The Scorpion Signal

11: SNOWBALL

'I'm getting out,' I said and he stopped dead and stood there watching me under the trees.

'You can't do that.'

I came back to him, hands in the pockets of the torn coat, bruises all over me, the blood on my face sticking to the woollen scarf I'd put on under the fur hat, my nerves still on the jump even after ten hours' sleep if you could call it sleep, jerking my eyes open every five minutes because I could still hear that bastard yelling at me from the panel over the door, and now Bracken trying to tell me what I could do and what I couldn't do. `This isn't my field,' I told him, 'I need to work alone.'

There'd been two signals for me when I'd got back to the safe-house, one in cypher, one in code: they'd been worried stiff because I hadn't reported, so I'd called Bracken by silent line at the Embassy asking for an rdv — that was four o'clock this morning and now it was six at night and I was shaking with bad dreams and no use to London any more, only a danger. He'd have to understand that.

`What do you mean?' he asked me, 'you need to work alone?'

`There are too many people involved. One of them blasted me off the street.'

I'd never seen him so still. In the car last night he'd been like a cat in a sack and I'd thought it was because he was nervous, maybe I didn't know him very well, he wasn't moving a muscle now and he must be half out of his mind after what I'd just said.

'What happened?' he asked me.

I told him about Ignatov and he stood thinking about it while I listened to those bloody children on the far side of the trees: I'd seen them on my way into the park, making a slide on the snow. Their voices unnerved me: it sounded as if they were screaming.

'Ignatov,' Bracken said quietly, not really to me.

'He's a Judas. Someone who knows me. You'd better find who he is before he does something else.' I wished Bracken would start walking again but he just went on standing there under the black winter trees, appalled. I felt sorry for him: he'd been thrown out here at a minute's notice just as I had and he didn't know half the contacts who were working for him, he couldn't do, this wasn't his field either, he directed penetration operations through foreign embassies, he wasn't Moscow.

'A Judas,' he said on his breath.

'So now you know why I'm getting out.'

In surprise he said: 'Did your cover stand up?'

'No.'

'You mean they just let you go?'

'No. They put me into Lubyanka.'

He watched me as if he were watching a fuse burning, scared of what I was going to say next. None of this was his fault, it was Croder's: the brilliant and persuasive Croder, chief of the London directorate, you will receive every possible support, so forth, I shouldn't have listened to him but he knew how much I was prepared to do for a man like Schrenk.

'You got out,' Bracken said tonelessly, 'of Lubyanka?'

'No. They were taking me to the Serbsky Institute, but there was an accident.' I kept seeing that man's face under the wheel, you always seem to remember the rotten bits. 'One of their intelligence colonels got killed, possibly two, so you know what my chances are if I spend any time in the open street: there'll be a full scale hunt ordered and I've got a scar on my face you can see for miles, so it's a dead end, are you getting the message? I want out.'

I stood listening to the thin distant screams of the children and the moan of the trams along Soldatskaja ulica and someone saying he stinks, put him under a shower, a dangerous thing to have said, the only satisfaction I'd had since I came out of London, his face under the wheel, was this why Schrenk had been 'bitter' after they put him through the same kind of thing, was it really so impersonal after all?

'… Ignatov for us.'

'What?' I turned to look at him.

'London would ask you to get Ignatov for us,' Bracken said. I hardly recognized his voice any more: he was watching this mission being blown right out of his hands and he hadn't begun thinking of the repercussions.

'London's already asked too much,' I told him. 'They pulled me off leave too soon, I wasn't ready for the stress.'

Quietly he said: 'Croder mentioned that, yes. And you mentioned it yourself.'

'Got a good memory,' but it was all I could do not to walk away and leave him the whole bloody mess to look after because he'd used the same tone as Croder had, and looked at me in the same way, wondering if I was getting too old now, too scared. What were they trying to do, push me over the edge?

'We're all of us quite aware,' he said in a low voice, 'of how much we're asking of you.'

