Len Deighton - London Match

'See them in Holland or Sweden or on some other neutral ground. I implore you not to take them to the East.'

'Is this another one of your tricks?' she said harshly.

'You know I'm right, Fi.'

She wrung her hands and twisted the rings on her fingers. Her marriage band was there still and so was the diamond I'd bought with the money from my old Ferrari. 'How are they?' It was a different voice.

'Billy's got a new magic trick and Sally is learning to write with her right hand.'

'How sweet they are. I got their letters and the drawings. Thank you.'

'It was Tessa's idea.'

'Tess has grown up suddenly.'

'Yes, she has.'

'Is she still having those stupid love affairs?'

'Yes, but George is reading the riot act to her. I think she's beginning to wonder if it's worth it.'

'What's the trick?'

'What trick?'

'Billy's.'

'Oh! You cut a piece of rope into two halves and then make it whole again.'

'Is it convincing?'

'Nanny still can't work it out.'

'It's in the family, I suppose.'

'I suppose so,' I said, although I wasn't sure what sort of trickery she was referring to, or whether she meant my sort of trickery or her own.

'Will they arrest me if I come to England on my old passport?' she asked.

'I'll find out,' I promised. 'But why not see the children in Holland?'

'You'd better not become an accessary, Bernard.'

'We are conspiring together right now,' I said. 'Which of our masters would tolerate it?'

'Neither,' she said. It was a concession, a minuscule concession, but the first one she'd made.

'I miss you, Fi,' I said.

'Oh, Bernard,' she said. Tears welled up in her eyes. I was about to take her into my arms but she stepped back from me. 'No, 3she said. 'No.'

'I'll do what I can,' I said. I don't know exactly what I meant and she didn't ask; it was no more than an abstract noise that intended comfort and she accepted it as such.

'They won't let Werner go,' she said. She looked around the room, anxious about being recorded.

'I thought it was agreed.'

'Pavel Moskvin has the power of decision. He's in charge of these negotiations, I'm not.'

'Werner did nothing of any importance.'

'I know what he was doing. The Miller woman's been under permanent surveillance since last week. We were waiting for Werner to make contact.'

'The Stinnes operation is all washed up. It's finished, discredited, done for. What Werner said to the Miller woman is of no importance.'

'Keep calm. I know. But I'm under orders.'

'No Werner, no Stinnes,' I said.

She said nothing, but her face was white and tense and she was breathing in that way she did when stress got too much for her.

I said, 'Moskvin killed the little MacKenzie kid in the safe house in Bosham.'

She shrugged.

'What did he have to do that for?' I persisted. 'MacKenzie couldn't swat a fly without reciting the Miranda warnings.'

She looked at me and gave a deep sigh. 'You'll have to take him out, Bernard.'

'What?' I said.

Petulantly and with a gabbled haste that was not typical of her she said, 'You'll have to take him out – Moskvin.'

For a moment I was speechless. Was this my wife speaking? 'How? Where?'

'It's the only way. I've got Werner down to the bus park at Checkpoint Charlie. I told Moskvin that you might want to see him waving to be sure he was fit and well. That was before you got Moskvin's agreement to your sending your man over there.'

'How will you explain it?' I said.

'Rid me of that man and I won't have to explain anything.'

I still wasn't sure. 'Kill him, you mean?'

She was nervous and excited. Her answer was shrill. 'People get killed. It wouldn't be the first time that someone was killed at the Wall, would it?'

'No, but I can't start shooting at a delegation like yours. They're likely to bring up the tanks. I don't want to be the man who starts World War Three. I'm serious, Fi.'

'You must do it personally, Bernard. You mustn't order anyone else to do it. I don't want anyone else to know it was discussed by us.'

'Okay.' I heard myself agreeing to it.

'Promise?' I hesitated. 'It's Werner; your friend,' she said. 'I'm doing everything I can. More than I should.' Because it suited her, I thought. She wasn't doing it for Werner, or even for me. And what was she doing anyway? I was going to be the one putting my neck on the block. And now she wanted to deprive me of the chance of explaining it to my masters.

'I promise,' I said desperately. 'Put him and Stinnes in the last car and let me ride with them. But the children stay with me. That's a condition, Fi.'

'Be careful, Bernard. He's a brute.'

I looked at her. She was very beautiful, more beautiful than I ever remembered. Her eyes were soft and the faint smell of her perfume brought memories. 'Stay here, Fi,' I said. 'Stay here in the West. We could fix everything.'

She shook her head. 'Goodbye for the last time,' she said. 'Don't worry, I'll send Werner back. And I won't take the children from you for the time being.'

'Stay.'

She leaned forward and kissed me in a decorous way that would not smudge her lipstick; I suppose they'd all be looking at her for such signs. 'You don't understand. But one day you will.'

'I don't think so,' I said.

'Let's go and see Comrade Stinnes,' she said. And now her voice was hard and resolute once more.

I'd allowed for a lot of varied possibilities arising from my meeting with Fiona, but her demand that I kill Pavel Moskvin, one of her senior staff, caught me unawares. And yet there could be no doubt that she was serious. As Bret and Frank had already agreed just a few minutes before the meeting, my friendship with Werner was damned important to me. If killing a hood like Pavel Moskvin could rescue Werner from a prospect of twenty years in a gulag , I wouldn't hesitate. And Fiona knew that.

But there were a lot of unanswered questions. I found it difficult to accept Fiona's explanation at face value. Would she really ask me to kill Moskvin just so she could keep to her side of the bargain? It seemed far more likely that Moskvin was an obstacle to her ambitions. But it was difficult to believe that Fiona would go that far. I preferred to think that her desire to have him dead came from somewhere higher up in the echelons of the KGB – Moscow Centre, in all probability.

But why didn't they try him, sentence him, and execute him for whatever he'd done? The obvious answer to that was blat , the Russian all-purpose word for influence, corruption and unofficial power. Was Moskvin the friend or relative of someone that even the KGB would rather not confront? Was getting rid of him in the West – and so attributing his death to the imperialists – a clever scheme whereby Moscow kept their hands clean? Probably.

Werner Volkmann was still in the roadway on the wrong side of Checkpoint Charlie – our man could see him clearly from the observation post on Kochstrasse. According to what was being said on the radiophone, Werner was wearing his grey raincoat and pacing up and down, accompanied by a guard in civilian clothes.

As arranged with Fiona, I was in the last of the three KGB Volvos when they pulled away from the front of the Steigenberger. There were plenty of policemen there, some in civilian clothes, but not so many that the KGB party attracted any more attention than would the departure from the hotel of any minor celebrity. At the front of the line of three black Volvos there was a white VW bus, an unmarked police vehicle, and a motorcycle cop. Behind us there was another white VW bus containing Frank Harrington, Bret Rensselaer, and three members of the Berlin Field Unit. It was our communications van, two whiplash antennas and an FM rod on the roof.