I went on staring at the big black limousine, not comfortable with it. 'All right,' I told Shortlidge, 'I want you to keep watch outside. I'll be here about an hour. Where's your car?' 'Round the back.' 'Can I use this torch?' 'Help yourself.' 'There's one in the Pobeda glove pocket, if you want one. Listen, if you can't see the door to this place from your car, sit in mine. I want you to warn me if anyone comes, but keep out of the action if anything starts, understood?' He considered this, moving his feet up and down. 'What about if you're up against it?' 'I'll look after myself. Your job is to get a signal back. Croder's instructions.' 'OK.' He left me. I stood listening to the creaking of the building, feeling the cold draught numbing my ankles as I stared at the big black Zil. It was probably going to be all right, but even Schrenk was human and could make a mistake, and it was a minute before I was ready to go across to the thing and start work. Long wheelbase, four doors, Central Committee MOII number plates, immaculate bodywork and chrome. I shone the torch through one of the windows. Brushed vinyl club seats, thick blue carpeting, two telephones, built-in tape deck, air conditioning vents and controls, cocktail cabinet, wood-grain panelling, dark blue nylon curtains at the rear windows, a thick glass division between the front and rear seats separating the passengers from the chauffeur and escort. I began underneath, fetching some sacking from a pile near the wall and spreading it on the dirt floor and sliding inwards on the flat of my back with the torch in my right hand. The general layout was massive but clean, with cross-braced box section chassis members and two enormous exhaust silencers running half the length of the car. I checked ledges, niches and junctions, inching my left hand along the topside of every component, the sweat beginning because the organism was confined and wouldn't be able to help itself if anything went wrong, wouldn't even know about it except for a microsecond of cataclysm. Careful, old boy. Don't touch the wrong thing. Amusement in his tone as he watched me, his eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette. Bugger off. I went over the rear axle casing, propeller shaft tunnel, flywheel housing, crankcase flanges and trays while the building creaked and the draught chilled my bones and the bastard began laughing softly with that awful laugh of his that turned to coughing because of the cigarette smoke. You're taking a chance, old boy, I suppose you know that. Yes, I knew that. He was human and he might have lost some of his cunning when they'd half-killed him in that bloody place and I couldn't be sure that my hand wouldn't at some time touch a badly assembled trip mechanism or set off a too-sensitive rocking device or break a circuit when I opened a door and triggered the interior lamps. Taking a chance, yes, and I couldn't get his voice out of my head. I stopped after ten minutes and lay listening, with the torch switched off and the stink of oil in the air, the draught shifting and fretting and freezing the skin. Four vehicles had gone past the warehouse and each time I'd switched off the torch because this building wasn't light-proof. Five minutes ago a train had rolled slowly alongside, its vibration setting up a buzzing in one of the Zil's headlamps. You're pushing your luck, old boy. You - Shuddup. I wiped my hands on the sacking and got out from underneath and opened the driver's door, doing it quickly because there was a Russian roulette factor in play: Schrenk was working in foreign terrain and he couldn't be a hundred per cent certain of his components or materials, however competently he assembled them. In twenty minutes I was finished with the interior, lifting out the seat cushions and the carpets, checking the cocktail cabinet, telephones, tape deck, air conditioning vents and the tip-up seats. Most of this time was spent in checking the recess behind the facia panel in the forward compartment, working with extra care among the wiring, terminals and fuse boxes. There's only one thing those bastards'll listen to. A bomb. He was so good at them. I'd watched him rigging a bang more than once, sitting over the bloody thing and crooning like a witch, his thin nicotine-stained fingers stroking and fondling and fiddling, the pliers