Traitor's Kiss

…Chapter Fifteen

'If it had happened to my grandmother, Viktor, it would have been like a poison to me. To you, was it a poison?'

Better if he had not pared down his fingernails. He forced them into the palms of his hand, his fist clenched. He tried to make pain. Pain would hold his alertness. If he did not hurt himself he would slip back into exhaustion and betray himself. His fingernails were not long enough to make the pain bad. He knew he hovered at the edge of collapse. The candle's last light played on his shoes and on Bikov's boots. The wick was too far burned for him to see Bikov's face. When he failed to make the pain, Viktor tilted his head up and looked for a focus point that would combat the drip of the voice, so near to him and so understanding.

'Viktor, I mean it with all sincerity. If it had been my grandmother I would have demanded vengeance.'

He could find nothing to lay his eyes on. The block, Piatkin's palace, was one of the old buildings of the base, German-built. Senior men would have used it when the base was in the hands of the German navy. Viktor had not been to this room before, but he had been in the outer office where Piatkin held court. The ceiling that he could not see now would be high. The room's walls, which were cloaked in darkness, beyond his reach, would be thick and the floor under him was solid concrete. To Viktor, the room was a tomb and the voice of a demon was in his ears.

'I don't hear your answer, Viktor. I was asking about vengeance, about poison. A young woman kills herself having left her baby boy on the steps of an orphanage. Do you not feel hatred?'

'I don't know…'

'Can you not trust me, Viktor?.

'I don't know…'

'If your grandmother had been mine, the hatred, the need for vengeance, would poison me.'

He blurted, 'No.'

'Vengeance…'

'No.'

'Together, they poison you.'

'No.'

He heard the sad sigh, then the syrup of the voice. 'I am disappointed in you, Viktor. I come to you as a friend. I admire you, and I respect you — but you give me no friendship and no respect. What do I have to do, Viktor, to be trusted by you? I have come to help you. You want to sleep, Viktor, and I want you to sleep. You have a burden on your back, Viktor, and I have come to share the weight of it, then to take it from you. When the burden is off, Viktor, you can sleep, and you will be at peace. Do you hear me, Viktor?'

'Yes.'

'First you learned of your father's death, then of your grandmother's death. The vengeance has to be vomited out of your mind. The hatred is there every minute of the day, and when you sleep there is no freedom from it. You will repay the killers of your father and your grandmother, repay them in kind. How? What is possible for you? There is only one way. You walk-in. Four years ago you were based with the Northern Fleet. I don't think there would have been Americans, but there would have been British ships and British businessmen, and you made your approach. Were you very frightened then, Viktor? What did you give them? A bundle of papers from a safe — plans and blueprints as credentials? You became a spy. You want to sleep, Viktor, and it is very easy to sleep. You became a spy, yes or no? Answer the question and then you can sleep in peace. I am your friend. Yes or no?'

He gasped, 'No.'

Perhaps Viktor hoped to hear a little singing hiss of breath off the teeth of the man opposite him — frustration, irritation. He did not.

'Then, we shall move on…' Bikov said softly, calmly.

The searchlight's beam played on the Princess Rose and caught a porthole at the top of the ladder leading down to the engine room.

'I'm not going in there without this little piece of vermin,' Mowbray insisted.

He held the dog by the scruff of its neck as, once more, the mate unscrewed the steel plate that covered the hidden place between the hull and the engine-room's wall. The master was on the bridge, shouting into the radio link to the patrol-boat, and Tihomir had been given the job of hiding the old man. He didn't think they would be boarded but it was possible. The light moved on and for a second time the patrol-boat circled them. He pushed the Englishman, who still clutched the dog, into the little black space, and heard a sigh of misery, and the dog's yelp, as he heaved the metal plate back into place. He worked frantically with his screwdriver to tighten the fastenings, then replaced the debris against the wall.

He stepped back.

'Why do we do this?' the engineer, Johannes, growled.

The grimace set at his mouth. 'Why we do anything — only for money.'

'She can blow us out of the water — it's an idiot's way to earn money.'

The mate asked if the engine was ready, and the engineer shrugged: the engine was ready. 'We were fools to take the money.'

