‘Let’s think where they’re likely to put the thing,’ said Johnny.

‘Lock-up garage, probably,’ Whinger suggested. ‘Leave it in the car, drive in. Easy.’

‘What about its alarm signal?’ Mal asked. ‘Will that still reach the satellite if the device is inside a building?’

‘I don’t know. Toad could tell us. Listen, I’m going to call Anna. She can get a search going.’

‘What are we going to tell her?’ Mal, ever careful, had been making notes with pencil and pad.

‘That two guys have been lifted.’

‘What about the bomb?’

‘Not a whisper.’

I had to use the local line, which I knew was insecure. But that now seemed the least of our worries. I tried the emergency number she’d given us, and got some Russian-speaking female.

‘Anna,’ I said several times. ‘Anna Gerasimova.’

A torrent of Russian came back.

‘Ya Anglichani,’ I went. ‘Ni ponemayo.’

Another incomprehensible rush of words. For a moment I half-wished Rick was with us. At last the woman stopped and said, ‘Moment.’ A second later a man came on, speaking slow, heavily accented English.

‘Anna no here.’

‘Can you give her a message, please?’

‘A message? Yes. It is what?’

‘Telephone Zheordie immediately.’

‘Zheordie?’

It was beyond me to spell the name in Russian letters, so I repeated it several times, gave the number slowly, and rang off.

‘Jesus!’ I gasped. In the state I was, any small delay seemed a massive aggravation.

‘What about Sasha?’ asked Pete.

‘Good idea.’

As the number rang, I thought of old Lyudmila and her bloody great cat, tucked up there on the eighth floor.

‘Da?’

‘Sasha, it’s Geordie. Sorry to bother you, but we’re in big trouble.’

I told him what had happened. As soon as he got the gist of it, he said, ‘No, it is impossible. Not real.’

‘It’s real enough,’ I told him. ‘They’ve gone.’

‘I come in.’

‘Well, if you can.’

‘No problem. Twenty minutes.’

‘Thanks.’ I rang off and said to the lads, ‘Sasha’s on his way. Watch yourselves when you’re speaking to him. This is where we need to start juggling the story.’

‘The Embassy,’ said Whinger. ‘What about them?’

‘Christ, yes. Better inform them.’

‘What about the bomb?’ Mal asked in his voice of doom.

‘Same thing. Not a whisper.’

‘They know you went in to collect kit,’ Mal persisted.

‘OK, we collected it.’

‘So where is it now?’

‘It was in the car that got through.’

Even as I dialled the Embassy number on the secure link, I felt amazed at how easy it seemed to be to invent plausible falsehoods. They were fairly whipping off my tongue. At the same time, I was aware of how easy it would be to make one fatal mistake and bring the whole edifice of lies crashing down.

‘British Embassy,’ said an unfamiliar voice.

‘Geordie Sharp,’ I said. ‘I need to speak to the Chargé.’