'No.' I'd had to work on Ignatov's nervous system again but I don't think that would have been enough without additional persuasion so I'd reminded him what his wife and children would feel like when they heard he'd been found dead. 'Is he to drive the Zil?' 'No, a man named Morosov, also a Central Committee chauffeur. I don't think Schrenk would trust Ignatov with the end phase: he's not a professional. Schrenk plans to radio-detonate the charge himself, two minutes after Brezhnev goes aboard the Zil at the steps of the Grand Palace, where the Presidium will meet. The car is to be handed over to Brezhnev's personal chauffeur ten minutes beforehand, ostensibly following a maintenance-check road test. The chauffeur's not in the act, and is down for sacrifice.' I was trying to get the whole report into order but there were memory gaps and I was aware of them and knew they'd have to be bridged. 'This man Morosov,' Croder said. 'What's his motivation?' 'He's a dissident. They all are, except Ignatov. I think Schrenk is blackmailing him into co-operating, judging by his subservience.' 'Blackmailing him?' 'He's a trusted functionary. He'd only have to steal a tankful of petrol for his own car to get ten years in the camps. I'd say Schrenk caught him out in something.' 'The rest of them are dissidents, you think.' 'Yes. The Borodinski trial's created a lot of anger and they're coming out into the open now.' I shut my eyes and tried to remember other things, but the dark came tiding over me and I jerked my head up. 'Take your time,' I heard Croder's voice. Bracken opened a door to let the cold night air come in. I could hear the river now, and the discordant ringing of the ice floes as they touched together on the surface. 'There's a four-car motorcade when Brezhnev travels. He always goes in one of four Zils, with two motorized units of the Guards Directorate leading and following.' My mind switched. 'Have you got any closer to Schrenk?' 'A little. We have a contact.' I sat up straighter. 'Oh really?' 'We can now stop the Zil operation,' Croder said carefully, 'but the danger is that the moment Schrenk knows we can do that, he might switch to an alternative plan. We must therefore conceal the fact that we're on to the Zil for as long as we can.' 'Not easy, from the moment he starts missing Ignatov.' 'Precisely. Our main target, then, remains Schrenk himself.' Bracken asked: 'If we find him, is Quiller to go in?' Croder let a couple of seconds go by. I don't think he was hesitating: I think he was deciding how to phrase it. 'No. I shall expect him to help us locate and subdue Schrenk, but I shall not expect him to do anything more than that. Schrenk,' he said with a note of warning, 'must be considered strictly expendable. I trust that is understood.' The smell of the river came through the open door, the smell of dead fish and diesel oil and rotting wood. Drive him as far as the river, Schrenk had said in front of me, as if I hadn't been there, as if I were already dead. You don't have to use any weights, in the river. All you have to do is to make sure he's found a long way from here. 'Do you have anything more for us?' Croder asked me. My head jerked up. 'What? No. Yes. There's a reception at the American Embassy,' this was bloody important and I'd nearly missed it out, 'and three other Central Committee people are going there with Brezhnev from the Kremlin, by separate motorcade. Kosygin, Andropov and Kirilenko.' 'What's his idea?' Bracken asked. 'If he doesn't hit Brezhnev he'll at least hit one of the others?' Croder turned to me. 'What type of explosive were they going to use?' 'Composition C-3 plastic in sheet form: four rectangular slabs to fit under the cushions of the Zil. And twenty-five kilograms of steel ball bearings, distributed between the plastic and the cushions.' 'My God,' Bracken said quietly. 'This is Schrenk, all right.' 'Yes. Bloody great military grenade. If the four of them came down the steps to their cars together after the meeting, he could hit the whole lot.'