The mate grinned. 'Big fools, but it was big money.'

Tihomir levered himself up the rungs. The searchlight beam fell on the little landing outside the accommodation cabins, below the bridge. The patrol-boat was a hundred metres off their starboard side and he could not look into the strength of the beam: it lit every paint fleck, every rivet on the tired boat's deck.

'It is still possible they can succeed. You have my guarantee, the guarantee of a master mariner of twenty-four years, the guarantee of Andreas Yaxis — by dawn we will be gone.'

Tihomir thought it was crazy to imagine anything about this was or ever had been possible. They must be back by dawn, the fighting men, or their retreat was cut off. In Karlovac, by the main square and close to the old barracks that had been built by the Bonapartists, was a church where the women, eleven years ago, had lit candles for the men in the trenches, and said quiet prayers. Each time he had come out of the trenches, before he washed the mud, blood and cordite stains off his body, he had gone to the church and added his prayer. He prayed now and the words came easily to him.

The searchlight beam was cut. A dull half-gloom settled on the bridge. The master sagged. Tihomir knew the subterfuge had almost failed, but had not. With the gratitude of a survivor, he said his prayer again, heard the rumbling thunder of the patrol-boat gathering speed as it turned away.

He went back below.

With his screwdriver he unfastened the sheet of metal plate.

The dog came out first. Hanging from its jaws was a writhing rat.

The old man blinked. 'Worth its weight in gold, the bloody little hero! Any fireworks over there?'

Tihomir shook his head. The dog pinioned the rat under its front paws then bit at the back of its neck and the squirming stopped.

'Ten minutes, ten minutes' recovery,' Billy whispered. He couldn't hide the panting in his voice.

Lofty was at his shoulder. The message was passed back. Less than a hundred metres in front of them was the canal, a black ribbon between the twin sets of shore lights on which the mist had settled like a greying pillow. Billy could smell the canal, salt water and engine oil. And the decay. They were hunched down beside a wooden building, their backsides resting on winter-flattened grass and weeds. On the open side there was cover from hazel and birch scrub. Above the far side of the building were dull overhead lights, but the building shielded them. Billy had a good clear view of the canal ribbon and the myriad maze of lights beyond it. He felt Lofty close up on him, and the others behind him. He knew that Wickso was the only one of them who looked after himself, kept himself fit, ran the pavements at night. Himself, he'd thought he was fit: he climbed Sgurr na Greine and Croit Bheinn for vantage-points where he could see eagles below him — he lugged his table-top and his paintbox up to summits. They had travelled a little more than eleven kilometres, and the load on Billy's back was like lead compared to that table-top and the box.

He tried to steady his voice. 'Guys, this is kind of a defining moment. We go on, or we go back. Nobody tells us what to do, not any more. Mowbray's on his fucking boat, out of it. Locke is the other side of the fence, out of it. We have a map which might be clear, might not, might be a genuine effort by that kid, might not. We all have to volunteer it — no one can stay back. Not enough of us for one to stay here, and three to go forward — I need all of you. So, what's it to be? Don't all speak at once. Guys, we have a few minutes. All lie up and get recovery time, then we talk. Then, it's go on or go back.'

