Kyril squeezed a little closer to the wall, palms spread out against the panelled oak, eyes closed. His breathing had slowed, his heartbeat was way below normal and his hands were wet. He was listening. With every scrap of energy in his body concentrated on that one activity, he was listening.
He had been in the west wing, undisturbed, for several hours. It had taken him that long to descend from the topmost floor, testing every step before he took it, examining each door-jamb for the hidden beam that would break at a touch, forcing himself to be slow, slow, slow.
What was this place? He wished he had paid more attention to Crowden when he was in England six years ago. It was half-public and half-private, so obviously it did not rate a top-secret security classification. He vaguely remembered it as a retreat for agents who needed to recuperate in circumstances of peace and normality after a particularly gruelling tour of duty, a sort of hotel for washed-out staff. Also, it was useful for meetings which had to be ‘open’, because the target was feeling edgy. Kyril had known that happen even in Moscow: a defector would ask to roam the streets, looking in shop-windows, rubbing elbows with pedestrians just for the sake of human contact, while KGB agents hovered nearby.
He was aware that round the next corner, ten metres away, a door stood ajar, and through the gap light filtered into the gloomy corridor. Kyril could occasionally catch the sound of voices speaking quietly inside the room beyond the door. How many people were inside? How many guards did SIS maintain at Crowden? Not many, surely? Was Loshkevoi in that room?
Time ticked on. Kyril shuffled plans like cards, all discards. Somehow he had to get inside that room. By a process of exclusion he knew that this was where his target lay, had to be. A frontal attack would be certain suicide. But every second he stayed where he was shortened the odds against his remaining undetected. He had to act, and soon, but… how?
Kyril opened his eyes. Inside the room was a sudden commotion, with voices raised in argument. He flattened himself more closely against the wall and strove to listen. Suddenly the voices grew louder: that must mean the door had opened… people were coming out.
Opposite Kyril was another door. Without once pausing to alert his conscious brain some crucial instinct of self-preservation sent him hurtling towards it. The door was unlocked. It gave on to a short, dark passage at the end of which was another door set with panels of frosted glass. And in that same split second he realised that he had succeeded only in trapping himself, for someone inside that lighted room wanted to use the lavatory where Kyril now was…
Footsteps outside. Kyril flashed his torch at the ceiling, saw the bulb and jumped for it.
‘Damn. Light’s gone.’
From behind the door which led into the main passage Kyril saw an arm feel along the wall opposite him, its owner guided by the glimmer of light from outside. He heard voices. Two men.
‘Can you manage?’
‘Yeah. Just.’
Loshkevoi had groped his way down the short, inner passage almost to the door of the lavatory. Now the second man was following him.
Kyril launched himself forward. The door slammed awkwardly against the body of the second man who drew a breath, about to cry out when Kyril’s fist landed right in the centre of his adam’s apple and he fell, the scream for ever lodged in his throat, unuttered. Kyril did not spare him another thought. His body was already twisting in a 90-degree vector so that by the time his right foot hit Loshkevoi in the stomach he was almost parallel with the floor. The fat man crumpled up double; Kyril bounced off the tiles and in a single co-ordinated movement had him rammed up against the glass-panelled door, forearm across the throat.
The precious moments he fought to control his breathing while his brain frantically re-ran the events of the past few seconds over and over again, trying to calculate how much noise they had made. The passage outside remained dark and empty. So far so good.
‘Whaaaah…’
Kyril levered his arm a little more snugly into the folds of Loshkevoi’s neck and whipped out the Stechkin, holding the cold metal to the prisoner’s cheek.
‘You know what this is.’
The rasping whisper seemed to reach Loshkevoi as from a great distance, so quiet it was.
‘One squeal out of you and you’re dead.’
If Kyril had shouted those words Loshkevoi would probably have screamed for help. But that whisper… something about it spoke directly to Loshkevoi’s central nervous system, by-passing all rational thought. As long as Kyril continued to use that harsh, far-off whisper, little more than a breath in his ear, Loshkevoi was like a doll in the hands of a puppet-master.
‘We’re going out.’
Kyril removed his arm and swiftly used his free hand to wheel Loshkevoi round. His prisoner’s foot collided with Barnes’ body and he stumbled heavily.
