Kingfisher

Gerald Seymour
CHAPTER ONE

News of the arrest spread fast.

There had been, of course, nothing of it in the Party newspapers, nor on the radio, nor on the television news programmes, but then they were not the tried and tested sources. News moved in a different and more circuitous way, a constant process of dissemination. In the queues they heard of it while the sun was climbing high over the monuments and parks and lofty buildings that were the achievement of the regime. Queues waiting for the buses, queues at the food store where there was the delay in the arrival of the fresh baked loaves of the day, queues at the bank before it opened.

The talk of the arrest was neither loud nor furtive – just a subject of conversation amongst a bored and tired people – so that it rippled their lives momentarily, spreading the tedium of the day a little less harshly, easing the personal load because of the knowledge that somewhere in the city there was a being in great trouble, someone with a problem more real and more acute than any that the mass would face that morning, or that afternoon, or that night. And the thought of it sent an eddy of apprehension through those that knew.

They were a few who had seen him taken, seen the cruising black car of the militia come to a sudden halt in the midst of the traffic, the rear doors snap open and the men in the pale-brown uniforms weave a path through the other cars till they had reached the pavement and were sprinting for their quarry. He had walked casually and unaware of the risk till they were on him.

There had been one at his legs, pitching him forward, another to spread out his arms on the pavement, so that if he had had a gun secreted on his person, hidden impossibly beneath his trousers or his light summer shirt, he would not have been able to take advantage from it. A third had stood above him, looming and huge, right arm extended with the cocked pistol aimed into the small of the boy's back. And then they had gone, even as the crowd, unsure and hesitant, had circled to watch. They had bundled him to – wards the car, its rear door open and spanning the gutter, dragged him so that his torso was far in front of his feet. There was no siren, no flashing light, and the curious waited till the accelerating car was again engulfed and lost in the traffic.

Others looked on as the vehicle spun hard, tyres fighting for a grip, and disappeared into the shadowed entrance of the militia station. The noise attracted them, and because of the loss of speed of the car they had had the opportunity to notice for a fraction of a second a face half-buried amongst the uniforms. A face that was white, eyes staring, and with the hair already dishevelled. That there was fear in the boy was clear for all to see, however short the opportunity.

A deep animal fear, and word of it had passed through the city that night, and spread further the following morning.

There were some who conjectured and said that they knew why he had been held. Those that knew of the shooting had heard of the wounding of the policeman far out in the industrial suburbs to the west across the river.

The principal headquarters of the security police in Kiev, capital town of the Ukraine, is a formidable construction. Built close to the seat of power, it is adjacent to Party offices, and within a short walk of the administration centre. There is a wedding-cake decor on the front facade, and it has columns and gently sloping steps and statues, all maintained in a bright and soft-coloured stone by the regular spray of water jets. The legacy of Stalinist post-war rebuilding: but for all that the interior does not match the finery of the facade. Behind the walls no allowance has been made for aesthetics: a functional honeycomb of rooms and corridors and narrow staircase, while deep in the basements are located the prisoners' cells.

At the far end of the buried passage, devoid of natural light, and behind a door numbered '38', Moses Albyov now lay. He rested on a mattress of straw held together by rough farm sackcloth that rustled with each shift of his weight. A slightly- built figure, he had a pinched and concerned face, and dark, straight hair that had been thrown haphazardly in all directions and that needed the attentions of comb or brush. They had taken his shoes and his belt, and his hands held the waist of his trousers – not that he was about to rise and move, but simply through some vague fantasy of protection. His glasses, too, had gone – left on the pavement where they had spilled from his face at the moment they had taken him, probably broken in the short scuffle, certainly abandoned. Without them his sight was reduced, blending the hard lines of the cell walls, causing them to be softer, less cruel. Not that there was much for him to focus on. A door to the front, steel- faced and scratched where others had attempted to achieve a pathetic immortality by carving their names and the date; fearful perhaps of entering and leaving the cell in total anonymity. Only a spy hole, small, circular and reflecting the light of the room, interrupted the smooth surface of the door. No natural light was permitted to enter the cell: illumination was from a low-powered bulb recessed into the ceiling and covered by what Moses presumed was toughened glass embedded with wire mesh. The floor was of roughened cement, as though the workers had wished to be rid of their. job and had hurried their work, leaving it pitted and lined like a ploughed field when the winter frosts have come. Nothing to call furniture, no table, no chair, no cupboard, no shelves. Only the mattress and a bucket that he had moved away to the furthest point from him because of its smell, the odour of vomit and urine and faeces. In the corner, behind the door: it was not far, perhaps seven feet-not far enough to divorce its presence from him, not far enough to shut out the taste that swelled in his mouth.

