I thanked him.

'Are they looking after you at the hotel?'

'No complaints, except for the view.'

'Oh yes, you're at the front, aren't you? It's a bit sinister, I know what you mean. I'm not really used to it myself, yet, and I've been here three years. Kind of presence, isn't it?'

I’m rather relieved. I thought I was being over-sensitive.'

He got up and fetched his coat from the rack. 'Oh no, it gives most visitors the willies. I send quite a few of them to that hotel, visiting artists, culture vultures. I've booked Cat Baxter in there.' Chasing the sleeve of his coat. I helped him. 'Thanks.'

Rock star.

When is she coming?'

''Tomorrow.'

'She's bringing her group?'

Yea. Got a concert scheduled, big one. God, I hope she's going to behave herself — she's worse than Vanessa Redgrave, except that Cat's thing is human rights. Share my cab?'

'I'm not going far.'

Hoped it wasn't true. Hoped very much it wasn't true.

'Take care, then, and you know where your friends are if ever you need anything.'

'Yes.'

And where my enemies are.

Outside.

I found a telephone near the rest rooms. Cone answered at the second ring.

'For what it's worth,' I told him, 'Cat Baxter is bringing her rock group here tomorrow. The embassy's putting them up at our hotel.'

'Well, now.'

'I suggest you tell London. How is Yasolev?'

'I don't know. He's across at the Soviet Embassy.'

'Do you think he's breaking up under us?'

'I don't know. He's a very tough bloke, but he's got a very tough assignment. Thatcher and Reagan are one thing, but Gorbachev is turning half the world inside out and we don't want anyone to stop him. But that's my worry. You're still with Pollock?'

'He's just left here.'

'The Steingarten?'

'Yes.'

'And when are you leaving there?'

'Now.'

'Immediate plans?'

One, two, three: 'I'm going to see if I can get them interested.'

He didn't answer right away. 'You'll have support.'

Not really.

I said, 'Understood.'

'I want you to keep in contact.'

Said I would. What else could I say? If I made contact with him before this day's end it would simply mean I was still alive and had access to Horst Volper. If I didn't make contact then he'd have to signal London: shadow down.

I dropped the receiver back and walked through the lobby, big poster over the door — Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic! — they put it everywhere, on posters, book matches, hotel stationery, as if they might be having a little trouble getting people to believe it.

Swing doors, a woman behind me — Danke schon, bitte — and out into the street.

Felt suddenly naked, vulnerable.

The afternoon's operation was simple enough. I was going to make myself conspicuous so that they could catch me in the open and try killing me off as they tried before and I was going to give them a chance because Volper was the target for Quickstep and we didn't know where to find him and the only way to do it was to meet with his people at close quarters and ask them questions. It hadn't worked very well with Skidder but at least we'd got Werneuchen into the picture. This afternoon it might work better. But as I went down the steps onto the pavement and turned west along Dieckmannstrasse I felt so very vulnerable because they'd known I was in the Steingarten with Pollock and they could have got a hunting-rifle set up on a rooftop across the street and they could be lining up the reticle and putting pressure on the trigger spring now, and the air felt supernaturally cold and my body felt strangely light because whether you are very close to death or only think you are very close to death the nervous system reacts in precisely the same way: you go through a subtle shift in reality and feel poised, floating.

Then it was over and the nerves steadied and the street came back into focus and I went on walking, keeping up a good pace, business to do, so forth, because one of the things I had to do this afternoon was to make them believe that I didn't know they were there.

'Tewson.

He was one of Cone's people, a man I knew, and he was fifty yards behind me on the other side of the street.

You'llhave support.

Cone didn't use amateurs. He would have hand-picked them as soon as he'd reached Berlin and he might even have brought some of them with him or sent them ahead. Yesterday it had taken me almost two hours to throw one of them off before I could start out to Werneuchen. Today it would be quicker. I'd made arrangements, because these streets were strictly a red sector and I didn't want anyone coming in to help me when I could be into a close hold with one of Volper's men and getting the answers I wanted.

Tewson wasn't keeping to my pace; he wouldn't have to shorten the distance before I reached a corner: there'd be relay men, two, even three, somewhere ahead to take over and pass me on.

This was all Cone could do. We'd chewed the whole thing on the mat and he knew I was liable to go solo at any minute and he could only try to follow Shepley's instructions. Viktor Yasolev had his heavy responsibilities but so did Cone. He wouldn't be shot at dawn if he failed to bring me home from Quickstep but he'd find sleep hard to come by for a long time afterwards. He was one of the few field directors — Ferris was another, and Bainbridge — who took a personal pride in protecting their executives, and he'd brought them home again and again, sometimes from last-ditch situations where other directors would have left them for dead and pulled out. This afternoon he'd try to make sure I was never alone, never without support, but I couldn't let that happen because when it came to the crunch I wanted a clear field to work in.

Charlottenstrasse, and I turned the corner and walked north, a damp chill in the air, the river smell drifting through the streets from the Spree. I felt better now; the nerves had reacted to the fear of imminent death when I stepped into the street but the gooseflesh had gone by this time and I was walking steadily and the organism was gradually eliminating the excess adrenalin. Not all of it. I could need more, at any time.

The relay man was a hundred yards ahead of me on the other side. I couldn't see his face but I knew he'd be there somewhere and I picked him up fairly soon; if I hadn't been looking for him I could have missed him easily: he was using good mobile cover — other people — and had his back to me most of the time.

'How are things, Gunter?'

I got in and slammed the door and sat back straight away. There was a Mercedes SEL behind us and I didn't want to overlook anything.

The relay man was at the intersection of Charlottenstrasse and Franzstrasse by now and he'd seen me get into the cab and he was turned away from us and using his walkie-talkie, but there wasn't anything he could do unless Cone had put a vehicle into the field and that wasn't likely with a relay tag in operation.

'I was on time?'

'Yes.' He wanted praise, and I should've thought of that; in this trade we don't give it. 'Exactly on time. Take a right and a left as fast as you legally can.'

'Whatever you say.'

Give me your wife's name and her sister's address, and by the end of the month I'll see she gets a permit to visit the cemetery on the other side.

He didn't think I'd give him a bill. I hadn't put it specifically but I'd given him the cover of being what they called a live-body entrepreneur. Ever since the Wall had gone up there'd been a steady trade in people who needed to reach the other side. Prices varied, and the cost of getting young people across was higher, their working life and value to the German Democratic Republic making them expensive: in the region of twenty-five thousand US dollars. For this man's wife the price would normally be a quarter of that: she was middle-aged and a woman. But he didn't think I'd give him a bill because I'd told him there were things he could do for me.