Quiller KGB

'You know my responsibilities.' Not chopping now; motionless, sunk into obduracy. 'The welfare of the General-Secretary is in my hands. My hands.'

'We think we all need him,' I said, 'or we wouldn't be here. There's more at stake than your neck.' I didn't use those exact words, but that was the tone. But the stand he was making wasn't entirely because he'd be shot at dawn if anything happened to his General-Secretary; he was a KGB man and when the KGB wanted information they normally sent in a regiment and turned the building upside down and beat on the sides.

'You seriously believe that one agent can do as well as ten?'

'One whiff,' Cone said, 'of any KGB action inside Werneuchen and they'll shut their mouths and Horst Volper will immediately make an alternative plan. We've got to go very careful.'

''Then I will send one of my agents in. One.'

'All right,' Cone said quietly, 'then we'll wrap up the mission and go home.'

That surprised me. But we'd got less than four days left and Yasolev had called us in to do the job our way and that was how it would have to be done.

''That is putting the matter too strongly.' He was chopping at the air again, and I was glad my hand wasn't in the way. 'We agreed to liaise with each other, on the understanding that — '

'Viktor.' Cone's voice was as quiet as Shepley's. 'If you won't stick the rules, we're going home.'

Yasolev swung his body to one side and then to the other like a trapped bear, and I had a flash of what he'd be like when he lost patience and gave the order for someone's destruction.

'You will not see my point of view.'

'I see it very clearly,' Cone said. 'And I want you to see ours. You guaranteed that while the mission was running the KGB wouldn't interfere.'

We waited.

'But you fail to understand the weight of my responsibilities. If — '

'You knew how heavy they were,' Cone told him, 'when you first approached London. Nothing's changed.'

'But of course it has changed. The General-Secretary is now to make a visit here.'

That was true and there was only one way out. 'Do you think,' I asked him, 'there's any threat to the General-Secretary from Werneuchen Airforce Base?'

'But of course. Your department in London spoke of it. Isn't that so?'

'Yes. So the day before Gorbachev lands in Berlin you can send as many people as you like into Werneuchen and close the place down and ground all the bombers and lock up all the pilots. Your General-Secretary isn't at risk until his plane touches down here, so until then we want you to leave us alone.'

1:15: lunch with Pollock at the Steingarten.

'It's just that I can't work up any interest in soccer. Can you?'

'Not really,' I said.

'I don't imagine. Nothing like cricket, is there?' Spoken with passion. 'I spend most of the winter replaying the Tests on the VCR. Any time you'd like to watch, give me a buzz.'

'I'll do that.'

At 2:15 I would walk into the street.

'But even with the videotapes it seems an awfully long time till May.'

'May?'

'When the cricket starts again.'

'Ah, yes.'

Walk into the street, if I could face it.

He'd told me he'd only got an hour for lunch, awfully sorry. 'Miki's' visit had relegated all other business to the back burner. That was why I would walk into the street at 2:15. And there wasn't any question, really, of not facing it. They expected it of me: Shepley, Cone, Yasolev. I expected it of myself.

'Losing your appetite?'

'I had rather a late breakfast.'

'Ah.'

I had asked Pollock to lunch because Horst Volper would have stationed a permanent watch on him. So far I hadn't found a tag on me when I'd left the hotel. So far the safe-house near Spittelmarkt was unblown. Unless Cone or Yasolev had been picked up, Pollock would unwittingly provide Volper's cell with a potential contact with me, and they'd go whenever he went. They would have come to the Steingarten. They would be waiting outside.

It was beginning to feel hot in here, and this was normal; in fact the place was underheated.

'Well, well.' Looking at his watch. 'Tempus fugit.'

I got my wallet out but he put down a 1,000-mark note on top of the bill. 'Honoured guest of the embassy.' Clean white smile, lowering his voice. 'Not often we get anyone out here with your kind of credentials.'

I thanked him.

'Are they looking after you at the hotel?'

'No complaints, except for the view.'

'Oh yes, you're at the front, aren't you? It's a bit sinister, I know what you mean. I'm not really used to it myself, yet, and I've been here three years. Kind of presence, isn't it?'

I’m rather relieved. I thought I was being over-sensitive.'

He got up and fetched his coat from the rack. 'Oh no, it gives most visitors the willies. I send quite a few of them to that hotel, visiting artists, culture vultures. I've booked Cat Baxter in there.' Chasing the sleeve of his coat. I helped him. 'Thanks.'

Rock star.

When is she coming?'

''Tomorrow.'

'She's bringing her group?'

Yea. Got a concert scheduled, big one. God, I hope she's going to behave herself — she's worse than Vanessa Redgrave, except that Cat's thing is human rights. Share my cab?'

'I'm not going far.'

Hoped it wasn't true. Hoped very much it wasn't true.

'Take care, then, and you know where your friends are if ever you need anything.'

'Yes.'

And where my enemies are.

Outside.

I found a telephone near the rest rooms. Cone answered at the second ring.

'For what it's worth,' I told him, 'Cat Baxter is bringing her rock group here tomorrow. The embassy's putting them up at our hotel.'

'Well, now.'

'I suggest you tell London. How is Yasolev?'

'I don't know. He's across at the Soviet Embassy.'

'Do you think he's breaking up under us?'

'I don't know. He's a very tough bloke, but he's got a very tough assignment. Thatcher and Reagan are one thing, but Gorbachev is turning half the world inside out and we don't want anyone to stop him. But that's my worry. You're still with Pollock?'

'He's just left here.'

'The Steingarten?'

'Yes.'

'And when are you leaving there?'

'Now.'

'Immediate plans?'

One, two, three: 'I'm going to see if I can get them interested.'

He didn't answer right away. 'You'll have support.'

Not really.

I said, 'Understood.'

'I want you to keep in contact.'

Said I would. What else could I say? If I made contact with him before this day's end it would simply mean I was still alive and had access to Horst Volper. If I didn't make contact then he'd have to signal London: shadow down.

I dropped the receiver back and walked through the lobby, big poster over the door — Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic! — they put it everywhere, on posters, book matches, hotel stationery, as if they might be having a little trouble getting people to believe it.

Swing doors, a woman behind me — Danke schon, bitte — and out into the street.

Felt suddenly naked, vulnerable.

The afternoon's operation was simple enough. I was going to make myself conspicuous so that they could catch me in the open and try killing me off as they tried before and I was going to give them a chance because Volper was the target for Quickstep and we didn't know where to find him and the only way to do it was to meet with his people at close quarters and ask them questions. It hadn't worked very well with Skidder but at least we'd got Werneuchen into the picture. This afternoon it might work better. But as I went down the steps onto the pavement and turned west along Dieckmannstrasse I felt so very vulnerable because they'd known I was in the Steingarten with Pollock and they could have got a hunting-rifle set up on a rooftop across the street and they could be lining up the reticle and putting pressure on the trigger spring now, and the air felt supernaturally cold and my body felt strangely light because whether you are very close to death or only think you are very close to death the nervous system reacts in precisely the same way: you go through a subtle shift in reality and feel poised, floating.