'No, not a rocket for you, dear boy - just a thing that struck me, looking at the thing overall, as it were.'

'Something wrong?'

'Possibly. Tell me one thing - how many of the names can you recollect, just off-hand ?'

Silence, then: 'Maybe seventeen, eighteen - why?'

'I can't recall all SIS personnel here, either. To me, they were names Shelley supplied from London, or Philipson here, or other Station Heads. All we worried about was getting sufficient bodies here. Our little friend, "Captain Ozeroff-Houdini" - he relied on a similar situation, didn't he ?'

'He had papers, and records must have been altered -'

'Yes, dear boy - but, they didn't know his face, did they? As long as they expected the face that turned up, no one there would recognise him as someone else, would they ? Now, if you take that a stage further - ?'

Anders digested the idea in a moment.

'I'd better wake Mr Buckholz!'

'I think you'd better wake everybody - and we'll do a spot-check of everyone who is inside Lahtlinna at the moment -then those outside can come in and be recognised!'

Galakhov looked at his watch - three-o-two. He was standing in the darkened kitchen of the castle, the moonlight slicing through tall narrow windows. He had stayed long enough to make himself a cup of coffee, even turning on the lights while he did so. But, assailed by a sense of approaching crisis, he had switched them off as soon as the mug was in his hands, the coffee on his lips. He had been on patrol round the castle grounds, only occasionally meeting other duty personnel, exchanging a word or two with them, they leaving amused by something he said, he secretly revelling in the ease with which he was able to remain at Lahtilinna while the hunt for him went on.

He finished the last of the coffee, put the mug in one of the huge enamel sinks. He paused for a moment, a shaft of moonlight weirdly illuminating his narrow young face, as he visualised the sketch-plan of the route to Khamovkhin's room. Softly, softly, he told himself, a smile on his lips. In and out, and then back on patrol, to slip off when he was alone in the grounds. So simple.

He let himself out of the kitchens, and took the stairs to the main hall. From the furthest point of the corridor, he could see that there were lights on in the hall - off-duty men at the billiard table ? Hardly likely they were watching Finnish TV -especially at that time ? Cautiously, he approached the archway into the hall.

There were perhaps a dozen men already there, and he could see others coming along the galleries above, or down the staircase. Most of them were in dressing-gowns, some with coats over the pyjamas all of them were wearing. He saw Aubrey, in shirt-sleeves, and Buckholz in dressing-gown and pyjamas, fur boots on his feet. Anders was dressed, and looking extremely wide-awake and efficient. He listened to his opening remarks and then, as if by reflex, he visualised again the sketch-plan of Lahtilinna. Anders's words about a complete head-count, and the men staying where they were until everyone was accounted for, went a long way away because he had understood their intention at once. What he wanted was an alternative route to Khamovkhin's bedroom.

Anders's voice faded behind him as he returned down the corridor, fur-lined boots silent on the stone floor. At the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs - servants' route to the master bedrooms on the floor above. He listened - a distant, muffled burst of laughter cut short in the hall, but nothing closer than that. Galakhov felt the urgency press him, and he ascended the stairs as quickly as he dared.

He paused on the landing, feeling time running ahead of him. He had to move swiftly now - the job was nothing in itself, occupying no more than a minute. He looked up the next flight of stairs from the landing. Shadow, but lights from a corridor beyond and to the left.

He was almost at the top of the stairs when the sleepy man with disarranged hair and silent slippers bumped into him -and recoiled at the still-cold touch of his parka and the barrel of the rifle. A Finnish copy of the Kalashnikov, issued by Anders.

'Sorry,' he murmured.

'What the hell's going on?' the other man muttered, rubbing his arm where he had bumped the gun, yawning. Galakhov could have driven the rifle butt into his face - but he would only waste precious moments.

'Some sort of identity check, I think'

'What ? Jesus - what a waste of good sleeping time!'

He tossed his head, rubbed his hair more into place, and began to descend the stairs. Then he paused, and looked up quizzically, taking in Galakhov's outdoor clothing and the gun. And perhaps the face he had not seen before. Galakhov cursed that he had not killed the man - now, he could not reach him, and dare not fire a shot. Then the man seemed satisfied, nodded, and went on down the stairs.

Galakhov ran along the corridor, his footsteps thumping on the strip of carpet. Up one more short flight, stopping just before the turn into another corridor, well-lit, and a man on guard at the door of Khamovkhin's room. The man hi the dressing-gown, going now perhaps into the ball. If Anders or one of the others was still speaking, he might wait before he mentioned the man in outdoor clothing, armed, too, that he had passed on the stairs. But he might have thought about it He looked once. The guard was sitting on a chair, alert but comfortable. Then he took the last step, two strides to the middle of the corridor - fifteen yards. He fired twice, and the guard, only then looking at the intruder, hand hardly moved at all where the gun rested on his lap, was flung off the chair and slid across the corridor, a piece of carpet rucking up beneath him, a vase tumbling with a hideous noise from a delicate table whose legs were snapped by the impact of the body.

