'I'll do my best,' she said, and lumbered across the creaking boards of the floor to the telephone in the corner, where a dead plant dangled from a chipped earthenware pot.

Through the brass entrance doors I saw a militia patrol -- car bumping across the ruts in the frozen snow, but it didn't stop, not this one, not this time; I had a few more minutes, a few more hours, before one of those patrols would stop and they'd come in here with snow on their boots and ask to see the register.

'It is urgent,' the woman was saying and not for the first time, 'it is urgent, I tell you,' earning her fifty roubles as best she could while I stood halfway between the telephone and the glass doors, ready to move if one of those cars pulled up outside the hotel and started spilling uniforms.

There was a corridor off the lobby, lit by one glass -- shaded lamp in the ceiling, and there were two recesses, one of which would lead to the rear of the hotel: there was no way out of the lobby except that one, the corridor; the stairs and the lift didn't interest me. I would cripple my chances at that moment, inevitably, when the militia came up the steps and opened the glass doors; I would bring them closer even as I got clear of the hotel, by the very act of vanishing. But I'd have no choice, if they came.

'You are the newspaper?' the woman was shouting into the phone.

They'd say yes. The switchboard in London will say yes to anything when a call comes in from overseas, because they know the ferrets in the field can't always use a telephone in privacy and may have to throw them any name or the name of any organization ADAMHALL on the spur of the moment. You can ask them if they' re Tootsie and they'll say yes and tune in and take it from there, listening between the lines.

'It is the newspaper,' my little mother said, and I went across to the telephone and thanked her and stood half -- turned so that I could keep the mirror in sight, the huge pock -- marked mirror with its gilded plaster frame that gave me a view of the glass doors and even patches of snow in the street below the steps.

'This is Shokin,' I said into the telephone.

It smelled of garlic.

'Have you got a story for us?'

'Yes, I have story. But shall I tell now, or give to your agent here in Novosibirsk?'

It was a hundred -- to -- one shot that the woman knew any English, even though she worked in a hotel, and a thousand -- to -- one shot that she knew it well enough to tell whether I was fluent or only spoke 'a little', but you keep to your cover when you can, as a routine exercise.

'You can give it to our agent,' the man in Signals told me. I recognized Matthews' voice. 'He's at the Hotel Karasevo. Ask for T.K. Trencher.'

Ferris.

A snow -- plough went past the hotel and everything vibrated: the tarnished brass shade of the lamp over the desk, the glass front of the fire -- extinguisher cabinet, the chandelier in the ceiling. In the mirror I saw that the woman was watching me.

'Then I will give to agent,' I said.'story is about train crash. The Rossiya. Very bad. People dead.'

Matthews would be watching the signals board as he spoke to me, and Croder would be standing somewhere close, listening to the low -- volume amplifier.

'Including the subject?' Matthews asked me.

'Yes.' the subject was Zymyanin, the Soviet contact. Dead.

This wasn't the time for details; the chief reason for this call was to find out where Ferris was, my director in the field. I would fill them in later, through him: Zymyanin hadn't died in the train crash; he'd been shot, probably on the orders of the generals.

In a moment: 'And how are you?'

'Thank you. Very good. Except arthritis. Cold here.'

In the established speech -- code vocabulary 'arthritis' is a signal to Control that the executive is wanted by the police of the host country. We can run the gamut from arthritis to rheumatism, but rheumatism's not often used because it means the executive has finished up with his back to a wall somewhere with his escape routes cut off and the opposition forces closing in on him and this is the last signal London is going to get.

'Will you be sending in more stories?' Matthews asked.

I thought it over carefully before I spoke. 'Perhaps. Not sure.'

It's in the book at Norfolk: The executive is required to give as accurate a picture of his situation as he can when threatened with any opposition action, whether it be from the operations of a private cell or the police, intelligence or military forces of the host country.

