'You.' 'Come on for Christ's sake I want briefing!' He jerked back and stared at me. 'I want to know what else that truck's carrying and where it's going and why he's got a free run across the frontier. I want information, is that too much to ask?' He pulled himself round on his seat and said a bit shakily: 'Look, I haven't been told all that much. You're being briefed in Moscow, they said. All I'm here for is -' 'Information, don't you know what it means? About the truck.' 'Oh. Well,' he gave a long riffling sniff, 'it's taking luxury goods across for the black market in Leipzig, a regular run. Scotch and perfume and American goods, jazz records and cassettes and stuff like -' 'Who runs this?' 'The Party, if you want to go right to the top. It's for them and their wives, the same thing that goes on in Moscow. They -' 'How often does this truck go across?' 'About every month. It varies.' 'Just the driver, no one with him?' 'No. He -' 'Is he Russian? East German? West German?' 'He's from Hamburg.' 'Has he ever been turned back?' 'Only once. He -' 'Only once?' He caught his breath and said in a moment, 'There was a new guard commander, and he wasn't tipped off. He was changed again.' I didn't want to know any more. This was Russian roulette they'd got me playing: either we'd get across the frontier or we wouldn't. Either I'd find Schrenk or I wouldn't. All I could do was to stop thinking and let the strain off and leave it to Croder and try to believe he knew what he was doing. I shut my eyes for a while, until I heard the faint clinking of snow chains and the throb of a diesel engine. There was light flushing across the road behind us. 'Is this Gunther?' 'Yes. He said he'd -' 'How do you know it's not someone else?' 'There shouldn't be anyone else up here, this time of night.' 'Shouldn't? Jesus Christ.' I wished Ferris were here, or someone who didn't leave everything to chance. 'It's okay,' Floderus said, 'he's flashing us.' 'What sort of terrain is there,' I asked him wearily, 'between here and the checkpoint?' 'What? Oh, just rocks, and a few trees.' 'Why doesn't he just give a blast on the horns?' He stared at me. 'They'd hear it from the frontier.' Some kind of laughter came out of me, maybe panic in disguise. The truck came alongside and I waited for Floderus to check the driver before I got out and opened the rear door of the car and changed coats and put on the fur hat; at least London had got this much right, pulling the tailor out of bed as well, to check on the size. 'Gloves,' I said. 'Oh.' He gave them to me. 'This is Gunther,' he said in German. A thick-shouldered man in a reefer jacket and woollen hat, his flat square face half buried in a scarf. 'Everything is in order,' he said. 'Why were you late?' 'There was snow.' He pulled open the rear doors of the truck and jumped up. 'In here.' Most of the stuff on the floor was Scotch, in cases of a dozen bottles, and he had to shift four of them before he could drag the lid of the recess upwards and swing it to one side. The compartment was lined with felt. He stood clear of it to let the roof light shine down. 'What's underneath?' 'Nothing,' he said. 'The road. But it's thick, and there are steel brackets.' 'Do you bring people across in this, the other way?'