Chapter 33: Jailbreak

A/N: This chapter's Decoration for Services to the Fandom – also known as the kicking-True's-butt-badge – goes to The Ice Within, who missed dinner – missed dinner – to read this fic. And then accused me of having not updated since August. And accused me justly. Because I have not updated since August. I have had more excuse this time than some other times, because I am an A2 student now. For my non-English readers, this is serious business. It's as serious as school business gets. But then missing dinner is serious business too.

I am quite annoyed with myself for having let this fic lose momentum, and therefore probably readers, and I am honoured by every person who bothers to read and review, and wait. I think I'll finish by Christmas (like I was hoping to finish by last Christmas ^^;), and tonight I'mma gonna give you two chapters at once, like I've never done before because I'm a selfish little review-monkey who likes to bump her stories to the top of the list, but heck, you guys deserve it. Oh, and I stole the keypad idea in this chapter from my mum, who used it in her *real* book.

'Right, guys,' Alex said as soon as they were out in the corridor, 'I'm sorry to be all patronising after everything we've done together, but this time I really think that this time just I – fine, just me and Rob should go.' He had seen Roberta furiously open her mouth, and felt that an argument at this point would be even more dangerous than just letting her come with him.

'Don't worry about it,' Clara said briskly. She seemed to have realised the risks of arguing too. 'Probably safest. We'll wait for you out front somewhere.'

'Wait, what?' Taylor said.

Alex faltered a little. 'We are all thinking the same thing, right?'

Jane tapped Taylor on the elbow and whispered, 'they're going to break Yassen out of his cell using Rob's new guitar.'

'Oooo-oh,' Taylor said. 'Uh…sounds a little risky.'

'Shut up; I don't want to think about it,' Alex muttered. 'Taylor, Josh, could you take Rob's and my hoverboards and hang onto them? We'll meet you…where close to here's got good cover? Hyde park. C'mon, Rob, let's go. S'laters, guys.'

'He is a legend,' Clara said, shaking her head as she watched them go.

'He's crazy,' Jane said, taking her arm. 'We're all crazy. Come on, let's hurry; we've got to get out of here.'

'Don't run,' Alex said, taking Roberta by the elbow.

'Okay,' Roberta said nervously. He didn't think he had ever seen her look so anxious, but it wasn't really surprising. Loudly proclaiming transgression in the school corridors was a long way away from doing it for real in the corridors of MI6.

'Where are we going?' she hissed at him.

'Down. They held me in one of the cells here the first time I got mixed up with Scorpia; I think I know roughly where that is.' Hell, this is going to be harder than I thought, he nearly said, but stopped himself in time. There was no sense in panicking her.

They walked quietly to the stairs and jogged down, their feet tapping lightly on the carpet. Alex's legs quickly started to ache, but he somehow felt that, given their clandestine destination, they shouldn't be taking the lift.

'Rider, how many floors up are we?'

'Seventeen.'

'Oh.'

After a few more flights, Roberta said, 'it's Christmas day.'

'Great. Thanks for making me more miserable.'

'No, I mean, maybe that's why the building's so empty. Maybe this is going to be possible.'

'I suppose. Even spies have to take holidays. Some spies. Not all. Now stop talking; the walls have ears.'

They came out into the underground car park. Everything was eerily quiet, and Alex realised Roberta must be right. The building was operating on a skeleton staff. But he knew that the holding cells would be thoroughly guarded. They were going to need a lot of luck.

The two vans that had brought them in were still parked in their bays. Alex shivered as he passed them, heading for a door marked with an innocuous – but tempting – 'authorised personnel only.'

Footsteps came echoing down the stairwell behind them, and Alex quickly grabbed Roberta by the sleeve and pulled her behind one of the two vans.

