our backs to the light, our faces hidden, our shadows standing against the wall like a group photograph in silhouette, none of us moving as we stood listening to the whimper of tyres as the brakes came on, a man's voice — one of the NATO guards — then another voice, fainter, from inside the car, the engine idling and then speeding up, the sound of the transmission in reverse, the group of silhouettes against the wall shifting to one side as the headlights swung away and the gloom came down again and we turned like puppets, taking up our positions again.

'You have a reputation,' Shepley's soft voice came, 'of showing resistance when offered a new mission. I'll suffer you not to waste my time.'

'This thing,' I said at once, 'was thrown at me cold.'

'I take your point. But time is of the essence. We need to hurry.'

'All right, but I need to know more, a lot more.'

'Of course. You'll be fully briefed. For the moment — ' he began pacing suddenly and I joined him, glad of the chance of movement '- for the moment I simply want you to agree to a meeting with Yasolev. It would take place in East Berlin; he wouldn't come to you, but you would go to him. This was a concession on my part during the initial approach. For your protection — or for the protection, shall I say, of the executive undertaking the assignment — I pushed the KGB very hard for a hostage for us to hold in London, and they finally agreed to send a major-general of the Red Army.' We reached a wall and turned back, our footsteps raising small echoes. 'I also demanded four of our agents — SIS, not Bureau — to be freed from captivity in Moscow and returned to London, together with three Americans. I therefore offered the token concession of our meeting Yasolev on his home ground.'

'Alone?'

'Yes. Again, you'll be fully briefed. You should also know at this point that the mission is to be strictly confined to the intelligence community in London, with not the slightest involvement with the Foreign Office or overseas embassies — unless the circumstances of the mission call for it. But if you accepted the assignment you would have the full resources of the Bureau at your command, under my personal and constant supervision.'