Talk of inseparable divisions between Chief Directorates was so much bullshit: just like the lecture about the necessity of avoiding political infighting within the organization was so much bullshit. Yuri was… was what? Surprised wasn’t strong enough. Bewildered was better: bewildered because his father had never before refused him, in anything he had asked. Until now, when he’d made the most important request of all.

One realization brought another: that from now on Yuri Vasilivich Malik was the only person likely to help Yuri Vasilivich Malik.

Even his Kabul sex life was linked to that philosophy.

Both the secretary and the translator sensed his indifference and both tried with the desperation of single women in an environment of attached men to keep him in their beds, willing to share him unprotestingly and to innovate any sort of sexual experimentation he cared to suggest.

Yuri suggested a lot. And not all of it sexual. Yuri was circumspect, never appearing obviously to question but simply to listen sympathetically as they pillow-gossiped their day-to-day activities. It gave him access to the innermost secrets of the Kabul embassy; secrets, he was sure, unknown even to the official KGB security officer who was supposed to be informed of everything.

‘There’s a lot of Eyes-Only traffic being directed to the rezident from Moscow,’ disclosed the secretary, whose name was Ilena and who worked exclusively for the Kabul KGB controller, Georgi Petrovich Solov.

‘What about?’ said Yuri, the casualness successfully concealing his immediate interest.

They had just finished one of his favourite ways of making love and she still lay with her mouth wetly against his thigh. She said: ‘I’ve not seen it all: it looks as if a major operation is being planned.’

‘A lot of extra work for you, then?’ he lured.