'Don't crouch, lean,' he whispered. 'Act casual…'

They weren't forbidden to be where they were, after all; there was no need to behave suspiciously. Alex waited a few seconds while the footsteps crossed the car park, then peeped out from behind the van. A woman with a box of files was standing in front of the door, and he heard a faint bleeping sound as she punched numbers into a key pad on the wall. She was sideways onto them and he could see the stabbing movements of her finger, but he couldn't make out the numbers on the pad.

He could feel Roberta leaning forward behind him. Without turning he pressed her with his shoulder, trying to signal to her to keep out of sight. The woman pushed the door open and disappeared inside. Alex gritted his teeth. What next?

'5396,' Roberta said.

'What?'

'That's the code.'

'What?'

'You know how phones and things have a different tone for each button?'

Alex looked at her blankly. 'They do?'

Roberta closed her eyes briefly. 'They do. I wrote a song based around the tune of Clara's mobile number once. Anyway – ' She tapped her ear. '5396.'

'Key pad whisperers,' Alex muttered, heading for the door. 'Whatever next?'

He hesitated for a second, then let Roberta type in the code.

'God, I'm not a kid who wants to put the money in the parking meter,' she said, but she looked pretty chuffed all the same.

'Just like a spy film, isn't it?' Alex smirked. Sure enough, Roberta had been right. The door opened.

'Right,' Alex said, stepping inside. 'Time for a little security camera disabling, I think.'

'Oh, uh…' Roberta unslung her guitar case from her shoulders and opened it at the neck. The guitar gleamed inside, more sleek and splendid than ever. Alex remembered the state it had been in at the end of the evening before, and felt a wave of admiration for Smithers. The man was a genius.

Roberta was fumbling with the tuning pegs. Alex could remember well the first few doubtful times working a gadget, 'two turns clockwise' or 'press start three times' or whatever it happened to be. Roberta twisted the peg three times, as though unscrewing it, and then pressed it into the neck of the guitar. It clicked and stayed in place. Nothing noticeable happened, but, Alex hoped, all the cameras in this part of the building would have frozen.

'I hope that Smithers guy knew what he was doing,' Roberta said, glancing nervously around.

'Don't worry; he should know how the security in this building works. He probably designed it. I hope he's not getting himself into trouble, though…better not get caught, had we?'

They set off down another corridor. The floor was still carpeted, but it was somehow bleaker and more menacing down here; the lighting was harsh, the passage narrow, and Alex could feel the weight of the rest of the building pushing down on them. No windows. Their breath and padding feet seemed horribly loud.

They came to a corner and Alex gestured to Roberta to stay out of sight, then pressed himself flat against the wall and peered gingerly round.

He was looking into a well-lit, open-plan office area. It was obviously designed to be a pleasant working space, but opposite him he could see another door, this time much heavier: bolted grey steel with a second sign, this time in bright red letters: WARNING: AUTHORISED PERSONELLE ONLY. In the working area, the woman with the files who had let them into the building was leaning over the shoulder of a dark-haired secretary. Alex's eyes flickered to the door. It must lead to wherever Yassen was being held – and he was sure there would be armed guards on the other side of it.

'What are we going to do?' Roberta mouthed at him. Alex didn't answer. His mind was blank.

An intercom crackled on the desk, and both woman stopped their conversation to look at it.

'Meryl,' a man's voice said, 'there seems to be a problem with the CCTV on your floor. Could you go and check it from the camera end?'

'Oh, shit…' Alex heard Roberta breathe.

He grabbed her and pulled her back down the corridor as the two women left their desk. There was an alcove with a drinking fountain behind them, and the two of them just managed to cram in behind it. Alex crouched absolutely still, praying that neither of the women would glance sideways…to his relief, they passed by, intent on the cameras. But their luck couldn't last.

Roberta looked at him questioningly, half-rising, her body turned towards the office and the security door.

'Yes, go!' he hissed. It was crazy. They were bound to be caught. But this was the only chance they were going to get.