For company there were the cockroaches. They came fearless and exploratory, and because of the quietness of the cell he believed he could hear their legs, brushing in a gentle passage across the floor towards him. He had thought that the light that burned through the night would have frightened them, and could not believe that creatures so devoid of intellect could recognize his helplessness, but some instinct told them that they had nothing to fear. Once he had brushed two away with his hand and his whole body had trembled in the aftermath of the contact. He could not touch them again, and they had come, sometimes singly, sometimes in their cohorts, to examine him, to ponder their visitor. And as if bored and disinterested they had gone on their way. It is because there is no food, he thought.

His right shoulder still hurt, ached where the bruising had now won through and discoloured the pale skin into a kaleidoscope of blue and mauve and yellow. On the final flight of stairs, and he had not been ready for it. Already down two flights while they held his arms above the elbows, squeezing and firm, and then on the last leg, without warning, the hands had gone and the knee was in the small of his back and he was away, arms flailing in the vacuum, seeking to break his fall against the cement steps that rushed to meet him. Toes in his ribs, a fist in his hair, and he had risen to walk the rest of the passage, stayed on his own feet while they produced the keys to the cell door, made his entry without interference, and stood stock-still in the centre of the floor as the door had shut behind him. That was all the violence they had shown him. Just the once, reckoning in their trained minds what was sufficient to inculcate a message, insufficient to harden his resistance. The footsteps and the casual conversation of the guards had faded, become immersed in the silence around him, and since then, nothing. Not a door slammed, not a raised voice. As if he were immured, cemented away, forgotten.

He could understand what they were doing. Simple if you examined it, applied logic. The process of vegetation, that is what it was all about. They wouldn't talk to him yet; they would wait until they had assembled the dossier, hardened the evidence. When they were ready and not before, that was when interrogation would begin. Stupid if they rushed it So he knew what they were at, why they were taking their time. And he knew what they would be asking of him when finally they had prepared themselves.

It had been decided in the group that he would be the first, because it had been he who had drawn the short straw.

All four had known their role in the attack. Rebecca from the front, asking the policeman for directions and fumbling in her bag for the map, holding his attention. David from behind, his clenched fist landing on the tunic cloth of the man's right shoulder, enough to fell him. Isaac springing from the shadow, hands at the holster flap to prise away the precious pistol, drawing it clear and throwing it abruptly to where Moses stood. When the gun was in his hand the others had run off, deserting the stage.

Moses's hand had been shaking, and the barrel waving, dancing in the air. And all the time the elephantine form of the policeman had convulsed as semi-stunned he had tried to rise from his knees and make his escape. Bewilderment and pain were etched on the policeman's features, as he struggled to make some sense from the previous moments of confusion. And as Moses had looked down at the barrel, fascinated by its movements, the identity-protecting balaclava had slipped and obscured his vision. He had pulled at it, ripped it across his face, over his head, clear of his hair. A distant scream from David for him to hurry, in concert with a sharper growl, Isaac's.

When he fired the policeman was gazing at him, the trained bovine mind eating into the description that he sought to remember, conjuring the facial features even as the bullet struck his chest. From the way the policeman fell Moses had known it was not a fatal shot. That was the moment that he needed to root his feet to the pavement and finish what he had started. But he was running and panting and sobbing to get air in his lungs, frantic to create distance between himself and the man he had failed to kill. The others were at the corner, and when he had come they had all run together till they had not the strength to sprint any further. It was only after he had vomited the early supper his mother had prepared for him, spewed it out behind the bus shelter, that he had felt in his pockets, one after the other, and realized that he no longer had the balaclava.

