'No?' 'He's in the transport division, one of the chauffeurs for the Politburo.' 'Are you sure?' 'Of course.' She wiped her face, half turned away from me. 'You didn't tell me much, you see, the first time we met. All I'm trying to do is find Helmut.' 'I didn't trust you, before.' 'What makes you trust me now?' She leaned back against the railings and closed her eyes, exhausted from the anger and hope and uncertainty. After these last months I'd started her thinking about him again and it had disrupted her life. 'I trust you now because I want to. Because I have to.' 'They're good enough reasons. Listen, Natalya, I want to find Ignatov. Do you know where he lives?' 'No. We always met at the cafe, or the skating rink, places like that. But I can find out exactly where he works.' Another Syrena. Mud brown. Not D.12-145. The clock in the tower had stopped chiming. I watched the mirror. 'Can you find out tonight?' 'No. I don't have the keys of the office.' 'Is there anyone you can contact, whoever has the keys? Tell them you want to catch up on some work?' She thought for a moment and then said, 'I could ask the security men to let me in with -' 'No, don't do that.' I stood closer to her. 'Listen, the KGB wants to find Helmut too. Think of it as a race - they get to him first, or I do. It's partly up to you who wins. Keep away from Ignatov and don't change your daily routine. Don't tell anyone about me and don't tell anyone there's a hope of finding Helmut. Try to forget him as much as you can, otherwise you might give yourself away. And him. All understood?' 'Yes.' Her mouth was trembling: she was going to cry again but not out of anger this time, but just because she was out of her depth and didn't know what to do, didn't know whom to trust, didn't know if she'd ever see Helmut again. This girl wasn't a swallow, she was just another young Muscovite with a mother and father and friends and a job, and the most clandestine thing she knew how to do was to march with the cafe crusaders through dreams of freedom in the long night where freedom was dead. 'Ivan was arrested,' she'd told me before I left her. 'What for?' 'Handing out leaflets, outside the courtroom.' 'Three days. You'll see him again. But keep away from the cafe, and don't hand out any leaflets yourself. I may need to see you again if I don't find Ignatov.' D.12-145. Turning to the right as it came through Spassky Gate. I started the engine and moved away from the kerb. She'd said he normally took Razina ulica and I turned right and slowed and saw him go across the intersection and turned left when the lights changed and took up the tag with two cars and a taxi in the space between us. The Mercedes 220 was four cars behind. I knew how good Ignatov was in the street: he'd used his mirror when I'd tagged him before and it had got me into Lubyanka so this was strictly a red sector I was in. I'd be secure all the time we were on the move but if he stopped anywhere in an open street I'd have to make sure he didn't speak to a militia man, and if he went to a telephone box I'd have to leave him there and get the Pobeda into some kind of cover. There was no reason why he should suspect the tag: this was a different car with a different number and he'd never seen me closer than a street's width away and this was the rush hour and there were a dozen Pobedas in sight of him at any given minute. But he'd blown me the last time and he could do it again if I gave him the ghost of a chance. I didn't think he had a transmitter with a concealed antenna because this was the same Syrena he was driving and two days ago he'd had to get out and telephone to trigger the action. Mirror. The Mercedes was now three spaces behind me and in front of a truck with a high profile and after that I couldn't see anything but if a police patrol wanted to come up on me for any reason he'd overtake the rest and dose me in. I could only relax when there was a right-hand street within sight for use as an escape road but this was oversensitive because my image was dean and I didn't think Ignatov had a transmitter. After Lubyanka, Bracken had said, you'll feel a bit paranoid for a while. We crossed the first ring road at 5.14 and the second one five minutes later and followed Kazakov ulica eastwards with no significant change in the pattern except for some shunting when Ignatov went