‘This is an authorized demand for retribution,’ insisted the obese man.

Agayans hesitated momentarily and Kazin thought the division head was going to argue further that the order should come from Malik, who was now the controller of that part of Asia. Instead Agayans took a dossier from his briefcase, offering it across the desk, and said simply: ‘I propose gas attacks on selected villages proven to support the mujahideen. Well-poisoning, in addition, along all the major and recognized supply and infiltration routes.’

Agayans had a clerk-like mentality, his life ruled by regulations and documentation, and he’d assembled his proposal with a single-sheet precis uppermost, encompassing the most important of the listed suggestions. Kazin’s eyes fixed upon just one part of the summary: he had never expected the man positively to refer to Vasili Malik and his Kabul memorandum by name in the file that lay before him. Curbing his excitement he said: ‘What is the casualty estimation?’

‘I am putting the figure provisionally at between seven to eight thousand,’ said the twitching man. ‘I have already ordered the rezidentura in Kabul to identify target villages for the maximum impact.’

‘Initiate it,’ instructed Kazin. There would be a supreme irony in establishing himself in the eyes of the Gorbachov regime not as the traditionalist he was suspected of being but as someone embracing the new principles when he very publicly cancelled what amounted practically to genocide.

‘What about Comrade First Deputy Malik?’

‘I will be responsible for Comrade First Deputy Malik,’ said Kazin. There was something almost orgasmic in openly uttering the private promise.

3

Yuri Malik stood at the window of his cramped quarters in the guarded and prison-like Soviet compound in Kabul, looking out over the Afghanistan capital.