In the end, he very formally asked me to remember one thing: that when I got back home, if the Party ever asked me to break a Russian cipher, I should refuse. ‘The reason I say this is because it would make me very unhappy, and because you simply don’t know enough to make a success of it.’

‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘That’s why I want to come back and continue my studies.’

He shook his head and said, ‘You won’t be able to. The relationship between our two countries has already gone past the point of no return, and you will never be able to be my student again. We’d better just try and stay friends.’

He looked kind of upset at that, and then he hugged me and said, ‘Get on the train. I hope you have a good journey.’

That was how we said goodbye.

Shortly after I got to my compartment, someone knocked on the door. It was Comrade Aeroplane who came in, carrying a black leather suitcase. I had an identical leather suitcase which I had put down underneath the tea table. She put her suitcase down next to mine, and told me the combination of the lock. When she left, it was my suitcase that she took with her – they were absolutely identical in appearance. I have no idea what was in her suitcase, just that it was more important than my life. If something happened during the journey, I was under orders to save the contents of that suitcase, not myself.

Perhaps thanks to Anderov’s good wishes, the journey was completely uneventful.

2

The first day in Beijing someone came to the guest house where I was staying to collect the suitcase that Comrade Aeroplane had given me.

The second day I had an appointment at headquarters with the Deputy Director of Intelligence Operations. His surname was Tie, and he was something over fifty years old, but his hair was already going white, which gave him the appearance of being older than he actually was. When he spoke his voice was very loud and decisive, like a general’s might be. He had been the first Director of Unit 701, and because he had such a terrible temper, his subordinates called him ‘The Landmine’ behind his back. He had left Unit 701 two years earlier, when he had been promoted to Deputy Director at headquarters, in charge of the day-to-day running of the place; now he was responsible for all intelligence operations. His secretary was called Li, a young man with good Russian; we had been colleagues for a few months before I left to go to Moscow. Having only worked together for such a short time, we weren’t particularly close, but now meeting again after a couple of years we quickly became friendly. He divulged that Director Tie had really had to fight some of the other senior people in the department to get me recalled.