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at discovering two new entries in his file. The first was the belated although customary CIA access from which he immediately learned that Dimitri Sobell was now Daniel Slater, living at 2832 Hill Avenue SE, Frederick, Maryland. The cherry on the cupcake was to read that Frank George Howitt – who’d actually been separated from him for his handcuff-free return to White Deer the previous evening – had been suspended from duty pending an internal enquiry into the Reagan airport episode.
    That same morning, although three hours earlier, the formal CIA warning of Mason’s release, together with CIA contact numbers if necessary, had been in Slater’s mailbox when he left his Frederick house. Apart from its almost indistinguishable Washington DC postmark there was no outward indication of its sender, so he didn’t bother to open it until he got to his security consultancy office.
    When he did open it Slater was engulfed by a physical coldness he hadn’t known since Siberia.

Four
    T he sensation quickly passed but before it did Slater’s immediate thought, the camping weekend still fresh in his mind, was that mentally as well as physically he was out of shape. He instantly became irritated at the doubt. The surprise, shock even, was entirely understandable; certainly not a failing or a weakness. And most definitely not the result of complacency. He hoped.
    Because of the camping expedition Slater had arranged an easy, early week beginning, his diary empty and two of the three outstanding security analyses already dictated on tape, for typed-up presentation, sufficient to occupy Mary Ellen, his receptionist/aide for the morning, if not the entire day. There wasn’t any curiosity when he told her to hold all his calls. After doing so, Slater locked the communicating door to the outer office against any unexpected and unwanted intrusion, wanting complete, uninterrupted isolation.
    There was welcomed reassurance in the lack of any physical reaction in his hands when he smoothed the letter out before him on his desk. He searched for – demanding from himself – all the necessary KGB tradecraft in which he had once been so expert. He was sure the watermark of the paper, which he held up against the light, was genuine, but the letterheaded Justice Department box number didn’t accord with any listed against the main Pennsylvania Avenue address in the DC telephone book, nor in any of the specific reference manuals, or the unlisted logs he’d compiled during the twelve years he’d run his small security consultancy agency. Neither did the contact telephone number, although it carried the 202 DC dialling prefix. The printed although undesignated sender was J Peebles – not a name or a person he knew from his induction into the Witness Protection Programme – but the scrawled signature was indecipherable. It was addressed ‘Dear Sir’, although his adopted name, in full, was on the envelope. At last, more intently than on his first reading, Slater studied the sterile lines:
    I AM FORMALLY REQUIRED BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE VICTIM AND WITNESS PROTECTION ACT, 1982, AS SUBSEQUENTLY AMENDED, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TO ADVISE YOU OF THE IMPENDING RELEASE, UNDER REQUIREMENTS OF SENTENCING REMISSION, FROM WHITE DEER PENITENTIARY, PENNSYLVANIA, OF JACK CHARLES MASON, IN WHOSE PROSECUTION YOU WERE A PRIMARY PROSECUTION WITNESS ON JANUARY 10 THRU 14, 1986, CASE NUMBER 01121. IF YOU HAVE ANY CAUSE OR REASON FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE ABOVE NUMBER BETWEEN 9 AM AND 5.30 PM, MONDAY TO FRIDAY.
    It concluded, above the indecipherable signature: ‘Yours faithfully’.
    What was decipherable? The case number was certainly right. And the bureaucratic officialese fitted the jargon of the dozens of American government letters and documents he’d read – mostly provided by Jack Mason – during the three years he had headed the KGB’s