‘What was the approach?’

‘You’re a woman, single and we formed a mutual attraction.’

‘Let’s hope nobody looks me in the eye when I spin that one.’

‘I invited you to dine with me, you did and we had a great evening, which ended in the bar. Use the name of the restaurant where we did eat in case anyone asks what you ordered.’

‘Hell, I can’t pronounce it, or half of what I ate.’

‘Even better, because the trick is to tell as few lies as possible – for instance, that you have not yet filed a story back to the States because you are looking for an angle that no one else has thought of.’

‘And that stuff about us being lovers?’

‘For emergencies only.’

‘Buster, the roof will have to fall in big time before that gets an airing.’

They were out in the suburbs now, which looked to be peaceful, but that did not last long because they came to their first checkpoint, Corrie making an unfunny pun about it being Czech.

The examination of papers was done with great courtesy; these young soldiers in their grey-green uniforms were conscripts, polite and, once they had perused her passport and seen the eagle, somewhat excited to meet a real American, which held them up longer than it should.

‘Those kids were sweet. I ain’t never been pointed at and called a film star before.’

‘They didn’t mean it, they’d say that to anyone from the USA.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Play on being American when we get to Cheb. Most people there will never have met anyone from outside their own area, often their own village, and everyone is enthralled by anything American. Being exotic—’

‘That’s a nice word.’

‘In your case, inappropriate.’

At the main railway station Jimmy Garvin was buying his ticket, rather excited to be going on a chase for a story without Vernon Bartlett breathing down his neck, imagining a big splash in the News Chronicle with a byline saying ‘from our special correspondent in the Sudetenland’; it might not use his name, but he would make sure no one was in doubt who wrote it.

But he had to remind himself to have a care, so he took up a position on the concourse from which he could watch the comings and goings; neither he or his mentor had any idea if Corrie Littleton was on the train, she might have been lying about that too, and given they had shared the same hotel she knew his face too well for him to be spotted.

While he was there the Paris-Prague Express arrived and disgorged its passengers. As they filed through the exit gate – their travel documents would have been examined on the train – he wondered at the purpose of those coming to Prague: businessmen, diplomats and maybe even the odd news hound too. Even his young imagination did not stretch to a desk chief from SIS.

Noel McKevitt had felt liberated ever since he left London; stuck in Broadway for five years now, he had forgotten the excitement of being out in the field. In London crowds you paid no attention to anyone unless they were striking; from the point where he had stepped aboard the train at Calais he had felt his old instincts begin to sharpen. By the time he made the Czech capital they were back and fully engaged.

It was not those who stood out in the mass you needed to spot when active, it was the exact opposite: those who blended in with the background had to be looked out for, the face that appeared too often and never looked at you directly, identified by the smallest of features, the tilt of a head, the cut of a chin, a certain gait when they moved.

In five years of sedentary work he had filled out from the slim field man he had been in Berlin, but Prague had to be awash with German agents and some of those might be the people he had sparred with previously in the German capital, and someone would have been given the task of watching the incoming express – and that was before you put devious old Quex into the mix.

Suitcase in hand, he joined the queue for taxis and shuffled forward until nearly at the front. Four places from his turn he suddenly picked up his bag and left the queue, his concentration on those lined up behind, cutting back into the station, stopping and retracing his steps, then making for the front of the station and the car he expected to be waiting for him. If it was probably unnecessary it was fun to employ the old tricks.

His lift was there: Dawson, one of the men he had sent to this station from Warsaw, standing by the rear passenger door so that it could be opened and closed quickly, his suitcase thrown on the floor. It was moving before he managed to shift to a comfortable position, weaving out into the traffic.

‘Have you got anything to cheer me up?’

‘In what way, sir?’

‘A name would be a start.’

‘We’ve got more than a hundred and we’re still trawling. It would help if we had some idea of what we’re looking for.’

Noel McKevitt was not good with subordinates, being too abrupt, too demanding; he knew he was not the type to inspire loyalty out of love of his personality, so he had never tried, but he reckoned he was respected for his ability and that allowed him to be brusque.

‘The best-manned station in Europe by a country mile and you can’t give me an answer.’

The reply came back as swift and hard as his dismissal of their efforts. ‘Before you have an answer, sir, it is usual to have a question.’

‘Just get me to the embassy.’

Time was not on his side; he could stall Quex on the grounds of the need for discretion but not for too long. The old bugger would be monitoring what he did, so he had to come up with a way of nailing his man in a way that breached the usual protocols of dealing with British subjects abroad. Having had a long and silent train journey he thought he had the answer.

‘Do we have the Czech equivalent of a police warrant card?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware, sir.’

‘Then we need to get one.’

The checkpoint soldiers outside Prague had been jolly, young and friendly but that seemed to diminish the further Cal and Corrie travelled from the capital, just as the queues to get through them got longer. That left them ample time to talk – it was a warm sunny day, the hood of the Zeppelin was down and Cal saw no need to race – in some part to reminisce, while Cal was aware of the little probing darts she threw to get information.

It took some time to realise that this was the first time they had been alone in each other’s company; in Africa there had always been people around, on the old camel route into Ethiopia upwards of a hundred warriors, in the country numerous folk and at the very least Vince Castellano and Tyler Alverson.

Without an audience to witness and laugh at her jibes, Corrie became less sharp, and since she did not rile him, Cal did not respond, while added to that they had shared experience. He was also aware and wondering why he had not noticed before that she was much more feminine than she had been either on first acquaintance or on their subsequent travels – hardly surprising; it’s not what you look for in the midst of a conflict.

It was not just the way she now dressed but also in her manner; she had always struck him a bit juvenile and added to that there was her endemic bumptiousness and strident views which she was not shy in expressing. He asked about her mother, an archaeologist he had met in Africa whom he thought crazed, and her father whom he knew she was fond of, but he was never going to get away without the classic query about his own state of matrimony.

‘I once asked Vince if you were married.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘You’d think I’d asked for the number of your safe deposit box.’

‘We boys stick together.’

‘Look, Cal, if we are going into what you say we are that is the kind of question to which I need an answer. We are supposed to have only just met but hit it off, and if I don’t know too much about that kind of deal I do know your marital condition is the kind of information people who are attracted to each other share. I need some background.’