‘Careful!’
The two men, locked together in a tight embrace, picked their way over the corpse. Now they were in the main corridor.
‘Left.’
Kyril guided Loshkevoi away from the room whence he had emerged a few minutes earlier.
‘Wait.’
Kyril knew that a door at the far end of the corridor, by the stairs, was unlocked: he had checked it earlier as part of his cautious progress through the house. He hustled Loshkevoi into the room beyond and closed the door behind them, his fingers groping for the key.
Here there were no curtains. Through the windows opposite, Kyril could see the glow from the floodlights along the perimeter wall.
‘No lights. Stay where you are. I can see you silhouetted against the window. Make a move I don’t like and I’ll shoot.’
Kyril spoke quietly, but without using that terrible whisper, and Loshkevoi relaxed a fraction.
‘I have no quarrel with you. I have no orders to kill you, either.’ Kyril spoke rapidly. ‘The quicker you tell me all I need to know, the sooner you’ll be out of here.’
‘I’ve been…’ Loshkevoi’s voice cracked with fear; he cleared his throat and began again. ‘I’ve been expecting you. You must help me.’ The pleading in his voice was unmistakable but there was cunning also. ‘You have got to help me. Please. Please…’
‘Stand still!’ Loshkevoi had taken a step towards Kyril. ‘What was that?’
Kyril pressed his ear against the wooden panel of the door. Was there a noise outside? Long seconds passed. Nothing. He turned back to see Loshkevoi’s huge form high-lighted against the windows. His shoulders were heaving. Kyril could not see the man’s face but with a stab of excitement he realised that Loshkevoi was in the grip of an emotion powerful enough to transcend even his fear.
‘Yes, yes, I will help you. That is part of my message. We are going back to Moscow, you and I. Together. Tonight. Stanov knows that you have been troubled in your mind. That is why he sent me. But you’d better talk fast. Who is Nidus? Who sent Sikarov to England? Believe me, it’s your only chance: to talk, tell everything.’
‘Who?… Sikarov… I…’
‘The A2 gaybist. Executioner.’
‘I can guess who sent Sikarov,’ said Loshkevoi dully. ‘There’s only one candidate. It has to be…’
‘Quiet!’
Had there been something, out there in the passage? Kyril flattened himself against the door, listening. The corridor was silent. He backed away from the door and felt his way towards Loshkevoi.
‘You were saying,’ he hissed. ‘It has to be…’
‘The man in the suit. He came from Moscow. Not through the embassy, not the first time. He came from Stanov, he said. I believed him. He knew things that only someone next to the Chairman could know, details about my operations which Stanov was never supposed to confide in anyone. But this man knew them. I couldn’t figure him out at all. He never wore a uniform, just a suit, the same suit every time we met. He asked me… if I was happy. Can you imagine that, eh? An officer of the KGB asking if you were happy?’
Kyril forced himself to be patient and swallow his anger. Loshkevoi was on the point of talking. Beyond all hope or expectation, he really did know something. The slightest interruption, the merest hint of irritation, and the delicate skein of understanding between them would be lost.
‘I told him… no. Not the first time, but afterwards, when he came again. I said, the terrorism, it’s getting so that I can’t stand it. They’re all mad, all insane. I was starting to drink a bottle a day, it scared me so. But… he understood. The man in the suit, he knew everything. He talked to me so… so kindly. And he kept coming, and every time he came he seemed to know more about me, what I did, how I felt. Until one day…’
‘Yes?’ Kyril could not keep the urgency out of his voice. Loshkevoi seemed not to hear.
‘One day he just said… would you like to work for me, as well as Stanov, and I said… yes. I would.’
‘You mean he was CIA, he was an agent?’
‘No. You don’t understand. He was one of us. Only he did things, he saw things differently from the rest. He understood, you see, he realised there were limits. Human limits.’
‘So he was a traitor…’
‘No!’ Loshkevoi seemed genuinely surprised: Kyril detected shock as well as doubt in his voice. ‘At least, I…’
Kyril had a sudden, sharp vision of Sikarov kneeling over Vera’s body.
‘It was he who mentioned Vera Bradfield?’
