Quiller KGB

The feeling of dread persisting, haunting the nerves, the bruise on the hip a reminder of how close they'd come, how close they would come again.

The traffic across the bridge was light; there was no one walking: it was too cold. Below the balustrade the black waters of the river glittered from bank to bank with the lights of the city, and the air was freezing, here in the open away from the buildings. I walked steadily, meaning to go as far as Puschkin Allee and then make a loop and turn back on my tracks and make a run for it, a very fast run that might bring just one of them, only one of them close to me where I could work on him; but they were getting impatient now and I could see three of them ahead of me at the far end of the bridge and when I looked behind me there were two more and the profile of the BMW gathering speed and I felt the rush of adrenalin and the sour taste in the mouth at the onset of fear as I reached the middle of the bridge and they began shutting the trap.

13: PICKPOCKET

Smell of burning flesh; it clung to my coat.

'Have you got anyone in the field?'

More police cars were going in to the bridge; I couldn't see them from here but I could hear their sirens.

'I did have.'

Cone.

There was still the glow of the fire on the wall of the building opposite.

'Have you got anyone in the field now?'

I was furious.

'I can't say.'

Bastard was stonewalling.

People standing outside the apartment block, staring in the direction of the bridge, the light of the flames on their faces.

'Look, I want an answer.'

'I haven't got one.'

The more you push Cone the harder he is to move. But then they're all like that, the directors in the field, because part of their job is to handle their executives when there's a flap on and they're halfway up the wall.

'Why not?'

'You got rid of one,' he said quietly, 'but there might be a few others in your zone. I can't say for sure unless one of them signals. What happened?'

'One of the tags got snatched.'

'One of their tags?'

'Yes.'

In a moment, 'How close were you?'

'I was halfway across Elsenbridge and they got him at one end.'

'Car?'

'Yes.'

'Police car?'

'It could've been, yes, unmarked.'

I hadn't seen anything close. The car had come past the BMW accelerating hard and then it had slewed to a halt by the three men and then there were two. The BMW had done a lot of wheelspin and got there in time but the other car had swung full circle and hit the tail-end and sent it rolling, and that was when the tank had gone up.

'Was there any other action?'

I told him.

'Do you think they might've been going to rush you?'

'Possibly.'

'Then what are you complaining about?'

'Oh, for Christ's sake, you know the operation I'm doing and you know how it works. If — '

'I haven't got a vehicle of any kind,' he said, 'in the field.'

'Then it must have been Yasolev.'

'Not necessarily.'

'Who else?'

The glow had gone from the building, and the people were going back into the apartments. But that awful smell was still on my coat, sickening me. I'd walked past the burning car on the other side of the bridge when the fire crews were working there, and the air had been heavy with smoke and fumes. One of them had been trapped inside, one of Volper's men.

'I don't know who else,' I heard Cone saying, 'but we've got a lot of interested parties, haven't we? The KGB, the HUA, and whatever other enemies Horst Volper might have in the field. We can trip over anyone at all in the day's work.'

It sounded as if he were putting smoke out, covering tracks, steering me away from the subject. I didn't know Cone very well but it sounded like that.

'Look, I want you to see Yasolev. I can't talk to him direct because I haven't got time. There are three tags still with me and I'm going on trying.'

One of them across at the intersection using a parked van for cover; two of them in the opposite direction, a little way along Puschkin Allee, one on each side of the street.

'What do you want me to tell him?'

'This is the thing: Yasolev could've decided to use me as a decoy to draw those people into the street, with the idea of snatching some of them. That's what might have happened just now on the bridge. The man they took is probably in an interrogation room now, being worked over. If that's what Yasolev is doing I want you to tell him he's cutting right across my operation and breaking our agreement. Tell him that we'll stay out here for just as long as he keeps his word and no longer.'

An ambulance turned off the bridge and headed south from the intersection; it wasn't using its codes; there'd be only the burned corpse inside. I didn't know whose it was, who the man had been, but he was possibly one of the tags I'd seen before on foot, or one of the two who'd followed me into the cafe. Life was that short, this afternoon, and the work wasn't finished yet.

'Would it be that bad an idea?' Cone said.

'Using me as a decoy?'

'Yes.'

'If all Yasolev wanted was a decoy he could've used any one of his peons, half a dozen at a time if they got wiped out.'

'But they wouldn't, would they? They wouldn't have your status. Volper's afraid you might infiltrate his operation and destroy it, so he wants to get you first — it's that simple. So you're the only decoy worth sending his people out for.'

''That's all I am, then? A fucking duck?'

'Now there speaks a proud man.'

God damn his eyes.

'I like to think,' I said, 'that I've got more effective uses.' But it didn't carry conviction because he was right: my professional pride was getting in the way.

'Look at it like this,' Cone said quietly. 'You didn't get much out of that man Skidder. I think Yasolev feels that one of his people could've got more. You stand a chance of nabbing one of those tags today and grilling him, but so does Yasolev, if his idea is to do it first, using you as the decoy. And I'm not sure you'd agree that the KGB doesn't know how to interrogate people.'

Cold. By Christ it was cold standing here at this bloody telephone, the air coming in waves from the freezing river. But that wasn't the worst of it; the worst was the chill of horror creeping through the nerves. Not horror, quite — revulsion, a feeling not coming from the brain stem but the neocortex, philosophical, sophisticated; an awareness of the difference between driving myself to the brink of extinction on my own responsibility and being driven there by someone else, Yasolev, as a matter of cold-blooded expedience.

'You've got a point,' I said, 'but if that's what Yasolev is doing he should have put it to me first and asked for my approval instead of breaking our contract. Tell him that. Tell him my life's on the line and not his. And tell him that if he wants to use me as a pawn across the board he's got the wrong man and he'll have to get another one for Quickstep — if he can.'

Silence for a while, except for scratchy background on the line. The tag on the other side of the intersection wasn't alone any more.

'Understood,' Cone said at last. 'But I've got a question. What are you going to do now?'

'Keep going. I've got them in the zone and there's still a chance of bringing one of them down.'

'Keep in touch,' he said, and rang off.

It was past ten o'clock when they tried again.

Earlier, I was hungry, and had some potato soup in a place in Baum-Schulenweg further down the river. Earlier, I was cold and afraid, and went into a library for warmth, to experience the feeling of air that didn't paralyse the face, and to experience the atmosphere of the social norm, wherein ordinary people sat reading books or the papers, instead of seeing a movie, or instead of walking the streets from shadow to shadow, cold and afraid.