'I understand what you're saying, Croder. And I'll get Zhigalin for you — if you'll get me Ferris.'

'But can't you see-'

'It's the only way. Are you listening? The only way.'

'But the logistics-'

'I'll spell them out for you. There's been heavy snow here but Fane said they've managed to keep a couple of runways open at the airport. It's the only way in from Leningrad: the overland routes are blocked. If it starts snowing again they'll even have to shut down air traffic. Do you understand?'

In a moment: 'Yes. But-'

'If you work fast enough you can get Ferris here within twenty-four hours. If you get him here I'll do what I can to bring Zhigalin across. But not unless.'

'You don't realize-'

'Not unless. Ferris or nothing.'

I hung up the receiver.

The next day it was still dark at noon. The sun wouldn't show on the east horizon for another month, and today there were black snow clouds hanging across the city.

I'd given the concierge a fifty-ruble note.

'There's more,' I said, 'but you won't get it if you do anything stupid.' His faded eyes had gazed at me, seeing visions of stolen sable, chamois bags of diamonds, a crate or two of American cigarettes if it was a thin week. This was a major seaport.

'You'll find me reliable, comrade.'

This morning I'd got him to light the brass geyser in the only bathroom and fill the bath with hot water so that I could soak my bruises, but the smell of gas got me out before the water had cooled.

At noon Fane came.

'How long did it take you to get here?'

'Most of the morning? He kicked the snow off his boots.

'I've talked to Croder.'

He looked up sharply. 'Have you?'

'All I want to know at this stage is where to find Zhigalin.'

He lit a cigarette. 'Are you going to take him across?'

'It depends.'

'Depends on what?'

'If they can get Ferris out here.'

'To direct you?'

'Yes.'

He looked down. 'He's very good.'

'I know.'

'Did Mr Croder agree?'

'No. I just left him with the choice.'

Fane went over to the small cracked window but all he could see was his reflection; it was like night outside. 'Ferris is somewhere in the Far East, I believe.'

'That's right.'

'We have to assume he's directing someone there.'

'Yes.'

He turned back to face me. 'It's a pretty thin chance.'

'That's Croder's problem. I don't mind whether it comes down heads or tails.'

It was a lie and he probably knew that.

The bulb in the ceiling flickered, and we waited. Power cables were breaking all over the city as the permafrost shifted under the weight of the snow and brought poles down. 'There has not been a winter like it,' the concierge had told me. 'Not in my lifetime.' He'd stared through the glass doors as if at his first Christmas morning.

'I think you should assume,' Fane said in a moment, 'that they won't be able to get Ferris here in time to do any good.'

'That's up to them. If they can't, I'm resigning the mission. That means they'll have to fly someone else out here to replace me, and that could take just as long as to send Ferris.'

'You've given them quite a problem.'

'That's a shame.'

He might have known what was in my mind and he might not. I didn't particularly care. The thing was that Croder had his hands full in London trying to set up the mechanics that would give the West an edge over the Soviets in Vienna. He wouldn't have time to get me across on my own, now that Zhigalin had become his new objective. He'd leave me to find my way home alone and the chances of doing that were lethally thin. That was why I'd offered Croder a deal: Zhigalin was my only ticket home.

'I understand your reasons for asking for Ferris to replace me, of course. But to impose a delay at this very critical stage is at the least dangerous, for you and everyone else. I know this area and I've got all my courier lines and communications still intact. Ferris would have to-'

'You're wasting your time. I've got absolutely no guarantee that the deal you made with the KGB isn't still exposing me to risk. I don't know that the minute you leave here you won't call them up and tell them where I am. I-'

'They believe you're dead.'

'How do you know?'

'I told them.'

'I don't know if you're lying, Fane. I don't know how complex Northlight still is, or whether you might not get instructions at any time to wipe me out.'

He shrugged. 'I can only give you my word.'

'What the hell is that worth?'

The cheap tin frame of the picture of Lenin on the wall vibrated to the pitch of my voice and I lowered it. 'On the face of it you want me to meet Zhigalin and get him across the frontier and that sounds simple enough, but on the face of it you wanted me to meet Karasov and get him across the frontier and what actually happened was that you were sitting here in Murmansk with your fingers in your ears while I was getting into that truck in Kandalaksha and that is why I can't take your word for anything now.'

He looked down, and it occurred to me that he wasn't in point of fact as cold-blooded as a toad and that he hadn't exactly thrown a party when London had told him to dig a grave for me in Soviet Russia but it didn't make any difference: he'd followed instructions before and he'd do it again.

'I'm simply warning you,' he said in a moment, 'that you could be driving yourself into a dead end. If London decides it's quicker to send out a replacement for you instead of a replacement for me, we shall be too busy to get you across the border, and you've got a pretty accurate idea of your chances of getting across on your own.'

'I have.'

He was silent for a time. He knew the score but he thought there was still a chance of keeping me in the mission without changing my director. There wasn't. Maybe there were other 1 things I could have done if there were time to think about them. There wasn't. This kind of red sector was totally new to me: the local security forces were the primary danger and if a KGB man asked for my papers he could check them with the information that the computers had been spilling out for their all-points bulletin for the past twenty-four hours and come up with the Petr Stepanovich Lein who'd been found half-dead and taken to the General Maritime Hospital and that would be enough to make them take me along to their headquarters, and that would be that because my cover was light: it hadn't been designed to protect me under interrogation.

The secondary danger was still there in the background. Rinker had got on to me at the hotel and he'd taken a capsule to protect his cell but it hadn't kept them off: they'd been there on the train to Kandalaksha because they wanted Karasov and wanted him desperately. Now they would want Zhigalin. They were running a very sophisticated cell and they had a vital objective: to scuttle the summit conference in Vienna and widen the rift between Moscow and Washington. They would have effective communications in this city and they would know by now that Zhigalin was on the run and they'd expect me to lead them to him just as I'd been expected to lead them to Karasov. Nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed except that I was in a red sector I'd never experienced before. The primary and secondary and the whole range of hazards are common to most missions and you've got to deal with them in whatever way you can but you've always got your director in the field to support you and give you couriers if you need them and give you rendezvous if you need them and keep you in signals with London hour by hour and day by day, and if a fuse blows and you go pitching into a shut-ended situation and there's nothing at last between you and Lubyanka or the Gulag or an unmarked grave then you can still hope that your director can do something before it's too late.