'Soldier Alpha' was Praporovich himself. The Department 'V executioner would report to Vorontsyev, and his message relayed to the Centre.

'Very well. Over and out.'

He handed back the microphone. The driver clipped it beneath the dash, then said: 'Are we waiting for the mortician to show up, chief, or are we going in now ?'

Five past six. Vorontsyev considered, rubbing his chin. He wanted sleepy, unresisting people. There would be fewer than a dozen people, perhaps only three or four, on the premises. But they had to be taken alive; and they all had immediate access to guns. And he knew Andropov would be waiting for the message concerning Praporovich.

He was a little man. It was almost six-forty when he arrived. The sky was perceptibly lighter now. There was no traffic and few lights in the quiet street, since there were few houses still occupied by tenants or owners. It was a daytime street. He came on foot, in overalls as if coming from a night-shift somewhere, wispy hair jammed under a fur cap, scarf hiding most of his face, dirty overcoat open in front. A totally anonymous man.

His face was pinched, mean-looking. Grubby with whatever mechanical job he did. He smiled at Vorontsyev, and his teeth were sparse in his mouth. Vorontsyev wondered how old he was. All he said was, 'I've taken care of your embarrassing little problem, Comrade Major. I'll be off home now. The wife will have breakfast for me.' He began to walk away, perhaps towards the metro, which must have been how he came there.

'How .. . ?' was all Vorontsyev could find to say in the face of such undemonstrative behaviour.

'How ?' The little man rubbed his chin. 'A car accident. The Marshal was leaving the apartment of a young lady. A rather silly affair, I would have thought. He's practically impotent. A car mounted the pavement, skidding on the ice, I expect, and he was knocked down. He only had a hundred yards to walk to his staff car which was waiting for him. Two of his junior staff officers were injured too. One of them must be dead. I would have thought.'

'I - see.'

'Well, Major, I'll be off now.' He raised his hand in salute, turned, and walked off down the street. Vorontsyev watched him go, then bent to look in at the driver.

'Did you get that ?'

'Sir.' The driver's eyes bulged comically.

'Send it, then. "Alpha" has met with an accident. Then we go in.'

The driver spoke into the mike, then listened while Vorontsyev, picking up a torch from the rear seat, flashed it in the direction of two cars parked well down the street. Doors opened, and overcoated figures got out, moved down the street towards him. The driver said, 'Sir - another message. "Apostles One, Two and Seven all eliminated."'

'Hell - is it really only the dream of a few old men - is that all we have to worry about ?' He banged his hand absently on the window-ledge of the car. It seemed impossible. It could not be easy, not as easy as that. Kill some old men, and stop a war?

He thought about Kutuzov. The unknown face; the mystery man. Unless he was stopped, then the Kremlin regime, the entire Politburo perhaps - certainly the KGB - would be ousted.

One old man, with a dream of passion. If he wasn't found, then he would succeed. Again, he punched the side of the car with his fist.

'Let's go.' he said.

The other four men were opposite them now, crossing the frost-rimed road. Four heavy dark shapes. The driver shut his door quietly. Vorontsyev looked at them. The tiredness of being awake, or only fitfully dozing, all night was now only slight smudging beneath their eyes. Their faces were tight with tension.

'Right. You know what to do,' Vorontsyev said, 'You two to the back window you spotted earlier - break in if it doesn't give in ten seconds. Understand ?' They nodded. 'The rest of you, the front with me. We'll have to break in, and quickly. You two take the first floor rooms, you downstairs...' He addressed the driver with this remark. 'Be careful. I don't know who, or what, is in there - except that you can bet a bloody alarm will go off as soon as we break in.' One of the men grinned. 'But we're experts. We know what to expect. You try to hold, not kill.' He paused for a moment, then: 'But you kill rather than be killed. Understood ?'

He looked at each face in turn. Each man nodded. Then he walked ahead of them, briskly, towards the house. Their footsteps behind him seemed to clatter on the frosty pavement He watched the curtained, blind windows as carefully as he could.

Nothing seemed to be awake, or moving, in the house. There appeared to be no duty-staff. Which would be consistent with the house being only an occasional office for the KGB. And, he thought, perhaps consistent with the timing of the Group 1917 and Finland Station operations. If they were only a day away, then there was little need to secure a safe house like this one.

He suddenly wondered whether the Englishman was still alive. His interest, and importance, must surely have passed ?

The house was surrounded by a high, dark hedge, behind which was a short gravel drive. They kept to the lawns that flanked it, their feet crunching through the stiff grass, their trouser-bottoms wetted by the frost. Still the house seemed empty, or dead. Vorontsyev pulled the Stechkin from his holster - he had exchanged the Makarov for the heavier gun with the larger clip in Novosibirsk.