The word in their dictionary was yomp. They had yomped a little more than eleven kilometres, but it wasn't the Brecon Beacons, it wasn't Dartmoor and it wasn't Woodbury Common — on the Beacons, the moor or the common they'd have done eleven klicks, seven miles, with the load on their backs in less than two hours. It had taken them three hours and thirty-four minutes, including the three five-minute recovery stops. It had taken time because there had been two sentries smoking and chattering near the firing-range munitions bunker, and they'd laid up to see the pattern the sentries walked. Then they'd skirted them, made a wide half-circle to get past and short, darting runs till they were clear. At the missile complex, they'd left the track and gone almost down to the beach because there was a watchtower and another bored sentry: they'd crawled to get round him and round the throw of the arc-lights above the fence. They'd had to duck off the track again when a lorry had lurched on it towards the missile cluster. At Rybacij, a dark mess of ruins from long ago, there had been a pair of stray dogs. At the old airstrip they'd covered four hundred metres on their stomachs. There was a gate a kilometre back from the canal, more sentries and a fence, and they'd waited by the fence a full ten minutes, the maximum Billy could spare to check for patrols, before he'd brought Wickso forward with the wire cutters…and he'd thought what they'd been through was a cup of piss compared with what was ahead. The breathing behind him was softer and his own heartbeat was slower. He worked the calculations backwards from morning's first light at 06.15 hours. Billy's mind whirred with the figures, made the schedule they must keep to. The ten minutes was up, the minute hand had edged a faint luminous path, remorselessly, round his watch face. It was 00.48 hours…No time for debate now: go on or go back. If they succeeded, if they made the snatch, if they were on the beach at first light—06.15 hours — they were meat. If they were on the beach at first light, without cover, they were carcasses. He had to cut ten minutes from each stage of what they must achieve if they were to be on the beach and going for the sunken dinghy at 06.05 hours. By his watch, it was 00.50 hours. Twenty minutes to play with. There would be a hornets' nest behind them. There would be the four of them, and the passenger, and there was only twenty minutes spare in the schedule. There was always a fuck-up, guaranteed, but it could only delay them by twenty minutes.

'It's now, guys, or it's not at all. Which?'

There had been no debate, and he hadn't expected one, or an argument. They nodded their assent grimly, like none of them had the stomach to make a laugh out of the moment. They ate into the twenty minutes he had set aside for guaranteed fuck-up as they wriggled into the wetsuits. In place of the suits and flippers the weapons that must be kept dry went into the bags. They would go bare-arsed into the water, without defence. When they left the protection of the hut they moved to the left and distanced themselves from the lights shining down on to the quay where a squat ferryboat was moored. Twice they froze as they heard voices, casual conversations and music played from lit windows, and they saw men in uniform in the rooms with their tunics off. There was no alert, Billy knew it. The base rested for the night.

They went catlike, hugging shadows, easing forward, stopping, waiting, listening, then scurried forward. In Billy's mind was a soundless curse: the men relied on him as their leader. They followed where he went, as they always had. In the cabin commandeered by Mr Mowbray there had been the admiralty chart, No. 2278, and he had glanced at it, but had not studied it. Chart No. 2369 was the one he had pored over because that had given them the route to the landfall on the beach. He had to lead towards the canal side, but also he scratched in his memory for a recall of the chart that covered the base, the naval harbour and the canal. They crept between shadows, always seeking darkness. For fear of them blinding him, he did not look across the canal at the lights. They reached the bank. Lit up, a patrol-boat powered down the centre of the channel, powerful, deadly. They were crouched beside a big drum of old wire cable, and between them and the start of the black ribbon was a high-stacked pile of pallets. A man pissed near to them, then lit a cigarette. It was thrown down and footsteps retreated.

The final building they came to had no roof and its walls were pocked with bullet-holes, a relic of a long-ago war. Billy didn't care about others' wars, only his own. There was a drop of double his own height from the stone retaining wall down to the water. Oil gleamed back at him. He lay on his stomach, had left them behind by the wall with the bullet-holes. They had started late and it had taken two minutes longer than he'd allowed to reach the canal; the minute hand on his wrist told him more of the fall-back minutes were exhausted. He scrabbled, a heavy crab, to his right, and reached the worn stones where, in history, a ladder had been bolted to the canal side. Billy made the sign for them to close up on him, slipped on his flippers and went over the side. The third rung collapsed under his weight, and fell down into the water, splashing. He hung from the top rung — no shout came, no challenge. He went down. The water took him. He paddled, then reached up and took the weight of the first inflatable bag. It pulled him under and the cold, oily water was in his mouth and nose.

Billy and Lofty took the first bag, Ham and Wickso shepherded the second. They were blessed, he thought, by the blackness of the ribbon of the canal. He looked ahead now, had to, and land lights blazed in front of him. He struck out with his feet, kicked, and the bag supporting him and Lofty seemed to glide on the water. He only looked ahead.

'Christ…' Wickso's shout was strangled.

Billy looked his way and saw only the darkness, but Wickso's hand was off the bag and pointed up the canal, up-river. Billy's eyes darted that way.

