‘Well, thanks,’ I said. ‘We’re coming in tomorrow night, as planned, but we don’t start the course till Monday – so I wondered if we could bring some kit to store in the cellar on Sunday evening?’

‘Ah.’ He sounded a bit taken aback. ‘I shan’t be here. But I tell you what. I’ll leave the keys with the duty officer. That’s going to be . . . wait a minute . . . Richard Henshaw. I’ll tell him to expect you. What time will you get here?’

I had to think fast. ‘I’m not certain we’ll have transport by then. But let’s assume we will have. We should be there between six and seven in the evening. If there’s anything different, I’ll call to say so.’

‘Right-oh. I’ll leave a message at the gate.’

So far, so good. Then, to take my mind off immediate problems, I called Tony Lopez, late of the US SEAL special forces, but by now working in CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. I had come to know Tony after he’d rescued me when I got hurt in Iraq during the Gulf War and we’d been interned together for a month. Then, a couple of years later, he had come over for a tour with the Regiment, and had done brilliantly until he’d had his left arm smashed.

His wound was serious enough to finish his career in the armed forces, and when he’d recovered, he joined the CIA. He’d been too discreet to tell me exactly what areas he was working in, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that he would have reponsibility for special forces projects.

Now, when I got through, he sounded his usual lively self.

‘Hi, Tony,’ I went. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Good! Good! How about you?’

‘Fine. How’s the arm?’

‘Still improving. About seventy per cent now.’

‘Great. Listen, Tony – d’you know people in the Drug Enforcement Agency?’

‘Sure do. Why?’

I told him about Rick’s friend Natasha, and her sister Irina who’d got sucked into the Russian Mafia operations in New York. I also gave him the name of the brasserie in Brooklyn where the girl was supposed to be working, and asked if he could do anything to help.

He said he’d put in a call to a friend in the DEA, but then in a different voice he added, ‘So it’s you who’s been in Moscow. I might have guessed.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. But this assignment could be a hot number. When you go back there, Geordie, take it easy. OK?’

‘OK.’ I wasn’t going to ask him anything else. Clearly Tony knew about Operation Nimrod: he knew we’d been over, he knew we were going back . . . and there were obviously things about the task that he didn’t like.

Chapter Six

SIX