"I was handcuffed to a pipe in the cellar."

"Ah yes… and evidence of them converting and respraying a vehicle-"

"That's what we want."

"-most likely a Volkswagen camper, from the bits and pieces left around. They resprayed it dark green and probably cut a big roof hatch and a smaller hole, round, about five inches across."

George blinked, then guessed: "For a stove pipe?" With its short fat body and long tube behind, a Blowpipe launcher could well be disguised as a stove and pipe -then pulled loose and fired through a wide roof hatch. It was a lot more likely than standing on an East German road and blasting the thingoff.

The AC just smiled his meaningless gorilla smile. He didn't need to guess at things that were beyond his reach.

"So now do we believe these people areserious?" George demanded.

"Aye," the Deputy D-G said wearily. "But I also believe they are out of our territory. If the vehicle is to be in East Germany tomorrow afternoon, it is quite likely there already. Certainly on the Continent, would you not agree?"

"Probably, but what about what's still on your territory? Which could include Arnold Tatham if he's still alive and still directing it, which seems to be an increasing possibility. Have you tracked down the phone numbers Agnes sent you?"

"George,"the Deputy D-G said, keeping his hands in his lap, "I think you can take it that they will now be looked into."

"Now? After you've had the bloody things for eighteen hours?"

"You just don't appreciate how things have been, these months since…" He shook his head slowly.

If George had not appreciated, the clenched painful smile on the old man's face-yet he wasn't ten years older than George-would have told him almost everything that had happened (and not happened) in Security during the last half-year.

"All right… but for fifteen years these people have been training, biding their time-and tomorrow looks like being their big day. I want it not to be, and I don't want them to have any more days after that."

"You draft the warning to Berlin, George. The Assistant Commissioner and I will add our endorsements."

"I would need to talk to my superiors before committing us to that," the AC said.

The Deputy D-G didn't look at him. "Take all the time you need-up to, say, fifteen minutes. If the Archbishop does get shot down in flames, it might be advisable to have your Department's name on the telegram predicting this. Whether or not we can do anything about it, I believe it would be advisable."

Thoughtfully, the AC went to find a telephone.

George was late back at Albany, but Annette hadn't been lonely. A team of Security Service sweepers was already at work, fanning their gadgetry at the panelling and dissecting the telephones. Annette was in the small bright kitchen, drinking coffee with the DDCR.

She jumped up and hugged George. "Are you all right? Really all right? Can you tell me…? Never mind, but we cantalk again, they say, in here, anyway. Bugger the KGB!" she shouted cheerfully.

"Did they find anything?"

The DDCR said: "A couple of devices. So far." George felt guiltily pleased that he hadn't been misleading the Security Service after all, and sat down at the table.

"Coffee?" Annette asked, then caught the look on his face. "All right, I'll get it." She went out.

"How did it go?" the DDCR asked.

"We gotoffatelegram to Ferrebee in Berlin…" And, after some pleading by George, the Deputy D-G was trying to persuade the Prime Minister's office to persuade the Intelligence Service's switchboard to persuade their Director-General to fly back from Edinburgh… "God knows what he's doing there, but now we can't meet until morning."

"It's a pity the Prime Minister doesn't like you."

"Yes, but it's the only positive thing about him. How's things at the Department of Waste and Warmongering?"

Annette came back with a very large tumbler very full of whisky and water, and George pounced. "Have you eaten anything?"

"I think I had something at Harry's parents' place. "

"I'm sure you gotsomething, but was it something you chew as well as swallow?"

"I'll have some biscuits and cheese later."

Annette gave him a look and went out again.

"Speaking of Harry," the DDCR said, "well, peopleare speaking of Harry. The East Sussex police, for one of many. The last phone call I got, they were practically suggesting I should have put a citizen's arrest on him. But I think I've got it retrospectively squared that he was authorised to carry a weapon: his CO was my G- 2 in Two Armoured… We are getting to the point, George, where we need a whole bloody unit devoted to finding out what Major Maxim is doing and then telling him to stop it. And they'd have to be better men than you and me."

"If it hadn't been for him, the Crocus List would never have come to light. Where is he now?"

"I don't know. He left a message for you." It was a sealed envelope. George opened it, read the note and passed it back impassively: I'll call you from Berlin. Harry.

Perhaps, like Merlin, Sprague lived backwards in time: born in the future and ageing with a perfect memory of what was about to happen together with a misty ambition for what lay ahead in the past. That would explain a lot, George reflected. Or perhaps-he re-reflected-one could explain Merlin's magical reputation in the corridors of Camelotby assuming he was the first true civil servant, gifted with an unromantic vision of what people were going to do (rather than what they should) and building his career on that. While poor King Arthur thought he was running the Round Table all by himself.

So George shouldn't have been surprised to find Sprague had invited himself to the little group that met around a Cabinet Office table at dawn, still wearing their almost identical black overcoats because the heating had only just switched itself on.

"I can't quite see," Sprague was saying, "why you sent Major Maxim to Berlin, George."

"I neither sent him nor let him go. He just went."

"Extraordinary how your Department works. I would have thought his name on any passenger list could alert the Other Side, which on the whole we don't-"

"According to our man in Washington," Sir Nicholas said, "this Maxim used a false identity out in the Midwest. He may well have retained it." The Director-General of the Intelligence Service was a spectacled, near-bald man in his late fifties, with the bulk of a football player who has not quite replaced training with dieting.

"Mostextraordinary," Sprague murmured. "I suppose it would be too much to ask what-if you know-he might be going todo there?"

Georgeglowered. "I imagine that rather depends on what Sir Nicholas is offering to do there."

Sir Nicholas raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "I don't recall making any oners, George."

"I assume you haveassets, as you call them, in East Germany, East Berlin. How fast can you communicate with them?"

"Really, George."

"Let me put it this way: can they get off their backsides fast enough to intercept this Volkswagen van full of Brits and a British missile before it gets nabbed by the VOPOs -and the Bravoes, they'll be there on the double-and those Brits confess to being your agents and whatever else is written out for them to confess to?"

That brought a pause. Sir Anthony Sladen, nominally in charge as the Cabinet Office always was, looked nervously around for candidates. "Does the Security Service have any further information that might… I mean…?"

The Deputy D-G moved his old hands slowly across his papers. "Aye… we have checked out the British telephone numbers Miss Algar sent us. One is Oxendown House itself- "

"So Arnold Tatham _could_ have been there?" George snapped.