Quiller Balalaika

24: SAKKAS

The wind was whipping at gale force across the massif and we lay huddled together against the risk of hypothermia and frostbite.

I'd put a compress bandage around his head but he still hadn't moved or spoken, and I was hoping to God amnesia hadn't set in. At intervals I kept asking him his name and he stirred at last.

'Name?'

'Yes. Do you remember your name?'

'Of course. Marius.'

I went slack with relief. It was all locked in this man's head, Balalaika.

'We're moving on,' I said.

'Through this?'

'We've got to.'

The snow was blinding but the last of the moon's light was dying in the west and we steered by it towards the railroad station that I knew was six miles away. Before morning we climbed into a freight car as the train slowed for the gradient. Marius had asked me just once as we'd lurched through the snow, 'How did we get to the top of the massif?'

'I found a chimney in the rock face.'

'How did you get me past the overhang?'

I thought of the intensity of the cold in that dank chimney, slivers of ice lining its sides, digging into my back as I bridged my way up, tension in the muscles of the calves, tension in the shoulders, taking deep breaths before each move, tension because of the drift of air, and the crack of moon haze above that might be from a mouth too narrow for a man, too narrow even for a helpless ferret in the field. Then suddenly I was there, in the wind again, swinging out onto a shelf and seeing that the angle eased above me now; from here to the top would be a breeze, a scramble, if I could get Marius this far. I drove a piton in, then two more for an anchor, then lowered myself into the mouth of the chimney for the descent, my back sore now against the rock, to where Marius was hanging, still limp, like a fly in a web.

The chimney was harder the second time, with no rope. I needed it, you see, for the pulley system. To bring Marius up. It's not in the guidebooks, hauling a dead weight up a chimney with a hemp rope and three approximations to carabiners hammered out of old steel in a labour-camp forge. I would not recommend it, no, as a technique. The wind slapping now against my face, the arm and shoulder muscles singing, then burning, glad of those days swinging the axe at the seam of nickel in the mine, the extra hours in the gym. Wondering how the precious contents of Marius' skull would survive the upward passage against the unforgiving rock. I might strain at the hemp rope till my hands bled onto my boots and the blood froze there, blending with the flakes of snow, hearing the thud of his back against the granite wall over the shriek of the wind, then letting the piton take the weight while I took three sharp breaths, four, and heaved again, but if Marius couldn't remember everything about Sakkas' business empire then Balalaika would die, though he might live.

I could have told him all that but I didn't.

'I thought about being there,' was all I said. Alex would have understood.

We were three days moving south towards the city, hunched and rocking under a tarpaulin, the only shelter we had from the wind chill, getting through the last of the rations we'd brought from the camp.

We had no money but a guard at the station in Moscow showed mercy and threw down two kopeks and told me to get my friend to a hospital: the bandage was black by now with dried blood.

I left Marius propped on a bench while I went to telephone Legge.

'Did they recall the DIF to London?'

He recognized my voice. 'Yes.'

'I want him back here.'

In a moment, rather formally: 'I'll try it and get him for you.'

'I also want Croder here.'

Another brief silence. The ferret in the field doesn't move a Chief of Signals around like a pawn on a chess board.

'I'll have to go through the DIF for that, of course.'

'Listen,' I told him, 'these are your direct instructions: tell Croder I want them both out here by the first available plane. Tell him I'm bringing home Balalaika, but he's got to be here to take it over – it's too big for anyone else to handle.'

'I'll do what I can but -'

'Get them. And listen, I'm sending a woman to you. Antanova, the dancer. Get her to London under protective escort as soon as she shows up, but not through the airport – she'll be hunted. Tell our people to keep her safe until further instructions. Is that clear?'

'Yes.'

'Meanwhile, I want the DIF here, and the COE, both of them. I'll be watching for their plane.'

I shut down the signal.

There were just three of us in here sitting in baroque armchairs like members of a London club. Now in an atmosphere of dust and shadows and brass blackened with age – this was the old British Embassy, now derelict, the rendezvous Legge had chosen for us.

Croder and Ferris had flown in an hour ago, courtesy of a clear runway. It would soon be dawn.

'Let's cut straight to the chase,' I said. 'Here's the deal. I'm bringing the mission home and it's all yours. You've got Balalaika in your lap. I can give you the names of seventeen leading members of the Duma who either help control the Moscow mafiya or who are deeply in its pay. Nine of them, incidentally, are at this moment planning a militarized coup d 'etat through the former GRU designed to bring down Boris Yeltsin. I can give you the whole of Sakkas' organization and modus operandi from Saint Petersberg through Moscow to Vladivostok and even from there through Beijing, Tokyo and New York.'

I got up and walked around a bit, disturbing the dust as I toyed with the tassle of one of the big velvet curtains.

In a moment Croder's voice came from the shadows. 'And the deal?'

