gained. As for the Opposition-they've suffered losses from which they may never recover. 
At least, they're about to.'
  As the apparition spoke, so Kyle's eyes opened even wider and he sat up straighter and 
straighter. It (he, dammit!) knew about the branch. About Gormley. About 'the 
Opposition', which was branch parlance for the Russian outfit. And what was this about 
them suffering heavy losses? Kyle knew nothing of that! Where did this-being-get its 
information? And just how much did it know anyway?
  'I know more than you can possibly imagine,' said the other, smiling wanly. 'And what I 
don't know I can get to know-almost anything.'
  'See,' said Kyle defensively, 'it's not that I doubt any of this-or even my sanity, for 
that matter-it's just that I'm trying to adjust, and -'
  'I understand,' the other cut him off. 'But, please, do your adjusting as we go, if you 
can. In what I'm about to tell you, time-zones may overlap a little, so you'll need to 
adjust to that, too. But I'll keep it as chronologically sound as I can. The important 
thing is the information itself. And its implications.'
  'I'm not sure I quite under-'
  'I know, I know. So just sit there and listen, and then maybe you will understand.'
  
  
  Chapter One 
  Moscow, May 1971
  Central in a densely wooded tract of land not far out of the city-where the Serpukhov 
road passed through a saddle between low hills and gazed for a moment across the tops of 
close-grown pines towards Podolsk, which showed as a hazy smudge on the southern horizon, 
brightly pricked here and. there with the first lights of evening-stood a house or 
mansion of debased heritage and mixed architectural antecedents. Several of its wings 
were of modern brick upon old stone foundations, while others were of cheap breeze blocks 
roughly painted over in green and grey, almost as if to camouflage their ill-matching 
construction. Bedded at their bases in steeply gabled end walls, twin towers or minarets 
decayed as rotten fangs and gaunt as watchtowers-whose sagging buttresses and parapets 
and flaking spiral decorations detracted nothing from a sense of dereliction-raised 
broken bulbous domes high over the tallest trees, their boarded windows glooming like 
hooded eyes.
  The layout of the outbuildings, many of which had been recently re-roofed with modern 
red brick tiles, might well suggest a farm or farming community, though no crops, farm 
animals or machines were anywhere in evidence. The high all-encompassing perimeter 
wall-which from its massy structure, reinforced abutments and broad breast walls might 
likewise be a relic of feudal times-showed similar signs of recent repair work, where 
heavy grey concrete blocks had replaced crumbling stone and ancient brick. To east and 
west where streams ran deep and gurgling over black boulders, flowing between steep banks 
which formed them into natural moats, old stone bridges supporting lead roofs green with 
moss and age tunnelled into and through the walls, their dark mouths muzzled with 
steel-latticed gates.
  All in all grim and foreboding. As if the merest glimpse of the place from the highway 
would not be sufficient warning in itself, a sign at the T-junction where a cobbled track 
wound away from the road and into the woods declared that this entire area was 'Property 
of the State', patrolled and protected, and that all trespassers would be prosecuted. 
Motorists were not permitted to stop under any circumstances; walking in the woods was 
strictly forbidden; hunting and fishing likewise. Penalties would be, without exception, 
severe.
  But for all that the place seemed deserted and lost in its own miasma of desolation, as 
evening grew into night and a mist came up from the streams to turn the ground to milk, 
so lights flickered into life behind the curtained ground-floor windows, telling a 
different story. In the woods, on the approach roads to the covered bridges, large black 
saloon cars might also appear abandoned where they blocked the way-except for the dull 
orange glowing of hot cigarette tips within, and the smoke curling from partly wound-down 
windows. It was the same inside the grounds: squat, silent shapes which might just 
represent men, standing in the shadowed places, their dark grey overcoats as like as 
uniforms, faces hidden under the brims of felt hats, shoulders robotically square...
  In an inner courtyard of the main building, an ambulance-or maybe a hearse-stood with 
its back doors open, white-overalled attendants waiting and the driver seated 
uncomfortably at the high steering-wheel. One of the attendants played with a steel 
loading roller, spinning it on well-lubricated bearings at the rear end of the long, 
somehow sinister vehicle. Nearby, in an open-ended barn-like structure with a sagging 
canvas roof, a helicopter's dull paintwork and square glass windows gleamed darkly in 
shadow, its fuselage bearing the insignia of the Supreme Soviet. In one of the towers, 
leaning carefully on a low parapet wall, a figure with Army night-sight binoculars 
scanned the land about, particularly the open area between the perimeter wall and the 
central cluster. Projecting above his shoulder, the ugly blue metal snout of a specially 
adapted Kalashnikov rifle was limned faintly against a horizon growing steadily darker.
  Inside the main building, modern soundproof partition walls now divided what had once 
been a vast hall into fairly large rooms, serviced by a central corridor lit with a row 
of fluorescent tubes strung along a high ceiling. Each room had a padlocked door and all 
the doors were fitted with tiny grille windows with sliding covers on the inside, and 
with small red lights which, when blinking, signified 'No Entry-Not to be Disturbed'. One 
of these lights, half-way down the corridor on the left, was blinking even now. Leaning 
against the wall to one side of the door with the blinking light, a tall, hard-faced KGB 
operative cradled a submachine-gun in his arms. For the moment relaxed, he was ready to 
spring to attention-or into action-at a moment's notice. The merest hint of the door 
opening, the sudden cessation of the red light's blinking, and he would snap up 
straighter than a lamppost. For while none of the men in that room was his real master, 
nevertheless one of them was as powerful as anyone in the highest ranks of the KGB, 
perhaps one of the ten most powerful men in Russia.
  There were other men in the room beyond the door, which in fact was not one room but 
two, with an interconnecting door of their own. In the smaller room, three men sat in 
armchairs, smoking, their hooded eyes fixed on the partition wall, of which a large 
central section, floor to ceiling, was a one-way viewscreen. The floor was carpeted; a 
small wheeled table within easy reach supported an ashtray, glasses, and a bottle of 
high-class slivovitz; all was silent except for the breathing of the three and the faint 
electric whirr of the air-conditioning. Subdued lighting in a false ceiling was soothing 
to their eyes.
  The man in the middle was in his mid-sixties, those to right and left perhaps fifteen 
years younger. His protege's, each of them knew the other for a rival. The man in the 
middle knew it, too. He had planned it that way. It was called survival of the fittest; 
only one of them would survive to take his place, when eventually that day came. By then 
the other would have been removed-perhaps politically, but more likely in some other, 
still more devious fashion. The years between would be their proving ground. Yes, 
survival of the fittest.
  Completely grey at the temples, but with a broad contrasting central stripe of 
jet-black hair swept back from his high, much-wrinkled brow, the senior man sipped his