The view of both streets is excellent and a lookout is normally stationed to make sure that any staff coming in has not been tagged to base by an adverse party. The lookout has a pair of Zeiss close-focus square 15's and can see the hairs on a fly at fifty yards. As one of the only three agents operating (in my case technically) from this base I couldn't go down either of these streets without being seen. It had been half-way down the den Eichen that I had sensed the tag.

Hengel hadn't only lost me within five minutes but had picked me up by sheer chance, and he knew it. If I told him that I knew it too he'd draw blood from his lip. If I told him he'd missed by ninety minutes an attempt on the life he was so eager to safeguard he'd bust a gut.

So I had just finished my beer and left him.

Back at the hotel I had some food and went up to tune-in to Eurosound. The Bourse was being read now. My signal was just coming up.

Quota Freight Tenders: 878¼. Plus 2½.

RhoneElectric: 626

1 switched off.

The ‘Communication Post and Bourse’ system is limited but foolproof. One of our cipher staff dreamed it up himself. It is relatively safe to entrust a signal to the ordinary postal services, and in the Federal Republic as safe as anywhere in the world. The agent doesn't stamp his letters because it might not be easy at any given moment (when leaving a theatre, for instance) to find a stamp. More important, an unstamped letter is virtually registered, since it must be handed personally to the addressee by the postman in order to collect the fee and tax. Thus, even if an agent is carrying a vital document and suspects he is being followed by an adverse party who might intend capturing the document at gun-point at the first chance, he can get rid of it readily at the nearest postbox and ensure its safety.