Pawser drove slowly past the front of Thames House. It was one am. He'd been right to have supposed that at this time of night the office would be dead. Most of the lights were out and apart from the brightly lit main reception area, the building appeared deserted. He leisurely turned the corner at the end of the street, flicked his lights off and drove unhurriedly past the Admiralty entrance and peered into the building. He breathed a sigh of relief, there was no one visible inside. Looking up, he could see a light on the first floor, the security guards office. He couldn't pick out any movement. Hopefully the guard was asleep.

He pulled into an empty car parking space a few hundred yards away and sat for a while watching the entrance. Satisfied that it was quiet, he struggled into his black jacket before slipping out of the car to duck into an unlit doorway. For a few minutes he stood in the shadows nervously surveying the street, then giving one last searching look up and down the road, he pulled his collar up around his face, strode purposely into the next office entrance to slip back into the shadows. For a moment, out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement back down the road behind him. He quickly ducked back into the doorway, his heart racing uncontrollably.

'Bloody Berty!' Pawser cursed. This was a job for Killerman, not him. Berty had insisted Killerman and Dirk do a reccy on Janet Ferker Rose's place down in Dartmoor that night. While they were off sitting in a warm range Range Rover, drinking hot coffee, listening to the late night play on Radio Four, he was about to break into MI5. He stared hard toward where he'd seen the movement and then having convinced himself it was nothing, broke cover to walk over to the Admiralty entrance. He trotted up the steps and peered through the glass doors. A thin beam of light shone through into the reception area from an open door at the back, but it was reassuringly empty. He turned his back on the door and as casually as he could, crossed his arms, lent against the wall and waited for Olga.

The door burst open and out barrelled a stocky bearded figure, singing.

'I'll tell ye lads, sailing the seas so blllllluuuue

Me 'arties were all pirates, good and trrrruuuuuue

I fell in love with her, despite crimes so heeeeinoooouuuus

'It's not just the way she held my ......' the words trailed off into the wind.

'Hello, Sir.' Haggard was snugly wrapped up in his big duffle coat. A pair of woollen gloves dangled jauntily on strings below his sleeves. 'Bloody hell,' he snapped. 'Who's that?' Oh, it's you, Killerman. What the hell are you doing here, sneaking about in the dark?'

'It's Pawser Bingham, Sir.'

'That what I said, Bingham. You deaf or something,' Haggard pulled out a bobble hat and tugged it over his flailing hair. 'Like I said, man. What are you doing sneaking around here?'

'You know, Sir. Tonight's the night.' Pawser winked conspiratorially at Haggard.

'Stop winking at me, Bingham. You look like a Spanish whore out on the pull.'

'I'm trying to be discrete, Sir. After all this is a covert operation.'

'Stop lurking there man and get out here where I can see you,' barked Haggard.' You know what you need to show Bingham, more balls. That's what. Have I told you about my balls?'

'Yes Sir. In enough detail that I feel I could pick them out in an instance at an identiball parade,' Pawser asserted confidently. He checked back down the road to make sure their voices had not drawn any attention. He then added, 'Both of them, Sir.' Just to be sure.

'Well, I should bloody well hope so. Any numpty would!' Haggard shouted at Pawser.

'Sir, sir please keep your voice down,' Pawser looked furtively up the street,' How's that sir?'

'They'd be the biggest ones there. Wouldn't they!' A look of concern swept across Haggard's face. He beckoned Pawser forward. 'You mess this up, Bingham, when you retire they'll be no mention for you in the Honours list, no indexed linked pension, and no cushy well paid job on some government quango.'

'To be honest Sir, I thought if I cocked this up I'd be out.'

'Bloody hell Bingham, get real. If Blunt, Burgess and McLean still drew their pensions after getting caught spying against us, they're not going to kick you out for this are they? You don't lose your job for betraying your country, this is England man. Where have you been, you must know that.'

Pawser felt some relief, then bought himself up. Why the hell was he listening to anything this mono, love nutted, maritime manic was telling him.

'Mind you, don't kid yourself Bingham. If you do fuck it up, I'm going to make your life a misery. You'll be in for early retirement and be left eaking out a living on a crappy state pension and end up dying alone in a shit hole in Portsmouth with a bitter taste of salt in your mouth. And that won't be down to the sea air, if you know what I mean. You'll have spent your final years earning a supplementary income performing tricks for lonely seamen who are missing their lady boys back in Thailand.'

A worse thought Pawser could not imagine. He hated Portsmouth.

'Yes sir. Thank you for those reassuring words. Have you given the security man the diversionary material?'

'What? Oh yes. Mind you he's a Jonny foreigner, so he probably can't read it. It doesn't matter as it's mostly pictures if you get my drift.' Haggard grabbed at the string hanging off his sleeves and pushed his hands into his gloves. 'Well, must be off Killerman, the suns well over the yardarm. Don't forget, Berty wants a debriefing tomorrow with you and those other two shifty bastards.'

