They were in the departure lounge. Holt and Jane went off in search of coffee for themselves and an orange juice, diluted, for the ambassador.

"Bit heavy, wasn't it, the security?"

"They've their quota of nasties just like the rest of us." He'd noticed, since reaching Moscow, how much she enjoyed filling him in on insider detail. Couldn't have happened in London, when he was doing his initial FCO time and she was just a secretary in Whitehall.

"Georgians and Jews and Estonians and Ukrainians, they've all got grievances, they all foster little cells that want to get out. Not easy. They've sent up fighters to shoot down aircraft that have been hijacked in the past.

And if there's half a chance of settling the problem on the ground then they go in firing. Happened last year.

They don't play about here, none of your patient negotiation. Storm and shoot is their answer. Not that they admit there's a political problem. It's always drug addicts and delinquents. I laugh like a drain each time I hear of a hijack. It's the biter bit, isn't it? That little shit Carlos was trained at the Patrice Lumumba University right here in down-town Moscow. And he's only the tip of the iceberg. They train them to do horrible things to us, and we broadcast on BBC World Service and the Voice of America what they've done, and the folks back home pretty soon get into the same act."

"Is that what you specialise in?" Holt asked.

She smiled at him, a big and open smile. She said,

' 'God knows why Ben wants orange juice, it's quite foul here.. . There's a fancy dress party at the dacha next Saturday, what'll we go as?"