He reckoned the ship was five thousand tonnes — give or take a tonne, as if that fucking mattered — and it ploughed up the canal towards the open sea. Where they were, treading water, it would pass within fifty metres of them. Now Billy heard the rumble of the big screw, and he saw the wave thrown out from the bow. They seemed, each of them, tiny and helpless.

Billy called, 'Ride it — all we can do is ride it.'

The ship towered over them, then the wave caught them and lifted them high and as they fell back a second wave thrust them back towards the canal's quay. Then they were sucked forward by the churn of the propellers. Billy clung to the bag with one hand and to Lofty with the other. The foam thrown by the screw dragged them down, he held on to the bag and to Lofty as if it were for life and for death. They bobbed. It was going away. In desperation, Billy kicked. He looked round. Ham and Wickso should have been close to them, but had been pushed back, and more time was lost before they had closed up. They crossed the centre of the canal channel, then the last of the ship's waves surged them towards the lights of the base. Close to the far quay they were confronted by a line of lights. They stayed in the dark water and he searched for a wandering sentry.

A half-sunken ship lay against the far quay. Its bow was under water, its deck awash up to the superstructure of the bridge. They paddled round it, then came to an abandoned landing-craft.

They used the ropes that tied it to the quay to drag themselves up. They were ashore…

Quietly, each of them retched the canal water from their throats, then the bags were unzipped.

Ham sent the burst message: 'Delta 1 to Havoc 1. Arrived on location. Going forward. Out.' Billy took his weapon, the Vikhr SR-3 assault rifle. He armed the weapon and the noise seemed to deafen him, would have woken the dead.

A road was in front of them, then darkened buildings, then the distant lights of the sleeping base that was home to the famed Baltic Fleet. They left the bags by the bollard to which the landing-craft was fastened. Four figures, black in the darkness, exploded across the open road towards the cover of the buildings.

In his cot, Igor Vasiliev tossed. Near to him a boy cried for his mother and far from him a boy writhed in a damp dream; others snored and coughed. A single dim lamp burned from the ceiling halfway down the dormitory block, and by the block's entrance a line of light spilt from under the door of the platoon sergeant's room.

He could not sleep, cuddled his pillow, and his waking thoughts were nightmares. He had thought the man was going to kill him. The knife had been in the man's hand, and a fist had gripped his hair, forcing back his head to expose his throat. When he had gone to the targets, and the four ghost shapes had materialized from the forest, they had called for Viktor. He had babbled Viktor's name, Viktor Archenko's name, the name of the chief of staff to the fleet commander…Viktor, Viktor…his friend's name. The knife had been lowered. Stale water from a canteen had been given him, and he had talked — gradually calming — of Viktor, his friend. After the knife had been put back into its sheath, more water had been given him, and he had drawn the map. Are you a friend, too, of Viktor, of Captain Archenko? The man said he was. You have come to save him? No response. He had been led through the trees to the other men — and they had released him. He had gone back down the track to the firing position, had shouldered the weight of the machine-gun, tramped back and found a truck to give him a lift to the ferry. Back at the base, he had gone to the armoury and cleaned the weapon, without the usual care. He had been in the dormitory a few minutes before the lights were put out.

He could have told the truck driver that armed foreigners were ashore, could have told the NCO in charge of the ferry, could have told the lieutenant who had been at the armoury, could have gone and told the night duty officer in the headquarters building, could have gone to the senior officers' mess and waited respectfully at the outer door while Major Piatkin was called…could have knocked on the door of the sleeping room of his platoon sergeant and told him.

Could have…and had not. It would have been easiest to tell the driver of the truck, but with each opportunity passed up the next chance had become harder. It was stifled inside him. He did not know whether he had helped Captain Archenko, his friend, but he did know he was now a traitor to every conscript in every bed in the dormitory. He was washed with fear. He lay on his stomach, his side and his back. Sleep would not come.

'There has to be a dead drop, Viktor…' The purr was in his voice. It was imperative to Yuri Bikov that he showed no trace of annoyance. He did not think the prey could fight much longer. 'There is always a dead drop…I believe your dead drop was at Malbork Castle.'