They were half-way across the office, right out in the open, when Alex heard more footsteps. His stomach plunged like a broken lift. This time it was Roberta who acted. She gesticulated towards the desk.

Alex dived forward and curled himself into the space under the desk, but it was obvious that there wasn't room for two. There was only a narrow gap for the typist's legs, and Alex wondered if the desk had been purposely designed that way, so as not to provide a hiding place. But what Roberta did next astounded him. Quickly pulling her hair into a twist that hid the worst of the pink streaks, she sat down in the chair itself, pulled it to the desk and hunched over the computer.

Seconds later a man hurried into the room. He looked fraught, and unlike the others they had seen so far, he was armed. But he was focussed on the problem of the cameras, not the identity of the receptionist. In the tail of his eye he saw a dark-haired woman in an anonymous black jacket bending busily over her keyboard. He assumed that the room was secure. He hurried on.

Roberta was shaking. Alex reached up and jabbed her in the leg.

'What?'

'Give me your scarf, I've got to hide my face.'

She stuffed her pashmina into his hands and he wound it over his mouth, nose and hair. He didn't think he had felt more ridiculous since the bullfighting costume, but it had to be done. He scrambled up from under the desk and searched until he spotted what he was looking for: a discreet but unmistakable button.

'Push that,' he said to Roberta, 'and then keep your face hidden until I'm done fighting.'

He faced the steel door. Please, God, don't let there be more than one guard.

Behind him, Roberta pressed the button.

An alarm shrilled. Not too forceful – it could have been used to signal anything from a terrorist attack to a fainting fit – but it almost made him jump out of his skin, and it did what he had hoped it would do. The door burst open, and before the guard who had opened it could take a step forward Alex was piling into him; a jab to the diaphragm to wind him, and a punch in the head to bring him down. He caught the door before it swung shut and dashed in. There was a second guard, scrabbling for his gun. Alex jabbed a finger into his wrist, caught him by the collar and slammed him chest-first into the wall.

'Which cell?' he whispered – he didn't dare raise his voice for fear of being recognised.

The guard needed no clarification. 'Third down!' he gasped. It was clear that he had panicked. He knew that the man he was guarding had worked for Scorpia. It hadn't crossed his mind that the whole escape was being managed by a couple of teenagers.

Alex knocked him out too, feeling his stomach turn at the cool demolition, and dashed to the third cell. Roberta killed the alarm and came running in.

'Lock-picking tuning peg, please,' Alex said, kneeling.

Roberta scrabbled for it. 'Why aren't these locks electronic as well?' she said.

'In case of fire, I bet.' Alex snatched the peg. A long, delicate skeleton key unfolded out of its inside. 'So you can still get the prisoners out if the electricity's not working.'

'It would make more sense to have a manual override – '

'Well this is making it possible for us to get in, alright? Don't bloody complain!' Alex twisted the peg and the door swung open.

He had to hand it to Yassen. The Russian was already on his feet, tense and ready; he must have heard the noises from outside. When he saw who is was, though, he looked staggered. At least, he looked almost as impassive as ever, but Alex could see the shock in his eyes.

'Quick,' Alex said, grabbing him by the arm and surprising himself with the motion. 'There are no back-up measures in place; we've got to run.'

Yassen came, without comment. He seemed to flow out of the cell, not just a person but a palpable presence, and Alex felt as though a huge weight had rolled off his shoulders at the sight of someone who knew what they were doing. He was also fully aware of how insane it was to be feeling that way.

'Run,' Yassen said calmly.

Alex stepped aside to let him pass first, then fell in immediately behind, feeling Roberta do the same beside him. They dashed out of the dark row of cells and into the office. Yassen hesitated, poised on the balls of his feet; Alex guessed he must have been blindfolded when he was brought down. The corridor they had entered by would take them back to the car park, underground in the heart of MI6 headquarters. There had to be another way out. He looked around, and saw a luminous sign: green with a running man.

'That way.'

