Adam Hall - Quiller Balalaika

A clock was chiming in the silence with deep, authoritative tones, an ancient custodian of the night, of man's affairs, announcing the witching hour. I listened to it with a Buddhist's attention, finding in it a reminder of how steady one must be, how unhurried, if one is to survive the blows of unkind fate.

How is Mr Sakkas?

Rehearsed it a couple of times but decided against saying it aloud. On the one hand it could be useful to pretend an acquaintanceship, as I'd done with Natalya Antanova; on the other hand it could make things worse because I'd have to follow it up, tell them how I'd met him, what sort of deal it had been. People of this calibre would have computers filled with a massive amount of information at their base, and they could access them from here. Berinov? There's no entry of any deal with any Berinov on that date, or any other.

Better to play it straight, as an innocent caught in the cogs.

The other man was coming back as the car behind him pulled out and went rocking past us over the churned surface, its chains jingling like the harness of a troika through the snow. He climbed into the rear and slammed the door and got out a heavy Korean DP51 9mm Parabellum with a double-stacked magazine holding thirteen shells as he sat back in the corner to face me. White, manicured hands, perfectly still.

'Where were you tonight?'

He had the patient, almost bored voice I'd heard before so many times in the interrogation cells. This could be a former KGB officer: his attitude bore the stamp. Later he might start yelling in the traditional style, then cooing again to confuse me, but I didn't think it would come to that because he wouldn't have the time, or need it. My story wouldn't merit intense grilling: he'd have to take it at face value.

He knew where I was tonight.

'I went to the ballet. Giselle. Look, you've obviously mistaken me for somebody -'

'What did you do after the ballet?'

'I went to a club. The Entre'acte. I'd had the luck to meet Antanova, the soloist.' Went through it for him, the taxi, so forth. And waited for the question.

'Do you know who Antanova is?'

Not that question. What had happened to the other one? Did you go straight from the theatre to the club? So at least I was right about one thing: they hadn't tracked me from the Sakkas house tonight.

'I've just told you, she's one of the soloists in the -'

'You've just told me, yes. I know.' But I hadn't given him the answer he'd been probing for: She's Vasyl Sakkas' mistress. 'What did you discuss,' he asked me, 'at the club?'

'Ballet, of course. Her performance tonight. It was an honour for me to talk to her at all.'

'What else do you know about her?'

Still probing.

'She said she was only three when she was first given -'

'What else, aside from her career?'

In a moment, 'I can't think of anything, frankly. It's all they can talk about, those people, and it was all I wanted to listen to. Tonight she gave one of the -'

'Yes, she is very talented.' Switch: 'When we began following your car, why did you try to evade us?'

'I was a bit scared, if you want to know.'

'Why?'

'There are so many people getting killed. It's all in the papers – a car comes up from behind, especially at night, and before you know anything's wrong -'

'You have been followed before?'

'Well, no, but -'

'Did Antanova name any of her friends?'

'What? No.'

'Acquaintances?'

'No. I've told you, she just -'

The telephone sounded and the driver pressed for Receive, didn't pick up the handset because there was an open mike system.

'Yes?'

'We've found no Berinov, Dmitri, doing any major import-export business in Moscow. The only two businesses under that name are a car dealership and a brothel.'

'And the Mercedes?'

'It's rented from Galactica Lease and Rental, on the Garden Ring.'

'Okay.' The driver pressed for End.

'So what do you say?' the man beside me asked.

'I work mainly out of St Petersberg and Tashkent. My suppliers -'

'The business card reads Moscow.'

'It always sounds better. More central.'

'Why do you rent your Mercedes?'

'Convenience. I'm abroad a lot. Galactica looks after it for me till I get back.'

'She didn't seem depressed? Antanova?'

Definitely KGB, kept switching the subject, watching for my reaction.

'Antanova? No, I don't think so. A bit tired, maybe, after the show. I suppose that's understandable.'

'So when you left the club, you drove her home?'

'Not all the way. She -'

'Why not?'

'I was expected back, and it was already -'

'So how did she get home?'

'I put her into a taxi.'

'Even though you said you were honoured to talk to her, and no doubt found her very attractive.'

'I needed sleep.' I looked at my watch. 'I'm on a plane for New York in the morning, if they've got a runway cleared.'

Then there were suddenly no more questions. He settled further back in the corner, keeping the gun in the aim and not moving his head or his eyes beyond ten degrees or so from my body. The safety catch was off and his finger was inside the trigger guard: the bullet would be in me before I could even prepare for the strike.

In the silence I sat listening to the soft hum of the heater fan.

The driver's eyes were in the mirror, watching the other man, waiting, I thought, for orders. The heavy snowflakes were steadily deepening the blanket on the bonnet of the car, jewelling it with a rainbow scintillation; some of them eddied, touching the windscreen and melting there, to leave water trails. A vision of Christmas flashed through my mind, robins and holly and candles on the tree in the firelight, reality seeking shelter.

Then the man beside me was speaking again in a monotone, watching my face now, his eyes moving from one of mine to the other. 'I don't like your story. It has many gaps, many inconsistencies, many… improvisations. I have listened to stories like yours before. I think -'

'But look, I've answered every -'

'I think you may be dangerous to certain associates of mine, and so we will remove the danger.' Flicking his eyes to the mirror, meeting the driver's. 'You know where to go.'

It was beautiful in the forest.

There was more light now from the sky, and its reflection on the ground gave an unearthly radiance among the trees, their tall black trunks standing in orderly ranks and supporting the weight of the snow on the branches above them.

The headlights of the Mercedes cut through this faerie, beguiling scene with an obtrusive brilliance, throwing shadows carved out of night. The silence, at this moment, was absolute. Uri, the driver, had switched off the engine and was standing off a little with the assault rifle just below the horizontal. He'd got out of the car first, of course, to cover me. The other man, Igor, was also standing in the snow, his boots deep in it; but he was closer, waiting for me to join him, the 13-shot Parabellum cradled in his right hand.

Mr Croder would not be pleased.

Flakes of snow were still floating from the sky and making the silence visual, to be listened to with the eyes. One can't watch a falling snowflake and imagine sound.

I got out of the car.

He'd ordered me home, after all, Mr Croder, and if I'd reached London in a more or less presentable condition they could at least have put that much into the records: Executive recalled, will be able to resume duties. When the AK-47 went through its rat-tat-tat routine a few minutes from now, the records would look less favourable for the Chief of Signals: Executive missing in the field, untraceable. It's every control's responsibility to bring his ferret back alive, and if he can keep on doing that it means we can think of him as an okay guy. But there would be nothing in Croder's records to show that his executive had in fact ignored his instructions and stuck his neck into a noose and paid the ultimate price, and that would be upsetting for him, and I hoped he wouldn't flay Ferris alive for letting it happen.