ADAM HALL - Quiller KGB

It brought him off the wall and he went over to the ashtray, not looking at me. 'No one's orders, and certainly not mine.' I heard anger in the tone.

'Who shot her, then?'

'Bader.'

'Who's he?'

'The man you messed up.'

'The pilot who's just left here?'

'Yes. I pitched into him over that.' Putting his hands into his pockets, pushing his fists out, the old school habit. 'In fact I said I was going to drop the whole thing.'

'Why didn't you?'

He took a deep breath. 'Melnichenko said I'd have to stay in and see it through. He said it was too important.' In a moment: 'It is.'

'Too important to let a little thing like killing a woman bother you.'

Self-righteous bastard, I was as guilty as anyone, sending her into an infiltration exercise that I should have known might be lethally dangerous.

'I'm sorry about that part of things,' Pollock said quietly. 'Very sorry.' He switched to German and looked at the pilot. 'What happened when I heard about Lena Pabst?'

A shrug. 'You hit the roof.'

'What else? Be more specific.' I heard the edge to his tone and the authority in it. The clean white smile of his was just something he flashed on and off when he was being cultural attache to the British embassy.

'You said you were finished with us,' Schwarz said.

Pollock looked back at me. 'Make up your own mind.'

'She must have been doing very well. Getting very close.'

'That's why Bader panicked.'

'Is he anything more than a bomber pilot?'

'He's not in intelligence, if that's what you mean.'

'I mean precisely what I. said. Is he anything more than a pilot? I want straight answers, Pollock, so don't fuck me about.'

Not keeping my cool terribly well, no, but in the last hour I'd been In handcuffs with a hood over my head and absolutely sure I'd taken the final calculated risk and then I'd found I was right in the nerve-centre of Trumpeter, and there was a lot of work to do before I could move into the end-phase and find Volper and put him away before the Soviet leader landed in East Berlin with a massive protection screen that would still be penetrated by Volper's operation unless we could stop him, so I wasn't in the mood to put up with less than straight answers.

'Bader's no more than a bomber pilot,' Pollock said evenly. 'Except for his involvement in Trumpeter.'

'What about this bloody fool here?'

I was watching Schwarz and his eyes didn't change. I wasn't being rude: I wanted to know if he understood English, to know that when he said that Pollock was 'finished with them' he hadn't just been picking up from what Pollock had said earlier, that he'd been going to 'drop the whole thing'.

No reaction from Pollock either; he knew what I was doing. 'It's the same with him. He's just in the mission with us.'

'And what is the mission?'

Dead silence while the tension in the room hit infinity, and this was understandable. Of the hundred or two questions I was going to ask tonight, that was the ringer.

I waited. Everything depended on this. I could blow Trumpeter and they knew it, but I wasn't ready to do that until I had a lot more answers. One thing stuck out from the rest: I couldn't see this man Pollock involved in an operation against Mikhail Gorbachev.

In a moment: 'Difficult to say.'

'Then get Melnichenko here.

'Right-o.' He sounded almost relieved.

As he went to the telephone I said, 'Pollock, this is exactly what you'll say. Can you come here immediately? It's urgent. Repeat that.'

He did, and got it right.

'If you slip in any other word, I'm going to tell the KGB to take over, and God help you.'

'Point taken.' He picked up the phone and dialled.

I listened carefully and he got it right again and rang off before Melnichenko could put any questions.

'Is this an extension line?'

'No,' he said. 'It's separate.'

'Then you can ask the people upstairs to send down whatever you want to drink. It's going to be a long night.'

'I rather think it is.' He was trying to relax, but wasn't managing; the quick clean smile didn't work any more. 'What'll you have?'

Black Russian tea, no lemon.'

'Jurgen?'

'Beer,' Schwarz said, and dropped into a chair. He was worried about Bader; I assumed they were close friends.

When Pollock put the phone down I asked him: 'You're still officially in DI6?'

'I suppose so. I mean, yes, I am, but if they knew what I was doing they'd throw me straight out.'

'What have you been doing officially?'

'Oh,' he sat down too, leaning forward, playing with his hands, 'mostly I've been feeding stuff from some of the AIPs here to the desk. Then I did a special for them, last year. The Ericson exchange.'

'You supervised that one?'

'I initiated it. We — '

'From which end?'

'Moscow.' He sounded quietly pleased. He should be. 'I asked them outright who they'd take in exchange.'

And they'd said Komoroff and Bulgin, who weren't all that much of a catch anyway. We knew about that one — everybody did.

'Nice work,' I said.

''Thank you. It wasn't that difficult.'

'You've got some good friends in Moscow.'

''They're all right. They want watching.' Quick smile.

I made a mental note to ask Cone to hit the computers in London with a question: Who handled the Ericson swap? Pollock could be lying in his teeth. But from what he was telling me and the idiom he was using I knew at least that he was either in DI6 or liaising with them from some other official department.

'So what made you go off the rails?'

His hands stopped playing. 'I wouldn't quite put it like that, if you're talking about Trumpeter.'

'How would you put it?'

He didn't answer for a second or two and I knew why. I'd told him I was going to open up this operation of his and look at it very hard, and I'd told him that if he didn't cooperate I'd throw them all to the KGB to do it for me. The only thing he could do now was to appear to tell me everything and at the same time try to tell me nothing.

And the very best of luck.

'Trumpeter,' he said, 'is an operation that's going to change Europe, and — ' he gave a little apologetic smile '- I hope this doesn't sound too dramatic — and change the geopolitical world, overnight.' He must have remembered what I'd just told Cone over the phone, because he said, 'You can't judge the size of an operation by the furniture.'

'Touche.'

'There's only one thing wrong with Trumpeter.' His voice had gone terribly quiet, and I noticed his hands were unsteady.

'I've blown it,' I said.

'That's right.'

A big man, big-bodied, not overweight, his head totally bald and pear-shaped, widening downwards to a heavy face, his eyes very alert indeed, especially now, his mouth fleshy and pink, his ears flattened against his balloon-smooth head, his neck thick, with a double chin, his flushed skin shining from the top of his head to his collar, washed, polished, giving him a baby's glow.

He came down the steps quickly.

Melnichenko.

And stopped. Wrinkles developed across his forehead as his eyes moved to take in the scene. To me, in German with a Russian accent, 'That was you, wasn't it, in the building?'

He got an A for that: he could only have caught a glimpse of me as I'd run for the elevator. I didn't answer.

'You were in my office?'

I didn't say anything. Pollock had got out of his chair and the pilot, Schwarz, was on his feet too.

'Aleksy,' Pollock said, 'this is Mr Ash.' To me: 'Commandant Melnichenko, GRU.'

I said good evening. He inclined his head, his pale blue eyes engaged. Then a glance to Pollock.