It would be the tiredness that defeated his prey's resistance. The tape spool still turned in the outer office. He needed one grunted confirmation, only one. After the first acceptance of the questions he put, the first tremored, blurted or whispered yes, the rest would come like a torrent. It was always that way. After the first acknowledgement of defeat, he would blow out the last gasp of the candle, slither across the concrete floor and his arm would be around his prey's shoulder. Then the confession would come. It would be coughed up, and spat out. It was the stalking of the prey that both intrigued and excited him, but in the moments after the start of the confessional he would feel, again, a sense of let-down. It was what the hunters told him when they went after deer or bear in the wilderness forests: the killing and gutting of an animal left nothing but a feeling of inadequate emptiness.

'Let us forget the walk-in, Viktor, at Murmansk or Severomorsk, and then the initial contact that followed it. You were transferred to Kaliningrad oblast. You were now within reach of your new friends. They would need a satisfactory dead drop. Not here…they would not want the dead drop near to Baltiysk. Inside the oblast, they would face the risk of identification and compromise — but you give what is, to them, a heaven-sent opportunity where all the risk is for you and none for them. You go to Malbork Castle. Every two months, because of your esteemed position, you are permitted to travel into Poland and visit the historic site of ancient history. Myself, Viktor, I have not been to Malbork Castle, I only have photographs to guide me. I imagine a great rambling place with dark corners and crannies on steep stairs and rubbish-bins. Ideal. You are in civilian clothes, you merge, you wander. You spend half a day in the castle, and in one corner, cranny or rubbish-bin there is a place where you leave documents, photographs or microfilm. They would not be there, your new friends, because to be there and to meet you face to face would put you in hazard, and them. They would come later. The pickup from the dead drop would be a few hours after you had gone, or the next day. They are very satisfied with the arrangement they are safe. The dead drop is at Malbork Castle, Viktor — yes or no?'

'No.'

'You see, Viktor, I don't criticize you. I understand you, I have sympathy for you…you would, of course, leave instructions as to the timing of the next dead drop, but you would not know how your package is received. Viktor, answer me a question.'

'What question?'

'I am inclined to believe you spied for the British, not the Americans — the Americans are more electronic, but the British go with old tradecraft, it is their style. How many packages from dead drops do you think the British receive each week? How many? That is my question.'

The trick was blocked by silence. The prey would see the mantrap laid for him. He would be aching now with tiredness, hunger, stress, but still had — just — the capability to recognize the trap. Bikov could not see his prey's face but he could hear the stifling of yawns, and there would be the pain of hunger, and the stress eating into him. The cold clung in the room.

'Not many, not many packages in a week. You might be the only provider of a package in a week. A man in London may have a diary in which he makes a red cross on the day you travel to Malbork Castle. You are the centrepiece of that man's life. Because of you, in London he has status — that is why he tells you he is your new friend. On your back, Viktor, that man's career prospers. One week there is a package from Viktor Archenko, the next week another man receives a package in Cairo, the week after a package comes from a ministry clerk in Beijing, and the last week in the month perhaps there are no packages. They have a big building, Viktor, by the Thames river in London. Two thousand people work there, but they have very few packages coming to it. In the crown of a man's career, Viktor, you are a jewel…but that man does not take a risk. No, Viktor, the risk is left to you. That is the way they work. Your new friends have a toy and they play with it. I am your real friend, Viktor…so tell me that the dead drop was at Malbork Castle, yes or no?'

'No.'

The voice had a whistled thinness to it, and there had been a pause before the denial. Bikov sensed his prey's strength sank. It would not be long. The aircraft would be fuelled and ready. On the aircraft, the prisoner would be handcuffed, his eyes would be covered with adhesive tape and he would not be allowed to piss or shit, except in his trousers. He would be humiliated, and he would never again see his interrogator, but his ears would hear the playing of the tape from the first single word of confession through the torrent flow as it was transcribed by Yuri Bikov's sergeant. A car and a van would be at the military side of Sheremetevo, and Bikov would go home in the car to sleep. His prisoner would go on the floor of the van to the basement cells of military counterintelligence. Bikov felt no sympathy, no remorse, no pity. He believed the collapse was close.

'I hear you, Viktor…always remember I am your friend — not them. We shall move on.'

