They beat me up.

Then you know what I mean, Tanya. The militia are no different, even now. They'll get everything out of you, once they start, and that is why you have to stay with me.

The glass panels of the booth were filthy, and one of them had words scrawled on it by an angry finger -- Gorbachev murdered the Motherland. Beyond it the sun was down, crimsoning the earth's rim as its sac burst at last and spilled its blood across the horizon.

There was so little time.

The line clicked.

'Captain Rusakov speaking.'

14 LIPSTICK.

'Are you alone?'

In a moment he said, 'I don't understand.'

'Are you alone in the room?'

'Yes. Who is this?'

'Your sister has been arrested.'

I heard him let out a breath, and then there was another brief silence before he asked me again, 'Who is this?' there was caution in his voice now, and an undertone of shock; in the last few seconds his life had lurched.

'Write this down,' I told him.' there's a rooming -- house with a bar at Pier 9 on the river, the west bank. The bar is called Harbour Light. Wait for me there at --'

'Where are they holding her?'

'Listen carefully,' I told him. 'We've got to cover the important things first, in case we're interrupted.' A militia patrol -- car had crossed the intersection a minute ago, eastwards towards the river. 'You should know that I am your ally and that I'm going to try getting your sister free tonight. Now I want you to wait for me at a table at the Harbour Light Bar at Pier 9 on the west bank of the Ob at eight o'clock this evening. You should --'

'Give me your name,' he said.

Not too bright, this army man, trained to respect discipline, to have his life run for him on rails, didn't care for anonymous phone calls. But he'd at least had the imagination and the necessary passion to set up an assassination and bring it off, a private enough act, he hadn't done that to orders.

Or had he?

The thought came at me like a stray bullet and I filed it. That had been the second attempt on the life of General Velichko.

'Rusakov,' I said, 'if you waste my time you could wreck our chances of getting your sister free. She'll be under interrogation now and may at any moment expose you, under duress, as the assassin of General Gennadi Velichko. Are you prepared to cooperate with me?'

A huge shape was on the move beyond the filthy window of the booth, and I watched it.

What I didn't want him to do was panic and put the phone down and run for some kind of cover. He would have got the point by now: it didn't need a lot of intelligence. The instant his sister told the militia who had shot Velichko there'd be a telephone call from the officer commanding Militia Headquarters to the officer commanding the Russian Army garrison with a request that Captain Vadim Rusakov of Ordnance Unit Three be placed under immediate arrest on suspicion of murder pending the arrival of prisoner transport and an officer bearing information.

If Rusakov ran, I would lose the second key to Meridian.

The dark shape moved slowly past the gap between the rooming -- house and a stevedore's gantry, and its port riding light bloomed like a rose in the river fog. A freighter bringing salmon, perhaps, canned salmon from Kamen' -- na -- Obi in the south for my friend out there in the taxi.

'I am going there now,' I heard Rusakov saying.

'Going where?'

'To Militia Headquarters.' His tone was strong, adamant.' that's where they must be holding my sister. I will give myself up --'

'Rusakov --'

'I will give myself up and tell them she had nothing to do with it!'

'Rusakov, listen to me. They won't take your word for that. They'll get at the truth and the truth is that she was an accomplice. She --'

'I must help her! She is my sister!'

God give me patience. 'If you go there, Rusakov, you will both be held for enquiries and by midnight tonight they'll have got the whole thing out of you and there'll be nothing I can do for Tanya. You will have condemned her.'

I waited.

Emergency numbers, it said on a panel by the phone, 01 Fire Service, 02 Militia, 03 Ambulance. It is not necessary to use coins.

'Why should I believe you?' Rusakov was asking suddenly.

'Why would I call you and warn you to lie low if I didn't want to help you?'

Waited again. Time was running out, would go on running out as the minutes and the hours measured the long night's passing and I did what I could, what I must, before it was too late. I wanted to shout at this man, force him to understand what he'd got to do; but that wouldn't work: I had to appeal to his intelligence.

His voice came again. 'Why should you want to help me?'

'It would take too long, Rusakov, to tell you. I'm going to give you a last chance, and remember that the longer they keep Tanya there the worse it's going to be for her, and that I alone can hope to get her free. Now write this down.' I went over it again, the name and location of the bar and the time of the rendezvous. 'Go there in civilian dress,' I told him, 'not in uniform. You should --'

'I am on duty until midnight.'

'Then request immediate compassionate leave: say that you've just heard that your sister was injured in the crash of the Rossiya and you must visit her at the hospital immediately. Can you do that?'

'Yes.'

'Good. You should put on your oldest clothes: the Harbour Light is a seaman's hangout. When I go in there to find you I shall look for a pair of slightly odd gloves lying on the table beside you. Now give me your description.'

He took a moment to think. 'I shall be wearing a --'

'Colour of eyes?'

'What? Green.'

I took him through it -- clean -- shaven, height one metre ninety -- two, weight one -- sixty, medium build, no visible scars. I didn't need all that for the rendezvous in the bar but I might need it later if he didn't show up or panicked and went to ground or made things tricky for me until he was ready to trust me.

'All right, you'll be wearing?'