ADAM HALL - The Scorpion Signal

'Do you want to see Helmut again?'

'Yes,' she said on a breath. 'But they — '

'Then trust me, and do as I tell you. We've got to keep walking.' She quickened her step. 'You do know Gorsky. He's the upravdom at the building in Vojtovica ulica.'

She was beside herself, Gorsky had told me, when she heard he'd been arrested. She kept coming back every day, asking if I had any more news. This was another thing right out of character with Schrenk: when you're in the field you do not take a girl to the safe-house; you don't take anyone. I'd been worried about his state of mind after they'd interrogated him but now I was worried about the things he'd been doing before his arrest. It was as if there were two people: Schrenk and this other man who'd been breaking all the rules.

'Do they always watch that cafe?' I asked the girl. She was keeping up with me now, and I could feel the tension in her, because I'd talked about Helmut.

'Not always. Tonight it's because of the trial; they think we might demonstrate, or make trouble. Most of the people who go there are Jews, and they want Borodinski released. It would be symbolic.'

'Of what?'

'Of the power of the dissidents. There've been many demonstrations all over the city. Don't you know that?' I felt a slight tug on my arm as she held back again, not trusting me, not knowing who I was, and not wanting to cause any harm to Helmut.

She wasn't his type. His women had been dark, simmering, sensual. Corinne, Rebecca, Toni Alvirez. I couldn't see him with this fair-haired girl full of her fears and her extrovert dreams, the symbolic power of the dissidents, the effectiveness of demonstrations. Not his type: it was inconsistent again.

'What's your job?' I asked her.

'I'm a senior clerk, in the Kremlin.'

Connection.

'Who's the man you were talking to?'

'Ivan? He's an engineer.'

'Did he know Helmut?'

'No. I don't understand,' she said tightly, 'you said you were looking for him. But he was arrested, didn't you know that?'

'He escaped.'

'Escaped?' Life came into her and her hand dug into my arm. 'You mean he's free?'

'I don't know.'

Two more.

'I don't understand,' she said anxiously. 'If he escaped then he must be — '

'He managed to reach West Germany. Then they found him again. I think he's in Moscow.'

Two more militia men.

'You mean in prison?'

'I don't know.' I began slowing our pace a fraction. 'If he is, there are certain friends who'll be trying to get him out.'

'By demonstrating?'

It was all they could think about. They thought they could get Borodinski off a life sentence or a death sentence, just as they'd thought they could get Ginzburg off, and Pektus, and Shcharansky; but all they could ever get by demonstrating was a night in the cells and a roughing up and a new entry on their records in the KGB files.

'No,' I said. 'Not by demonstrating.'

They were coming towards us from the other end of the street on this side. The Pobeda was on the opposite side and the distance at the moment was about the same. I could turn round now and take the girl with me and get her into the car and drive off but I didn't think I could do it without hurrying, without being seen to hurry. I might have done it alone, measuring my steps, walking indiscernibly faster and with a longer stride, getting my keys ready; but I couldn't do it with the girl: she was still frightened of me, frightened for him, because whatever I said to her it wouldn't convince her that I wasn't in the police and hunting for Schrenk and hoping she could lead me to him.

'Who was his best friend?' I asked her. 'You?'

'I love him.' Her voice faltered on it. It was over three months since she'd last seen him and she'd been starting to get over it and now I'd brought it all back. 'I'd do anything to see him again.'

'Then keep hoping. And trust me.'

The two militia men were close now. There was no reason why they should stop us but there was always a risk and it worried me because yesterday I'd been hang-gliding over the Sussex cliffs trying to shake off the tensions of the last operation and then Croder had thrown me out here and this was alien soil, hostile and dangerous and unpredictable, and I didn't feel ready to take the risks and beat the odds and stay this side of survival. I wasn't sure of my cover or my accent: to be word perfect in the safe-house was different from being put to the test in the street. Above all I wasn't sure of the essential steadiness of nerve I was going to need if they lifted a hand and said Propusk. Papers.

'What other friends did he have?' I asked her. There wasn't much time now; we might get separated.

'He didn't have many friends.'

'Give me one of them. Two of them. Trust me.'

They carried walkie-talkies. So if I turned round and took the girl with me and began hurrying they didn't even have to shout to us to stop: they just had to press a button and tell the other two to stop that car when it reaches you, and check it out. And there'd be no hope this time of keeping enough distance between them and the number plate: they'd see it and alert the Volga and bring in the radio networks and it wouldn't matter how fast I drove or how far.

I could feel the blood leaving my face and going to the muscles, and the quickening of the pulse as the adrenalin started to flow. I was that bad, to that degree unready even for a routine encounter with a couple of flat-footed young militia men: an exercise the training directors put the novices through on their first trip behind the Curtain. So what was it going to be like when Bracken called me and said yes, he's inside Lubyanka after all, we want you to go and get him out?

'Ignatov,' the girl said.

'Other name?'

She hesitated again because she didn't know that she wasn't putting Ignatov in danger. Or Helmut.

I watched the militia men coming.

'Pyotr,' she said, half holding it back.

'Who else?'

'I don't remember anyone else.'

She thought she'd gone too far. 'Natalya,' I said, 'is your identity card in order?'

She swung her head. 'Yes. Why?'

'These two here,' I said. 'If they question us, don't mention Helmut, or Pyotr Ignatov. We're just recent acquaintances, you understand?'

'Yes.'

They were watching us now. Peaked caps, batons, side-arms, radio sets. They were walking in step.

'You don't know anything about me,' I told her. 'Just my name. My name is Kapista Kirov. But we both like music. Classical music.'

Close now. Briskly in step. They were young men, conscious of their uniforms and their heady power. They might stop us simply because they decided they'd like to talk to a pretty girl, watching her ice-blue eyes while they went through the routine questions.

'I'll step off the pavement,' I told her. 'We'll make room for them. The whole problem with Prokofiev, it seems to me, isn't in his music at all. It's simply that he's overrated by the critics. The result is that a lot of his work sounds disappointing, after all the eulogies and the acclaim.' Their eyes in the shadow of their peaked caps, watching us. 'His music is just as good as it always was, and we should listen to it as if we've never heard of him before. Otherwise we shall miss a lot of what he was trying to convey.' Briskly in step. 'Nikolai doesn't agree with me, I know, but — '

'Propusk,' one of them said as they stopped.

Two kopecks.

'Is Sergei there?'

'Who?'

'Sergei Panov.'

'I'm sorry, there's nobody here of that name. This is the British Embassy.'

'Oh, excuse me. I must have asked for the wrong number.'

'That's quite all right.'