Sometimes an apprentice spook will ask for it to be spelled out, and the instructors play it straight: 'It just means that if you're in the shit then you've got to tell Control exactly that. We've had cases where the shadow's got himself right up a creek but he'll try and put a bold face on it and tell Signals he hasn't got any problems, and that's just plain bloody stupid -- we've lost people that way. If you don't tell Control you're in trouble, how can you expect him to help you get out of it?'

What Matthews had asked me was whether I thought there was any future -- 'more stories' -- for Meridian, since my Soviet contact was dead and the militia were hunting for me, and I'd had to give some thought to his question because if I lost track of Tanya Rusakova, no, I didn't think there'd be any future for the mission. I would have reached a dead end and the only thing left for me to do would be to try getting out of Siberia through the militia net and report back to London.

It all centred on Tanya; she was the key.

'But there is chance,' I said into the telephone.' there is perhaps chance of more stories.'

'All right,' Matthews said. 'In the meantime, is there anything we can do for you?'

'No. You have agent here. That is good.'

We shut down the signal and the concierge looked up at the clock that hung at an angle on the wall.

'Three minutes,' she said, and came heavily across to the telephone, her massive bunch of keys jingling where they hung from her waist against her black silk dress. The call had been much less than that but I wasn't going to argue: the more I let her pick out of the piggy -- bank the more value I'd have for her. It occurred to me that there could even be a price we could put on her silence, on her passive cooperation when the militia came banging in here with their boots scattering snow: a thousand roubles? I had that much in cash and Ferris would have more available, five thousand, possibly ten. But she'd have to make an alteration to the register and they'd be looking for things like that, and in any case this woman, my apple -- faced little mother with the faded blue eyes, could take the money and still expose me to the militia without even blinking. Galina Ludmila Makovetskaya wouldn't be the only Jezebel in Siberia.

"Three minutes,' I nodded, and left her asking the operator the rate for the United Kingdom. I pushed the worn brass button for the lift, and heard it begin whining inside the shaft.

Novosibirsk is a modern city but it sprang up around older buildings, and the Hotel Vladekino had fanlights above the doors of the rooms. Three of them were showing a light as I walked down the corridor on the third floor; one of these was Room 32. When I used the big deadlock key in the door of Room 35 it turned with a lot of noise, but the door hinges didn't squeak when I went inside, and that was much more important. The single window overlooked the street where the hotel had its entrance; a truck was bouncing over the ruts, its tailboard banging, and a militia patrol car was behind it. It didn't stop outside the Vladekino, but it might have. This place was a trap, and I went out of the room and left the door unlocked. The boards squeaked in the corridor but there was nothing I could do about it. The light still showed in Room 32 and it was still on when I looked up at the third floor from the bottom of the wrought -- iron fire -- escape that ran down outside the building.

I didn't think Tanya Rusakova would leave her room until morning, but I had to keep her under constant surveillance in case she did. The steps of the fire -- escape had been covered with snow from the storm that had driven across the city tonight, and the small square yard down here was the same, with crates and refuse making humps against the building. There was a light on the ground floor at the back and I kept clear of it, pulling open the door in the wall of the yard that led to the street. It opened only an inch or two and then the snow blocked it, and I found part of a broken crate on one of the rubbish heaps and worked in silence and with care, checking the light in the window of Room 32 at intervals.

When I'd cleared enough snow away from the door to the street I latched it again. This wasn't the street where the hotel had its entrance; it was at right -- angles, and there were three cars and a truck parked there, offering cover.

Ill I went back to my room and pulled down the blind on the window to keep out the light from the street: I'd left the door of the room an inch ajar, and through the gap, from the bed, I could see the door of Room 32 and would hear it open. Tonight I wouldn't be sleeping.

The pipes behind the wall banged and juddered when I turned on the hot water; it ran cold for half a minute and then turned scalding hot. The paper around the small cake of soap was printed in Chinese, and the soap was dark brown and smelled of tallow.

