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seconds
later, the sound of a cork being extracted – he presumed from his last bottle
of white wine, as they were unlikely to be so drunk that they had started on
the vinegar.
    Reluctantly he rose from his chair, and
circling his arms in front of him, he made his way back to the bed. He touched
the corner of the bedstead and quietly lowered himself on to the mattress, then
waited impatiently for Lawrence’s bedroom door to close.
    He must have fallen asleep because the next
thing he remembered was the tick of the hall clock. Adam licked his fingers and
rubbed them over his eyes as he tried to get accustomed to the dark. He checked
the little luminous dial on his alarm clock: ten past three. He eased himself
off the bed gingerly, feeling more than a little crumpled and weary. Slowly he
groped his way back towards the desk, banging his knee on the corner of a chest
of drawers during his travels. He couldn’t stop himself cursing. He fumbled for
the light switch, and when the bulb first glowed it made him blink several
times. The faded envelope looked so insignificant – and perhaps it was. The
official document was still laid out on the centre of the table alongside the
first few lines of his handwritten duplicate.
    Adam yawned as he began to study the words
once more. The document was not as simple to copy out as the letter had been,
because this time the hand was spidery and cramped, as if the writer had
considered paper an expensive commodity. Adam left out the address on the top
right hand corner and reversed the eight digit number underlined at the head of
the text, otherwise what he ended up with was a
faithful transcript of the original.
    The work was painstaking, and took a
surprisingly long time. He wrote out each word in block capitals, and when he
wasn’t certain of the spelling he put down the possible alternative letters
below; he wanted to be sure of any translation the first time.
    “My, you do work late,” whispered a voice
from behind him.
    Adam spun round, feeling like a burglar who
had been caught with his hands on the family silver.
    “You needn’t look so nervous. It’s only me,”
said Carolyn, standing by the bedroom door.
    Adam stared up at the tall blonde who was
even more attractive clad only in Lawrence’s large unbuttoned pyjamas and
floppy slippers than she had been when he had seen her fully dressed. Her long,
lair nair now dropped untidily over her shoulders and he began to understand
what Lawrence had meant when he had once described her as someone who could
turn a match-stick into a Cuban cigar.
    “The bathroom is at the end of the corridor,”
said Adam, a little feebly.
    “It wasn’t the bathroom I was looking for,
silly,” she giggled. “I don’t seem able to wake Lawrence. After all that wine
he’s passed out like a defeated heavyweight boxer.” She sighed. “And long
before round fifteen. I don’t think anything will rouse him again until
morning.” She took a step towards him.
    Adam stammered something about feeling
rather whacked himself. He made sure his back shielded her from any sight of
the papers on the desk.
    “Oh, God,” said Carolyn, “you’re not queer,
are you?”
    “Certainly not,” said Adam, a little
pompously.
    “Just don’t fancy me?” she asked.
    “Not that exactly,” said Adam.
    “But Lawrence is your chum,” she said. Adam
didn’t reply.
    “My God this is the sixties, Adam. Share and share alike.”
    “It’s just that...” began Adam.
    “What a waste,” said Carolyn, “perhaps
another time.” She tiptoed to the door, and slipped back out into the corridor,
unaware of her German rival.
    The first action Romanov took on leaving the
Chairman’s office that morning was to return to his alma mater and hand-pick a team of twelve researchers. From the
moment they had been briefed they proceeded to study in pairs on four-hour
shifts, so that the work could continue night and day.
    The early information had come in almost by
the hour