'So?'

'Ciphers - code-words. Little else. If I had so much as last hours with Smoktunovsky had been desperate, wearing; he had shortened the Russian's life by perhaps more than a day because he would not let him rest. In the end, he had had to lock the door against the medical staff while he went after what the crazed mind was still trying to keep from him. Cunningham was shaking his head.

'Opposed, yes. That is to be anticipated -'

'Richard, I put Smoktunovsky in the bag because we were afraid of what Exercise "1812" could mean on the NATO central front. It turned out to be a false alarm. But that snatch was the result of well-founded suspicion on our part that the Army was engaged in a bitter quarrel with the Kremlin. Smoktunovsky didn't tell me that they'd kissed and made up.'

Cunningham rubbed his chin for a while, then nodded. 'It all seems very slim to me, Kenneth. Perhaps you were in there too long with him - ' Aubrey's old blue eyes flared. 'No, I withdraw that. Very well - talk to people, send in a man if you wish. Where might you begin ?'

'I'll talk to a couple of people at MOD - the less dense among them. As to a penetration mission - I accept that I have nowhere to send someone at the present. But, the Red Army is not going to lie down and let its balls be cut off by Khamovkhin and the rest of the Politburo. I'm quite certain of that.'

'Kenneth - I do hope you're wrong about this.'

'Exactly my own sentiments. Exactly.' 'Very well, play it back. If it's any good, then we'll send it upstairs for analysis.' The tape-operator made as if to rewind the spool of the tape on the recorder, then his team-leader stopped him. 'Who did you say this old man was ?'

'His name's Fedakhin - Bureau of Political Administration of the Army.'

'Are we interested in him for any reason?'

'No. He just used a Secretariat telephone, that's all. He wouldn't have expected it to be tapped, but it was. I was just playing through last night's efforts after I came in, and I heard it. He's talking in code.'

'OK, Misha, the floor is yours. Impress me.'

'Captain.'

The younger man switched on the rewind, and they watched the spools changing their weight of tape, and the numbers rolling rapidly back. Misha stopped the tape, checked the number with a list at his elbow, then wound back a little more. Then he switched to 'Play' on the heavy old German recorder.

The captain noticed that, as usual with taps done as routine, the installation, and quality both left much to be desired. The voice was tinnily unreal, and distant.

'Our man for Group 1917 is in place,' the old voice said.

'Good. But you should not have called.'

'I apologise. Let the illness of an old man excuse me.'

'Very well.'

'You need have no worries concerning Finland Station, my friend. It has been settled, in terms of personnel, and it can now proceed satisfactorily. I shall be able to retire a happy man, and await the great day.'

The captain's nose wrinkled at the cliches, and he tossed his head, Misha being invited into the contempt he felt. He knew with certainly that contempt for the old fart on the tape was driving out curiously, but the knowledge didn't worry him. Old men - his wife's father - talked endlessly of great days, and happy retirement, and golden ages, come to that 'Thank you, old friend. Take care of yourself.'

Misha let the tape run for a few seconds, then switched it off. He looked up eagerly into the captain's broad face, so that the older man felt obligated to feel interest 'Well, sir?'

'Yes - tell me, then. Who was the other man?'

unidentified.'

'What number was dialled?'

'Wrong sort of tap - no record.'

'A name was asked for ?'

'No. I'll play it, if you like -' The captain shook his head, lighting a cigarette. 'Only an extension. Could've been anyone.'

'So - what's the excruciating importance of all this, Misha ?'

'I don't know, sir. But he was talking in code, obviously and people who do that have something to hide, don't they?' After a silence, the captain said, 'Usually, they do.'

'Stig, old boy - it's you.'

The heavily-built, florid Englishman who never spoke Finnish if he could avoid it, looked up from the newspaper he was reading, recognised his visitor - unsurprising since he had been waiting for him in the bar on the Mannerheimintie for half an hour - and gestured him to another seat at his table. The bespectacled, fur-hatted Finn sat down, briefcase across knees pressed primly, and tightly together. The Englishman watched him peer nervously into the less well-lit corners of the bar - a nervous tic that Stig always demonstrated, at every meeting - over five years now, too. He'd probably done it with his predecessor, Henderson. Poor little sod 'I - you always choose these public places, Luard. Do you have to ?'

The Finn's English was excellent; unlike Luard, he had no distrust of a foreign tongue, speaking four languages other than his own. Luard's Finnish was improbable at best, Stig considered.

'Sorry, old boy. Standard procedure. And no one follows you about, old boy. No one has done for years -' It was as if Luard suddenly became irritated with his companion. 'Everyone lost interest in you years ago, Stig. They wouldn't care if they knew you passed stuff on to my lot - I should think Finnish Intelligence hopes someone does, just in case they ever get hold of something of importance.'

Stag's narrow, tired face with its doughy complexion suddenly sharpened, took on a vivacity of anger.

'You need not insult me, Luard. I asked merely on this occasion because I have something that you must see - and this is not the place to start passing round infra-red photographs.'

Luard's narrow eyes slid into their creases of fat. Then his features went bland as the waiter approached. Stig ordered a beer, and Luard another Scotch. When the waiter had brought the drink, and Luard had made a patronising show of paying, he said, 'Infra-red. They must be good. What of?'

'The Finnish-Soviet border area, south-east of Ivalo.'

'Oh - those.' Stig appeared puzzled, bemused. 'Are your lot still taking them from those high-wing monoplanes, so the Russians don't suspect they're doing something your government has agreed there's no need to do?' Luard was smiling broadly, his face seeming to be enveloped by the fat cheeks, the heavy jowl - nose, eyes being pushed into a little fist of lumps in the centre of the globe of fat pink flesh. Stig hated him.

'They are still using private aircraft, if that is what you mean.' Luard laughed, raised his glass, his little eyes twinkling, and presumably drank the health of the Cessnas and their pilots from Finnish Intelligence. He watched the antagonisms chasing themselves across the Finn's features, and decided to give Stig a rest.

'All right, old man. Let's see them.'

'Here ?' The Finn appeared outraged, violated. 'We're in an alcove, aren't we. Don't be such a virgin. Holiday snaps, dirty pictures - doesn't matter. No one's going to care.'

'Perhaps you could explain, Shelley, why this has taken two months to reach me ?'

Kenneth Aubrey looked at the sheaf of infra-red photographs fanned open on his desk, then up at his aide. The young man appeared disconcerted, but confused more evidently than distressed.

'Sir, it was passing through my hands as routine. I didn't think you needed to see it.'

'Very well.' Aubrey sighed. 'I accept that I was being inordinately curious when I removed them from your tray. But - now that I have them, pray enlighten me.'

'They came in the Bag from Helsinki. With a note from Luard designating his contact as usual, and making light of these.'

'And what are they meant to represent ?'

'I checked with Helsinki, because the explanatory note was unsatisfactory.' Aubrey nodded in compliment. 'Apparently, it's a practice roll from one of their covert border-checks. We don't have the later rolls they took of the Russian side of the border. This lot was on its way to the shredder when our contact sidetracked them.'

'Why should he do that ?' Aubrey picked up one print, and Shelley another, in order to direct Aubrey's attention. He knew that his superior disliked anyone who stood at his shoulder to draw attention to something he was studying.