Haggard turned and trotted down the steps and let rip with a verse before stopping briefly to give a quick salute to a sole figure who was walking slowly down the other side of the street.

'I'll tell ye lads sailing the seas so green

There's nothing my loves misses but my submarine

Once I'm home me boys, you'll find her

Surely guiding it in from behind 'er'

The figure stood and stared after Haggard and then turned and walked toward Pawser. It were shrouded in a long dark overcoat of the sort worn by surveillance teams on cold nights, knee length and high collared. It was Olga.

'You all right?' Pawser asked.

'That arrogant git, Haggard. He propositioned me! Thought I was a hooker. He didn't even recognise me.' Olga looked up at the security office and then checked back down the street. 'Why's he still hanging around?'

'No idea. He was supposed to have been in and out by midnight. He just stopped to offer me a few words of support.' Pawser checked his watch. One thirty am. 'Let's get this over with.'

'Has he dealt with the security guard?'

'Yes, he's given him something to read.'

'As long as it's up to par, not the 1964 review of the fleet. I suppose he started ranting on about his ball?'

'The plural please, Olga. Don't forget that there's still one out there. On a polo field in Afghanistan. It still counts, even if it's not actually attached to him.'

'I'd quite happily send them the other one.' remarked Olga. Stepping up to the door she produced a plastic swipe card from under her overcoat and slid the card though the magnetic lock on entrance. The door clicked open. They slipped into the semi lit reception area. 'The reception here is only manned at night if there is a BIKINI Black Special alert or higher,' Olga whispered. 'The cameras,' she pointed to a camera strategically placed on the ceiling behind the small reception desk, 'are always recording but directly to a recording device in Security. They don't have a direct feed so security don't see any pictures, the same goes for all the cameras on the back stairwells. They will only ever look at the recording if there is a security alert or if the guard chooses to override the system which hopefully he won't do unless Haggard's reading material is less than riveting. Let's hope there won't be any alerts tonight.'

'I bloody well hope not,' said Pawser. 'Are you sure we have to do this Olga. Couldn't you just say we've done it? After all you've been in Ferker-Rose's office and had a poke around already?'

'We've been given a job to do, Pawser and we'll do it,' Olga glared at Pawser before thrusting the card at him. 'This card is a spare. It's not registered to anyone, so if the records are checked it will not give us away. Her office is on the fourth floor. Let's go.' Olga swiped the card to let them through the inner door into the stairwell and they silently made their way up the stairs.

'One thing Olga?' Pawser asked.

'Yes?' replied Olga cautiously looking back over the rail into the stairwell.

'You mentioned that when Springer come over from the yard he wanted the rest of the stuff in the bag we seized at Freddie's, before any more went?'

'That's right. He said before any more went?' Olga thought for a moment,' Yes, that's what he said. Is it important?' Swiping her card through the lock on the fire door she opened it a crack and peered along the corridor. It was empty.

'Maybe not. It's probably nothing.' Pawser shrugged his shoulders.

Olga opened the fourth floor door and they made their way along the blue carpeted hallway to a door with Ferker-Rose's nameplate on it. Olga typed a code into a keypad and they slipped into the room. Stepping into the darkness, pulling the door to behind them all Pawser could hear was his own shaky breathing and Olga shuffling around in the darkness. There was a click as Olga switched on a table lamp and the room flooded with a pale yellow light.

'Bloody hell, there's less clutter in here than the inside of Haggard's underpants.' Pawser surveyed the small oak desk, two seater leather settee and occasional table in the conspicuously bare room.

'This was the office they gave her when she retired. She used to come in here occasionally to help Sir Berty out. Mind you she was always fairly Spartan in her style. She regarded any loose paperwork as a potential security risk.' Olga started pulling open the drawers on the desk.

Pawser looked around the room. He picked up the only book on the shelves and checked its spine, it was a Gideon's Bible. He flipped it open and shook its empty pages. Nothing. He knelt on the small leather sofa and ran his fingers down the back of the cushions on the sofa.

'Here we go'. He dropped a comb matted with blonde hair, a dried banana skin, an unopened durex and a £1 coin onto the table in front of Olga.

'You've found something?' Olga stood alongside him and inspected his discoveries.

'This is it. Evidence of our mole. We're looking for a thrifty, ill kempt, blond chimpanzee with an STD. Job done. Can we go now?'

'I think Berty was looking for something a little more substantial than that from you, Pawser.'

'You're right,' Pawser shrugged, realising that Olga was not going to be swayed that easily. 'MI5 will never find him based on a description like that. What we need is a photograph, a signed confession, and a mutually convenient place where he can come and give himself. Preferably in working hours to save a manager having to sign off the overtime. I'll go and find some ripe bananas to temp him in.'

'You're going nowhere, Pawser. Try the bathroom. I'll give the rest of the room another going over.'

Surveying the room again, Pawser felt less than optimistic.