'Look, it's no big deal, Bracken, I took on the job when I knew I wasn't ready for it and that was my fault but I need to work alone so that I can be absolutely sure that no one's going to Judas me into Lubyanka without any warning, you can't expect anyone to work like that.' I turned and started walking through the trees and he had to come with me, I needed movement, I was frozen stiff standing there picking over the bits of a broken mission, I wasn't used to it and I didn't know how to handle it and neither did Bracken. 'I'd agree to get Ignatov for you and pull out afterwards but the streets are too dangerous now: I would have asked you to meet me at the safe-house but I'm not even sure it's safe any more.'

We tramped together through the snow, the blind leading the blind. The trees were darker here and I felt less exposed.

'I have another safe-house for you,' Bracken said and I thought oh Christ he's not going to give up. 'I would also guarantee that in future your only contract in Moscow would be myself.'

I didn't say anything. I wasn't interested.

'If there's a Judas in the local network,' Bracken said, having to make himself say it, make himself believe it, 'we have to find him.'

'You do. I don't. He's your pigeon.'

The snow kicked up from our shoes. Men over there, three men over there, keep an eye.

'You know where to find him,' Bracken said. 'We don't.'

'I can't look for him. Not in the streets.'

'Don't you have his address?'

'No.' The looked like businessmen, officials of some kind but not in uniform. They were walking towards the frozen pond and I watched them.

'They're all right,' Bracken said. 'Don't worry.'

'Those people?'

'Yes. They're all right.' He walked closer to me, protectively.

'You think I'm paranoid or something?' I moved away from him, bloody nursemaid, I'd got the wrong director, I should have been given Ferris.

'If you've just come out of Lubyanka,' Bracken said, 'under your own steam, you'll feel a bit paranoid for a while. We can accommodate that.'

The three men were moving away from us towards the gates of the park. They hadn't even seen us.

'You'll accommodate anything I do,' I said, 'even if I shit down the chimney, as long as I get Ignatov for you, right?'

'That's right.' He moved closer to me, and got into step.

'No go,' I said. 'You'll have to get him yourself. What I want from you is a ticket home and I don't care what plane it is.'

I said it to give him something to think about instead of thinking about Ignatov. He couldn't get me on a plane out of the city: they'd lost Schrenk and they'd lost Kirov and they'd lost one of their colonels and they'd be looking for me under every stone.

'I can't do that,' Bracken said. His voice was low and steady and I'd been thinking he'd got over the worst of the shock but I wasn't sure now; he could be containing it and bulldozing his way to some kind of terrain we could operate in. A man like Croder wouldn't call in a man who buckled at the knees at the first blow. 'You have to stay in Moscow,' he went on reasonably, 'until we can get you dear without any risk. That might not be for some little time.' He was walking more slowly. 'How do you feel about Schrenk?'

'How do I feel?'

'He was Croder's only argument, wasn't he? You wouldn't have agreed to take this one on for someone you didn't respect. You have a lot of respect for Schrenk, and Croder knew that.'

I slowed and said, 'Not that way.'

'I'm sorry?'

'This way. Bloody children.'

'Oh. I simply meant,' Bracken said carefully, 'that I'm going to do everything I can to pull Schrenk out, if it's not too late. We need him out because he's a danger to Leningrad but I don't mean that. I want him out because I respect him too.' He waited five seconds. 'I thought you'd like to know.'

'Oh for Christ's sake, spare me the auld lang syne. I'm going to be lucky to get out of this place alive, let alone take someone else with me. What makes you so sure he's in Moscow anyway?'

'It was in the briefing information. '

'Well the K haven't got him, I know that.' There were more children not far away and I hoped to Christ they weren't going to start screaming, like that man in the cell.

'Repeat?' Bracken stopped dead again to watch me.

'They thought I knew where he was. They offered me an exchange deal.'

'Dezinformatsiya?'

'No. They haven't got him, and they want him, as badly as we do.'

In a moment Bracken said: 'If he's free, why hasn't he reported?'

'I didn't say he was free. I'd say he was dead.'

He shut off again for a time. Then: 'Killed?'

'How should I know? They chewed him up in there and he just about got away with his skin and then someone did a snatch on him at the clinic in Hanover and it wasn't the KGB and there hasn't been a squeak from him since and that's all I know, it's all anyone knows.'