The importance of the loss had been demonstrated to him with brutal clarity within minutes of entering the militia headquarters. They'd sat him in a chair, in a room at the back and on the ground floor, and a man in a white coat had come forward with a shined and scrubbed steel comb and had run it through his hair and looked with pleasure at the hairs he extracted. There would be a match: they had the skill to do that. It would be no problem for them, to marry what they found embedded in the wool of the balaclava with the hairs that lay between the teeth of the comb. The man in the white coat had said nothing, just placed the comb in a plastic bag. Too simple, and damning, confirmation of what they would already have obtained from the injured policeman.

Sitting in his bed he'd be, with the men around him who make up the photographic imitations of people they are hunting. Moses's 'face' would have been circulated, and the militia men who had come from behind him as he walked must have seen the features that the experts had recreated and assimilated them sufficiently for them to act. When they'd walked inside the headquarters with him they'd shown their pleasure in the knowledge that there was no mistake, that they had the one they wanted. Before, they had been in the realm of belief; now they had the evidence to swing their opinion to certainty. Two follicles of hair, that was all they needed. So silly. Two strands, nothing, till there was a microscope. But they would have a microscope, and scientists to use it, and a laboratory for them to work in.

Yet wasn't it still too easy, Moses, to rely just on their luck? Go deeper, hunt for the source of identification, the factor that isolated him from the mass of youths that paraded the streets of the city… Remember the balaclava, remember the campus shop, at the north side of the university, remember the label of sale. They would have stored the information, cared and gloated over it while the bed-ridden pig put together the description of the man that had shot him. Then treasured and coveted the two. The militia would have seen the shoulder satchel, worn carelessly and without concern; emblem of the university emblazoned on its flap. You did it for them, Moses.

Performed their work. A student with the features to match- what more could they have asked of you? So forget about photo-fits and laboratories and the magnification of hair roots. There was nothing that should minimize his stupidity. He had given it to them-all they needed for suspicion.

He'd left them only to supply the proof. And their technology would be massive, equal to that, hugely excessive for the task.

So how many hours more, how long till the report was typed and the knot tied, till they were ready for him?

It was cold in the cell, and the memory of the warmth as he had been walking in the street, wrapped in his own thoughts, was fading. There was a chill and sort of dampness that he could not identify, for the walls showed no rivulets of moisture. As if water had once been there and had strangely found no route of escape.

There was no escape. He sat up sharply, disturbing the straw underneath him. What would they do to him? It would be easier for him if he knew- he would know then whether he could counter it or not. But he had no answers; all outside his experience. Drugs – perhaps they would use drugs?

That would be painless and would remove the stigma of confession, at least. But what if it were to be pain? What if that were the instrument they should use? They'd break him, not because he was special, or different: they'd break anyone with pain… David and Isaac as well, and Rebecca quicker than all of them. Everyone has a limit, and they'd push you right through it till you were screaming, shrieking, till the names came tumbling out so fast that they couldn't write them down, and the addresses and the rendezvous. Everything they wanted and much more, only stop, stop and no more! Please, not again, please! He was stirring on the mattress, his body squirming, compressing the flesh together. Pain was what frightened him, the pain of a beating from the truncheons, from the electrodes they would wire to his limbs. And they'd have a place to do that, somewhere in the building, that too was a certainty. If it were to be drugs then you were helpless, unable to summon resistance. But what was the antidote to pain? Moses tossed and heaved now, his mind taking control and leading him along a course from which he could not deflect it.

Perhaps it was courage? Not really important for how long. For a few hours, a day perhaps. To give the others time – had to give them time to go. And what if they didn't know that he had been taken? He wondered how long he had been in the cell, but realized he had lost any sense of time after they'd taken his watch. Would have heard by now, wouldn't they? Must have done. And they should be running, dispersing, because he wasn't strong, wasn't ready for the pain, could not give them much time. He sagged back, flattening the harder lumps of the straw, and turned his body so that he lay on his stomach with his face buried in the sacking, and with his arms clasped around his head to shut out the light. There were tears that he could not control, that came without noise, and that ran a little way over his upper cheek before falling on the sacking, staining momentarily, then disappearing.

There was the opportunity to think: just what they wanted him to do. He had to put it together in his mind, sort out where it had started, and why, and what were their aims and intentions.

