‘But you’re right. It’d be good to know for sure exactly who we’re after—and how many of them there are. I’m not keen on being outnumbered and outgunned.’

‘Are you thinking about the Wolf again?’

Bennett shrugged. ‘We could be up against them, or they could just be a figment of my imagination.’

‘Well, someone definitely put a bullet in Laing’s leg and kidnapped you and Jack.’

‘You say that like it’s supposed to reassure me.’

‘Things are so grey, I’ll take a bit of black and white where I can get it.’

‘Agreed,’ Bennett said. ‘Maybe we should just call their bluff. March up to the embassy and tell the ambassador and resident we know all about the plot and offer our help. Open the curtain wide enough to shove a peace offering through.’

‘For all we know they’re in on it. They could be killing Kosygin right now. Toasting him with poisoned vodka or serving up caviar sprinkled with cyanide.’

Bennett smiled. ‘Maybe.’

Ten minutes later, Knox and Bennett were back in the Jaguar at the southern end of Embassy Row, where it met Kensington High Street, waiting for Kosygin to make his way to his big meeting with the prime minister, foreign secretary and president of the Board of Trade. This time Knox was in the driver’s seat, and only two cars left the embassy. Kosygin, who was still very much alive, sat alone in the back of the second Volga.

The Russians didn’t try to shake the Jaguar—the embassy’s drivers were used to being followed wherever they went—and happily guided Knox and Bennett all the way to King Charles Street in Whitehall.

Under normal circumstances, the Foreign Office’s mandarins would have baulked at a CIA agent being escorted through their hallowed doors without prior warning and clearance. With the prime minister about to meet another head of state on their turf, there was no way they’d let Bennett inside. So she was left again to keep watch on as many of the people coming and going through all the doors and arches that led in and out of the enormous building as she could.

Knox, however, was allowed in.

The courts and corridors of the Foreign Office were much grander than Congress House, full of gilt-painted arches, carved marble, and rich, dramatic frescos. They were also busier, full of furrow-browed civil servants rushing between meetings. Most of them, Knox imagined, about preventing another Ian Smith from seizing power in one of the coterie of other nations undergoing the delicate transition from colony to Commonwealth member. No one wanted Rhodesia to set the template for freedom.

But, those differences aside, the afternoon was a rerun of the morning. Kosygin was delivered to another room for another private conversation, and an hour later he was escorted to his car and driven back to Kensington.