Ten minutes later I was lying on the bed with my back to the wall and my boots off, watching the door across the passage through the gap in my own and slipping into the limitless repertoire of the memory, at first working over the events that had taken place since I'd boarded the Rossiya in Moscow, then analysing them, looking for insights, then taking a break and starting a search through the memory for the stimulus I would need for keeping sleep away.

The pipes banged again behind the walls, and I heard voices from the hotel lobby rising in the stairwell as some people came in. One of them sounded indignant: was my little mother telling them the hotel was closed? I would think so. They weren't the militia, these people. The militia would send a different and distinctive sound through the stairwell, with their boots and their sharp questions, their tone of authority. I would recognize them. I have lain on beds like this one, their springs musical under the slightest movement, their sheets reeking of strong soap or camphor or disinfectant or the stale scents of the human animal asleep or at play, have lain listening so many times, God knows how many times, for the sounds of my pursuers, the baying of the hunt.

The people below in the lobby went away, a man's voice raised enough for me to understand that first thing in the morning he would be reporting my apple -- faced little mother to the Inspectorate of Hotels and Lodging Places. She made no answer that I could hear.

In the room next to mine there was a commercial traveller counting his samples, which were made of glass and had glass lids. I welcomed the sound; it would help to keep me awake, though by midnight the hotel would have fallen quiet, and then would come the need for mental concentration. I was not here to throw away my thousandth chance of keeping Meridian alive by going to sleep on the job.

But then she surprised me, Tanya Rusakova, because when the door of Room 32 came open and the light was switched out I looked at my watch and saw it was still only 10:41, local time. I saw her briefly in the passage as I pulled my boots on, and when I reached the top of the fire -- escape I could still hear the moaning of the lift.

The night was still clear, with the galaxy strewn like gossamer across the tops of the buildings and the moon low in its third quarter. The air was numbing to the flesh. From the comer I watched Tanya going down the steps of the hotel and turning along the street towards me, so that I had to move back and use one of the parked cars for cover. Then she passed the end of the street, her grey fur gloves held against her face and her boots slipping sometimes in the snow, and I followed.

She was standing in a doorway, her gloves still protecting her face, and it was quite clear that she was waiting here for someone. It was an intersection of two minor streets, one of them Kurskaja ulica by the sign below the lamp, and I had taken up station obliquely across from her in a doorway much like hers but deeper in shadow.

The night was not quiet. A snow -- plough was on the move along the major street that we'd crossed on our way here; I could see its warning lights reflected in the windows of a laundry. Trucks were still rumbling, perhaps delayed by the snowstorm and working late. She was not only waiting here for someone, Tanya Rusakova, but the rendezvous was clandestine, precisely pinpointed on the map at the intersection of two minor streets but otherwise without identity or landmarks: no hotel, no cafe, no building even with any lights still burning.

A clock had begun chiming the hour of eleven, its strokes booming from the gilded dome of a church two streets distant, and as the last note died on the air a Russian Army staff car turned the corner and pulled up, sliding a little in the frozen ruts, and Tanya came into the light and walked across to it as the front passenger door came open.

She looked inside the car, saying something -- 1 could hear her light clear voice -- and it seemed she was about to get in, but a figure had broken from the shadows and reached the car and snapped the other door open, dragging the driver out and using a vicious stomach blow to soften him up; then he hauled him across the ruts and threw him against the wall and pulled a gun out and took aim. I think it was Velichko, the man reeling against the wall, General Velichko, and he was trying to say something, asking for mercy, I would think, his hands flung out, but the man with the gun was talking to him, not shouting but spitting the words out -- Pig! -- as the first shot went into the general's body and he tried to cover his face with his hands, then something about My father -- and then Pig! again, Bastard! as the next shot banged and blood burst from the general's face and he staggered with his arms flying out as the third shot blew half his head away and his legs buckled and he pitched across the snow.