‘Yes. That’s right. How did you know that? He wanted me to go and see her, find out if you were coming… and he told me what to do when you finally arrived, so that I’d be sure to be sent to prison, and be safe. It was then I realised he meant to kill you. He wanted me out of the way, clear. I knew then there had to be a killer, somewhere.’
‘His name. What was his name?’
In the second of silence that followed Kyril heard two shots, quite loud and close and then two more. He whirled round, mouth agape. Loshkevoi seemed not to notice.
‘I don’t know. He never told me. He wore this suit…’
Kyril moved quickly back to the door. The silence outside was unbroken. For five, ten, fifteen seconds he stood in exactly the same position, listening. Those were shots. He was sure of it, as sure as he was that Loshkevoi stood behind him, his hands held up to shield his face. Out there, along the passage, someone had fired.
Kyril crept back to his former position beside Loshkevoi. Why had nobody come to rescue Loshkevoi? Had they found the body in the lavatory yet? What was the shooting? What was happening?
Kyril shook his head angrily. Think.
‘We haven’t got much time.’ His voice grated with tension. ‘This man in the suit. The man from Moscow. Did you tell them anything about him next door?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘Then describe him to me. Quickly.’
‘Oh… cleanshaven. Blue eyes. Not much of a chin.’
‘Blue eyes… did he have two deep clefts, here…?’ Kyril traced them on Loshkevoi’s own face with a finger.
‘Yes. Where it shows if a man smiles a lot.’
‘And the eyes…’
‘Blue eyes.’
‘Yes, yes I know, but how were they set?’
‘Deep. The brows overshadowed them.’
Kyril slapped Loshkevoi’s shoulders. He was almost sure. One more question and he would have it. He wanted to bounce up and down he was so excited.
‘Think, Loshkevoi. Think harder than you’ve ever thought before in your life. His ears… Tell me about his ears!’
For a moment there was silence. Loshkevoi was swaying from side to side, as if the effort of concentration was too much for him. Kyril was suddenly glad he couldn’t see through the darkness; the desire to smash out at the fleshy, petrified face would have been irresistible.
‘Ah! You know him then… of course, you must do, to mention his ears.’ Loshkevoi sounded awed. ‘You know this man in the suit, too? Who was he, eh? What was his name?’
Kyril forced himself to count to ten, very slowly. Then – ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about his ears. You were going to say something about his ears.’
‘Pointed. Like goblin’s ears.’
Kyril leapt into the air, throwing his arms above his head as high as they could reach. He had the name. For a second he almost wanted to shriek it aloud. He wanted to kick off his shoes and dance, he wanted to laugh and cry, he wanted… he didn’t even know any longer what he wanted. He had the name.
Povin.
Loshkevoi was speaking again, the note of pleading back in his voice. ‘You will tell them in Moscow… I helped you, didn’t I? And, and… you will be careful.’
Kyril was only half-listening. ‘Careful?’
‘He… he knew things only the Chairman is supposed to know.’
Kyril froze. ‘What?’
‘This man. In the suit. He knew things only Stanov knew. They were friends. He told me so. They… liked each other.’
An icy miasma distilled out of the four corners of the room, wreathing its slow way round Kyril’s heart. Friends. They were friends. He wanted to think about that. But not yet. Later.
No, not later. Now.
Suppose Stanov was the traitor?
Kyril found himself staring at this thought, lacking the will to send it away. It had been waiting on the fringes of his subconscious for weeks.
What was the purpose of this… charade? Had Stanov been using him, and if so, why? What deep game was being played, what devious dealings at the heart of the Politburo had driven him here, to London, to be somebody’s pawn? The more he struggled to keep a clear head, think his way through the maze, the less he understood. ‘You will be flying very near the sun…’, that was what Stanov told him at their first meeting. Did those words conceal some dark, ironic secret?
It was possible. Some little part of Kyril had always acknowledged it was possible. Now, however, it seemed more than just possible, it seemed likely. Kyril knew who the traitor was. Povin. It ranked among the world’s more dangerous secrets. Suppose it really was Povin, just suppose for a moment… didn’t the very name waft from person to person like a virus, fatally contaminating everyone it touched? Could Stanov afford to let him live?
Kyril took a fold of flesh between his teeth and bit it until tears sprang to his eyes.