'Is everything all right?' Corrine had turned to look at me again.

'Perfectly. He left a clear field. Don't worry.' She worked in Codes and Ciphers and knew some of the routine when an agent blew it. She wanted to feel sure Hubbard hadn't messed things up. 'Feel like another drink?'

She thought about it and then said, 'No. I've got no excuse to get smashed.' I'd given her two brandies, one before take-off and one an hour ago.

'Mr Ash?'

The stewardess gave me back my card and led me to the flight deck and the skipper introduced himself.

'This phone here. George, can you shift over a bit?'

The flight engineer twisted out of his seat and passed me the phone.

'Ash.'

'Parole and countersign.' Tinsley's voice, from the signals room: I could hear the background.

'Fanfare.'

'North 5. We want you to change flights in Rome for West Berlin. There's a Lufthansa leaving at 19:07 hours for Tegel airport direct, which gives you twenty-two minutes to switch. That's ample. Have you got any baggage?'

'No.' But I didn't understand. 'Is this for debriefing?'

Just the slightest hesitation — I only just caught it. 'Yes.'

'In Berlin?'

'What we want you to do,' Tinsley said carefully, 'is to put down at Tegel and go to the Hertz counter and wait there. You'll be met by two of our people and the parole is for October. Have you got that?'

'Yes.'

All I could think of was that Hubbard's ambush had started making waves and either there was a West German connection or my debriefer was going to fly with me to London and go through it on the way. It was no good asking Tinsley anything: he'd just told me to shut up. I looked past the battery of circuit-breakers on the engineer's panel at the lights of Rome glowing in the windscreen. Maybe he hadn't left a clear field after all, Hubbard, and in London they were waiting for some kind of shit to hit the fan.