I turned and looked at him. 'I want Sakkas hit.'

I saw Ferris look up but he said nothing. 'We can't do that,' Croder said flatly.

'That's a bloody shame,' I told him, 'because that's the deal.'

'There's no provision in the constitution of the Bureau to take human life. You know that.'

'Then you don't get Balalaika.'

Croder's claw hand hit the arm of his chair as he got up to face me. 'Why do you want him hit?'

'What else would you do with him?'

'Get him to London and slam him into jail for a start.'

'You'd never keep him there.'

'In solitary confinement during the investigation.'

I swung away, swung back. 'With a strong guard?'

'As you can imagine.'

'There isn't any jailer who wouldn't accept a million pounds sterling from such an eminent prisoner and clear out to Monte Carlo. An inside escape job would cost him ten or twenty million. Last year his income was two billion US dollars. Or he'd kill his way out as he did before if he had to. There is no way youcan keep that man in captivity, and once he's free he's going to start all over again back in Moscow, and I am damned if I'm going to let all the work or the effort I've put in come to nothing. And think how nice it will be to go to the Prime Minister and say you've pulled out the plum after all.' This time I turned my back on him, looking up at a faded portrait of George VI, cracked with age.

Then Croder astonished me. 'If you want a hit made on Sakkas, you'll have to do it yourself.'

I swung back to look at him. 'There's no provision in my constitution for taking human life either. I've only done it twice and each time it was to avenge a woman. But I'd set it up.'

'Difficult.' Ferris' quiet voice came from the armchair for the first time. 'And terribly dangerous.'

'This trade isn't tiddlywinks.'

'You'd have to isolate him.'

'I think I can do that.'

Croder spoke. 'We haven't got a hit man in Moscow. Or anywhere.'

'Three of Legge's men are trained snipers. One simple shot from a rooftop is all we need.'

'I couldn't condone it.'

'I understand that, just let it happen. And do the soul-searching afterwards. Or do you want me to dump Balalaika in the Moskva River?'

It was still the pitch dark of a winter morning when I left the derelict embassy. There was only one phone call left to make. I'd called Natalya the night before at the theatre to tell her Marius was free.

'He can't be,' she'd said in a rush of breath.

'He escaped three days ago.'

'From Gulanka?'

'Listen,' I said. 'This frees you too. Make a note of this address and get there as soon as you can. Do not drive your car away from the theatre. Get a taxi – if it breaks down or runs out of petrol, stay inside and ask the driver to get you another. Do not show yourself on the street – Sakkas' bodyguards will be hunting for you. The people whose address I've just given you will protect you and get you to London. You'll go by train to St Petersberg and fly from there. In London you'll be looked after until it's safe for you to come out and resume your career. Look for me in the audience one night. I want to see you dance again.'

Now it was time to phone Sakkas. I got a minion on the line and said, 'Tell Sakkas that Marius Antanov is back in Moscow.'

A few moments later an icy voice said, 'I don't believe so.'

'He escaped from Gulanka three days ago and he's ready to blow you.'

His voice was cool and alert. 'Who is this speaking?'

'You don't know me. I'm just a businessman and I have a deal for you.'

'How much will it cost?'

'A hundred million dollars.'

'And do I get the girl back?' he said.

'Of course.'

I gave him the rendezvous.

The Mercedes limousine was punctual, coming to a halt on the opposite side of the street from the abandoned fire station. Other cars followed, spilling their occupants under the neon glow of the lamps. I counted eighteen guards, each with an AK-47 slung from the shoulder. The doors of the Mercedes remained closed.

I crossed the street, aware of all that fire power concentrated on me. The tinted glass of the rear window slid down six inches as I approached. His blue eyes, like chips of ice, bored into me.

'Where's little Marius?' he said.

I pointed at the fire station. 'He's inside with three lawyers and a banker. They're waiting to draw up the contracts to transfer the funds to a bank in Switzerland.'

'What's in it for you?'

'I get a cut.'

He looked past me at the building through the flurries of snow. A light from the first-floor window shone dimly through the gloom. For a moment a figure was silhouetted there. He raised a hand in salute. Marius. Even in a bullet-proof vest it was a risk. He was a brave man.

'Bring him down,' said Sakkas and stepped out of the car. The snow landed on the black sable of his coat. I shrugged.

'I'll bring him to the door.'

The nerves tingled on the back of my neck as I turned my back on him and walked across the street. Here was the moment of truth. If Sakkas did not trust me he only had to nod his head and his guards would blow me to shreds.

As I stepped into the building the shot rang out. A single round from a 1.2mm Parabellum Deerslayer, I would have said. A man-killer at any range.

The great iron door of the fire station crashed behind me, cutting off the confusion outside as Legge's private army went into action. Behind the thick walls of the great building the sound of gunfire was muffled.

A fleck of debris hit the rusting fire-bell and left a faint note floating on the air.