Quicker for them that way – they'd get their answers faster. And be easier for him, too – he'd suffer less. Have it all ready when they come for you, then they won't need to hurt you so much. The awful fear of waiting – but this would be only the start of it. First the waiting for the time when they were ready to take the confession. Then the waiting for the trial. And after that more waiting.

Waiting for sentence, waiting for execution. Be from a cell like this that they'd take you out. Still dark before the creep of dawn, and floodlights playing on the high walls, and somewhere in the yard they'll trip you over, Moses, then jerk you down to your knees, and there'll be a hand to hold your head steady and then the grip will loosen from the hair and there will be the noise of the pistol being cocked. That's what you're going to wait for, Moses, that's the future, that's eternity.

They'd grown up together, the four of them. The war was long over when they were born, and the fighting finished, but nothing changed in the lot of the Ukrainian Jew. Second- class people, on the outside, without benefit or recognition. They didn't live in a ghetto – that was not the way the housing was allocated – but they'd learned to fall in together because that was survival in an alien world. Taught to be quiet, taught not to answer back, taught not to risk provocation, to ride a jibe or an insult, and to be better and fitter and stronger and more able, because those were the necessities of equality.

As children David had been their leader, the one who knew the answers and understood the struggle. It had been David who told them of Babi Yar, and none of them past eleven years of age. It was not a place their parents spoke of, not talked about by the rabbi, but David had led them to the ravine on the edge of the city's suburbs and told them what had happened there, of the machine-gunning of the Jews, told them there was no monument to commemorate the place because those who had died there had been Jewish. David had pointed to where the Germans had set up their machine-gun tripods, marked the spot for them, explained how the columns of the condemned came without thought of flight or resistance, spoken of the meek and pallid acceptance of the orders to wait patiently, to file forward, to kneel down, not to move, not to obstruct the soldiers' aim. Then he had shown them the refuse of the suburb that had been thrown into this place, and walked with them to the broken jars in which the brave placed flowers at night, when they were safe from view, and which were destroyed in the morning by the boots of those on their way to the trams and the buses. The trio listened as David explained their position in life, their heritage. For a boy of his years he knew so much, had the patience to tell them, when they wanted to play the games of children, the matters with which they should concern themselves.

The group had become inseparable. At school they had sat together, at home they had worked together – because David said they must be cleverer, with better grades, better diplomas than those they sought to emulate. But they were being prepared for a life of conformity and inaction, inevitable in its way, until the day that David had come to Rebecca's house with the radio set.

They were teenagers now, but isolated from the outside world until the radio flitted into their lives. The Voice of America, the World Service of the BBC, Radio Liberty broadcast by an emigre staff in Munich and beamed from a massive transmitter across Central Europe. The curtain was pulled back, a shaft of sunlight brought in. There was contact with the forbidden, excitement and stimulation at the illegality of it all. David said he'd purchased the radio, and smiled. They knew it was beyond his means, and he'd also said they had no need to learn more of its acquisition, only to listen and to understand.

It became a secret thing, special and precious with its expanded short wave band, and a door through which they followed the June War of 1967, and the War of Atonement of 1973. They heard of the tribulations endured by those of their faith who sought to emigrate from Russia to the State of Israel, were told of the trials of those not permitted to leave the Motherland that they wanted to forsake. They knew of international protest at the lot of Soviet Jewry, they suckled themselves on what they believed to be the strength of world opinion. Heady and intoxicating drink for the four teenagers…

And David was their leader.

Nothing had ever been formally decided. It had never been talked over, but the time came when he made all the decisions for the group. At first there had been discussions, followed always by inevitable agreement to David's point of view, till within the last two years the pros and cons were no longer argued. David announced what they would do, and there was immediate concurrence. And as he assumed command so David's personality seemed to grow, and he took on a mantle in the minds of the other three of new strength, new influence. Yet when Moses submitted to the men in khaki, with their instruments and their drugs, when he gave the names, then David would follow to an identical cell, a fashioned and geometric imitation of the one that Moses lay in now, and his future would be as strongly etched as was that of Moses. The torture would be the same as he would have endured, and the culmination too – perhaps the same dawn, perhaps the same prison yard. All of this would be David's if Moses talked when his interrogators came for him, all of this and an equation of betrayal. Was he any more fitted, better equipped, to confront them in the interrogation basements? David with his smiling face, who could conjure up passion into his words, communicate the life in his eyes. Did he possess a threshold that would protect him from the fear and terror of pain? And Moses realized that he had never known David to experience helpless and uncontrollable stress, had never seen anguish screw up his cheeks, or known him exchange his confidence for confusion and hurt. It hastened a chilling shudder through him; what if David were no better, no stronger, no more resolute than he, Moses, the follower? He clasped his arms across his chest, digging his uncut fingernails through the fabric of his shirt. What if the leader were no better able to withstand the pigs, had no defiance, no arrogant obscenities? That would be betrayal too: to expose him to them, to leave him weak and vulnerable and screaming.

