Quiller KGB

'I contend that I got as much information as was possible in the circumstances, and that I didn't hasten the loss by poor judgement.'

Bullshit, but they wouldn't know that. All those snivelling bloody clerks want is what they call a clear picture, just give us a clear picture, told boy, can you, so they can peck it all down on their neat little keyboards and go home to their steak and kidney pudding and watch the telly, damn their eyes, do they really think you can give them a clear picture when you were up to your neck in a river and freezing to death and trying to decide just how much to put the fear of Christ in a man to make him squeal? They don't -

'Anything else?'

'What?'

'Is that all?'

'Yes.' A killing, nicely wrapped up. Oh my God how I hate bureaucrats.

'Did you look for any identification on him?'

'No. There wasn't time — the Vopos were coming.'

In a moment: 'How do you feel now?' But I noticed he switched the thing off before he said that.

'Bloody awful.'

Rather vague, yes. This man was my director in the field and it was his job to support, nurse and succour his executive, test him out at every major phase of the mission and decide whether he was still operational, still competent to go ahead, unaffected by fear, guilt, remorse or emotion of any kind. And if he thought fit, to warn London to pull him out.

'What sort of bloody awful?' Squinting at his nails.

It'd need time. I got off the bed and moved around, checking things out — pain in the shoulder but only when I moved it; other areas, left thigh, left shin, rib cage, where I'd been flung around on the back of the Mercedes; but nothing wrong with the feet or ankles: I could still run flat out if I had to and that's the first thing you worry about when you've come through the wrong end of the mangle — whether you can still run fast enough if you've got to.

'For one thing,' I said, 'I'm pissed off. Was that your Audi?'

'Which one?'

'I.ook, when I went to meet Pollock at Charlie's Club I checked the area very carefully and it was clean. So how did you know I'd gone into the river?'

'We don't use an Audi, as far as I know.'

'It was a blind?'

'It could have been.'

'So you did put a tag on me?'

'Yes.'

Gott straffe the bastard.

When the traffic conditions are too light for comfort in a vehicle-tag operation you can slip a third car in the middle with instructions to stay there until some innocent vehicle gets in between, and then peel off and come back when it's needed again. The object is to make sure there's always something between the tag and the target and that could've been why the Audi had gone down a sidestreet when the Fiat had come up, but it was academic now: Cone had said yes, he'd ordered someone in.

'When did the tag get onto me?'

'When you left here.'

'Shit.'

I'd checked for tags when I'd got to the Club but not when I'd left, because I'd been too busy watching the girl and keeping her in sight. 'Why did you have me tagged?'

'You told me you were expecting Volper to have a go.'

'Then why didn't you tell me?'

'You wouldn't have liked it — ' looking up from his nails '- would you?'

'Oh for Christ's sake, let's get some tea sent in.' Whatever they'd given me to pull me out of the hypothermia thing had left me as dry as a wooden god. 'If I'd wanted someone in support I'd have asked for it.

'It's not like that,' he said, 'this time,' and picked up the phone.

'It's so bloody dangerous.'

When your own cell puts some kind of support in the field without telling you it can lead to a whole lot of trouble: three years ago in Mexico City I'd spent half the night coming round full circle on a tag and when I'd got him on the floor of a hotel boiler-room with a near-lethal lock on his throat and started asking questions he'd turned out to be an extra-curricular peep tacked onto me by an over-anxious local director and it'd set the mission back by two weeks because I'd lost track of the objective.

'It's a calculated risk,' Cone said, and switched to German and asked for some Earl Grey, putting the phone down and getting out of his chair and standing with his shoulders forward, leaning into that bitter wind of his. 'My instructions are to protect you whenever I think it's necessary.'

'I can look after myself. You know my record.'

'You've survived very well, so far. But you've been lucky.'

His eyes came to rest on mine, which was unusual. He'd won a major point and I think he was watching me for my reaction.

'We all need luck when a wheel comes off but that doesn't change anything.'

'It does, this time. This time, it's Mr Shepley.'

'He's a soldier, and they can only think of making a move with a mass of troops in the field.'

It looked something like a smile; the skin tightened on his face and his eyes lost their look of unbreakable concentration just for a second. 'I wouldn't call that man a soldier, not the way he works. What you've got to realise is that this time we're expecting you to cooperate with us. I know that doesn't come easy, but this time we're trying to protect one of the two most powerful men on the planet. It'd be nice if you could get perspective on that.'

I gave it some thought: I had to. It was no good asking what the KGB was doing if their top kick needed protection because I knew what they were doing: they'd sent Yasolev in to ask us for liaison. Volper was a British national and the Bureau was digging up enough ground in London to bring the place down before they could find his tracks. What Cone meant was that I still hadn't got a grip on the size of this thing and he could be right, but there was only one way I could work and they'd known that when they'd called me in.

'All right, try this. Whenever you put someone in the field with me I want to know about it. I want to know who they are and where they're deployed and what their instructions are.'

'That's a tall order.' There was a knock on the door and he loped across and opened it and we didn't say anything before the boy had left the tray on the round plastic-topped table and gone out again.

'No, I mean in the field with me actively. I know the place must be full of lamplighters.'

'You wouldn't believe how many. You want it straight up?'

'Yes. Actively — all right?'

He brought my tea over and I went halfway to meet him and wondered if he caught the symbolism.

'All right, you'll be told. There's got to be trust, hasn't there, like with Yasolev. Got to meet each other halfway.' The skin tightened again and a spark came into his eyes and I had the impression that this man Cone was deeper than I'd thought, quicker, harder, more implacable, and with the power, perhaps, given only to people in the very top echelon: the power to break me in an instant and throw me to the dogs if he thought I looked like endangering the mission. It occurred to me that the KGB connection wasn't the only thing that could cost me sleep: I was expected to 'co-operate' right across the board, and I could believe they'd given me a director in the field who'd wipe me out if I didn't. This time, yes, things were different.

He held his cup in both hands, stooping over it, though it wasn't cold in here. 'And that works both ways, doesn't it? If you make any kind of move where you think you're going to need some luck, I want you to tell me.'

'I don't have to. They'll come for me again, whether I make a move or not.'

'That's how you see yourself? A sitting duck?'

'Don't you?'

'Yes.' Squinting down at his tea. 'That's unavoidable. And you're prepared to draw their fire?'