Fifteen yards - his hearing was coming back now as he ran to Khamovkhin's door. He fired another two shots at the lock, then kicked in the door. The bedroom was dark, but Khamovkhin had left one lamp on in the sitting-room. Galakhov saw his quarry, impotent and foolish in striped pyjamas in the bedroom doorway, and pointed the rifle at the middle of the figure. Khamovkhin was frozen with terror.

And Galakhov cursed. Shots, shots. The guard had been despatched noisily, now he was going to kill Khamovkhin with more noise. Because he had passed one sleepy-eyed, half-awake Englishman on the flight of stairs, and the adrenalin bad worked, time seeming to escape him, and he had bludgeoned his way to this moment. He listened.

Nothing, but his hearing was still ringing from the explosions of the rifle.

'Get dressed - get dressed, or I'll kill you now!'

Khamovkhin, as if slapped by the voice, went back into the bedroom. Galakhov crossed to the door as Khamovkhin switched on the light in order to dress. He pushed it wide, and leaned against the door-frame, his eyes flickering from the figure of the Soviet leader as he dressed to the outer doorway which yet remained free of shadows.

'Hurry up - hurry up!' Adrenalin running away again, and panic-thinking. He wasn't going to kill Khamovkhin now, he was going to use him as a hostage to get out. Something had decided that - the same stupid animal in himself that had used the gun because time seemed about to run out. 'Hurry.'

Khamovkhin looked up at that. Galakhov saw the flicker of ginning hope in his eyes. Then the man pulled on his jacket.

'That'll do!'

'My jacket - my topcoat. You don't want your hostage to freeze to death, do you?' He turned to the wardrobe, and reached in for his coat.

What was that - noise on the stairs ? Someone must have heard! Then Khamovkhin, tidying the collar of his topcoat, donning his fur hat, as if on his way to some public appointment in Helsinki, was standing next to him - a look of amusement in his eyes. Galakhov jabbed the rifle into his ribs, making the old man's breath exhale in a gasp. But the look in the eyes did not change from their damned superiority, their amusement. Galakhov was baffled.

'Go to the door,' he ordered. Khamovkhin did so, then waited, pausing as if for some stage entrance. Enter the statesman - Galakhov placed the rifle against the old man's spine, then he called out.

'You're there, of course - Air Aubrey and Air Buckholz ?'

Silence.

'Galakhov?' They knew his real name, then. 'Air First Secretary - are you unharmed ?' Aubrey, the Englishman.

"Yes, Air Aubrey. I am afraid that - who did you say, Comrade Galakhov ? - I am his hostage, shall we say ?'

'Shit!' Buckholz or Anders.

'I'm taking him out now! If you listen very carefully, you'll hear me switch to automatic. Kill me, and he dies anyway.'

'I know how rifles work, Galakhov!' he heard Buckholz say.

Then don't take any chances.' He jabbed Khamovkhin in the back. 'He's coming out first - and the rifle is placed against his spine. Clear a path for us. Right - move!'

Eighteen: The 24th.

Vorontsyev awoke with a start, his head jerking upwards so that he banged it against the wall. He had opened his eyes, but there was a deep blackness in the room, deeper than he remembered. Frantically nigging back the cuff of his coat, he stared at his watch, the luminous figures slowly swimming to an approximation of a circle of numbers. His mind tried to reject the information, but the body groaned with realisation. Three-twenty - no, three-twenty-five. He had slept, undisturbed, for nine hours.

His back ached, and his neck was stiff. He moved his left leg, and the pain shot through him, seeming to erase the restorative sleep in a moment. He rubbed the back of his neck, groaning softly to himself. It was too ridiculous to contemplate, the unforgivable slide into sleep when he needed to be strong, alert.

He climbed upright, hands pressed against the wall behind him, until his left leg stuck out awkwardly, and his frame was shaking with the effort. He banged his palms against the wall in impotent fury. Gorochenko - he had perhaps two hours, no more than that.

Forty-seven halls, countless store-rooms and cellars. He could be anywhere 1 He dared not consider that he might not be in the building at all.

He bent clumsily and picked up the gun, gripping it tight as if in an affirmation of purpose. He hurried now, banging against the edges of crates, then slurring his foot across the concrete. Despite the remaining warmth of the boiler-room, he was cold, and shivered. It was dark because the street lights in Red Square were out. He groped along the wall until he found the doorknob, cool under his hand. He turned it, holding his breath.

Still unlocked.