Hit me on the side of the head without any warning and exploded in a white shower all over Bracken and he laughed boomingly and bent down and got some snow and pressed it hard and slung it back at them, laughing all the time, good cover, while I stood there with my nerves screaming through my head, not a terribly good sign, scared of a snowball now, maybe if I could get some sleep tonight, some real sleep without that bastard yelling at me from -

'All right?' Bracken was watching me closely.

'Yes. I'm all right.'

'Come on,' he said and began walking the other way. 'Look, I'm going to be in signals with London most of the night and I'll ask for a complete screening background on every man we've got in Moscow. If there's the slightest doubt about any of them I'll get them recalled and kept out of here: ours is the only operation we've got running in this field.' He was talking briskly, confidently, and for a moment he got me thinking he wasn't worried. 'Meanwhile I've got three people working on your last signal, although the present findings are that there are seventeen Pyotr Ignatovs resident in Moscow — not that it means a lot because if he's a Judas in our group he'll be using an alias, obviously. One of the ten Natalya Fyodorovas in this city works in a personnel department of the Kremlin, which could match your info; she's described as attractive and possibly a swallow for the KGB. We're still digging, and you'll have anything we turn up.' He was walking closer again, nudging my arm sometimes, trying to make contact and pull me out of the aftershock. 'I'm going to find out if Schrenk is still alive but first I want to nail this Judas before he can wipe us out in Moscow. But if you feel there's nothing more you can do for us at this stage I can smuggle you into the Embassy and get you taken care of. One of the girls has had nursing experience and of course you — '

'I didn't say I wanted a nurse.'

'No, don't misunderstand me — '

'The streets are dangerous,' I told him through my teeth. 'I don't know how long I could last.'

He stopped again, his hand on my arm. 'I quite realize that. Why don't you come in for a while and think it over? You'll be perfectly safe at the Embassy. Then see how you feel in the morning.'

I looked away. 'There's no time to hole up. You know that.'

'We could send for someone else to come out.' He stood watching me with the light of the city bouncing off the snow and reflecting in his eyes. 'We'd quite understand,' he said gently, 'if you asked us to do so.'

Croder had spoken like that. They knew how to keep me running, as long as my feet could move.

'You're risking London,' I told him, 'if you keep on pushing me, you know that? They're looking for me and they won't stop till they find me.'

'We know what the risks are,' Bracken said quietly, 'and what we have to do about them.' He spoke with confidence, and my mind opened a degree to what he was saying. 'But if you could do just one thing for me, we'd all be so much safer. I need to get a look at this man Ignatov, without his seeing me, so that I can tell you whether or not he's working in our cell. Do you think you could arrange that, somehow?'

I stood listening to the moan of the trams at the far side of the park, and the chugging of a concrete mixer where a night crew was putting up a new apartment complex. The voices of the children had stopped; perhaps they'd gone home now. I wished they were still here in the park, even though they reminded me of screaming; they'd taken their innocence with them, and just for this moment I needed it as a touchstone.

Bracken was waiting, his large face patient as he watched me, and this time I knew he wouldn't speak again, before I did.

'I'd need another safe-house. And another cover. And another car. I wrote the car off.' We began walking together over the snow. 'I'd need another coat. This one's too far gone for mending, and it attracts too much attention.'

'I can see to all that,' Bracken said.

'You'd have to send the doctor from the Embassy. To the safe-house.' We kept to the path, or what we could see of it, knowing it led to the gates. 'To fix my face. Some kind of dressing to stop it bleeding — that attracts attention too.'

'That can be done,' Bracken said.

I could see the dark hump of his car parked in the shadow of trees outside the park, and had an urge to run there and use its cover. I'd have to get over that.

'If you've got a spare capsule at the Embassy, you can let me have it. Be on the safe side.'

'Didn't you draw one?' I suppose he knew it was required procedure for Moscow.

'Yes. I lost it.' We were nearing the gates, and the snow took on a chill glitter under the street lamps. I wondered if I could trust him, and thought I could. I'd never know if I were wrong. 'Bracken,' I said.

'Yes?' He leaned towards me.

'Don't tell Croder you had to talk me into going on.'

'But I didn't,' he said, and touched my arm for a moment as we crossed to the car.