The edges of the snow -- ruts broke under my boots as I kept on walking. From somewhere over to my left I heard a radio come to life, and faint voices; then it was quiet again.

He had done well, Belyak. I could only see two of the patrol cars from where I was now and their crews were inside them, keeping a low profile, but there'd be upwards of thirty vehicles forming the peripheral ring at two blocks' distance, because it would take at least that number to seal off the area effectively. When we'd left Militia Headquarters I'd counted five personnel carriers, and there could be others here, so that the actual number of armed bodies within and around the ring was probably in the region of two hundred. If I tried to break and run at any time, at any time at all, I would have as much chance as a rat in a dog -- pack.

It was 7:23 when I reached the building and kicked the worst of the snow off my boots and went through the entrance door and heard it swing shut behind me.

17 LIGHTS.

Ferris caught it before the second ring.

"Things went off all right,' I told him.

In a moment he said: 'I'll tell London.'

He just meant he was pleased, that was all, because he hadn't believed I'd got a ghost of a chance of going into Militia Headquarters and coming out again of my own free will. There was nothing in point of fact to tell London. The purpose of the exercise had been to stop Captain Vadim Rusakov from going down there and offering himself as the sacrificial lamb in order to get his sister out. I needed him.

I hadn't advanced the mission; I'd simply averted the terminal damage that Tanya had come appallingly close to causing when she'd walked out of that safe -- house in spite of my warning. But that was something, at least; we hadn't crashed Meridian, though it wasn't the kind of signal the director in the field could flash to Control in London.

Novosibirsk's just come in, sir. We've still got a mission running.

Croder would freeze him with his obsidian eyes.

How nice.

We're expected to do rather better than that, we the brave and underpaid ferrets in the field. But I had felt something move softly within when I'd seen her look back, just that once, before she'd vanished into the trees of the little park; you could call it joy of some kind, I suppose, or as close as I can ever get to such a thing inside the cold and scaly carapace of my defences.

As close as I'll let myself get? You read well, my good friend, between the lines.

'I blew the safe -- house,' I told Ferris. 'It was full of militia when I left there.'

'They were looking for you?'

'Yes.'

'What's your location now?'

'I'm about three miles away, at Iskitim Prospekt and -- wait a minute.' the glass panels were steaming up.' Iskitim Prospekt and Borodin ulica. And I've got the car here.' I'd just walked across the patch of waste ground where I'd left the Skoda earlier this afternoon. 'You've got Tanya in safe keeping?'

'Here at the hotel.'

'For God's sake try and make her understand,' I said,' that if she goes off on her own again we won't be able to help her.'

Lights swept across the telephone booth and I turned my back until they'd gone. I wouldn't have long: they'd be spreading the hunt.

'she's hating herself,' Ferris said. 'Feels she let you down.'

'Then maybe she's learned.' I tried to remember the names of the major intersections east of here, but a lot had gone on since I'd studied the map of the city on board the Rossiya. 'Look, I'm still a bit too close to things at the moment, so I'm going to start driving eastwards from here as soon as we shut down. Have I got a new safe -- house?'

'Yes. Nothing posh.'

'I'll take anything. I need someone to intercept and lead me there. You should also send someone to the Harbour Light Bar on the river.' I gave him the location. 'Captain Rusakov should be going there in a couple of minutes from now.' I repeated the description Rusakov had given me of himself and told Ferris about the recognition mark: the odd pair of gloves. 'He should be told as soon as possible that his sister's free and in safe keeping and that I'll meet him there as soon as I can. Where's the safe -- house?'

I could hear the faint crackling of a map on the line. 'Five kilometres from the Harbour Light, downstream on the river.'

'What sort of place is it?'

In a moment, 'It's an abandoned hulk. We didn't have much time to find anything better.'

'No problem.'

But it wasn't good news. If the best the director in the field could find for his executive was an abandoned hulk on the river it meant that the local support people were not only spread thin on the ground but couldn't come up with anything safer. It was the nearest they could get, I suppose, to a bloody cellar.

'There'll be a change of clothes forme there?' I asked Ferris. The collar of the uniform was rough and my neck had started itching.

'Clothes,' Ferris said, 'food, oil stove, oil lamp, bedding, the usual supplies.'

There hadn't been a trace of satisfaction in his tone but I said, 'More than I could have hoped for, considering.'

'Thank you.'

'Look, I'm still a major target and they'll start spreading out from the safe -- house the minute they find out I'm not there, so I want to get off the streets as soon as I can. Let Rusakov know that I'll try and meet him at the Harbour Light by nine o'clock.'

'Noted.'

'And tell the support man I'll start driving east from Borodin ulica along Iskitim in two minutes from now and I'll expect him to flash me when he intercepts.'

Ferris acknowledged and we shut down the signal and I shouldered the door of the booth open against the heavy spring and waited until a dark blue van went past with only the left headlight going; then I walked across the street to the patch of waste ground and got into the Skoda. The clock on the dash was three minutes slow and I adjusted it to read 8:02 and started the engine and moved off along Borodin, sitting with my neck forward a degree to keep it clear of my collar, not my collar in point of fact, the whole outfit belonged to the sallow -- faced and brutish -- looking militiaman who'd come sliding in there an hour after I'd finalized the deal with that fat stinking bitch.

She'd looked shocked at first when I'd told her what I wanted, sitting there like a great female Buddha in her rusty black satin dress, her rings glinting on her fat fingers and her mouth hanging open: 'But I couldn't ever do such a thing!' she'd get arrested and shot, so forth, hamming it up because she'd already scented money in it, perhaps quite a lot if she played hard to get.

I'd had to start from there.

'But they come in here, don't they? The militia? Just for a quickie?'

'It has happened,' she said cautiously.

'All right, I'll give you three hundred roubles for the uniform off the first militiaman my size who comes in here, the hat and the boots included, the whole kit. Three hundred.'

The huge Ottoman chair creaked as she shifted her weight in it, settling herself for the struggle. 'How could I possibly get such a thing for you?'

'Oh come on, Marina, how long have you been running a whorehouse? Tell him it's your birthday, give him two or three girls and a bottle of vodka and slip in a Mickey Finn.'

Her fleshy mouth opened in shock. 'You want me arrested?'

Rhetoric. I didn't answer.

'Can you imagine what they would charge me with? Physical assault on an officer of the law, attempted --'