Yassen darted forward, quick, controlled and silent. Alex tried to mimic his light footsteps, his heart in his mouth. Surely, any second now, guards, discovery, punishment. He heard a door slam somewhere behind them, and footfalls getting closer, but up ahead Yassen had reached a door marked fire exit – he was throwing it open – the three of them piled through, and Alex slammed it shut again.

The cold night air hit his lungs in an icy, refreshing gasp. He could see Liverpool street just a short sprint away, with ordinary people strolling past – a big enough crowd, even today, to lose oneself in. However, he could also see men spilling out of the front of the Royal and General. He could think of one small piece of comfort: there was only so much fuss MI6 could kick up without blowing their cover.

'Run; I've got a plan!' he hissed, and Yassen and Roberta immediately obeyed, dashing headlong away from the building and towards the street. Despite everything, Alex felt a little buzz of confidence. He waited for a few seconds and then pelted after them, a featureless silhouette in the orange street lamps, waving his arm at the approaching agents and yelling:

'I'm on it!'

For the crucial instant, it worked. The men hesitated. Maybe they should fan out and cover him. Maybe they shouldn't get in the way. Pounding forward, Alex caught up with Yassen and Roberta as they lost themselves among the milling people outside Liverpool Street Station.

For a few minutes they moved as fast as they could without running, twisting and turning to avoid pursuit. Then Alex spoke quietly.

'We need to head to Hyde Park. The others will be waiting for us with hoverboards.'

Yassen shook his head. 'I'm impressed,' he said. 'You have carried this out very smoothly.'

'No we didn't; it was a fucking shambles,' Roberta muttered. 'Mind you, their security was a shambles too, I guess…'

'I didn't expect it to be so easy,' Alex said. 'I expect they don't usually have prisoners in Liverpool Street itself. But still, without the guitar…'

'We would have been screwed.' Roberta finished his sentence for him.

'Guitar?' Yassen asked.

'Oh, yeah, Mr Smithers –' Roberta, finding herself talking directly to Yassen, suddenly became tongue-tied. She turned her face away and shrugged the guitar case a little off her shoulders to show it. 'He fixed my guitar.'

'Fixed it?' Yassen repeated, with undue interest. Roberta hunched in on herself, and Alex suddenly remembered the aggressive, brooding creature she had been when he'd first met her, at school. Of course, she was always aggressive and brooding, but there was a difference between her caged aggression and the kind she displayed when playing music. And, Scorpia or no Scorpia, it had been a long time since he'd seen her on the defensive.

'He put a few extra things in,' he explained. 'Mr Smithers did. CCTV jammers, lock-picks, that sort of thing.'

'Hand grenades,' Roberta added.

'Yeah. We've still got them.' Alex felt his mood brighten a little, though he couldn't think why. 'And then he just gave it to us. You know, casually.'

'…I see,' Yassen said. 'A remarkable man.'

'Did you meet him?' Alex asked.

'No. I should have liked to. One day, perhaps…'

They had reached the edge of the park. Alex bounced up on his toes, feeling his muscles, cramped from their long day of driving, suddenly waking up at the sight of a wide green space.

Yassen stared out across the dark lawns and shrubbery, his face serene, and a little thoughtful. On Alex's other side, Roberta drew a sudden, shaky breath.

'Oh!' Something suddenly went clunk in Alex's head; he wished he had managed not to exclaim about it, but it was too late now. 'Uh…I'm going to try and find the others and you two, should walk…'

Roberta folded her arms tightly. 'I don't think that's…'

'Rob –'

'Shush.'

'Don't be –'

She baulked away from his hands.

'– a coward, if you don't talk now you'll regret it later.'

'Fine.' Roberta spun sharply on her heel and stood with her back to him, her whole body rigid.

Alex supposed that whatever happened next was Yassen's problem. He looked at the Russian, who gave him the barest half-smile, then turned and hurried away into the dark.

'Roberta,' Yassen said.

