'It's a calculated risk,' Cone said, and switched to German and asked for some Earl Grey, putting the phone down and getting out of his chair and standing with his shoulders forward, leaning into that bitter wind of his. 'My instructions are to protect you whenever I think it's necessary.'

'I can look after myself. You know my record.'

'You've survived very well, so far. But you've been lucky.'

His eyes came to rest on mine, which was unusual. He'd won a major point and I think he was watching me for my reaction.

'We all need luck when a wheel comes off but that doesn't change anything.'

'It does, this time. This time, it's Mr Shepley.'

'He's a soldier, and they can only think of making a move with a mass of troops in the field.'

It looked something like a smile; the skin tightened on his face and his eyes lost their look of unbreakable concentration just for a second. 'I wouldn't call that man a soldier, not the way he works. What you've got to realise is that this time we're expecting you to cooperate with us. I know that doesn't come easy, but this time we're trying to protect one of the two most powerful men on the planet. It'd be nice if you could get perspective on that.'

I gave it some thought: I had to. It was no good asking what the KGB was doing if their top kick needed protection because I knew what they were doing: they'd sent Yasolev in to ask us for liaison. Volper was a British national and the Bureau was digging up enough ground in London to bring the place down before they could find his tracks. What Cone meant was that I still hadn't got a grip on the size of this thing and he could be right, but there was only one way I could work and they'd known that when they'd called me in.

'All right, try this. Whenever you put someone in the field with me I want to know about it. I want to know who they are and where they're deployed and what their instructions are.'

'That's a tall order.' There was a knock on the door and he loped across and opened it and we didn't say anything before the boy had left the tray on the round plastic-topped table and gone out again.

'No, I mean in the field with me actively. I know the place must be full of lamplighters.'

'You wouldn't believe how many. You want it straight up?'

'Yes. Actively — all right?'

He brought my tea over and I went halfway to meet him and wondered if he caught the symbolism.

'All right, you'll be told. There's got to be trust, hasn't there, like with Yasolev. Got to meet each other halfway.' The skin tightened again and a spark came into his eyes and I had the impression that this man Cone was deeper than I'd thought, quicker, harder, more implacable, and with the power, perhaps, given only to people in the very top echelon: the power to break me in an instant and throw me to the dogs if he thought I looked like endangering the mission. It occurred to me that the KGB connection wasn't the only thing that could cost me sleep: I was expected to 'co-operate' right across the board, and I could believe they'd given me a director in the field who'd wipe me out if I didn't. This time, yes, things were different.

He held his cup in both hands, stooping over it, though it wasn't cold in here. 'And that works both ways, doesn't it? If you make any kind of move where you think you're going to need some luck, I want you to tell me.'

'I don't have to. They'll come for me again, whether I make a move or not.'

'That's how you see yourself? A sitting duck?'

'Don't you?'

'Yes.' Squinting down at his tea. 'That's unavoidable. And you're prepared to draw their fire?'

'It's the only way in. I've done it before.' Moscow, West Berlin, Prague. 'It's a classic, you know that. It's the fastest way in.'

'They'll want,' he said, 'to make sure, next time.'

'The greatest risk is that one of your people gets in my way. The whole thing's very hair-trigger and I could lose him by a knee-jerk reaction before he'd got time to identify himself. I wish you'd see that.'

He put down his tea by the phone and got his briefcase and found an envelope and ripped it open.

'I've got five men on standby. Here are their faces.' He gave me some photographs. 'I don't use them all at once. There was only one of them behind you when you left that club. Keep these somewhere safe.'

'What are their code names?'

'You don't need to worry about that. They won't ever come out of the background unless something happens, and then you won't be interested in their names.'

I put the prints away. 'All right, that's a help. D'you think Yasolev's got people out there too?'

'He gave you his word. I don't know how much it's worth.'

I let it go. 'What about the police?'

'We haven't asked them to look after you. He might have.'

I got myself some more tea. 'What are they doing about the Spree thing?'

'Yasolev asked them to put out smoke. They did. You won't be questioned.'

'But it's woken them up, hasn't it? He wiped out at least two of their cars and finished up on a slab.'

'We can't help that.' The phone was ringing. 'We've got to leave the HUA to Yasolev.' He picked up the receiver.

I was getting gooseflesh, the more I thought about it. Cone had got five men in support and the Spree thing had shaken Yasolev badly and lie could easily decide to bring in some KGB support of his own and on top of that the East German police could just as easily decide to take an interest in me after what had happened, despite Yasolev's request to leave me alone: this was their pitch we were playing on. But the only way we'd got of reaching Horst Volper was by letting him come for me again and he wouldn't do that if it meant taking on an army: he'd realise I was bogged down and no longer a danger.

I'd known I'd have to find a safe-house and go to ground and work Quickstep solo, but I didn't know I'd have to do it so soon.

'He wants to see us.' Cone was putting the phone down.

'Yasolev?'

'Yes. Sounds worried.' He loped across and took the lid off the big brass teapot to see how much there was left.

'What did he say?'

'Just wants to talk.' He went to the door and opened it and left it that, a small gesture of courtesy. 'He's on his way.' The chrome art deco clock on the wall was at 11:05. An hour earlier Yasolev had phoned us and said he was turning in.

'He must have had some kind of signal.'

'That's conceivable.' He lowered his voice. 'Before he comes, there's been another instruction from London. We're to check on Cat Baxter. She's coming out here.'

'The rock star?'

'Yes.'

'Why do we have to check on her?'

'Now that's a very good question.' He took his cup into the bathroom and rinsed it out and dried it on a towel and came back, and then Yasolev was suddenly in the open doorway in a worn red dressing-gown, his thin hair untidy as he looked first at Cone, then at me.

'I have just received information that General-Secretary Gorbachev — '

'Door,' Cone said, and jerked a hand.

I went past Yasolev and shut it and came back.

'Thank you — that General-Secretary Gorbachev will make an informal visit to East Berlin.'

'When?' Cone asked him.

'He arrives on the 17th of this month.'

In a week from now.

'There's some tea,' Cone said, 'if you'd like some.'