She did not reply.

Locke said, 'Didn't you hear me? They've called through. They're on the base. I don't know what the hell they think they can achieve.'

She sat on the bed. She could see him dully framed in the doorway, and she could hear the pent-up aggression in his voice.

'They've crossed the canal, they're inside the base. It's what you wanted, isn't it?'

Alice said, 'I suppose you hope they'll fail.'

'Don't pretend to yourself that you can read me.'

Alice murmured, 'Because if they fail then you were right from the start. Their failure will prove you right, and that'll be important to you.'

He turned from the door and moved away a pace, two paces, into the hall. He stopped. She thought he put up his hand and leaned against the wall, his arm taking the weight, but she could not be sure in the night darkness.

'I'm going out. I'll be gone some little time. I'd like you to listen out on the radio — you know the call signs. Just listen out and relay anything relevant on to Mowbray. Do that, please.'

'Are you running away?'

He spun in the hall. The sudden movement of his body was clear to her, and he came back through the door and the bulk of him loomed closer to her. He strode towards the bed. She had been sitting. She slid down on to her side and curled her knees up; her arms were around her chest as if for protection. Alice thought he was going to punch her. She readied herself for the impact of his fist, ducked her head down. She could smell his body, unwashed since he had slept in the tunnel under the Gdansk railway tracks, and his breath. He bent over her. She stiffened. Alice felt his lips on her forehead, the damp touch of them. They lingered for a moment then moved an inch, and he kissed her a second time. The first two kisses were gentle; the third was pressed hard down on her forehead, catching strands of her hair. Then he was up and gone.

Back at the door, his voice was curt: 'Listen for the radio. I'll be some little time…yes, running away. God watch you, Alice, God watch over the both of you.'

She lay on her side. The kitchen door was opened, then pulled shut, and she was alone with the silence.

Alice had known it was the last chance when the men had gone to the zoo park to lift Viktor out, and it had been another last chance when they had gone ashore and had been at the rendezvous point, but he had not shown. It was the third 'last chance' that had taken the men across the canal and into the base. She knew he was held, she knew the Princess Rose must sail by dawn: she understood that the third last chance was feeble. She could not believe she would see Viktor again. She felt a sense of personal shame because she had taunted Gabriel Locke, accused him of 'running away'.

The taunt at Locke had been her own act of self-defence. She would go back to Vauxhall Bridge Cross, where she would bury herself in her work and she would apply, after a fortnight's decent interval, for a posting away. She would be in Buenos Aires or Bogotá, or any bloody place, and one morning the Station Chief would call her into his office, and she would be passed a sheet of paper with a brief, unemotional message for her to read: 'Inform Alice North that Moscow sources report execution of Ferret last week following in camera trial.' She would read it, then feed it into the shredder, and she would be asked if she wanted to take the rest of the day off, and she would decline that offer. She would go back to her desk and busy herself with the low-level material from an Argentine police informant or a Colombian interior-ministry official, or an agent from any bloody place.

She touched her forehead and her fingers seemed to search for evidence that Gabriel Locke, who had said from the start that it would fail, had kissed her, but she found only her dry, furrowed skin. Wherever they posted her she would never forget Viktor. He was the only love of her life. Her fingers hovered on the amber stone at her neck.

Alice shook herself, pushed herself up, wiped her eyes, and rolled her legs off the bed. She smoothed her hair, then walked through the darkness and into the kitchen. A red light would flash on the communications console when a signal came through from the team — no light flashed. She did not know why Locke had kissed her forehead, and she could not escape the shame of having taunted him. She sat down heavily at the kitchen table and began her vigil.

The third time…

'I think that is everything, Viktor. You've done us proud, but then you always do. There's enormous admiration in London for what you achieve for us, and huge gratitude. In all honesty, Viktor, I can tell you that you are regarded as our supreme asset. I don't know when we'll meet again, Viktor, but it's been my privilege to work with you. Go carefully. Goodnight, both of you. Mowbray had smiled at them and gone towards the bathroom as if to wash his hands of what they did in the rest of the night. They had known, she and Viktor, that it might be the last time. After the loving…walking on the frosted, crunching, crisp grass at the Westerplatte memorial, arms tight around each other…him telling her to be brave, her telling him that they would be together, one day, forever. The last kiss. The love had lasted.

