'He worked there for two years, before he was seconded to the field-executive branch. He knows everything about it.' I didn't understand. 'But who could have let him -' 'That is not your concern.' Spittle came against his lower lip, and in a moment he licked it away and said more slowly, 'For your information, it wasn't I.' I let it go. Someone had blundered, and disastrously, because once you're with a cell you stay there till your time's up: you don't go anywhere else and you don't get seconded to the field-executive pool, because you know too much of value and they won't risk sending you into the field where the opposition can pick you up and drag you in and take your brain apart. But someone had done that with Schrenk. 'Your only concern,' Croder said with a lot of control, 'is to find him and pull him out - if indeed you're prepared to do that for us.' The need for control worried me, because this man was known for his cool and he'd lost it, and in front of the executive he was desperate to recruit. My nerves were jumping again. 'You would receive intensive support, I need hardly say.' 'In Moscow?' 'Right in the target area, wherever that may be. Cut-outs, back-ups, shields -' 'No shields -' He shrugged. 'You may be glad -' 'I said no shields.' My own control wasn't too good and I waited and counted three. 'I make my own decisions and my own mistakes and I won't involve anyone else.' Shields were dangerous; they could get in your way, and when the crunch came they'd save themselves, not you. 'What about the director in the field? If the timing's that close you can't -' 'Bracken,' he said. 'Bracken's in Singapore.' 'We called him in.' He moved his eyes to the clock over the information desk. 'He is at present airborne with BAC, arriving Moscow at noon tomorrow, local time.' He waited. 'I've never worked with him.' 'He's first class, you know that. He directed Fenton in Cairo last year. He got Matthews out of Pekin. First class.' There were thirty minutes left on the clock, and I thought of something else. 'When did you find out Schrenk was back in Moscow?' 'Early this morning.' 'Then you haven't had time to set it up. I'm not -' 'It was ready to run before I called base from Geneva. You have a director, a safe-house, contacts, sleepers, signal availability and Embassy liaison.' His thin mouth was contemptuous. 'What more do you want, for God's sake?' 'Access. I'm on their files and I'd never get through the airport.' 'You have access by road into East Germany.' 'Overt?' 'Of course not.' 'What are you talking about, a bloody farm cart or something?' 'A closed truck will take you across the frontier at Zellerfeld, in the Harz Mountains, with no questions asked.' He was blocking me every time. I was his last hope, I knew that now. He'd tried half a dozen other people and drawn blank, because this was a suicide trip and he didn't pretend it was anything else. 'What about access into Moscow?' 'By commercial airline: Aeroflot. We have a seat for you on the morning flight from Leipzig, where the truck will drop you. It's perfectly straightforward.' I took a slow breath. 'Cover?' 'Transit papers, East German national.' It was beginning to sound like a trap and I stopped thinking about it for a minute, watching the people in the group by the main doors. A man was shouting his head off now and so was his wife: he wanted asylum but his wife said it would mean leaving her mother behind, and the secret police would take reprisals. A younger man, possibly their son, was trying to make them shut up. Two more policemen were marching towards them, unbuttoning their holsters to make an effect. A crowd was collecting. Fluggaste fur Flug Nummer 903 fur Hannover kommen Sie bilge so fort Eingang Nummer 2.