Adam Hall - Quiller Balalaika

06:12. Six hundred and seventy-one, with a total of twelve possibles, the embers in the stove long since dead and the hands numbed and the feet frozen, the blood sugar low by this time and my estimation of the chances of success close to zero.

I slid the last of the files back into its correct position as voices sounded again in the alleyways outside and a beam of light began playing across the doors of the huts. A new guard would have come on at 06:00 if they conformed to recognized routine, and I sighted through the window again from cover.

I couldn't recognize them in their fur hats but one of them was stopping at the door of the commandant's office to try the handle and my boot kicked the corner of the counter as I came through the gap very fast but the sound wouldn't have carried outside. The key was in my hand as the two sentries – a change of guard, yes, the last ones hadn't checked the door handles – came along the pathway with the beam of light swinging through the snow.

Faster.

The tumblers obstinate, the crude key slipping across their surfaces, the voices outside louder now, the beam of light brighter, the wind screaming through the overhead cables, faster, the tumblers as firm as rocks, if that guard had checked the commandant's office door he'd be certain to check this one, tilt the key the other way, tilt it and try again, it doesn't follow that a home-made lock pick will work from both sides but keep on trying, tilt it this way again, the voices louder still, shouting against the wind as the beam swung across the window and then flooded the gap below the door, take the last chance then and abandon the lock and get behind the counter, got right down as the handle rattled and the door swung open and the sentries came in through a gust of driving snow, slamming the door against it and coming across to the counter.

'Leave 'em a note, Rudi, door found unlocked, 06:17. The skipper's going to piss all over poor old Sacha but we've got to report it, bloody hell, this is the orderly room, anyone could just walk right in.'

'God's truth.'

I could hear him tearing a sheet off a pad and raking among some pens, his breathing noisy as he took his time forming the words he wanted. Crouched on the floor in the shadows, I could see the top of his hat, the snow melting into diamond drops on the fur. If he raised his head too far my own would come into his line of vision, an inch too far, two inches, not more than that.

'Unlocked,' he asked, 'or left open?'

'What? Unlocked. Door wasn't open, was it? There's a difference. Door'd been open, this place would've been covered in snow by now.'

A brief laugh. 'God's truth. Unlocked, then.'

'Right.'

I couldn't move down any lower than I was, couldn't turn my head farther into the shadows, had to wait it out, listening to the guard's breathing and thinking of the whip, the shackles, the solitary cell.

'Come on, Rudi!'

'Writing ain't me best thing, you know that.'

'Let's have a look,' his boots clumping over the boards.

'Found's got a "d" for Christ sake, it's not "foun". Put a "d". Look.'

'Oh.'

'That's it. Now come on, we're holding up the fucking parade.'

For an instant I saw his eyes, Rudi's, but he wasn't looking down but turning away, dropping the pen onto the counter. Then their boots marched across to the door and one of their rifles swung and hit the frame as they went out into the howling wind and I heard the bunch of keys jingling outside as I slowed the breath, let the muscles go, re-establishing the norms in the system.

I gave them ten minutes to clear the area and then got the door unlocked again and worked on it from the outside before I left, took short detours between the huts on the way back to my own, tramping through the deep new snowfall with the names of the twelve apostles of Balalaika lodged in my head.

'Marius Antanov?'

'Who, me? No.'

'Do you know anyone calling himself that?'

'Antanov? Not in this hut, no.'

'Yes, that's good, you've got the move down all right. But with all these strikes you've got to use the whole of your body. Try the heel palm again.'

'To the chin?'

'The chin or the nose, I don't mind. The strike to the chin could kill by breaking the spinal vertebrae, given enough power, but with half as much force the one to the nose will drive the bone into the brain, and that's instant death.'

He made the strike, and well enough, but with no strength yet, of course.

'All right, now start it from the ball of the rear foot and build up the momentum through the calf and the thigh and the hip and the shoulder and then the arm and the hand. Swing the whole body into the move. And if the target's the nose, don't aim at that. Aim at the area behind the nose, up into the inside of the skull, bury the strike right through the target into the brain, smash your way through.'

He made three strikes, trebling their power.

'Right. Practise it that way. In every strike, go for the target accurately but imagine going through it. Make yourself a punch bag, stuff a sack full of garbage or rotten potatoes, whatever you can find. Give me three more.'

He swung in fast, driving from the foot. 'That's it. One day you'll be good, Alex.'

'God,' he said, his breath clouding on the air, his young eyes bright, seeing hope. 'This is strong stuff!'

'You bet.'

He bent over with his hands on his knees, getting his breath; at this altitude it was hard to come by. The storm was over, had died before noon, and the camp rang with snow shovels.

'Give me three more,' I said in a minute. 'Half-fist to the larynx this time, and go for it.'

'Marius Antanov?'

'Talking to me?'

'Yes.'

He shook his head, wiping the sweat from his eyes. We were in the mine. 'Babichev, Danata.'

'You know anyone calling himself Marius Antanov?'

'Nope. There's an Antanov in hut fourteen, but his name's Boris.

Seven to go, by the end of the day.

By midnight, six.

The air was still as I stood for a last few minutes outside the hut. The night was clear, with the starfields strewn across the vastness of space in a shower of silver dust, Sirius ablaze in the south-east, Mars a glowing ruby overhead.

Thou shalt elect a thing, and it shall be bestowed upon thee, and light shall shine upon thy ways.

Then let me find him. Let him be here, somewhere. That's all I ask.

Swing the pick, swing it hard, yea, even heartily, see it cleave the rock.

There have been times in my life, in my career – which is my life – when I've known that I've placed myself outside reality, committed myself to achieving the unachievable. It's very dangerous, but on these occasions there is no choice.

Swing, hit, cleave, watch the rock come away, watch for the glint, the vein, the nickel.

'You're working too hard,' Igor said from beside me. 'Save your energy.'

'What for?'

'The rest of your life.'

Swing lustily, feel the muscles play, sustain the morale.

'What are you going to find here, Igor, for the rest of your life?,

'My life.'

At the times of which I was just speaking, you can come very close to despair, and that's the most dangerous thing of all, except panic. You can take your time over despair, but panic is quick acting, deadly. I've never given in to panic, but yes, I've come close to despair.

Five of the apostles left, and the day to get through, the evening to be spent in making my calls on the five remaining huts, continuing the search, keeping the flame burning, shielding it from the likelihood, the extreme likelihood that I would never find the holy grail, would never bring Balalaika home.