The driver brought the final armful of branches. They were dry, had been sheltered from the rain by the canopy of the pines, and with the armful was a newspaper from the car. The headlights from the dunes splayed over the beach. Jerry the Pole watched as Chelbia knelt in his smart suit and packed the sheets of newspaper deep among the branches. There was a flash of gold. The flame gushed from Chelbia's lighter, the paper took and the branches caught. The fire crackled.

Jerry the Pole stood back. Roman, the fisherman, lifted fish from the bucket, some still quivering limply, and his knife ripped through the bases of their stomachs. His fingers casually flicked the guts on to the sand, and gulls screamed at the edge of the darkness. Jerry the Pole shivered but did not go near to the fire. Roman passed Chelbia a cod, still bleeding, then a mackerel and two plaice. Chelbia dropped the fish into the flames and chortled as they sizzled, spat. He looked up at Jerry the Pole.

'Do I do this at home? Do I hell! At home I eat at the Arlenkino or the restaurant in the Hotel Kaliningrad or at the Casino Universal, I pay through my nose. I pay for everybody. I go out to eat and it costs me five hundred American dollars. Here I eat for nothing, and what I eat I will enjoy…fresh, grilled fish…the best. Come closer.'

A command. Jerry the Pole edged nearer to the fire.

'Closer.'

An order. Jerry the Pole would not disobey. At the café where his Mercedes was parked he had said that he would be on the beach. Neither the bastard Locke nor Miss North had gone to the café for him, or a message would have been sent. The café would now have been closed three, four hours. They would have had to come looking for him. He didn't care if they had to search for him. His pension was what mattered to him, and it was ignored. It was now past two o'clock, he should have been back at the car, curled up and asleep. Chelbia had asked him to stay, and he thought Chelbia was not a man whose request was wisely ignored.

He could feel the fire's warmth, and he stared down at the bubbling skins of the fish. Chelbia reached up and took his hand. Jerry the Pole felt himself pulled down and was too frightened to resist. Chelbia's face was close and smiling. He could not have broken the man's grip on his hand.

'I have enjoyed the fishing, and I will enjoy eating the fish. That was my good fortune when I came to find you. You…you work for the Secret Intelligence Service of Britain.'

'What is it you ask?' His hand was taken closer to the flames, the cooking fish, and the embers. 'I don't know why you say…'

'What are the names of the Secret Intelligence men you drive?'

'That's not true.' A flame played on the skin of his hand, scorched it, and the fish fat spattered on his skin.

'I want their names.'

'I can't…' The pain pierced the brain. The grip was now on his wrist and his hand was driven down into the flames and the reddened embers. 'Can't, can't…'

'Their names.'

'Rupert Mowbray — chief — and—' He saw his own skin curl, pop, and the agony rivered up his arm. He owed them nothing. The flames licked his hand, and there was acrid smoke seeping up from his shirt cuff and his coat. They had denied his pension. 'And Gabriel Locke is the junior, and there is Miss Alice North.'

'Why are they here?'

'To lift out, to take out—' His hand's skin had been white in the cold, then had pinked above the flames and the embers, now was blackening. 'Take out an officer from the base.'

'Which officer?'

'A captain, I think.' It was acute, stabs of pure needle-sharp pain. 'I think his name, I heard it, was — Archenko. Viktor Archenko. I think—'

'Archenko?'

He heard, through the pain and the scent of his own flesh burning, a sort of wonderment in Chelbia's voice, an astonishment. 'It is Archenko.'

His wrist was freed.

'A man I could do business with, mutually profitable business. Thank you, my friend, thank you.'

Chelbia dragged him up. Without his support Jerry the Pole would have collapsed. Chelbia manoeuvred him across the sand and into the spray of the surf. His hand was forced down into the water and the cold dulled the pain. Chelbia dried Jerry the Pole's hand with his own handkerchief, silk and monogrammed.

'What are you going to do?' he whimpered.

