Quiller Balalaika

by Adam Hall

  The tracker had used his phone, that was all, and called in a backup; I should have known he might. But this was academic: there would've been nothing I could have done.

  The scene very bright now, dazzling: both cars had their headlights on and mine was trapped in the middle, throwing its oblique shadow against the walls and across the ruts in the ice. There was just the sound of engines running as the snow came floating down, big, heavy flakes from a swollen sky.

  I waited.

  Voices came in, I think from one of their radio phones. These weren't the callow, athletic jocks the Cougar ran; these were professionals, calling in a backup and contacting base and shutting me in without a chance in a thousand. These were Sakkas' men.

  Acid in the mouth as the adrenalin hit performance levels in the bloodstream; sweat coming out; a feeling a lightness, of poise, the muscles craving release, taut as a bowstring.

  A door clicked open and faint backlit shadows formed on the walls as two of them came on foot from the car behind, their boots crunching over the snow. No one got out of the car in front: they would stay where they were, riding shotgun.

  I put the window down.

  'Show me your papers,' one of them said. The other man was keeping back, his AK-47 aimed at my head.

  Showed him.

  'Import-Export. What does that mean?' He was interested in my expensive astrakhan coat and black sable hat, my expensive 300 E, wanted to know if I was in the mob, was perhaps a rival to his boss and therefore expendable.

  'I ship things in and ship other things out.'

  'What sort of things?' Hadn't given my papers back.

  'Nickel, furs, jewellery, gold, whatever's available.'

  He had a pale, doughy face with an eagle's nose and heavy eyebrows, a man of forty, perhaps more, cynical, seasoned, nobody's fool. His eyes hooked themselves onto mine and stayed there until he was through with his thinking.

  'Get out.'

  'I'd like my papers back.'

  'Get out.' Didn't raise his voice.

  I snapped the door open and stood on the snow, feeling it sink under my weight.

  'Open your coat.' He frisked me with methodical expertise, his breath clouding in the glare of the lights. 'Get into the car behind.'

  'Look, I want to know -'

  'Get into the car behind.' The other man swung his gun as emphasis.

  'Who the hell are you people? Are you from the RAOC?'

  The man with the gun stepped up smartly and drove the muzzle into my back and I tilted the pelvis forward an inch to diminish the shock. Then the two of us crunched across the snow to the car, the gun prodding. I couldn't hear the other man's footsteps.

  'Get in.'

  I opened the rear door. There wasn't in fact a driver at the wheel, just this one man in the immediate environment, and a scenario for the instant future flashed across my mind, but the plot didn't stand up: I could deal with one man, especially with an assault rifle because they're even more useless than hand guns at short range – you can't swing that much weight a tenth as fast as you can bring down a hammerfist to the wrist. But the other car was there and facing this way and they'd shoot for the legs when I started running.

  Smell of new hide and a good cologne, Jesus, these were just his security people. I looked through the windscreen but couldn't see much against the glare. The other man, the one with the eyebrows, must have gone to talk to the crew of the backup car.

  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.'

  15: ORION

  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.

  A mass of snow unshipped itself from a branch not far from where Uri was standing, leaving a cascade of jewels to stream through the headlight beams. Uri didn't move, or turn his head.

  'Walk,' the other man told me, and shifted his gun upwards an inch.

  I looked at him in silence. On the drive here from the city I'd thought out some compromises in terms of my behaviour. I had to continue playing the luckless innocent, victim of mistaken identity, because I couldn't switch now. But an innocent citizen would be going through a kicking-and-screaming fit by this time, Please, please, I've got a wife and kids, asking to be dragged out of the car by his collar and pushed headlong to his execution, You can't do this to an innocent citizen, lurching among the trees with his body heaving with sobs, so forth. This would have clouded the issue with melodrama and these people might have simply opened fire to bring the curtain down.

  So I was playing it a touch more subtly, still an innocent but appalled, bewildered, numbed, speechless, and therefore non-threatening, easy to handle, just in case there was a chance.

  'Walk,' the man said again.

  'Walk where?' No longer capable of cogent thought.

  'Into the trees. Follow the headlight beam.'

  I began walking.

  But there was of course no chance left of survival, none, and when this happens the psychochemistry of the doomed organism is interesting: fatalism, moving in to occupy the mind, leaves the subconscious to sort over any options that might be left, and this was happening as I made my way through the snow, my shadow stark in front of me.