How many months ago it had been that David had found the woodman's hut amongst the birch forest near the 'dachas' north of the city Moses could not remember. Time had travelled fast since then, much had been compressed into the days till they had seemed to run together without shape or pattern because of the new stimulus of what they called the 'programme'. Moses had allowed his work at the new chemical factory near his home to become subordinate to the meetings that the group held inside the darkened and damp shack, which they reached separately, making their own way at David's behest. Bare walls, only the rough-cut timbers to shield them from the spring rain that followed the snow and that preceded the summer heat and the flies. It was here that David had talked and the others had listened. The irony was – and it was not lost on them – that the doctrine he preached was available for all in the Ukraine to find; there were histories, tomes of them, of the partisan warfare against the Germans who had occupied the area, and treatises of the tactics of Guevera, and for those who had stored them and who had not thrown them away when they were suppressed there were the works of Mao, and there were the thoughts of Giap who had conquered the invincible Americans. That was what David talked to them of. On one fundamental only did he depart from the text and bible of the guerrilla fighter. There would be no

'first stage', there would be no 'infra-structure period', no creation of an 'indoctrinated population base'. They took too long, took too many people, and the circumstances in which they found themselves could not be likened to the paddy fields of Asia. The Jews of Russia had spoken of the ills so often they had no need for more words, only for action. And if the action were successful then his movement would develop as a sapling does under the spring light, but first there must be the root, deep in fertile soil. He told them of the revolutionary warfare that would hit back at the oppressors of the Jewish people. 'Like a flea-bite at first,' he had said. 'But a flea that cannot be found, that cannot be hunted out, that comes back and wants more. That turns what is first an irritation to anger. When their anger is aroused then we know that we are hurting them, then we know that we have vengeance. There has been a great wrong here, too great a wrong for us alone to erode. But it is a gesture that is needed. How many walked in submission to the German shower chambers? How many now walk in submission to the camps at Potma and Perm?'

David had been persuasive, but there was no necessity for it. All in the group knew the fighting ground. Isaac said that he had met a youth who had met once with Yuri Vudka who had seven years at Potma to think on his application for leave to emigrate to Israel. David had chipped in, not allowing him to finish – but then he seldom did, and it was not resented -'Vudka from our own Kiev, and seven years to think of his city, and his crime that he had wanted to leave, and had written things down, that he had books from the West and in the Hebrew language.' David had talked of the new Jews of Israel, hardened and fashioned in their own sun by the rigours of their own land and their own freedom. He called them 'sabras', men who had washed away the placidity of the former generation that had marched to the cattle trucks with not an arm upraised.

So how placid, docile, unquestioning were their people? There was enough evidence to make him believe it, enough that he had heard to verify the belief that they were supine, incapable of self- help. But often they had wondered whether there were other groups that met in bare and shadowed rooms, that came to darkened and pathless woods, that sought shelter in the same nameless anonymity and that talked of a struggle, of hope and revenge, however trivial. David had heard on the radio of the bomb detonated on the Moscow Inner Underground, and had told them of protest and disobedience among their people in Novosibirsk – and in the main square at that – and of a man who was executed in the prison at Tbilisi and who had set off six explosive devices. He had heard it on the radio, where the word carried biblical validity. Not all Jews, he had said, and smiled, but at least others of different faith and aspiration who were burrowing at the edifices, chipping and hacking. Others who rejected the required submission as totally as they, and who stood back from the fly-swat resistance of the press conference, and the smuggled letter to the West, and the complaint to the Foreign Power. 'Words, words, stupid and ineffective,'

David had said. 'As valuable as lying in the sand in the path of a steam-roller. It is action that will change them, that will achieve something.' They had wondered how many other tribes shared their jungle and ate the same fruit, but they had no way of knowing. As the group became more daring and more cohesive so too their dread of breaking the precious security was augmented.

