‘You explain. You say there is a matter so sensitive it has to be run by you from Downing Street, outside all normal channels including within SIS, though you can mention that you’ve hired me to run the investigative team. You tell him you’ve been made aware of a new cultivated agent his team has brought on stream called Incisor. You say you’re going to have to ask him to task Incisor with something sensitive and difficult. He will politely refuse, before you even explain what it is. When you press him, he will deflect. When you insist, he will refuse point blank.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I would and so would any self-respecting station chief or agent handler, particularly if the source in question was one he or she had cultivated.’

‘What do you mean, “cultivated”?’

‘Someone you’d spotted, groomed and then reeled in. It’s a difficult, subtle process, in which a strong personal bond is normally forged. Hell would freeze over before you’d allow any politician to start messing about with your agent, and Andrew is a good operator.’

‘So then what do I do?’

‘You say you entirely understand his reservations, but this is a matter of national security and you’re afraid you’re going to have to insist. You’ll accept whatever terms and conditions Andrew may set, but you have a single task that must be put to Incisor direct. He will have made some promises to his agent that ultimately must be delivered by the British state, so at this point Andrew will be wondering just how far you’ll push it. Then he’ll try to stall. He’ll say it’s practically impossible. He’ll claim he doesn’t have enough guaranteed clean skins in his team in Russia to scope out a face-to-face meeting at short notice, and if teams cannot be sent from SIS in London, then he’ll regretfully have to leave it for another day.’

‘I tell him we can’t wait for another day?’

‘Yes, but more than that, you let him know you’ll be sending a team from London to take care of that operation.’

‘Where am I going to find such a team?’

‘I’ll go, with my colleague Julie.’

‘Christ, Kate. You’re going to Moscow? Is that wise?’

‘If we want to get to the bottom of this, I’m not sure I have a choice.’

He nodded, as if impressed. ‘Roger that. I assume you know what you’re doing. You seem very clear how this is going to pan out with this fellow Andrew.’

‘Any case officer would do exactly the same. You’d move heaven and earth to keep any politician a million miles away from an agent, so we have to convince him these are exceptional circumstances. He’ll immediately come back to you and say it would be impossible to work with an outside team, whoever it is. At that point, tell him you’re going beyond your area of expertise and schedule a virtual meeting tomorrow at which Julie and I will be present. In all likelihood, he’ll continue to fight it, but it’ll be harder with me there to bat his points back one by one and, in the meantime, he and his team will do some emergency groundwork just in case they find they can’t wriggle out of it.’