They paused, of one mind, at the edge of the lawn. The gravel drive surrounded the house like a stony moat. Vorontsyev motioned the two men detailed to the back of the house to move off. They trod with comic stealth and lightness along the gravel drive as it curved to the rear of the house. Vorontsyev studied the windows at the front of the house, as he had done earlier in the night. The door was stout, but the downstairs windows were not barred. The Leningrad office must have decided not to draw attention to the house by such methods of increasing security. Fortunately.

They crossed the scuffling little space of the gravel, and gathered in a little knot by the window, a large bay whose sill was at the level of their heads.

Vorontsyev said; 'Office, or bedroom, or lounge?'

'Probably lounge or rest-room, sir,' one of them volunteered - the driver.

'Agreed. Up on the sill - have a look at the catch.' As he was helped up on to the sill, Vorontsyev inspected the window frame. Not the original, but a standard wooden frame; sash-cord. 'Well ?' he said, looking up.

'It's wired, sir.'

'Can you open it quickly if you smash the window ?'

'Yes, sir.'

Vorontsyev looked at his watch. Thirty seconds for them to reach the back window they had chosen, then ten seconds. He waited, then: 'Smash it!'

The driver punched his gloved fist through the pane of glass, just above the catch. The noise was horribly loud in the cold air. Then he said, 'Up and away, boys!' Two of them, Vorontsyev and another man, heaved at the window, and it slid up protestingly. The driver dropped into the room, gun out, and pulled back one curtain.

Vorontsyev clambered over the sill, then turned to help the last man in. There was sufficient light for them to see the door in the far wall. Only then, when they were all inside, did Vorontsyev notice the alarm ringing deep in the house somewhere. It galvanised him.

'Let's go!'

He ran across the room - a frail-looking chair with spindly, glossy legs spun out of his way as his overcoat caught it. He opened the door, and peered out. A big hallway, wide stairs leading up into the darkness. There was a gleam of light, probably coming from under a door, up on the first floor. He prodded the two detailed men, and they took the stairs in a run. The light increased, as if a door had been opened. A voice called out.

Vorontsyev heard 'Hold it, friend!' No more than that. No shooting, yet. The instruction 'Watch him!' then more footsteps.

The driver had crossed the hallway with its chequered tiles, and was opening the door of a room. His head ducked round the door, then he was back out.

'Nothing,' he called, and set off towards the rear of the house.

A shot from what must be the second floor - but towards the rear of the house. The back stairs, the old servants' stairs probably, which meant the two men had broken in and made for the second floor.

Where was the door to the cellars ? For a moment, the size of the house defeated him. Then he realised he should have entered at the back of the house. Only the servants would have needed to enter the cellars - and the door would be in the kitchens. No - ground floor reception rooms here, left and right, that door to the kitchens, butler's pantry - and cellars. He followed the direction taken by the driver.

The body thudded on the lowest stairs, and rolled almost gently on to the tiled floor. Dark overcoat, fair hair, hidden, broken face. One of the two men from the second floor search. Someone had thrown him over. He heard faint shots, and a distant cry.

He was losing impetus, he realised. How many seconds had now passed ? He burst through the door at the rear of the staircase, and stumbled down three steps, into the huge, gloomy kitchen. A door at the other end of the room was open -the kitchen was some kind of dining-room as well, it appeared. Scraps of food on a table, washing-up in an old sink. Dirty plates. There was no sign of the driver.

He opened two cupboards before he found the door to the cellars. He should have noticed the light beneath the door. It was on, showing the wooden steps leading down. He hesitated, then stepped on to the topmost stair.

A scuffle of footsteps, a muttered voice, sharp with feverish command. He went down the steps quickly. They twisted halfway, almost doubling back. A man in civilian clothes, but carrying an army rifle, was facing him in front of an open door. There was a narrow corridor behind him, and rows of metal doors. And the atmosphere of a prison where once there had been racks and bins of wine.

He fired before the man had time to challenge him. He had been asleep, was leadenly awakening still, for the alarm sounded only as a muffled buzz down there. He fell against the door, a stupid open-mouthed look on his face.

Vorontsyev was still at the bottom of the steps when he saw the other man, a thick dressing-gown tied with a cord, his greying hair ruffled from sleep. He was opening one of the doors, and there was a gun in his hand.

'Halt, or I fire!' Vorontsyev snapped, and the man's head lifted with a jerk, as if he had not noticed the gunshot that had killed the guard.

Somewhere in the house, two more shots. They seemed to startle the man in the dressing-gown as much as Vorontsyev's order. He had a bunch of heavy keys in his right hand, which he was using to open the door, and the gun was evidently awkward in his left hand. Vorontsyev watched the gun, and then the right hand turned the key in the lock, and the man's body began to disappear into the cell he had opened. Vorontsyev fired twice, but missed.