Quiller Balalaika

'If you'll excuse me,' I said.

When I reached the major he was still alone. 'Terrific party.'

'Thank you. We try to make sure our guests enjoy themselves.' His glass of vodka was tucked into an elbow against his chest for security.

'Berinov,' I said. 'Dmitri Berinov.'

'Major Milosevic. You're not drinking?' He looked round for a waiter.

'I'm drying out for a while.'

He considered this, his eyes tucked under the lids for shelter now, the drunk watching me, the man somewhere inside. 'I see,' he said in a moment.

I glanced around. 'You didn't invite Sakkas here tonight?'

The eyes were suddenly tucked deeper. 'Vasyl Sakkas?'

'Yes.'

'Vasyl Sakkas doesn't ’ppear – appear in public. In any case I'm not pleased with him at the moment.'

'Oh really?'

'He ordered a hit on one of our people.'

'When was this?'

'Two days ago. He should have tel – telephoned me before he did that.' The tip of a palm frond was brushing his ear; he didn't notice.

'To warn you.'

'What?'

'You could have' – I shrugged – 'suggested an alternative.'

His head began shaking slightly. 'When Sakkas orders a hit, there's no poss – possible alternative. But I could have asked him to do it more discreetly. Instead of on the steps of our headquarters.' He watched me as if from a distance. 'He likes steps,' he said. 'A lot of his hits are made on steps. Judges, officials.'

'You telephone him often?'

'I don't telephone Sakkas. But he knows my number. I was use – useful to him once.'

'You've got an understanding.'

'All I understand is that he must be treated with great caution.'

'So I've heard. He's in Moscow now?'

'I don't know. No one ever knows where Sakkas is. But he was in Mos – Moscow two days ago. He always watches the hits.'

'To make sure they're successful.,

'No. They're always successful. He watches them because he likes it. People say – ' he broke off as I tilted his glass straight for him; its rim had been catching under one of his medals. 'What are you doing?'

'Don't worry about it. How often have you met Sakkas?'

'How – how often have I met him? No one ever meets Sakkas. Unless he wants them to.'

'Likes his privacy.'

'Yes. You know what those bastards did to me?' He was watching someone going past, head of grey hair, general's tabs.

'What did they do?'

'They passed me over for promotion again.'

'Rather short-sighted.'

'What? Of course. You know – you know how long I've been working in this bloody outfit?'

'Tell me.'

'Nine years. Nine bloody years.' He watched the general join a group near the buffet. 'His fault, you see. Head of Personnel. Some – sometimes I wonder if I'm not in the wrong business.' He looked back to me, his eyes taking time to focus. 'You people do pretty well, don't you?'

'Mustn't grumble.'

'You make mil – millions. I know that. Dollars. American bloody dollars.'

'There are good times and bad. Tell me, where does Sakkas stay when he's in the capital?'

'You know what I make in this outfit? I make peanuts.'

'So why don't you come across?'

He watched me for a long time. 'You deal in nickel, do you?'

'Sometimes.'

'I know someone with a whole – whole train load of nickel stuck at the Latvian frontier.'

'He should offer the customs a bit more.'

'If I left the service, I could help people like that.'

'Help yourself, too.'

'Of course. It's tem – tempting.'

I got out my wallet and gave him my card. 'Phone me any time, major. Perhaps we can work something out. But you'll have to steer clear of Sakkas if you start up in business. Where does he stay when he's in Moscow, by the way?'

'Steer very clear, yes. House – he's got a house in Sadovaja Samotecnaja Ulica.'

'On the Boulevard Ring.'

'Yes.'

'What number?'

'Don't know what number.'

'A mansion, probably. An old mansion.'

'Don't know.'

'Would any of your colleagues know? What department -'

'No one – no one knows a thing like that.' The sunken eyes were steady for a moment; I couldn't tell if he was alert enough to lie. 'The big money,' he said, 'is in plutonium. You know that.' It was either a jump in his thought-train or just a vodka-induced non sequitur. Was Sakkas, perhaps, in plutonium?

'When you can find it,' I said.

'Not difficult. When that stuff is made in a fast-breeder reactor, they can turn out a kilo – kilogram more than the standards require for every hun – hundred changes of fuel.' He watched me from under his heavy lids, didn't say any more, had lost his train of thought.

'And then?'

'What? Yes, and then the official amount is reg – registered in the books, and the surplus goes onto the black market. Some of the plants, they just throw the stuff over the wall, it's as sim – simple as that.'

Then he dried up again, his head moving a little as someone came up behind me, and when I turned round I found myself looking straight into the eyes of the Cougar.

8: MOONLIGHT

He wouldn't waste any time.

'You assaulted two of my guards,' he said. His eyes were fixed in a stare, as they'd been in the private room of the Baccarat Club last night. 'I don't like that.'

'You shouldn't have sent them after me. If you want the diamonds, you'll have to buy them.'

Behind the stare, crystallizing it, giving it depth, was the rage again. 'You assaulted the Cougar personally,' he said, 'when you assaulted his guards.'

This was new. I hadn't detected megalomania in him before. He was standing so still that he made a centre of calm in the movement going on around him and behind him as the groups of people shifted, gestured, as the waiters weaved among them. There was quite a bit of the reptile about this man, but he wouldn't be aware of that, or he would have called himself the Cobra.