Roberta grimaced to herself. She could think of absolutely nothing to say.

'The problem with modern England,' Yassen said, 'is that it has no etiquette. If it were socially unacceptable for a lady and a gentleman in a park not to talk, we would have somewhere to begin. Come. Take my arm. We will walk.'

Roberta sighed, turned around and placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. She looked confused, angry and, to Yassen, very sweet and shy. Who was there at her school, he wondered, who knew how to treat her like a lady? And much less how to treat her the way a woman like herself should be treated? He knew, despite her front, that she was touched.

He led off walking. Roberta followed with long, energetic strides, not strolling but marching. Good. His body wanted exercise. He walked in time with her until she suddenly slowed almost to a standstill, threw back her hair and demanded,

'What the hell is this?'

'How can I answer without making you angry?' he sighed.

'Answer however you like. I'm already angry.'

'Oh, Roberta,' he said, shaking his head.

' "Oh Yassen," ' she sneered. 'There's a fucking moon up there and everything. Oh, what the hell?'

'I don't know best to comfort you. I don't know whether to tell you that it is an adolescent phase which will pass, or a natural biological phenomenon, or that love is never wrong –'

'Just tell me whatever will shut me up, huh? I don't suppose you have an opinion? Hey, Yassen, do you even believe in love?'

'I didn't,' Yassen said, 'until I met you.'

Roberta made an incredulous choking sound. 'Oh – ! God, please!'

Yassen raised a hand, apologetic. 'That came out wrong.' He grinned at his own use of the phrase. 'For one thing, it isn't true. I already loved Alex, and Alex's father. But women…romantic love…'

'Love is just lust, right?'

Yassen inclined his head. 'But the way I feel about you does not quite fit with that hypothesis, so I have been considering others, and one of these is that love exists.'

'Tell me another.'

'That I'm going crazy.'

'Fair enough. That was going to be my explanation for myself.'

'Roberta,' Yassen said softly, and reached out a hand. 'It isn't wrong to be in love with me.'

She wrenched herself away. 'I'm not in love with you!'

'That is why I didn't want to say it. I knew it would only make you shout.' He reached out again, and this time she let him take her by the shoulders, not quite like a teacher, not quite like a lover. 'Roberta, however you feel – ' He brushed a wisp of hair away from her face, and suddenly everything shifted; the night was alive, the stars dazzling – 'you are a good person.'

'What do you mean "good"?' Roberta muttered, staring at her shoes.

'I mean that you possess good qualities. That it is a good thing that you exist. That I am an inconsistent, short-sighted and dramatic human being and think you are a good thing.'

'Do you love me?' Roberta asked boldly.

'Yes.'

Well.

'So you've worked out what love is, then, at any rate?' she said after a moment.

'Yes. It is whatever this is.'

'It looks like we're back to "what the hell is this?" ' Roberta half-laughed, looked down and saw that somehow they had ended up holding both pairs of hands. Their heads were bowed forward, very close together.

'I know that I respect you, as I have respected a few other people before. I know that I desire you, but not enough to allow me to fall back on the original theory of love. And I know that I am a little bit afraid of you.

'Wow,' she muttered, slipping for a moment at last. 'I…I just…' She looked up at Yassen and any words she might have had died in her throat, but it didn't matter; he could read them all in her eyes. The longing to escape from everything that was shackling her brilliant wildness and her originality, and be truly understood – even by a murderer. And maybe to have to unravel him in return, rather than being able to see his every social motive pinned out like beetles on a cork board.

He touched her cheek and looked into her eyes, relishing the connection; a true point of contact. She looked away – rested her head on his shoulder and began to mumble.

'Desire me, huh? Dude, I thought you were the freakin' North Pole…'

Yassen chuckled, holding her. She lifted her head again and looked into his eyes. 'What're you going to do now?'

