Quiller Balalaika

16: LIFELINE

I signalled Ferris just before ten the next morning to debrief. He didn't pick up until the seventh ring and it worried me: he'd said that if there was no answer it would mean he'd been recalled from the field.

I needed him here.

'Yes?'

'Debrief?' He would have the scrambler on.

'Where?'

'We don't need to meet,' I said.

'Why not?' Debriefing isn't done much over the telephone.

'You'd be at risk.'

In a moment, 'You know the score.'

'Yes. All right, two men down.'

'Self-defence?'

'Yes.'

'What happened?'

'They drove me into the forest last night.'

Another pause. 'Who were they?'

'Sakkas' men.'

Hence the risk to Ferris if we met anywhere in broad daylight. He's uncanny, Natalya had told me, talking of Sakkas. Conceivably one or more of the Cougar's gym team could see me somewhere in the streets and move in; with Sakkas the risk was much higher: he could have landed in Moscow by now and the moment he heard that two of his men were missing he'd send out half his army to investigate. Last night's snatch had been reported to his communications base and even my cover name was in their computer.

'You've made contact with the target?'

'No.'

I could hear the snow ploughs working down in the streets. They'd been there since first thing, making their rounds. Overhead the sky was dull pewter, brooding, like a winter twilight two hours before noon.

'Do you expect to?' Ferris asked me.

Feeling his way carefully, his yellow eyes slightly oblique as he listened. I would have liked a rendezvous, yes, if it weren't for the risk. At this of all times I wanted Ferris here in Moscow, keeping the lifeline secure while I was away. During the remnants of the night I'd woken several times as my dreams, sometimes spinning like a vortex, sometimes leading me to consider in a waking state a plan of action, had left me with some decision-making by first light, and this had been done.

'No,' I said. Did I expect to make contact with the target?

'Have you made any progress?'

'No.' I knew the question had come from London. Progress, it was all they could bloody well think about. If I made any progress I'd tell them, wouldn't I? Head felt like a drum this morning, taut, vibrating, not terribly surprising, I suppose. I hoped it would feel normal again soon: I had to be operational as soon as I could manage it, you get trapped on the street by bad luck and you're feeling like a zombie and it's finito, I don't need to tell you that.

'Have you any leads?' I was letting Ferris put the questions: this was debriefing.

'Yes.'

'How promising are they?'

'Not very.'

'But you'll follow them up?'

'Yes.'

'We should really have a rendezvous.'

'No, I want to get on with things.'

In a moment, 'What can I report to London?'

I'd given this some thought, because inevitably he would ask.

'Nothing.'

'But you're committed to following up your leads?'

'Mentally. I'll need to work things out.'

In a moment Ferris said carefully, 'I could give it to Control personally, for his ears only. It needn't go on the board.' Didn't want to get the signals room in an uproar.

Sometimes an executive in the field will go native if he's pushed far enough by the mission, imagine his whole career will depend on one last trick and believe he can snatch success out of the red-hot coals, and then Control will start screaming at him through the mast at Cheltenham, trying to bring him down before he blows the whole of the mission into Christendom.

I wasn't going to do that.

'Look,' I said, 'I've decided on a slightly tricky move and it might come off and it might not. If it does, I'm going to give you the target for the mission and bring Balalaika home. If it doesn't, you won't hear from me again. Try telling Croder that, but stand well back.'

'By the sound of things,' Ferris said in a moment, 'he wouldn't allow it.'

'Damn right.'

'And nor should I.'

'You've got no choice.'

Rumbling of the ploughs below like the roaring of a riptide, ominous, getting on my nerves. When you're committed to moving right into a red sector with your eyes wide open you're prey to the visitation of auguries and portents. Ignore.

'You should know,' I heard Ferris saying, 'that I was ordered back to London at five o'clock this morning. I was packing when you signalled.'

In a moment I said, 'I need you here.' Waited.

'I'd like to stay on, if only to rake the ashes for what I can find.'

I'd never heard him be so graphic. He was worried, that was all. Ferris was worried. Then help me, God. 'It could be interesting,' I said.

'Unfortunately I've got instructions from Control.'

'Twist his arm.'

'On what grounds? When you've got nothing to report.'

'Perfectly true.' It doesn't help, either, while you're listening to the roaring of the riptide, to hear that your director in the field is striking camp.

'Just give me one good argument,' Ferris said. 'Just one.'

It was tempting to make a rendezvous and give him the whole picture, but it wouldn't work. He'd tell me I hadn't got a chance of pulling this one off, that for the first time I was letting the mission run me totally out of control: I was groggy from getting clear of two red sectors and couldn't be expected to think rationally, and the thing to do was to let him take me home while I was still alive, fight again another day, so forth, and all this in his most silken tones, stroking my ego and gently calming it down, getting inside my defences as only he could do, without leaving an entry wound.

'I haven't got any argument you could use to Control,' I said at last. 'Go home.'

'I'm afraid those are already my instructions.'

'No regrets, then. But do something before you leave. Get Legge to pick up the Mercedes.' I told him where I'd left it. 'If it's not there, then the opposition's commandeered it.'

'How did you get back from the forest?'

'In their car. They didn't want it any more.'

The thought was cheap, sour, and Ferris heard the note.

'Are you operational?' he asked me.

'Actually no. That doctor, by the way – where can I find him?'

'What's the problem?'

'I pulled the stitches, that's all.'

'He's near the UK embassy.' He gave me the address. 'I'll meet you there.' Didn't want to leave his executive less than operational in the field, would try very hard, if I let him see me, to get me home.

'You'd be wasting your time,' I told him. 'Give my love to Blighty.' I shut down the signal, and in the silence of the room heard the lifeline snap.

Mitzi Piatilova came out of the RAOC office alone again, taking a chance crossing the icy street and tossing her head back and laughing as a driver yelled at her.

I followed her into the fast food cafe and got behind her in the queue and whispered, 'This is on me. Go for the caviar.'

She turned, recognized me, couldn't think of my name.

'Dmitri,' I said.

'Well, hi! What are you doing here?'

'I hoped I could join you.'

'Sure!' Remembered the thousand dollars she'd earned the last time.

At the table she dropped her coat onto a chair and pulled her black sweater tight, her eyes bright in the haze of tobacco smoke. 'Did your friend get off that charge? What was his name?'

I looked around. 'Boris. Yes. Thanks to the Cougar.'

Her eyes went deep. 'When was this?'

'On Monday. Four days ago.'

'You know he's in hospital, do you?'

'Vishinsky?'

'Yes.'

'I hadn't heard.'

'The police had a call on Tuesday and went into his hotel and found his suite looking like a slaughter house.'

'That's the mob for you.'

'I guess. So how's business?'

'Very good. Except that someone's getting in my way.'

She stilled, looked down, up again. 'You need something done about him?'

'Yes and no. But I'm not looking for a hit.'

'Why not?'

'It doesn't always have to be the answer. I'm a businessman at heart.'

'So what do you need from me?'

I told her.