'But he couldn't have known,' I said hopelessly, 'much about it:

'He worked there for two years, before he was seconded to the field-executive branch. He knows everything about it.'

I didn't understand. 'But who could have let him — '

'That is not your concern.' Spittle came against his lower lip, and in a moment he licked it away and said more slowly, 'For your information, it wasn't I.'

I let it go. Someone had blundered, and disastrously, because once you're with a cell you stay there till your time's up: you don't go anywhere else and you don't get seconded to the field-executive pool, because you know too much of value and they won't risk sending you into the field where the opposition can pick you up and drag you in and take your brain apart. But someone had done that with Schrenk.

'Your only concern,' Croder said with a lot of control, 'is to find him and pull him out — if indeed you're prepared to do that for us.' The need for control worried me, because this man was known for his cool and he'd lost it, and in front of the executive he was desperate to recruit. My nerves were jumping again. 'You would receive intensive support, I need hardly say.'

'In Moscow?'

'Right in the target area, wherever that may be. Cut-outs, back-ups, shields — '

'No shields — '

He shrugged. 'You may be glad — '

'I said no shields.' My own control wasn't too good and I waited and counted three. 'I make my own decisions and my own mistakes and I won't involve anyone else.' Shields were dangerous; they could get in your way, and when the crunch came they'd save themselves, not you. 'What about the director in the field? If the timing's that close you can't — '

'Bracken,' he said.

'Bracken's in Singapore.'

'We called him in.' He moved his eyes to the clock over the information desk. 'He is at present airborne with BAC, arriving Moscow at noon tomorrow, local time.' He waited.