There was no consideration given to widening the size of the cell – too dangerous. Heighten the walls, strengthen the locks, repel recruits even should they be found. An island, aloof in a battle sea, that was how they had decided they should remain.

They had followed David through each step as he prepared the ground for the movement that lifted their course from the level of conspiracy to action, accepting every stage of his logic, not disputing his argument. Moses thought of the long weekend days and the mid-week summer evenings they had spent, the four of them, in the hut. How they had talked of what they would do, sometimes all shouting together and laughing and hanging on to each other's shoulders and imagining how a grateful people would bow to their courage, acknowledge the standard-bearers, feel a pride in their bravery. David had decided when they were ready, and none had queried him, only become quiet in the elation of knowing that the moment had arrived. They had talked in whispers that evening, subdued to the droned harassment of the mosquitoes, and clung to each other before the time to go to their homes, and memorized the route to the rendezvous the next evening. It had been wonderful for Moses as they had held each other close, the male smells unable to counter the softer, more gentle trace of the girl's scent. So much strength, so much power, nothing they could not do because they were together. Later had come the chilling loneliness for the boy, when he left the warmth of the group, to walk back on his own on the forest path towards the road. David had said he would be the first to kill, Isaac had argued till Rebecca had found the compromise. None should claim the privilege by right, in the cell they were as one, she had said, and seemed to mock at David. The leader had rejected her, demanded it for himself, the prerogative of the front runner, but Isaac would not yield. Rebecca had spoken again, chided David. Were they not all capable? It was a simple thing, was it not? She had opened the door, disappeared for a minute, not more, and when she returned there were four twigs in her fist, their tips arranged in line, their length hidden in her closed palm. David had drawn first, expressionless, watching and waiting, then Isaac with a smile lightening his features because his was shorter, Moses third, and the winced sigh of disappointment from the other two men when they saw the stubbed length of the one which he had chosen. A protest from Isaac, a taunt from Rebecca that already they would divide themselves – officers and men, commissars and proletariat – a shrug from David. No remark from the boy himself. Again and again in his mind Moses had worked over the plan, digesting the part that he would play, remembering the details.

The first blow they would strike, and Moses Albyov had been chosen; not David who was their leader, not Isaac who fancied and believed in his fitness, but Moses, the last of the recruits to arrive before the cell had been sealed. To curse

Rebecca or to love her for the chance she had wished on him – he had not known the answer as he stumbled from shadows of the wood to the roadside.

But his hand had shaken, and the wool had drifted across his eyes. The mistakes of Moses Albyov. Errors that the others would not have made. And if he now collapsed, if he buckled, then all would pay the penalties for the faults that were his alone.

If there could only be someone to speak to, or just the sound of a human voice, however distant…

No food, and his belly aching with the deprivation and bowels grinding an extract from the last meal. God knows how many hours before.

Pray God let it finish.

Those were the thoughts of Moses Albyov. And they stayed with him till the moment he was roused by the sounds of keys turning in the lock of the door and of the bolt being withdrawn from its socket.

Four men for the escort. Not gentle, yet not brutal. Guiding him uncomfortably down the darkened passageway. His arms were pinioned and the men's fingers dug hard down into his muscles, and the manacles that they had put on his wrists were set tight so that the encompassing steel bit into his flesh. He was classified as 'political terrorist', 'enemy of the people', one who had sought to kill a guardian of the State; and Moses knew that there was no possibility of sympathy.

No words as they moved and their feet were rubber-shod so that the party – more like a cortege, he thought – went silently on its way. That was why he hadn't heard them, but they must have come, every few minutes, must have come to the door to spy at him, only he had not been aware of it.

Fear now. A horrible, clinging terror, something that was new and that he had not experienced before, compressing the muscles of his stomach and leaving his throat parched and dry.

