The snow crunched under the tyres, the chains clinking now on the roadway, where military traffic had pounded the surface and reached the hardtop. I couldn't see from here whether he was still watching me. I didn't need to see. He was watching me very carefully, I knew that, and a tingling sensation began in the exact centre of my forehead. It was familiar, and didn't rate any attention: this wasn't the first time I'd moved deliberately into a potential line of fire and felt the phantom impact of a bullet, perhaps this time a dum-dum, not my favourite, they blow the whole thing into a chrysanthemum, nothing left but the stalk.

I was halfway there now, a quarter of a kilometre from where I'd last seen him: a snow bank had blotted him out as I climbed the hill. He would use this, if he were trained, to change his position and turn the car to face my direction so that he could see me through the windscreen when I appeared; or he might get out and stand there with the assault rifle ready to swing up into the aim as soon as he saw me. Then there'd be the delicate business of going closer to him under the gun, close enough to talk to him, and then, if the talk broke down and he told me to get out of this area on pain of instant death, close enough to get behind the weapon and effect a change in things. That would be the tricky bit.

I kept a steady pace in low gear, bumping over the ruts, watching for him among the higher trees.

I don't like this. You won't have a chance if he -

Oh, piss off.

Watching carefully now, trying to find the profile of his car or part of it, enough of it to know if he'd turned it round or got out to wait for me.

Watch carefully.

The snow crunched under the wheels.

You won't have a chance if he -

I've told you before, piss off.

Crackle of gunfire and sweat broke instantly.

The rooks flew up from the camp.

Keeping a steady pace up the hill. Any change in the scene at this point — sudden acceleration, a burst of speed — could trigger his nerves and the gun.

There were widening columns of light now between the trees where I'd seen him last, but the configuration of his car wasn't there. He might have turned it, so that its narrower front-end profile would be presented, but I thought I should see it, even then: I'd marked his location at the outset, where the branch of a tree had hung down at an angle, broken by a storm.

He'd moved the car. This was where he'd been, less than a hundred yards away — and then I saw him, moving in the distance along the hill road, and I gunned up and lost the rear end and steadied things and gunned up again more carefully and started building up the speed, saw him again as the road straightened, saw that I was holding him now — at a distance but holding him.

The observer drove away, Rusakov had told me, before he could be challenged.

Skittish, then.

He was driving something European, not Soviet, possibly a SAAB 504 but nothing fast like a Porsche. The speed factor didn't come into things in any case: I'd simply have to gain on him by playing with the gears to get as much traction as possible on the snow, keep the Skoda on the road, keep him in sight until I could draw close enough to see where he was going, catch him if I could, yes, but in these conditions it wouldn't be easy.

He was still the same distance ahead of me when the road dropped from the hill and straightened out, and I was trying to bring the speed up a degree when I saw he was pulling away, not fast but gradually, taking me three kilometres, four into the desolate open ground between the military camp and the suburbs of the town, and it was here that he slowed and then swung in a U turn until he was facing me and the first shots hit the front of the Skoda low down and began smashing their way upwards in a raking volley of fire as I dropped below the windscreen and it was blown out and the shots began hammering into the metal roof in a deafening percussion storm that blanked out conscious thought, I was only aware of closeness to death, could only see the snow and the sky revolving slowly as the Skoda rolled and churned among the drifts and hit rock and bounced and rolled again, rearing now with the front end going down and the whole thing swinging over, over and down, crashing amidst whiteness, whiteness and silence and then a sunburst, sounds dying away.

Chapter 22: ZOMBIE

It had happened before.

Fell forward. Forward and down, fell forward.

Lying with my face in the snow, freezing cold, cold iron mask on my face, get up.

Something was down there. Important.

Down in the snow. I got up and the sky reeled and I sat with my back to the engine again. Important.

I reached down and dug around in the snow and found it, walkie unit, dropped it, I had dropped it, mustn't — must not — do that again.

The sky steadied. It had landed on its side, the Skoda, and the bonnet had burst open, so I'd been sitting with my back to it, not very warm any more, long — how long?

Thirty-two minutes. Patience, my good friend. Hurt anywhere?

A long icicle was hanging from the middle of the radiator where the fan had been driven into it by the impact; the engine bearers had sheared. Yes, head hurting a bit.

Not skittish, then, no, he'd led me away from the camp, hadn't wanted anyone to hear the noise when he pumped that bloody toy, he tried to kill me, you know that?

Very cold out here, it was very cold. Yes, a violent man, the agent didn't give anyone a chance, kerboom and rat-tat-tat, don't get in my way, not one of your more subtle espions, lacked reticence.

Car coming.

09:34.

But also cocky, like all violent men, they never doubt themselves or anything they do — he should have come back here and taken: look at me, made sure I was lying in the car there with only the stall left. Not, then, a professional.

Crunching over the dry brittle snow, the car, in the high pale light of the morning. It wasn't the agent. He would have come back here straight away. This would be support. I'd signalled them.

But I watched carefully as the windscreen showed above the fold in the land, the light flashing across the glass. It was a minute before I could see the whole vehicle, not a SAAB: the agent had beet driving a SAAB.

I got onto my feet and the sky swung full-circle and the snow came up and crashed against my face.

Sound of engines. Two cars.

'Christ, get him up.'

I didn't want that, they could keep their bloody hands off.

'Keep your bloody hands off.'

'Anything broken?'

I got up by sliding my back against the roof of the Skoda while they stood watching me, Frome and another man.

'Has the DIF signalled yet?' I asked Frome.

'Not yet.'

'Has Rusakov signalled?'

'No.'

'Jesus,' the other man said, 'what was he driving?' He was looking at the mess that gun had made all over the Skoda. It's a bit of spook vernacular some of them affect, 'He was driving an AK-47,' that sort of thing. I asked him what his name was.' Oh, Dover, sir. You all right, are you?' He stood staring at me, bland-faced. Where did they find him, for God's sake?

'Which car is mine?' I asked Frome. I'd signalled him for a replacement 'Take your pick, but the Merc's more comfortable.'

It was a four-door 280 SEL, too big, less easy to hide than the shitty-looking little Trabant.

Head was throbbing. The seat-belt had snapped when we'd come down. I asked Frome, 'How serviceable is the Trab?'

'Oh, top line. She just looks like that.'

'I'll take it.'

Then I was face-down on the snow again and they were helping me up and I didn't say anything this time, we'd got a mission running and if this was the only way we could run it then all right.