‘But why would I—’

‘Just do it, please, right now. And then everything will be fine.’

‘Mum, is everything okay?’

‘Do as I ask, now.’ Kate curtailed the call. She texted the number she had given Stuart in Prague, via Signal. Meet you by Paveletskaya metro ASAP. Come on foot. Leave behind everything else.

She disassembled her phone. She dropped the SIM into a drain and the rest into a bin.

She walked on to Paveletskaya. She waited by the Metro, watching the commuters pour out on to the street like an incoming tide. It was raining still harder. She took in her surroundings bit by bit, trying to still the questions flooding her mind. Had the FSB spotted that she was the handler? Where was Grove? Had she blown the entire operation?

Kate sectioned off the square around her, sweeping each part of it in turn to make it less conspicuous that she was trying to seek out any potential surveillance. But by the time she saw the reassuring figure of Stuart emerge from the throng in his trademark jeans and black leather jacket, she was pretty sure she was not being watched and her heart leapt.

She let him pass, then approached him from behind, slipping her arm in his. ‘Just keep walking,’ she said.

‘Christ, Kate …’

‘Don’t say anything.’

She could tell it required all Stuart’s self-restraint to resist demanding what the hell was happening and she didn’t blame him. They walked south on Dubininskaya Street.

Kate set the pace, more or less a march. She took a winding route, weaving from busy thoroughfares to quieter residential streets and cut-throughs. And finally, she found what she had been looking for: an old, beaten-up Fiat. She approached the side closest to the pavement, wrapped her fist in her coat and smashed the window with one brief, well-aimed punch to the corner. She got in, slipped over to the driver’s side and instructed Stuart to get in beside her.

She ripped the ignition leads from the underside of the dash and hot-wired the car. She accelerated away, holding the leads together to keep the car in motion and only releasing them for a split second to change gear.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

Kate didn’t answer. She kept glancing from the road to the side and rear-view mirrors. ‘Kate?’ Stuart tried again, but she was too absorbed in her task. It started to rain harder, which made it more difficult to see if anyone was on her tail. The minutes crawled by. They drew clear of Moscow and the traffic thinned. Kate didn’t allow herself to relax.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ he asked. ‘Or at least where we’re going?’

‘Georgia.’

‘What?’

‘An operation went wrong, but I have what I need. With any luck, it’ll take them a while to work out that I was the recipient. When they do, they’ll expect me to make the short run to the border with Belarus or Lithuania. They won’t imagine I’ll take the long route south. And I know Georgia. If I can get us there, we have a decent chance of making it all the way home.’