Mal said, ‘Shit,’ studied his mirror and said, ‘Is it that buff Lada?’

‘Roger. It pulled out when you did.’

‘I’ll watch it for a minute.’

‘Roger.’

Turning in the passenger seat to face Mal, I saw the car they were talking about. Now what? Our options were severely limited by our lack of speed and the great weight we were carrying. Shooting red lights was no good: hundreds of drivers did that anyway; the Lada would simply follow us through any crossing. And in any case we didn’t want to risk a brush with the GAI. We certainly couldn’t outrun a pursuer. Nor could we afford to tangle with one. We all had Sigsauer 9mm pistols, and if things turned nasty we could use them – but only as a very last resort. A collision might shunt the nuclear components clean out of the car, taking the boot lid or rear door with them, and damage the devices beyond repair . . .

‘How many on board?’ I asked.

‘Three,’ came Whinger’s voice.

Mal said, ‘I’m going to head away from our target area.’

‘Roger.’

Before we started down through the bends of the hillside, he took a left, heading south. Then another left. The Lada followed. When a light turned red way ahead, he changed down to decelerate without using the brakes. The Lada slowed as well, keeping its distance.

‘Definite tail,’ I told Whinger. ‘Can you sort them for us?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Do they realise we’re a pair?’

‘Don’t think so. I’m driving on sidelights and keeping well back.’

Whinger was – and is – a hell of a guy behind the wheel. He’d done a stint as instructor in special driving techniques at Llangwern, the training area in Wales, and what he didn’t know about J-turns, ramming and breaking up illegal VCPs wasn’t worth knowing. The trouble was that in England or Northern Ireland he’d probably have been driving one of the Regiment’s souped-up intercept cars, which have extra power, armour, strengthened suspension and belly plates, and can whack anything else off the road with one flick of the rear end. Whereas here he had a lumbering, light-weight Volga with little power and no protection. I knew what he was thinking: that although it would be no trouble to knock our tail into the gutter, the last thing he wanted was to end up immobilising his own vehicle.

Somehow we’d got on to a big boulevard which my wrist-compass told me was heading south-west, out of town. At a crossroads I got a glimpse of a sign and deciphered it as Leninskii Prospekt.

The Lada was still behind us.

Shit! I was thinking. We should never have come up into this area. I’ve dropped a bollock here. We should just have made a loop and risked going into the churchyard early.