  They must surely send, then, this time, a rose for Moira, as a signal to let her know what had happened. This had been agreed, though she'd told me not to worry, I'd always come back.

  Meanwhile follow the shadow, my shadow, and keep conscious thought aware only of the crunching of my calf-skin boots through the snow and beyond it the vast silence of the night, of the universe, leaving the gossamer-fine attentions of the subconscious to address my karma and conjure if they could a ray of light.

  'Over there.'

  His voice fainter, that of a character lost among the trees in the midwinter night's dream.

  'Over where?'

  'Stand against that tree. Face this way.'

  To my aid, Oberon, if you are there.

  The conscious mind fanciful, free-wheeling, stand back to the tree, this tree, this one?

  The headlights dazzling; all I could see were two short figures against the snow, the one with the AK and the other one, closer, their faces blurred. I didn't think he would take an interest, the closer one, because of any avarice, but simply because of its power in the mind of man as I pulled it out of my pocket and held it up to assert its brilliance in the light, the universal power of the diamond.

  The snow drifted down between us, black against the glare. Burning bright at the edge of my vision field as I went on holding it at arm's length, turning it, tilting it to make it flash. Time drew out, leaning across the silence, forgetting to count.

  'What is that?'

  'A diamond.'

  He turned to look behind him, make sure that Uri was well positioned, then turned back and began walking towards me.

  A kaleidoscope of colours freckled the snow on the ground as shards of light were sent arrowing from the gem.

  Suddenly he was standing in front of me, a black silhouette against the headlights, his left hand held out, the Parabellum in the other hand, in the aim. I gave him the diamond.

  There was of course no question of buying my life with this thing. It was already his, and in a moment he would put it into his pocket and turn and move to a safe distance and raise his hand to Uri. The diamond could only have been used as I'd used it in the Baccarat Club, as a come-hither.

  'Magnificent,' he said, the freckles of coloured light on his face now as he turned the facets.

  I didn't answer.

  Watch his hand, the left one. When it begins moving to put the diamond away, take the final chance, for here is the moment of truth.

  Time slammed shut as he moved his hand and I used an open hammer strike downwards onto his gun wrist and heard it snap in the instant before the gun fired off-target and I made the next strike to kill, a half-fist into the throat with the knuckles burying deep into the cartilage, and as he started dropping I locked the inside of my elbows under his armpits and slid my hands round
his neck and wrapped them across and lifted his body above the snow and pushed him forward as Uri gave a shout, ignore, and the dance began.

  Blood on my fingers: internal haemorrhage had started underneath the smashed cartilage and his mouth was running crimson. We made for Uri, the cadaver and I, because I would have to deal with him in whatever way I could when we got close enough. All I had now was a shield against the AK-47 and since the back of the corpse was to Uri he couldn't see what had happened, thought his confrere was still alive and in the line of fire.

  Dancing like two bears through the snow, the weight of the dead man more than I'd thought it would be, my face beside his and our heads bumping together, smell of his blood as his ribcage flexed and his lungs sent bubbling sounds from his throat, dancing together into the glare of the light and hearing another shout, ignore, sweat running now and the breathing laboured as we lurched with his legs dangling and his eyes staring across my shoulder as I shifted the weight, his appalling weight, dance, you son of a bitch, the night's not over yet.

  'Stop! Stop right where you are!'

  Waving the rifle up and down but he couldn't do anything with it unless he tried a face shot which was all he could see as a target but my head was pressed against my dancing partner's as we lumbered towards him and I wouldn't think he'd risk it, wouldn't think but didn't know, and if he did take a chance my brains would be spread all over the trunk of that tree and I hated the thought of a messy end, dance, you son of a whore, but oh Jesus Christ he was heavy now and the triceps were beginning to burn and I didn't know how long -

  'Stop!'

  Ignore, of course. I was waiting for him to do one thing and that would end the matter, waiting for him to make one mistake and I knew what it was and he might not, might not, so let us pray, sweat running into the eyes and half-blinding them in the glare, he was to the right of us now, Uri, slightly to the right so I watched his shadow on the snow, black as night now in the headlights because we were closer, a lot closer and the breath was sawing in and out of my lungs and my head was beginning to pulse, waves of dark and light washing across my eyes, music, it would have been a help if we could have done this to music, matched our rhythm to it, say Bach or Vivaldi, something measured, a stately minuet, close now, we were getting very close and I thought there could be a chance, a remote possibility of hallelujah, but we mustn't hatch our chick – count our hatch – watch it for God's sake you must not lose it now -