‘Well, yeah – she being a colonel and everything. I didn’t think I could tell her to fuck off.’

‘So what happened?’

‘She dialled a number and started talking in Russian.’

‘What was she saying?’

‘I couldn’t understand a lot of it. Something about transport – cars.’

‘And you stayed in the room with her?’

Rick shook his head. ‘No – I let her carry on. I was working in the kitchen and I went back in there.’

‘Ah, Jesus! How long for?’

‘Five minutes?’

‘Cunt!’ I was almost on the point of whacking him, so angry did I feel.

Obviously he realised it, because he blurted out, ‘I mean, with her being our OC, more or less, I thought everything was above board.’

‘Rick,’ I said, ‘that’s the second time you’ve dropped a bollock. And this one’s serious. This is your last chance. Any more cock-ups and you’re going home.’

I took a deep breath. It was too late. The damage had been done. But how the hell had Anna got her hands on the disk so fast? She must have had a duplicate set of keys for the filing cabinet. But how far had she managed to get? Had she been dictating stuff straight off the computer screen to some FSB colleague? Or was the conversation Rick had heard just cover for her attempt to get into the program?

‘What happened at the end, when she left?’ I demanded.

‘I came back in here. I was going to offer her a cup of tea.’

‘Bloody hell! What was she doing?’

‘She was sat there at the table.’

‘With the lap-top in front of her?’

Rick frowned. ‘I never noticed. She was still talking on the phone.’

‘And then?’

‘She rang off, put the phone back on the hook. Then she said thanks and went out.’

Now what? It was the same dilemma as when we’d found the bug. Should we reveal our suspicions, or should we keep quiet? Even if I didn’t accuse Anna of trying to break into our computer programs, should I drop some casual remark about her having used our phone, just to show that her visit hadn’t gone unreported? Should I confide in Sasha and see what he thought?

‘Wait,’ was Whinger’s advice. ‘Let it develop. Say nothing. See what happens. If she has managed to bust into the program, the next thing we can expect is a massive search. If they suspect we’ve got a couple of suitcase bombs about the place, they’re going to go mad trying to find them. On some pretext or other, they’ll turn everything upside-down tomorrow.’

‘What about Hereford?’ asked Pavarotti. ‘Are we going to report this to base?’

‘Wait out on that one too,’ I said. ‘They’d shit themselves if they heard about it, and they’ve no means of assessing the position from that end. No point in stirring things up unnecessarily.’