More doors and more guards and more keys. Out into a brighter corridor where men sat at a low wooden table with a radio playing light music, men who interrupted their card game to stare at him, the look that men have for a fellow creature that is not a part of them, contaminated, condemned. Fit and strong men who were taking him, not tolerating his weakness of step as they bustled their way up the flights of stairs down the lengths of the passageways. Another door, another lock, another staircase, and they were half-pulling him with them. His lagging was not a conscious decision; if anything he wanted to please, like a dog about to be beaten that nestles against its master's legs. But he could not follow at their speed, so they dragged and pushed him to maintain their momentum.

The cold of the cell was gone, replaced by the warmth of midday, a fierce summer's day.

There was sweat on the faces of the men that took him, straggling on the corners of the staircase landings, then flattening themselves and their prisoner against the wall to allow free passage for a senior officer in his pressed trousers and tailored tunic, the medal ribbons of his service on his chest. Seven flights they climbed, then a closed and polished door in front and the respectful knock of the starshina with the stripes on his arm, and the command, distant but impatient, for them to enter.

One on each arm, one behind and the sergeant in front. Through the outer door and across the outer office, then the inner room, and the door open. Moses could see three men at a desk facing him as he was propelled forward. His trousers were sagging, still held up by his hands, his stockinged feet bruised and chafed from the stair surface of concrete and stone. Cold eyes, looking at him, boring into him, examining and stripping him. The sanctum of the enemy. There was a breeze now on his face, soft and winnowing against his cheeks, playing on his hair, cooling at his chest. On the left the source of the draught, an opened window, double- glazed for winter but pulled back now to permit the free flow of air.

No bar, no impediment.

If they saw him look at it… if they gauged his intention.. . These were the ones who would bend and break it out of him, who would make him tell them of David and Isaac, and Rebecca with the black hair and the dark eyes and the breasts that he was afraid of and the waist that he yearned to encircle… Moses's eyes were riveted to the front, locked on the man who sat at the central chair of the table.

The guards, preoccupied with delivering their charge to such august company – a full colonel of militia, the KGB major and the major of police – did not detect the flexing of his arm muscles, the bow-string tightness of his legs.

Moses Albyov closed his eyes, closed his mind at the moment that he catapulted himself the seven feet from where he stood to the window-sill. There was a delay as he scrabbled, impeded by the handcuffs, to swing the weight of his torso out into the void, and for a brief second one of the guards was able to claw at his trousers, now flapping and loose at his knees. If his ankle had been held they might perhaps have been able to arrest his fall, but the fingers of the guard were clamped only on to the cotton cloth of the trousers; it was not enough for him to grip at when he took the full weight of the diving Jew.

As he fell there was a sudden clarity in his mind, and an image of a group, of young faces that were laughing together and smiling, and their arms were all around him, and then- voices pealed as bells for him…

All ended by the sledgehammer impact on to the tarmac of the headquarters car park.

Hot water into an ant's nest. Men running and shouting and reacting to orders, forming excited, shifting patterns around the broken figure in their midst. From high above the colonel of militia, sharing the seventh-floor vantage-point of the window with the police major, surveyed the chaos below. Alone among them the man from KGB remained at the interrogation table.

It was he who broke the shocked silence of the room.

'Dead?' he asked.

From the window the reply, muffled because the head was still craning outwards. There is no possibility of survival, not from such a height.'

'And no preliminary interrogation, no initial questioning?'

'There had been none, as you requested. As you had asked. Just the forensic on the hair and the photograph. You were specific: there were to be no questions until he had cooled. Not even his name and his address, not even why he did not carry the card. You were specific.'

A nodded head, enough of the games, enough of the point- scoring. Wouldn't bring him back, didn't matter now. The KGB man made a gesture of dismissal to the four guards.

'So we have just a photograph. No address, not even a name..

'You had said there should be no questioning.' 'I am aware of what I said. So we take again our starting- point. We have the photograph. He is -' and the dry smile, the suggestion of humour – 'he was Jewish. The forensic have confirmed that the hair textures matched. It becomes a job for policemen. It will not be difficult to identify him – many ways – and once we have achieved that then the associates will be easy. We shall have them in a few days. It will take that time, a few days, but less than a week, and then we shall have the little bastards. And we have saved ourselves a bullet. Perhaps that is the way we should look on it: we have saved Mother Russia the price of a bullet.'