But the trade-off was obvious: if the Chief of Signals was prepared to order it, it meant that he wanted me to have every single advantage he could give me for Balalaika because it was that dangerous. How much, then, was I ready to listen to my conscience? How willing was I to go into this one with someone directing me in the field who lacked Ferris' experience, brilliance, intuition, and ability to get me home with a few bones left, to pull me out of God knew what bloodied stew of an end-phase where Balalaika could leave me foundering?

I have little stomach, my good friend, for the last-ditch eleventh-hour death-or-glory gotterdammerung favoured by some of the shadows – Kruger, Blake, Cosgrove. Bold fellows, but they carry within them the death-watch beetle, quietly burrowing.

'If you took Ferris off Rickshaw,' Iasked Croder, 'who would replace him?'

'That is hardly your business.'

Perfectly true. I was being offered a director in the field of my own choosing and I could take him or leave him. I wasn't invited to play any part in decision-making at the highest control level.

'Then if I agreed to work this one,' I said, 'I'd need Ferris.'

Croder's head came up. 'You would have him.'

'I'm not saying -'

'You would have him,' Croder nodded quickly, 'if you in fact decided to accept the mission. It doesn't commit you.'

Croder has – has always had – his scruples. Tonight he was ready to give me anything I asked for as an incentive to get me into Balalaika, but he was going to stop short of coercion.

'What about -' I stopped short as the distant thudding of an assault rifle started hammering at the walls of the church – distant but closer, a lot closer than the last shots we'd heard. We waited for it to finish: I would have put it at a three-second burst, quite long enough to bring about what was intended.