Spot on 2150 we heard faint metallic noises above our head – a clinking and scraping. Then came a slight change of pressure as Toad lifted the cover. A few seconds later the ladder-end flicked down beside us. I sent Pav up first, and heard him grunting with effort as he climbed. When the ladder twitched twice, I started up myself.

In the blackness of the shed I whispered, ‘OK?’ and Toad said, ‘Fine’ as he undid the ladder, closed the hatch and slipped the original padlocks back through the securing rings.

We pulled some of the rotten hay back over the cover and stood listening in the doorway.

‘There’s still something on in the church,’ said Toad quietly. ‘People keep coming back and forth. They’re crossing to that doorway with the light showing.’

We were so wet and filthy we looked like a couple of drunks who’d fallen in the river, so even if we did meet someone there was a chance they’d pay no attention.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

We hustled along the edge of the yard, past the church door, back to the entrance gate. We’d hardly crossed the road on to the pavement beside the river when we saw a car coming in our direction.

In my earpiece Whinger’s voice went, ‘I have you visual,’ and I knew it was him. Ten seconds later he pulled up beside us, and we were safely on board.

‘All quiet up top?’ I asked.

‘Beautiful. But, Christ, what have you been doing?’ He turned and glared at me.

‘Eating caviar and drinking vodka,’ I told him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘You stink like the arsehole of the universe.’

‘Thanks, mate. That’s what it’s like down there. Stinking. The bastard tunnel’s lined with shit and what’s more, it’s full of water.’

‘Could you get through it?’

‘Not this time. We waded as far as we could, but we need breathing kit and dry-suits. Head for base, Whinge. We’re soaked to the bloody skin.’

Back at Balashika I called straight through to the duty officer in Hereford on the secure Satcom link. We’d set up our equipment in the office-cum-ops room, with the dish aerial on the roof of the building. Daily sweeps for bugs showed that the microphone in the kitchen was still live, so nobody talked any kind of shop in there; but there’d been no reaction to Steve’s disabling of the bug in the office, and we reckoned that room was secure.

We were back at 10.40 Moscow time; England was three hours behind, and I knew the duty officer would be around in the ops room in Stirling Lines. Technically, the connection was perfect; if it hadn’t been for the half-second lag in transmission as the message went up to the satellite and down again, I might have been in the next room rather than 2,000 miles away.