It was the militia major's belief, for what little that was worth, that unless the traffic lights on Botkin Street were repaired their failure would lead to an accident, but there was nothing he could do. A waste of his time to try to dig out an engineer from Roads and Transport at a weekend.

In his briefcase was a book that would help him through the afternoon.

He was held up at the lights at the junction on Botkin.

A main intersection and all the lights showing red, and the dumb fools waiting as if they had a day to kill.

Could not have happened in Moscow. Could only happen in this second-class junk yard to which he had been consigned. After eleven months in the backwater of Yalta it still burned in him that he had been dismissed from the capital and posted to oblivion.

He had been a captain in the Organ of State Security.

He had had a promising future in the KGB. By hard work, by passing his exams, he had entered the favoured Guards Directorate. He had served in the personal protection squad of the Politburo member who was First Deputy Prime Minister. He had been tipped for mem-bership of the guard assigned to the General Secretary of the Party. And he had drunk too much, been smashed out of his skull. He had been reduced to corporal and transferred.

He was no longer the high flier. He no longer possessed the plastic card that gave him access to the luxury goods at the State Security Commissariat. He no longer lived in a three-bedroomed flat with a view over the park. One bottle of vodka, after a stint of 41 hours continuous duty, had greased him down the pole.

Caught drunk in uniform on the street, on his back in the gutter, and dumped with his wife and two toddler children onto a 23-hour train journey to nowhere, Yalta.

Of course it still burned. From the personal protection squad of a Politburo member, with the magic card and the right to carry a Makarov PM 9mm automatic pistol, down the chute to KGB corporal. He was unarmed. He was at the wheel of a sluggish Chaika car which needed a new gear box. He was a chauffeur, and held up at the lights on Botkin Street, and his job was to drive the ambassador from Great Britain.