They came back over the sand. Chelbia said, 'I think the fish will soon be ready. I tell you, my friend, in five years only one man has confronted me, shown no fear of me — he is the best of men, a lion. I am going to eat the fish I have caught, and you will join me. I invite you to be my guest.'

Jerry the Pole clutched his hand and cringed. 'Thank you.'

'You have had, Viktor, three visits to Gdansk. Each was an overnight visit. On the three visits your delegation was supervised by a locally based political officer of the FSB, but a junior man. Inside the delegation you were the senior serving officer, and you would have behaved like a senior officer. You would not have stood at the bar half the night, you would have made excuses and said you were going to bed, perhaps to study papers for the next day's meetings. I have a plan, Viktor, of the Hotel Mercure. There is a fire staircase. I have a map also, Viktor, of Gdansk, and I estimate it would take an athletic man such as yourself about fifteen minutes of brisk walking to cross the inner city. Each night you were in Gdansk, Viktor, you left the hotel — yes or no?'

'No.'

'You went to the Excelsior Hotel and you were debriefed there by your handlers — yes or no?'

'No.'

If he looked into the small, wavering light of the flame he faced the voice and felt its persuasive softness. It lulled him. The voice merged with his hunger and his tiredness. He was slipping.

'They were magic hours for you with your handlers — yes or no?'

'No.'

'Each time you went and met your handlers it was like a liberation for you — yes or no?'

He clung to Alice. She was blurred. He reached for her.

'No.'

'I want to tell you, Viktor, why I think the night hours spent with your handlers would have been like a liberation to you, and were magic hours. You were flattered, you were made to believe you were a man of the highest importance, the centre of their world. It would have been a narcotic to you, because the spy is the man who is most alone in all the world. You soaked up the flattery. To them you were a hero, valued and trusted. Each wretched little piece of paper that you handed over they would have held in their hands as if it were priceless. They would have hung on your words, Viktor. You were the most important man in their lives, yes or no?'

Clarity came to her face, then slipped away. He held her against his shoulder, and the candle's warmth ebbed from her cheek through his shirt and reached his skin. He shivered hard, could not help himself. He knew he must hold on to her or he would sink.

'No.'

'And you told them of the deaths of your father and your grandmother — yes or no?'

'No.'

'Did they give you a woman, Viktor? They usually do. Dangerous to bring a whore into the hotel for one hour, a poor security procedure. Was there a secretary or a stenographer who was made available, Viktor? A woman — yes or no?'

He lay with Alice, their arms wrapped tightly around each other. If she left him he was gone, was alone in the darkness.

'No.'

'Viktor, do I seem stupid to you? Do I? We trust each other. We share our food, we share the cold, we share this room, we do not tell lies to each other. Am I stupid? A British woman stayed in the hotel where you were debriefed, the same woman each time on the matching dates that you were in Gdansk. A good fuck, Viktor — yes or no?'

He felt her arms loosening their hold on him. It was as if the skin of her hands, arms and body was greased, and she seemed to slip from the grip of his fingers.

'I don't think, Viktor, that they paid you. You are not a man interested in money. We are the same. What we own would go into a single suitcase. There is no sign in your room of luxury, of indulgence. I do not believe that money was involved…they would have liked that, Viktor. The Secret Intelligence Service of Britain is like the FSB — both loath to give out money. It has to go to committees, has to be authorized, then there is dispute over the scale and frequency of the payments. You were right not to demand money. You did not demand money because it would have demeaned your vengeance. You were pure, Viktor. It would have been important to you to be pure. And if you had demanded money you might have found that your cash value did not match the sweet flatteries they offered. A woman is cheap. Did she tell you that she loved you, Viktor — yes or no?'

He groped for Alice. She slipped from him. She was moving back and the candle's light made her a shadow. He reached for her but her arms were folded across her chest and she did not reach back for him. Without her he was lost. Every time, when he was in crisis, she was crystal-clear water in his mind and he could feel the touch of her, and her words soothed the fear. Now she drifted from him.

'But more important, Viktor, was your own safety. Spies do not retire, do not, one day, walk away and close down that segment of their lives. They are hooked, Viktor, they are as vulnerable as any addict with a syringe on the Moskovsky in Kaliningrad. The spy