In the city, the cafés and bars in Freedom Square were full of people making the most of the weekend and the weather. It seemed a long time since the 2015 Minsk ceasefire effectively froze the war of 2014–15. Since then, the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk had become de facto Russian protectorates, now known to their Russian “peace-keepers” as the province of Novorossiya. An uncertain peace prevailed, regularly broken by flare-ups along the front line between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists.

A lone man made his way through the groups of revelers, scanning the crowd as he walked. Unobtrusive at around medium height and in his early thirties, with close-cropped dark hair and a black, zip-fronted fleece jacket over a newly laundered white T-shirt, he moved with an easy, sinewy stride; a man used to covering ground with minimum physical effort, always keeping something in reserve. However, Anatoly Nikolayevich Vronsky was not enjoying the sun. A driven, utterly focused man, Vronsky accepted nothing but the best, and things looked as if they might be unraveling before they had even started.

First, his contact at the base had telephoned to warn him that the group he wanted had left earlier than expected. Then, ten minutes earlier, the idiot tasked to follow them had reported in that he had a blown tire and had lost them on the outskirts of the city. Vronsky’s best guess was that they had to be heading here, the tourist part of town, which is why he was now searching Freedom Square for them, methodically breaking down into sectors the vast, café-lined square, surrounded by huge Soviet-era concrete buildings. Each sector had to be surveyed in turn; slowly, not rushing it, just as he had once been taught and how he taught those who now followed him.

There. At a pavement table: one woman and four men. Now he saw them, the group was easy to spot among the Ukrainians. Uniformly clad in jeans and polo shirts, the men sported the distinguishing mark of any American soldier, the crew cut.

Vronsky slowed his pace, relaxed his shoulders so that he was almost slouching and made his way to an empty table right beside them. As he waved to the waiter, he took out his mobile and made a couple of calls. Minutes later another man and an attractive, younger woman joined him. They shook hands and he kissed the girl on both cheeks, sat down and ordered coffee; a typical group of young Ukrainian professionals relaxing on a day off. Then the three of them argued about the most likely winner of that season’s Premier League: Dynamo Kyiv or Metalist Kharkiv. All they had to do now was wait.