Quiller Balalaika

'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 -'