The big question. For a moment Yassen allowed himself to forget it. He kept one finger holding onto reality – his reality – and let himself drift in the smoke of her voice. His shoulder-blades and whole body tingled, then relaxed. What did it matter if enemies came, if the park was full of snipers? Spies and assassins spent their whole lives preserving themselves, so carefully, from every risk. And for what?

This.

Their lips touched.

'Ah, Roberta,' Yassen said again, and knew that this time the words had come without his volition, and that he had meant them.

'Kiss me,' she said, all adolescent seductress, and Yassen bent his head and kissed her. The snow in London had all melted, if there had been any to begin with; there was nothing but wetness and cold, and yet the moment their mouths met she was back in the snowfield. She actually felt and saw it descend around her: a rush of wind and snowflakes, the landscape turning white, cold without hurting. Hot tears sprang up in her eyes, because she knew that she was holding a waking dream in her arms, and that like a snowflake he would melt away in a moment, driven away by the police trucks and sirens that would come howling out of her structured life. She ran her hands down his arms, feeling for his skin, and the shape of his lean, wiry muscles beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.

'Yassen, aren't you cold?'

'Haven't we been here before?'

'You felt it too? All snowy?'

'Something like that. Choral music.'

'Whatever floats your boat. We'll go walking in the snow again,' she promised extravagantly, but meaning it all the same.

'In Russia,' he agreed.

'Really?'

'Yes. And then we'll break into the Winter Palace together, after the tourists have left.'

'I'll bring my super-guitar to help us do it.' Roberta sniffed deeply and flicked a finger under each eye. 'Come on, we'd better find the others. You have to get out of the city.'

It didn't take them long to spot the rest of the Non-Conformists, standing huddled together on the rise of the ground, sheltered by trees. Roberta could see the outline of a hoverboard, standing up on end under Alex's arm, and suddenly her heart began to beat faster. She had a sense that time was slipping away from her, faster than she realised, like water under ice; and yet she couldn't stop walking forward.

'Guys,' Alex said as they climbed up towards him. He tipped the board down at Yassen's feet. 'There. All charged up and ready.'

'I thank all of you very much,' Yassen said, looking round the six faces. 'For your help, the escape – the music especially.'

'You're violin's still at our place,' Jane remembered.

'I will write to you when it is safe. You can send it.' That was a definite link. They were all pleased.

'Well, goodbye, bruv,' Taylor said, stepping forward. He and Yassen shook hands.

'See ya,' Josh said, shaking in turn. Clara wished him good luck; Jane kissed him briskly on the cheek. He came round to Roberta.

'I…' She bit her lip, looking everywhere but at him.

'Come with me,' he offered. 'If you wish.'

She stared at him. He could feel the others' eyes boring into him. Then Roberta whispered,

'Who'd make Alex practise his scales?'

Alex.

'Stay,' Yassen said, pushing her hair behind her ear, and turned to him.

'No-one nicks my bloody friends,' he said, marching forward. He hugged Yassen painfully. 'There; good luck alright. And this doesn't mean I'm not going to kill you and it doesn't mean I damned well like you; now go!'

Yassen kick-started the board, and the fans began to spin, raising it off the ground. He stepped on. The board bobbed a little, adjusting to his weight. The fans calmed to a steady hum.

'Godspeed and all that,' Clara said. Yassen nodded, raising his hand in the same gesture Alex had once seen him make from behind the glass of a helicopter, the very first time they'd met. The Non-Conformists leaned back to watch him as he inched the board higher and higher, the whine of the fans steadily rising as they lifted his weight. For a moment he hung above them, testing his balance. Then he crouched, flinging his arms back as counterweights, and the board shot away, rapidly picking up speed, vanishing into the darkness of the park. In moments the fans had faded, and they were left standing, gazing into the empty night.

'Lucky cow,' Clara muttered.

'Shuddup,' Roberta said. 'It doesn't…what, what would you have said?'

'Same as you, of course. I couldn't leave my lovely friends. Seeing as we all need you desperately.'

