The sun was almost down, reddening the sky against the foothills of the faraway mountains and from two separate mosques the muezzin prayer calls to the Muslem devout jarred slightly out of unison, priests in competition with each other for the salvation of the faithful. Priests or mullahs? It didn’t matter. Whatever, they were cheer-leading a lot of press-ups for nothing: this place was beyond redemption. Beyond anything. Where’s my salvation, Comrade God? If he’d believed it would work he would have prayed himself, Malik thought: even done the press-ups. Are you listening, Comrade God? Malik wished someone were. Yuri still could not lose his astonishment at his father’s attitude: always before the man had been omnipotent, the purveyor of miracles. OK, so maybe when he was attached to an entirely different Chief Directorate there was a barely acceptable explanation for his refusal, but that did not apply any longer. The damned man was actually joint chairman of the very Chief Directorate controlling this stinking country. So why hadn’t there been any intervention, the sort of intervention he’d pleaded for that last night, during that stiff and resentful final dinner? Nepotism had been another of his father’s arguments: said it was an accusation he could not risk, at that time. Rubbish, like every other excuse. The Soviet Union existed and ran on nepotism, family helping family, friends helping friends! Always had done: always would do. There had to be another reason, a proper reason. So far it didn’t make sense; nothing made sense.

It was dark outside now, smoke from the fires cooking the inevitable lamb roping up whitely against the sky, but Yuri was not looking any more out into Kabul but at his own reflection, mirrored in the blackened window. Not even his appearance made sense! The tan from the Afghan sun accentuated the fairness of his hair and although it was not as positive as a mirror he knew it heightened the blueness of his eyes as well. Actually Western, not Slavic! And more incongruous – ridiculous, considering the posting – positively unlike the other Asian-skinned and Asian-featured and Asian-speaking operatives at the embassy. He looked – and felt – as conspicuous as a VD warning tattooed on a tart’s navel.