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responsibility for coming so close to disaster.
    By the time he got back to the CIA section within the embassy, the other three men had returned and were waiting for him, and Fredericks made no attempt to sanitize the account, as he had to Langley.
    â€˜Kozlov’s right,’ said Levine, when the CIA supervisor finished the explanation. ‘Langley are stupid. Kozlov might appear calm, to you. But inwardly he’ll be screwed up tighter than a spring; he can’t be any other way. It’ll only take the slightest thing to spook him.’
    â€˜I’ve told them that,’ reminded Fredericks.
    â€˜What did they say?’ asked Fish.
    â€˜Nothing.’
    They all knew, like Fredericks, what the silence meant, and there were various smiles around the room.
    â€˜You know what I think,’ said Elliott, who was irritated at what he considered a wasted day. ‘I think we should snatch him. Arrange another meeting, like today, put extra men in everywhere and then jump him. Get some sort of knock-out stuff from Technical Division, sedate him until we get him on to a military plane and stop all this screwing about.’
    â€˜What sort of dumb-assed idea is that!’ erupted Fredericks, genuinely irritated but also venting some of his earlier anger upon the man. ‘That’s kidnapping, for Christ’s sake! We’d have Moscow going ape, Japan screaming and Kozlov hostile without the wife he eventually wants with him. Why stop at Kozlov, if that’s the way we’re going to operate! Why not snatch Gorbachev and the entire fucking Politburo and run the Soviet Union from some cosy little safe house in Virginia!’
    Elliott shifted under the ferocity of the attack, looking embarrassed. ‘It was an idea,’ he said, awkwardly.
    â€˜Dumb-assed,’ repeated Fredericks, dismissively. ‘Let’s start behaving professionally.’ He looked to the men who had waited fruitlessly at the first two shrines. ‘Well?’
    â€˜No one was monitoring you,’ said Fish. ‘I’m sure of it.’
    â€˜You were clean at the Enno-Ji temple, too,’ said Levine.
    â€˜Jim?’ asked Fredericks.
    The CIA agent who had monitored the actual encounter was a sandy-haired man newly posted from Washington. He nervously took off his glasses and said: ‘Squeaky clean. There was only one other group of Caucasians around the buddha …’
    â€˜American …?’ interrupted Fredericks.
    Dale nodded: ‘Made a point of checking, after you left. A Lions club, from Milwaukee. Throughout the entire time you were with Kozlov, no one showed the slightest interest.’
    Fredericks was silent for several moments, remembering his assessment in the buddha temple. ‘If he’s by himself, it indicates he’s genuine,’ he said, trying the opinion out on the others. ‘If it were some sort of trick, some entrapment embarrassment for instance, he’d be mob-handed: people identifying me, stuff like that.’
    â€˜I’d say so,’ agreed Yamada, an American-born Japanese.
    â€˜Me too,’ said Fish.
    â€˜Still seems a lot of screwing around,’ said Elliott truculently.
    Fredericks ignored the man, returning to Dale. ‘What happened after I left.’
    â€˜He checked, for surveillance,’ said the American, wanting to boast his recognition and avoidance. ‘Went right by me into the souvenir shop: actually bought a key-ring. Then he went inside the buddha. It’s hollow, you know.’
    â€˜Spare me the tourist crap,’ said Fredericks. ‘I heard it all from Kozlov when he was clearing his path. Sure he didn’t spot you?’
    â€˜Positive,’ said Dale. ‘I told you, I checked the Milwaukee group. Got into the conversation with a couple of old guys and left the temple with them, like I was one of the party.’
    â€˜Good deal,’ praised Fredericks.
    â€˜So we’ve got to