'You can say that again.' But Roberta continued to stare out across the park, her chin raised and shoulders tense.

'He knows you decided to stick it out here for our sake,' Clara said. 'We all know you didn't say know because deep down you've got a mundane mind, or anything like that.

She had cut straight to the heart of the issue, like always. Roberta looked at her hard for a moment, then grinned suddenly.

'Thanks, babes. I've really missed all you guys…I mean, I know I've only been away for like two days, but I've really, really missed you. It's just –' She stopped abruptly.

'I know.' Clara threw a regretful glance after the hoverboard. 'Why are all the good ones gay, married, evil or fictitious, huh? Except for this lot.' She jerked her head at Taylor, Alex and Josh.

'We've done a pretty good job on this lot,' Jane agreed.

'Yeah. Now let's get to the train station. It's freezing here; I wanna go home.'

They arrived at the station in plenty of time for the ten o'clock train that would take them for Essex. Alex left them, with bone-crushing hugs and a few tears, on the platform. He promised that he would be in touch, would see them as soon as he could, but that night he needed to be with Jack. It was only a short journey back to the house in Chelsea, though made longer by the reduced Christmas Day service, but it was all he could do not to fall asleep in the empty carriages. The long silver board he was carrying drew a few glances, but nobody seemed to think it was anything more than the latest teenage fad.

'Merry Christmas, Jack,' he said when he stumbled across the threshold and into her astonished arms. 'Can I have plum pudding and bed, please?'

When MI6 agents arrived at the station they were told by the staff that teenagers matching the descriptions they gave had been there, and that they had boarded the ten o'clock train, having waited a good twenty minutes for it. In order to have arrived in the station when they did, they would have had to have set off from the Royal and General as soon as they had left Blunt's office, several minutes before Yassen Gregorovich's escape had taken place. Of course they had been able to get to the station much more quickly by hoverboarding in a straight line than they would have done by wending their way via public transport, but MI6 didn't think to factor flight into their calculations. It seemed that the six teenagers couldn't possibly have broken Gregorovich out of his cell and still have arrived twenty minutes early for their train, and besides, the idea of anyone managing to enter the holding facility without the use of advanced infiltration equipment was ridiculous. Blunt was forced to conclude that someone – Scorpia, or some other contact of Gregorovich's – had been standing by to pull the assassin out. He had slipped through their fingers yet again.

Yassen rode hard for most of the night, stopping for only a couple of hours when he knew he had to sleep. It was about nine o'clock in the morning when, muscles aching and dizzy with hunger, he arrived in the Cornish village of Port Tallon. There he knocked on the door of an old friend whom he had cultivated during the Stormbreaker assignment: an ex-marine turned fisherman. He had been an expert in covert reconnaissance and on sunny weekends still liked to take the boat across to Brittany and land on unfrequented beaches 'just to keep the Frogs on the hop.' After an hour spent sitting astride his friend's oil-heater, devouring the largest and greasiest breakfast he had had in years, Yassen felt more than equal to making the journey and lending a hand along the way. Once he was in France, it would be easy. There would be no record of his having entered the country, and other contacts there would help him disappear.

'Do me a favour,' he said while they drank coffee.

'Besides taking you on a suicide-dash across the Channel? Joking; you did me a favour by suggesting it. Well, what d'you want?'

'If I send you a letter, would you post it on to an address in Essex?' He had a feeling that MI6 would be watching the Non-Conformists' post. It might be better to have a middle-man.

'Letter? Who d'you have to send letters to?'

Yassen gave him an answer he knew he would like. 'A woman.'

'Why the cloak and dagger? Not ditching her, are you, Gregorovich?'

'I'm afraid I've had to leave her for a while.'

The fisherman sucked his teeth. 'Be kinder just to cut contact, if you want my opinion,' he said. 'But alright.'

Yassen smiled. 'Thank you.'