Sikarov timed his arrival to coincide with the middle of the trans-Atlantic rush-hour. Four Jumbos had disgorged their human cargos in the last 30 minutes and the Russian had no difficulty in finding a package-party to join. Passengers and immigration officers all looked equally haggard.
As he approached the high, sloping desk a man in a dark grey suit materialised beside the immigration clerk for no apparent reason. While Sikarov’s passport was checked this man stood behind the clerk’s shoulder, his impassive stare never leaving Sikarov’s face. The Russian gazed stonily back at him. As the clerk stretched out to give him back his passport the man in the grey suit took it and examined the open page. Sikarov felt no qualms. It had been made in East Germany and was of the first quality. It proclaimed him to be Pietr Gablenz, an Austrian businessman on his way from Paris to London, and the visas were authentic.
The man in the dark grey suit handed Sikarov back his passport with a smile.
Once in the taxi Sikarov used its darkened rear window to observe the traffic without himself being seen. Before they reached the end of the motorway spur he knew that he was being followed and had identified the vehicle.
He frowned. He had crossed enough frontiers in his time to know the power of coincidence, but this looked suspiciously like a prearranged tail. The MI5 officer at the immigration desk had a reason for being there at the precise moment when Sikarov presented his passport. But it was unlikely that Five were having him followed on mere suspicion.
Someone had talked, then. In Moscow or, more probably, here in the London referentura. Sikarov’s lips curled back from his prominent teeth in the snarl that passed, with him, for a smile. Well, he would have a bit of fun. A short holiday before getting down to business.
He directed the cab driver to Piccadilly, and Fortnum & Masons. A large tip secured a promise to wait while the fare picked up some parcels. As he went inside Sikarov glanced to right and left. The tail vehicle, a brown Capri, was stuck behind a bus in the slow lane. Sikarov had a fleeting impression of an irate driver straining over his shoulder to find a gap in the impenetrable traffic. Excellent.
For the next five minutes the staff of Fortnums were kept very busy. Box after box was handed out to the street, there to be piled into the back of the cab by an obliging doorman. After a while there were so many parcels in the taxi that the driver had to get out and start rearranging them, putting some in the front compartment, and some in the boot. Just as everyone was starting to wonder where the fare was going to sit a number of things happened simultaneously. A policeman came up and demanded to know where the hell the cabbie thought he was, in the garage at home? The driver realised that he had not yet been paid for the trip from the airport. The shop-girl who had been kept busy taking Sikarov’s order woke up to the fact that he had not, as promised, left his American Express card with her while he went out to supervise the loading. The driver of the brown Capri collected a ticket. But Sikarov went clean into London – and disappeared.
After his initial and unexpected brush with MI5 Sikarov was forced to rethink his strategy. He felt isolated. It was time to invest in a little insurance.
When he reached the embassy later in the day it was to find everything at sixes and sevens. He learned that Kyril had been seen at the house of Vera Bradfield, but then there had been a balls-up which resulted in the death of a schpick and the target escaping surveillance. A full-scale cover-up was in progress. Sikarov grunted. He was too used to this kind of error for it to worry him. As long as he had the girl’s address he would manage somehow.
On the pretext that his gun was jamming he visited the armoury on the third floor and handed it in for a quick service. While the armourer was working on it Sikarov leaned over the counter and with a gloved hand picked up the Luger that was lying on the shelf.
‘What’s wrong with this?’
‘Faulty trigger-setting. It’s mended now.’
Sikarov weighed it thoughtfully. The armourer was coming over.
‘Should be all right. There was some dirt caked round the pin.’
Sikarov nodded. He had put it there.
‘Want to try?’
‘Sure.’
‘We’ll have to go down to the cellars, then. That’s where the range is.’
Sikarov pretended to hesitate. ‘All right. But it’ll have to be quick. Can I try the Luger?’
‘Sure, why not.’
A few minutes on the range revealed that Sikarov’s gun was now in perfect working order. Then he loosed off six shots from the Luger. It felt fine.
‘Thank you. I still prefer my own though.’
The armourer shrugged. ‘We don’t use them much now. That belongs to someone in Department V. He won’t part with it.’
Sikarov’s body was between the armourer and the table on which the guns lay. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to switch holsters.
‘I left my bag upstairs. I’ll carry these up for you.’
While the armourer turned off the lights Sikarov buttoned down both holsters firmly. Now it was impossible to tell which was which, unless you knew.
On his way out Sikarov wondered whose fingerprints would be on the Luger with which he killed Colonel Ivan Yevseevich Bucharensky. Not that it mattered. Nothing was going to mar his enjoyment of this mission, not while Kyril still owed him for what happened in Paris. And anyway, the boys in A2 enjoyed a joke.