'Yes.' then I said, 'You'd better tell London.'

There was a brief silence before he said, 'Will do.'

I shut down the radio and saw them in the signals room, their heads turning as they heard Frame's voice coming over the amplifier: DIF went missing 23:15 last night, no signal since.

Strictly no dancing in the streets.

The floes rang and rattled against the beam of the Natasha, and I went up the companionway and stood on the deck, leaning against the mast for cover. The air was calm, and the stars clung to the haze over the city like fireflies trapped on a web. There was still traffic on the river, a motor -- barge pushing its way through the white crust of the ice, smoke from its funnel lying in a dark rope across the water. I could hear a woman laughing somewhere, perhaps on board the wreck of the sailing boat farther along the quay, where a light was showing below deck. It was a wonderful sound, coming softly through the night, through this of all nights when joy was hard to come by. It came again, and I sipped courage from it, feeling release and renewal, not surprisingly, I suppose, given the natural grace of womankind to succour the needy.

I stayed for minutes there, clamped by the cold but letting the energy gather, not wanting to go short while I had the chance. Then I went below deck again, and before I'd reached the cabin the radio started beeping and I opened it up.

'Executive.'

'Support. I've got a signal from Captain Rusakov. You want to write it down?'

'I don't think so.'

Head had started throbbing again, I suppose because the pulse was faster, this could be a breakthrough.

'The two generals are going to be leaving the army camp at 17:3 0 hours. Armoured transports have been ordered for that time.'

17:30: in nine minutes from now. Armoured transports: that should take care of any suicide run by the rogue agent.

'Does Rusakov know the destination?'

'Yes. There's a building on the road east from the town, Kievskay a ulica. It's a mansion, used to be the residence of the state governor The generals are going to have some kind of meeting there.'

I opened the map with one hand and spread it on the table.'did he give you a reference for the location?'

'It's setback in a park, a kilometre west of the power station. I've got it, have you?'

'Yes.' there was silence while we both worked on our maps' Twenty kilometres from the camp, twenty -- five from here.'

'Right.'

I wouldn't be able to reach the camp before the generals left, but I could reach the mansion before they did, if the road wasn't snowed under.

'How soon can you get here?' I asked Frome.

'Gimme ten minutes.'

'Bring the Mercedes.' the little Trabant out there didn't have enough ground -- clearance.

'Got it.'

I checked the time. 'Listen, we're cutting it very fine -- I want you to do a running drop and put me outside that building before the generals arrive.'

'Oh Jesus,' he said, 'I better move it.'

23 VOICES.

The dark pressed down across the snows from horizon to horizon, and our headlights cut a dazzling swathe through the landscape, the back -- glare painful against the eyes.

I had asked Frame to drive. He knew the car and I was still slipping focus now and then. There was a certain amount of discomfort hanging around: the seat -- belt in the Skoda had snapped while we were going through the final crunch, and the impact had opened a thigh wound and left sundry bruises. But the pain was a help, keeping the organism aware of itself during the time when consciousness wavered.

'Have you done a running drop before?' I asked Frome.

'Seen a couple.'

The front end of the Mercedes hit a transverse rut where tracks crossed the road, and we slid at an angle until Frome got it worked out. I didn't say anything. He already knew we were running things critically close and that if we lost even five minutes having to dig ourselves out of a drift we'd be too late and blow the drop.

The generals' transport column would be somewhere to the south, according to the map, and heading for the mansion in the park along a road more or less parallel to ours, and it shouldn't be long before we picked up their lights in the distance. The meeting would obviously be policed by the military contingent on board the transports, and once they were deployed in a ring round the building I wouldn't have a chance of getting inside. There could be security guards there now, and that was why I'd decided to do a running drop.

'We'd better go through it,' I told Frome. 'First, if it doesn't look as if I've got a reasonable hope of making it, don't do it at all, jus: back off and get clear. Second, when you give me the signal, keep running straight for at least five seconds, given a speed often c: twelve miles an hour -- don't turn earlier than that.' the top of the windscreen began coming down across my eyes, and I realized my head was tilting backwards against the padded rest as the sound of the car faded. Sat up straight and got focus again.' third, whatever happens, don't go back if there's any opposition around -- leave me to make my own way out. Let's run through it again.'

'Don't do it,' Frome said parrot -- fashion, 'if it looks dicey, don : turn for five seconds, don't go back if there's a crowd. Got it.'

I checked the time at 5:49 and twisted in my seat to watch the south. The lights of the city slashed the dark along the west horizon; the rest of the world was a snowfield, ghostly pale under the stars.

'shit,' Frome said and played with the wheel as the Merc drifted the winter stems of a copse swinging across the windscreen, the lights throwing their shadows in a moving frieze against the snow I picked up the convoy to the south two minutes later, a thin chair of lights lying across the steppe.

'We're well ahead of them,' I told Frome.

Another minute and we reached the east -- west road out of the city and the trees of the park lifted from the landscape, silver -- grey snow -- covered, not far from the two chimneys of the power station to the east.

'Anywhere here,' I told Frome and he pulled up on the churned surface of a truck exit to minimize wheelspin later.

I got a tyre -- lever out of the boot and dropped it onto the passenger's seat and stood for a moment watching the string of lights to the south. It was near enough to show movement now: the transports had met the east -- west road and were turning towards the park.

'Is it a go?' Frome asked me.

'Yes. Stand off somewhere outside the park. If I need you later I'll use the walkie.'

I got down onto the snow and slid under the Mercedes, feeling for hand -- holds good enough to use with gloves on, staying aft of the gearbox and to the driver's side of the propeller shaft away from the exhaust silencer, finding a cross -- member with enough space above it for my hands and swinging my feet up, getting one of them lodged above the chassis and kicking with the other one until my boot found purchase on the back -- axle casing.

Light began flooding the road to the west, and I could hear the rumbling of the military column, the faint ringing of the snow -- chains on the smaller vehicles, the drumming of diesels. My right foot had slipped off the rounded axle casing and I shifted backwards, swinging my boot up again, but everything was blacking out and the sound of the transports died to silence, and in the silence I heard Frome's voice, a long way off.

'You all right?'

My shoulders were on the snow and the nape of my neck was freezing, but I couldn't move: the intention was there but the muscles were numbed. The light from the leading vehicle of the column was creeping under the Mercedes.

'You all right, are you?"

Said yes, but it didn't make any sound.

Cold against the neck, freezing cold, and my left foot coming away from the chassis and dropping onto the snow. The light crept, brighter now.