He was thinking again about his encounter with Yegerova and Churkin. He’d let his anger and desire for revenge cool overnight, and was now content in the knowledge that Yegerova would have spent all day behind her small desk in her narrow little office, wondering about what retaliation he might be planning and terrified of the fate Churkin could hand down at any moment.

Rykov turned away from the window, and sat at his own desk. He resisted the urge to check his watch. There was no one in the room with him, but even alone he didn’t want to give in to the nerves that were starting to probe the edges of his mind when it wasn’t contemplating Yegerova’s inevitable end.

He refused to fidget. But he did stare at his telephone.

He’d spent his day doing exactly what he’d promised Churkin—making sure Yegerova’s meddling hadn’t done any irreparable damage to either the Volk programme or Project Mykl. He’d been meticulous in his preparations, and he’d been just as forensic checking over them. He’d reviewed every scenario he’d planned out, every reaction they might provoke, and every psychological analysis of all his unsuspecting pawns. He was still confident each one of them would do what they were supposed to when the time came.

He hadn’t gone stalking round secret laboratories, screaming at scientists who were kept locked up in a constant state of fear and exhaustion, because, despite the rumours about what happened in Line Z’s headquarters—rumours he was more than happy to encourage—there were none. The security of the Volk programme and Project Mykl meant they were decentralised, distributed affairs. Staff and operations were both regularly moved, and some of them were in constant motion, their locations and destinations only known by Rykov himself.

Now, as evening was falling across Moscow, there was nothing else for him to do except will his telephone to ring. He was waiting for the call that would signal the start of the final stage of the stratagem he’d devoted so much to, and that would at last bring together his two great projects—hopefully to devastating effect.

No one but Rykov and Churkin knew how monumental the next few hours would be for the Soviet Union. Not the ZEVS engineers, not the crew of the Yorsh, not even the two operatives who were unaware that they were working in unison to bring Rykov’s gambit to its explosive fruition.

Finally, the telephone started to trill. He picked up the receiver and listened to the two-word message the voice on the other end of the line delivered: ‘Command sent.’