'

'I assume you know your little lot's just ganged up on me, do you?'

'We thought it best, considering.'

'You couldn't be more wrong. You know what I'm doing out here.'

'Do I?'

'I'm nosing around the Czyn situation to see what's in it for John Bollocks.'

'More than that,' he said, 'I think! The line crackled like someone frying. 'What about the diplomatic support that's expected from the U.K. if — '

'Oh for Christ's sake, if I'm going to save us both a lot of trouble you'll bloody well have to talk sense like I am.' He only wanted to find out how much I knew. 'It was Merrick spreading that guff around and you know it, you gave him the orders. Now listen to me a minute. I've been in direct contact with London since you chose to start blocking my signals through Merrick, and my orders are to drop everything and try to make sure there isn't a revolution here next Wednesday. In other words the reports we've been sending in have given them a nasty turn and they're frightened the talks are going to come unstuck. This means in effect that you and I are now on the same side and although quite frankly I'd rather work with a dead rat I've no option.'

We were the only people in here now. The men and women and the kid with the red plastic guitar had cleared out as soon as they'd seen what was happening. The woman who'd brought our soup was behind the counter again, washing up; her face was gentle and motherly, reminding me of Mrs Khrushchev's; I think she was quietly praying there wouldn't be any shooting because the place had just been redecorated.

'Any questions?' I asked him.

The silence went on for a bit and I let it. My impression of him in the Moskwicz saloon had been that he was a civilised person with a soft core of morality that wasn't giving him any peace: he'd be sensitive for a long time, perhaps all his life, about how the Brits thought of him, and at this moment he was probably taking his time to swallow my last remark. That was all right because I'd made it deliberately to persuade him I was 4n a position of strength and we could talk on equal terms.

But I didn't like it, the silence on the line. I had to sell him cold in the next couple of minutes or lose the whole thing: a compromise wasn't possible because the set-up I'd worked out would still function and the timing was a bit near the hairspring.

'You'd better come and see me,' he said.

'There's no time.'

'Pity about that.'

'You're not being very bright, you know. I'll give it to you straight: call your people off and let me go on doing my thing and as soon as I can I'll hand you the lot. Those are my new orders from London. Or you can shove me in a cell and three days from now you'll find out you've been losing your grip and you won't like that, a bloke with your reputation in Moscow. Incidentally you'll cost the lives of quite a few of your own people and that won't go down so well either.'

The line sizzled again and I began sweating badly: it'd be damned silly if I lost the mission just because the Polish telephone system had got dry rot in the selector units. My left eyelid had begun flickering to a rogue nerve: I must be getting old.

'Perhaps you'd just give me a clue, old boy.'

'Would you, in my place? Think straight. I've got too much on and bloody little time to do it in so for Christ's sake get off my neck.'

'You're being,' he said slowly, 'a wee bit proud.'

'All right, I'm rotten with it. At least it's something you can understand. I represent an Intelligence service whose present interests happen to line up with yours and if you want me to co-operate it's got to be level pegging and if you think I'm going to start by licking your boots you've got another think coming.'

He kept me waiting again. Then on the line I heard a faint sound that brought his face suddenly into my mind, the puffy eyes in the crumpled tissue-paper skin, the long thin mouth with its hint of private irony. He was using his flask.

In a moment he said: 'What's your field?'

'Czyn.'