It is said that Sinitsin was in Buenos Aires when one of our people got on to his track and was found the next day in the wreck of an elevator in the Hotel Conquistador with his spine driven upwards into his skull.
Tilson says that Sinitsin was involved in the assassinations of General Batista, President Sri Phouma and Minister of State Hasan Kazan, and that he personally despatched two gentleman acquaintances of Eva Peron in the hope of receiving her favours in their place.
"Not permitted," he said.
The small Korean interpreter, a cripple with thick glasses, put it straight into Chinese for Tung Kuo-feng.
Igor Sinitsin didn't look like the archetypal KGB officer; when I had come into the room with Tung five minutes ago I'd thought at first glance that he was a Scandinavian; of middling height, he was quick-moving and rather graceful, striking poses to suit what he was saying: feet equally balanced when he was being firm, as he was now; one leg bent and arms folded pensively when he considered. His eyes were light blue and he had the attractively crumpled features of an experienced ladies' man, not unlike Philby's; he dressed casually and at some cost: a silk scarf tucked inside the open neck of a Cardin shirt, the grey alpaca suit from Savile Row and the thin gold watch from Cartier's; this, anyway, was the impression they gave and the impression he wanted to create; for a ruthless KGB colonel it amounted almost to a disguise.
"You will have to permit it," the interpreter said in Russian, turning from Tung to Sinitsin.
The tension in the room was increasing rapidly; it had begun when Tung had brought me in here to find Sinitsin and his two aides sitting near one of the big radio transceivers. They had all stood up, less out of courtesy, I think, than out of an unwillingness to be caught off their guard; whether Tung carried some kind of ninja weapon in the folds of his robe or not, they were uneasy in his presence, perhaps because they sensed the same powerful emanations of ki that had seemed to throw me against the wall not long ago.
He had made the introductions through the interpreter: Mr West of British Intelligence, Colonel Igor Sinitsin of the KGB and his aides, Major Petr Alyev and Captain Viktor Samoteykin. The aides looked more traditional, with flat Slav faces and badly fitting suits; their expression hadn't changed during the introductions. Sinitsin had studied me with interest for a moment and then given me a brief energetic nod as from one professional to another; he hadn't bothered to hide the impression that as soon as possible he would have me shot dead. This wasn't only because I'd killed that marksman out there; in our trade the opposite numbers in the field don't bear each other any grudge, and there's even a degree of respect on an impersonal level; but the KGB have had their knife into me ever since I wiped out their Colonel Vader, right on his home ground in Dzerzhinsky Square: his own bloody fault, he shouldn't have tried to throw me into a political asylum, but it had really got them on the raw, and when I'd looked into Sinitsin's light blue eyes for the first time I'd known his thoughts.
"You will have to permit it," I heard the interpreter saying in Russian, "because otherwise our operation will be increasingly endangered." This was from Tung Kuo-feng.
After Tung had used the force of his ki against me as a warning that I must not try to kill him, we'd talked for only a few minutes longer. "I am taking you to the operations room," he had said, "to meet the Soviet contingent. I have decided not to attempt persuading them into accepting your cover as a NATO officer. Instead I am going to use you against them, and for this your true identity is essential."
Then he had briefed me.
We were still standing, all of us; the light was brighter in here than it had been in Tung's chamber; they'd set up two butane lamps, one on each side of the radio console, which was mounted on a wooden trestle; the light was bright and harsh, and shadows were sharp against the walls. This place wasn't an enclosed room but a kind of hall, with open arches at one end and massive double doors at the other, and iron sconces along the walls where the flames of oil lamps had left patches of soot on the ancient stones. In one corner a huge bench bore what looked like wooden printing blocks, carved with the letters of the Buddhist scriptures; along the main wall stood a hearth built of carved stone with a Buddha at each end, flanked by two faded tapestries.
The heat of the day was still in the building, and the night air was still; through the archways I could see two figures moving as the moonlight sent an occasional reflection from the weapons they were carrying: from this distance they looked like submachine guns. One of those men would be Yang.
He too was waiting to kill me.
Tung was talking again through the interpreter, whose accent I recognised as North Korean. "Since this agent arrived from London, my action group has come under increasing difficulties. I have been told that other members of his cell are now dangerously close to infiltrating our operation."
Sinitsin was listening carefully; the interpreter had run into trouble two or three times, hesitating while he looked for the right word, his dark head going down each time as if he were listening. He was good at his job: he knew what the situation was and he didn't try to alter the mood between Tung and Sinitsin by adding courtesies: when the Russian had said "Not permitted," a moment ago, the interpreter had spoken what sounded like only one word to the Chinese; in the same way, he'd told Sinitsin: "You will have to permit it," without any embroidery. The trouble he was running into was unavoidable even for an expert: the proximity of Korea and mainland China has led, over the centuries, to a degree of lingual transmigration; but the Russian influence in Communist North Korea has added specialist terms, particularly in the intelligence field, and the young crippled interpreter had probably had to change «Triad» to "action group" and come up with the strictly specialist phrase "infiltrating our operation" for Sinitsin's benefit.
The interpreter was also scared; not perhaps by the personalities of either man as such, but by the atmosphere of tension that was affecting all of us. In the confrontation that Tung Kuo-feng had started when he'd brought me in here, either he or Sinitsin would finally have to back down, and I couldn't imagine either of them doing that.
"If your operation is close to being infiltrated," the KGB Colonel said, "then you must take the necessary action." His ice blue eyes were levelled at Tung over his folded arms.
"Our operation" had become "your operation". Noted. The Russian connection was telling the Chinese end that they expected the goods delivered, regardless of obstacles.
"British Intelligence," the interpreter said as he swung from Tung to Sinitsin like a duellist, "has a high reputation for its activities against the Soviets in the Cold War, with notable successes."
"The high reputation of British Intelligence is going to need a little adjusting, if the Soviets, keep up their notable success in turning homosexuals among the intelligentsia into serviceable moles for Moscow."
Sinitsin didn't glance at me; he had no reason to believe I understood Russian.
Tung left it alone. "My action group has reported to me that our operation is in jeopardy. At this stage, when we are halfway to success in our intentions, it would be invaluable to use this agent for our purposes, and I am confident that someone of your status in the intelligence field will recognise the opportunity."
The twin reflections of the interpreter's glasses swung across the wall as he turned his head back and forth against the hard light of the gas lamps.
"This is why you asked me not to kill him?"
"Yes."
"What do you suggest he signals?"
"Disinformation."
"To the effect?"