It was about half an hour before the man whom Maria had seen Viktor talking to left the bar. He came out alone, but Maria recognised him. He was shorter than Viktor and not as heavily built, but there was something about his physique and the way he moved that told Maria that this was the ‘soldier’ Slavko had talked about. Maria had made an in-depth study of Soviet and post-Soviet Spetsnaz soldiers. Vitrenko was the devil she had had to get to know. Part of the selection criteria was that the men chosen were never particularly tall or muscle-bound: they had to be able to dissolve into the background, whether that was in a desert, a jungle or a city. But there was always something in the way they moved that identified them. Maria had no doubt that she was looking at an ex-Spetsnaz. And that she had just taken a significant step up in Vitrenko’s organisation.

Maria felt afraid. She knew that tailing this man was a whole different ball game. Unlike Viktor, this guy would have been trained to spot surveillance. She would only have one shot at this.

The Ukrainian got into a mid-range BMW and drove off. Maria waited until there were several cars between them before she pulled out into the traffic. She would have to risk losing him rather than have him detecting her too close on his tail. They headed out of Nippes. Maria struggled to steer with one hand while stealing glances at the Cologne city plan in her other. They seemed to be heading along Kempener Strasse towards Neu Ehrenfeld and she guessed they might be destined for the autobahn. It started to rain heavily and Maria had to switch the wipers on to the fastest setting. Her head ached after the adrenalin rush of testing her new look in the bar and from concentrating through the dark and rain on the distant tail lights of the Ukrainian’s BMW.