Because I had failed to carry out the instructions.

5.46.

Zero plus one and too late.

E-Edward… going north on Ckalova and just crossing Karl Marx.

The snow drifted out of the dark sky, eddying in the slipstream of the car ahead of me. It was becoming mesmeric, and I wound the window down and let the freezing air come in, taking deep breaths of it. I'd slept for nearly four hours after I'd got back from the warehouse but the blood loss was still a problem. In less than a minute the left shoulder was numbed by the draught and I put the window up again but went on breathing consciously until the haze went out of my head.

5. 47.

If I'd been given this information I would have eliminated Schrenk the minute I found him.

But the instructions were already there.

The snow swirled against the windscreen. There was of course a chance that Schrenk had made a mistake or the stuff hadn't arrived in time or the Zil had come unstuck in the snow but he was highly talented and they'd crippled him and he knew what he wanted to do and it wasn't particularly difficult with that amount of feverish dedication driving him: history was liberally punctuated with successful assassinations and he wasn't trying to do anything new.

This was why I looked to my left at every intersection, sometimes seeing the glow of a golden dome through the snow haze. That was where we would see the column of smoke going up, a few minutes after six o'clock.

The traffic was thinning now as the city's population flowed from the factories and offices to the apartment blocks in the suburbs.

5.48.

D-Donald… I've got a Zil.

C–Charlie calling D-Donald — give your location.

I'm heading north and coming up to Uljanovskaja. The police let him through on the red light. The Zil is moving west on Uljanovskaja now and going fast.

Did you see the number plates?

No. It was broadside on when it went past.

Did it have any kind of escort?

No. It went through the lights on its own.

C–Charlie calling A-Able. Where are you?

I hit the button. A-Able. I'm at Obucha and the lights are red. There's a left-turn arrow and I'm waiting for it now.

Two seconds went by.

From your present location, can you intercept the Zil before it reaches the Kremlin?

The map had been open on the passenger's seat since we'd started patrolling and I looked at it now. It depends on what speed he makes. 1 can't go across the lights as he can. But I've got a chance of cutting him off at the Solanka intersection.

The left-turn arrow went green and I gunned up and took the intersection in a controlled slide across the ruts and got the Pobeda straight and settled down.

A-Able moving west towards the boulevard ring, light traffic. Orders?

Stay on the air and report progress. C–Charlie calling all other stations… All other stations remain listening but do not signal unless emergency repeat do not signal unless emergency. Break pattern and head for A-Able with all speed.

I was coming up on two taxis and a truck and pulled over to pass but the ruts were deep and I lost the rear end as the steering dug in and the momentum set up a swinging action, left to right, left to right until I changed down and put a lot of power on and broke the rhythm, one of the taxis using the horn because I'd swung too close.

Croder dropped the call sign now: from this point there'd only be his voice and mine on the air.

What is your direct route to the Kremlin?

Due west by Podkolokol'nyj. Solanka, and Razina.

Present location?

Crossing the boulevard ring.

The trees stood on either side, white with snow against the iron sky. The lights were changing to amber and I kept my speed constant and crossed over and gunned up a little because they'd put sand down here. The inner boulevard signal was at red and I switched my headlights full on and kept going and crossed the intersection and heard a whistle blow.

I am now on Podkolokol'nyj. Traffic police alerted because I crossed on the red, but my rear plate is illegible.

Acknowledged.

I hadn't intended to take the intersections on the red because the police would use their radios and I'd be initiating a collision course with the nearest mobile patrol but the Zil would now be curving north-east across Ustjinskij prospekt and heading for the major fork at Solanka and it was the only chance of my cutting him off because if he got there first I wouldn't be able to catch him and there were no other oblique streets where I could gain on him by using angles.

Location… Podkopajevskij on my right. I'm passing the junction now.

Acknowledged.

He would want to say more than that, but he left the air clear for my signals. He would want to say that I should make every conceivable effort to reach the Solanka fork before the Zil because that was the only hope we had left. He would want to say that there was a red lamp burning at the top left corner of the board for Scorpion in London and that the lamp must go out when the mission had succeeded, not because it had failed.

A taxi was pulling away from the kerb and doing it too wide and I touched the brakes and got nothing so I used the wheel and angled the front end out of the ruts and straightened again, overcorrecting and hooking the rear bumper of the taxi: I watched it in the mirror, sliding against the kerb and bouncing and coming to a stop with the front wheels locked hard over.

Location… Passing Ivanovskij on my right and approaching the fork at Solanka.

Acknowledged. C–Charlie to all other stations. Keep heading for A-Able at the Solanka fork as fast as you can. If necessary ignore traffic lights.

The nearest to me would be E-Edward, last locating south of me on the ring road at Uljanovskaja, and he would have made an illegal U-turn and come back to the intersection and turned right to follow the Zil. D-Donald had been farther to the north and would have turned west and south and would reach the Solanka fork soon after E-Edward. Bracken had last signalled from the other side of the ring road and would be coming east and rounding the walls of the Kremlin, but he had more distance to cover. In five minutes from now the Zil could be in the centre of three or four converging cars and it wouldn't be heading for the Kremlin at this time unless it had the explosive on board and that could be dangerous: Composition C-3 was relatively insensitive to impact but if the Zil crashed it could false-trigger the detonation device. If I sighted the Zil I'd need to make a signal.

Location… Solanka fork, approaching fast, lights at red.

I could hear a siren somewhere. I'd run the red at the boulevard intersection and hit the taxi soon afterwards and the policeman who'd blown the whistle could have radioed the network to put a car on me; or it could be F-Freddie in trouble after his failure to acknowledge or it could be just an accident somewhere in the icy streets and nothing to do with us.

The lights were still at red and I took the Solanka fork on the low side of fifty kph with the front end stable enough in the ruts to take me close along the nearside kerb with a chance of bringing the wheel over hard if I had to, putting the Pobeda into a front-wheel skid and breaking the ruts to slow the momentum if anything came through on the green from the main fork road to my left. I wasn't risking a broadside collision because the fork road had the only right of way and the traffic would merge at forty-five degrees, but I flicked the headlights to full again and started watching the left-hand outside mirror.