Quiller Meridian

'Yes:'

A wry smile — 'Always tell a beginner, can't you? We overdo it, hoping people are going to notice, not many things in Moscow that'll give you status unless you're in the nomenklatura and then you'd be in a Zil. Prance along with your feet out and your pony- tail dancing and you've got it made.' she went over to the Put-U-Up and I helped her. 'Stinks of mothballs, but I suppose there are worse things.' she brought a white patched sheet and some blankets. 'If you feel like some food, just help yourself from the pantry; the fridge is empty, doesn't work. It's only local fare but the bread's terrific, of course. You'll take the call, right?'

'Yes.'

She watched me for a moment, her young and intent blue eyes showing the concern of a mother. 'You'll be all right? There are more blankets if you need them, but the stove keeps in all night.'

'Get some sleep, Jane.'

She gave a little nod and went across to the other room, her feet out and her pony-tail swinging.

I went over the map and opened the thin typed file and gave my cover a first reading: Viktor K. Shokin, forty-two, married to Natalia Yelina, nee Maslennikova, two children, boy and girl, Yuri and Masha, six and seven. Brief history of schooling, university, first job as a stringer for a local newspaper and then a stint as copy-boy in the Pravda overseas office before joining the reconstituted Tass agency.

A lump of coke fell inside the big cast-iron stove and sparks lit the mica window. I thought I heard Jane and Amy talking, or it could have been some people in another flat.

Favourite sport, football, no hobbies, slight knowledge of English, Russian Orthodox.

It was just gone 3:15 when I dropped the file onto the floor and switched the lamp off and heard a spring twang as I lay down and started memorizing the cover, giving it another ten minutes. The voices had stopped, and through the small high window the snow drifted in silhouette, black against the haze of the city lights, and the last thing I saw was the steady green glow of the LED on the scrambler over there, and the last thought I had was about the other reason that might have delayed Zymyanin's getting into contact with us again: he could have set up the kill himself at the rendezvous in Bucharest and could be busy setting up another one, for me.

Chapter 3: ROSSIYA

'I broke K-15,' she said, and tilted the frying pan to get the butter over the eggs.

'Oh, Jesus,' I said, 'and you were trying to impress me by walking like a duck.'

'Thought I'd kind of steal up on you.'

K-15 was a hands-on but much-used Soviet code that the people in Codes and Cyphers at the Bureau had been trying to break for three years. I knew it had been done but I'd thought it was in London.

'Another egg?' Jane asked.

'If you can spare one.'

'No problem,' she said. 'Blackmarket.'

I didn't know when I was going to eat again. There'd been two signals from Control earlier this morning but Zymyanin still hadn't made contact. It was just gone eight, and the clothing shop wouldn't open until nine. 'Even if then,' Jane had said. 'We might have to bash at the back door.'

'You worked on it at the embassy here?' I asked her. On K-15.

'Yes. I'd be an infant prodigy in maths, if I were an infant. When I was six I used to finish Dad's crossword puzzles for him when he was at the office, made him furious. And they were in The Times.'

At the scrubbed pinewood table she said, 'Ketchup? I also created Mystere.' she watched me for my reaction.

'Did you, now.'

Mystere was also a hands-on code, non-computerized, and C and C had brought in a man from the Foreign Office to try breaking it. He hadn't managed it so far but when he did we'd destroy it, because if he could break it so could the Soviets, or someone else.

'I got it from my typewriter,' Jane said.' Or that started me off. I use a Canon AP810-III, and I was changing the ribbon when I noticed the characters on the old one. It's a wide ribbon and they're not in a single-line row, it prints three characters vertically, shifts — wait a minute — ' she reached for her pad and got a pencil — ' it prints three characters vertically downwards, then shifts one space to the right and prints upwards again, three — ' she glanced up at me — ' am I being an infant prodigy all over you?'

'I've worked on codes,' I said. 'I'm interested.'

'All right. Three down, then shift, three up, shift, three down again, like this. And if you read it like that, it makes sense, but we always read in a single line from left to right, and that looked like gibberish, and it suddenly struck me — I was looking at a code.' she put the pencil down and bit on some toast and munched it. 'But if we, say, typed the words, oh, I dunno, "if you like", the «y» comes at the bottom of the first vertical and the «o» comes at the bottom of the next one, and there aren't too many ordinary words beginning with «yo» except for «you» — and you start getting the drift. So at the top and bottom of every vertical I inserted a blind character to break the rhythm, and that was much nicer.' she sat back and looked at me. 'Had enough?'

'No.'

' Glutton for punishment. So I 'm reading three horizontal lines of code and I'm not picking up clues from the verticals because of the blinds. At that stage it would have taken a bright teenager maybe half an hour to break, so I threw in a reverse-direction read-out and put it on the standard grid and went for three-character alphabetical substitutes and froze it. Mystere!' she shook her pony-tail. 'God, don't tell the man in London.' Her eyes were suddenly deep, their colour darkening. 'Or anyone.'

'I'm offended,' I said.

'Sorry.' she drew a breath, let it out. 'I want that one to run for ever.'

'It probably will.'

'I shouldn't think so. I mean, basically it's terribly simple. But it touched my funny-bone to think of all those typists out there — it's probably the same with any typewriter, not just a Canon — using the basis for Mystere when they're ordering another consignment of paperclips or whatever. More toast?'

'No, I've finished. Are you working on anything new, at the — ' then the phone rang and I went over to it while Jane cleared the table.

'We've found Zymyanin.' It wasn't Medlock's voice; this was the man on the day shift, and I recognized him because he'd been on the board for Solitaire, name was Carey. 'He's still in Moscow.'

'He made contact?'

'No. We had him traced — he went to his base in Lenin Prospekt.'

'He's worked with us before?'

In a moment, 'He's Bureau, but rather a lone wolf.' He didn't query the fact that I hadn't been briefed on Zymyanin, didn't want to tread on any toes. 'We've got a watch on him, and when he moves, we'll let you know. We think he's frightened, you see.'

'Yes.' It was possible that Jane didn't know Zymyanin, and couldn't have briefed me. Croder would have assumed I could trust him to know that the Soviet was reliable. But it made me uneasy: I didn't much care for lone wolves in a sensitive field like Moscow.

'But he should come round, in good time. If he doesn't ask for a rendezvous you'll have to make your own way. We'll keep you posted as to his movements. Don't leave the phone.'

I told him I'd got to go and find some clothes.

'Okay, but there's an answering machine, right?'

'Yes.'

'Keep as close as you can, though, in case he suddenly takes off somewhere.'

I said I'd do that.

'Any questions?' Carey asked me.

'No, but you can look after a couple of things for me. Was Hornby married?'

'Yes.'

'Send some flowers, will you?'

'How much for?'

'Oh, twenty pounds.'

'Name on the card?'

'Put anything. She doesn't know me.'

'Will do.'