5 TRAP

Reverse thrust, and the deceleration forces pushed us forward against the seat belts. A copy of Stem slid across the floor but the stewardess didn't leave her jump seat to pick it up.

'Bitte bleiben Sie angeschnalt bis das Flugzeug vollstandig stillsteht.'

A TWA jumbo loomed across the window, its dorsal light winking in the haze. Raindrops streaked the glass: plus (a change, so forth.

The stewardesses were standing up, and one came over to me.

'Do you need any assistance from the airline agent, Herr Gage?'

'No, thank you.'

We rolled to a stop against the walkway and they let me off first.

'I hope you'll travel again with Lufthansa, Herr Gage.'

'1 will indeed.'

They didn't know who I was, only that I was somebody unusual: there'd been a traffic jam at Heathrow and my police escort had needed twelve minutes to get me through it, and I would have missed the plane if the Bureau hadn't used its Line 5 connection to keep the flight waiting for me. I didn't like that: it had called attention.

It was 08:07 — we hadn't picked up the time the plane had been delayed — and if Brekhov had already landed, eight or nine minutes early, I could have missed him. That would be all right because the rdv was for the Hotel Sachsen and he wasn't expecting to meet me here, but I wanted to check him for any kind of routine surveillance he might pick up. Soviet nationals always come under inspection from the teams of KGB agents-in-place when they travel to the West, to make sure they meet the people they're meant to be meeting, and stay at the hotel where they're meant to be staying.

Brekhov would know that.

I went across to the Aeroflot desk and checked the screen. Flight 376 from Leningrad was due in at 08:15, on schedule. There were twenty or thirty people in the gate area and I took up my position against the far wall, sighting the exit from the walkway tunnel between two pillars for the sake of cover. It took me thirty seconds to identify all four of the KGB agents because they were spread well out, with only one of them close to the walkway. They hadn't noted me; they had seen me but not noted me. They wore felt hats and raincoats and stood with their hands by their sides, and they were good: a man in an astrakhan coat and fur hat came out of the walkway hurrying a little, and all four of them turned their heads to scan him; but when a totally stunning stewardess came through the crowd they simply went on watching the walkway. They hadn't looked.at each other once, so far; they would only do that when they saw someone who looked worth their attention. I didn't like them; I don't like these agents when they're efficient.

Brekhov wasn't among the first thirty passengers coming through, and I began thinking he'd changed his appearance during the last year, or changed it for this trip, to match a difficult photograph on his papers; with a rendezvous precise as to time and place, recognition wasn't critical. It wouldn't matter if he'd shaved off his heavy moustache; I was allowing for that, watching their eyes as they came from the exit, watching their walk.

Three girls came through in sable coats, their soft-booted feet splayed and half-floating across the maroon carpeting: ballet dancers, to be greeted with small cries of pleasure from a matronly woman and two men; they were gathered into affectionate arms and led away. The agents didn't watch them; I'd seen them note, already, the welcoming party, one of whom was himself KGB.

Forty people had now come through, perhaps fifty. The first twinge came to the nerves. I would have thought that you'd be interested in the fact that Chief of Control has decided to stay up through the early hours to do his utmost to persuade one of his elite shadow executives to take something on that has international dimensions.

Flashlight flickered suddenly as a woman with ice-blue eyes and a perfect mouth came through, not lifting a hand to spoil the pictures the press were taking, smiling instead, not a dancer this time, and not Russian. It was Helga Aspel, the actress. Why hadn't she been among the first off the plane? She wouldn't be smiling like this when she saw her travel agent.

A man in a dark suit with velour lapels came through, his head held down and his walk too quick, an amateur and they got him right away, two of them closing in and asking for his papers, keeping him well back against the wall and shielding him from view with their bodies. They must have been waiting for him. One of them escorted him away while the other went back to his post by the gate desk. I felt another twinge along the nerves. If Brekhov came through and they thought there was something wrong with him there'd be nothing I could do. Nothing.

Except of course to call London. It's no go. They got him.

But Brekhov was a professional. He'd talk to them easily enough and say the right things and have the right answers and convince them as he'd had to convince these people before; but if there were anything wrong with his papers, if the photograph was excessively blurred or the serial numbers didn't check or there was a shift in the franking as it crossed the edges of the picture, anything like that, any slightest thing, they'd move in on him again the instant he'd cleared customs and immigration, and take him along to the Aeroflot office or the Sovietbank or the embassy and put him through full interrogation. And I wouldn't see him again. If he tried running for it or yelled for the police it would be worse: they'd drop him with a needle and grab the product and run. They've done it before: they did it with Franz Horsch on the Champs Elysees and they did it with Polinszky on London Bridge and they did it with Emil Marceau on the boat deck of the San Cosenza as she'd steamed out of Naples last year. They would do it if it were important enough. With Brekhov it would be important. And all I could do would be to send a signal.

It's no go. They- But the nerves are always a little raw in the first few hours when you go out again. Brekhov was a professional. His papers would be perfect. They must be, or he wouldn't have got onto the plane.

Had he got onto the plane?

Fifty people through and I was sweating.

Sixty.

It was a full plane; I could see them still coming off as they passed the gap between the walkway and the cabin.

Six schoolboys, a thin sandy-coloured man in charge of them, his suede shoes worn and his tweed coat flapping open, 'Come on, Henderson, keep together.'

A woman leaning on the arm of the man with her, her eyes red and her dark hair over her face, the gleam of tears on her cheek, both Russians, who were they having to leave behind? The man looked at no one, at nothing, suffering in patience with her. The agents noted them but let them past.

Three Japanese with their smartly-cut coats buttoned, their briefcases swinging.

A young girl, unescorted, laden with souvenirs.

Brekhov.

Without his moustache but with the same eyes and the same loping walk, the floor passing steadily under his feet as if the world itself had to keep time with him. One of the KGB men was watching him, turning his head slightly as Brekhov came through the crowd at his own pace as another noted him, his eyes moving with him until he had passed the desk and I began breathing again.

They went back to watching the walkway exit and I gave Brekhov time to reach the first corner before I moved, not in his direction but towards the men's lavatory on the far side of the passageway, until I could see all four agents one by one reflected in the glass of the Lufthansa picture of the Brandenburg Gate by night. They were still watching the walkway, and I turned and followed Brekhov and saw that he was alone among the crowd, alone in terms of surveillance.