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worry about than death because of ill-health, even with the average Russian male life expectancy as low as it was.
    He made his way up the escalator of the Metro station. As ever, he marvelled at the ornate décor lining the ticket hall, great Soviet symbols hewn in bas-relief in the walls. The Moscow Metro was one of the great showcases of the Stalin era, and even though the trains were stiflingly hot and didn’t always, or even often, run to schedule, the network was aesthetically one of the most impressive and striking he’d seen in any city in the world.
    Once he was above ground and had forced his way through the throng in the ticket hall, he found a relatively secluded stretch of pavement and took out his cell phone.
    The voice at the other end said, ‘Da.’
    Grabasov said: ‘Oracle.’
    The man’s tone shifted immediately to one of deference. ‘What are my orders?’
    ‘He is likely to arrive at Frankfurt Airport within the next twenty-four hours. I need the departure lounge watched, and especially the ticket desks for Turkish Airlines.’
    ‘Just one man?’
    ‘Probably.’ Grabasov turned away as a group of people hurried by him towards the Metro Station. He wasn’t being surveilled, he was certain of it, but in Moscow today, just as it had been in Soviet times, you could never be quite sure that the seemingly innocuous commuter bustling past wasn’t eavesdropping. ‘But be alert to the possibility that he may have company.’
    ‘What status do you wish us to impose?’
    Grabasov said, ‘Termination.’
    The man at the other end, whose own code name was Artemis, said, ‘Understood.’
    ‘Be discreet,’ said Grabasov. ‘But not unnecessarily so. If it comes down to a choice between your actions being observed, and his escaping, go for the former.’
    ‘Yes sir.’
    Artemis waited for Grabasov to end the call, which he did.
    He glanced down the street in both directions. Nobody was lingering in the vicinity. He could have waited until he returned to his office before calling Artemis, but Grabasov was a man who believed that the best time to set a plan in motion was immediately. It could always be modified once it was in progress, but sometimes it couldn’t be initiated if it was left too late.
    He returned to the Metro station and descended once more. A man in Kyrill Grabasov’s position was entitled to a chauffeur, and indeed he had two of them, at his beck and call around the clock. But there were times when he preferred to do his thinking while lost in the hubbub of the city, among the rest of the populace. It was a habit he’d cultivated years earlier, in another life, and it died hard.
    His office was five stops and a change of Metro lines away. Half an hour’s journey, which gave him plenty of time to reflect on what he’d learned. Even as his mind worked, his senses reached out to his fellow passengers, sitting with their legs pressed together or standing with hands gripping the leather straps hanging from the top of the carriage to protect them from the swaying and lurches of the train. Any one of them, young or old, male or female, well-dressed or scruffy, might be the agent who would bring him down. He could never lose sight of that possibility. Would never do so.
    He’d felt the text message hum as it arrived in the phone in his pocket just as the train had passed above ground between one tunnel and the next. Taking care not to react too hastily, he’d pulled out the phone and looked at the screen.
    The message read: Target not in London. Took 11.47 flight BA 3224 to Rome 25/10.
    Grabasov, the Oracle – which seemed a bitterly ironic moniker now – had been duped.
    The last message he’d intercepted from Vale’s phone had been to John Purkiss, two days earlier. It specified a time and location in London, and a name which Grabasov hadn’t recognised. The message, murmured in Vale’s trademark tobacco-roughened baritone, had been terse, and had instructed Purkiss – John, as