Foster was looking into his tumbler. In a moment he said idly: 'They found a man this afternoon. In a lavatory.' He looked at me and I saw that a certain shine had come to his eyes under their puffy lids. He didn't like what I'd said about his contract and he didn't like his people being found like that. My anger was counterfeit but his was the real thing and I was going to keep working on it because in anger the judgement suffers.
'That was your own fault — I told you not to let them get in my way. You're slipping, you know that? What are you by this time, a bottle-a-day man? They all go like that once they're blown.' I went close to him and he didn't look away. 'The trouble with you Slavs is that you can't stand back far enough to get a world view. The Bonn proposals have opened up the chance of an East-West detente that could wipe out a lot of the mutual fear that's keeping both camps with one hand on the hot-line telephone and the other on the nuclear trigger and all you can worry about is a thug found dead in a lavatory.'
I could hear movement behind me. Voskarev, getting restless. It was a fair bet he understood English and didn't like what he heard because Comrade Colonel Foster was their blue-eyed boy and I didn't sound too impressed.
They can't stand heresy.
Foster was perfect. Give him that. He took a sip of whisky and savoured it and said mildly: 'All I mean is, old boy, that you must have been rather keen to go off on your own, which makes it difficult for us to believe you've nothing to hide from us. Why did you have to — '
'Listen, Foster.' I turned away and moved about so that I could keep them all in sight: it wasn't the time for anyone to do something silly. 'I told you there are one or two Czyn units still intact and I had to go and talk to them and I didn't intend exposing them to your people so that you could give orders to have them wiped out. They trust me and that might be a new idea to a man like you but it's a fact of life. If you've any more stupid bloody questions I don't want to hear them now because Warsaw's going to blow up if we don't do something to stop it and we haven't got long.'
I went over to the trolley and found some soda and hit the tit and drank a glassful. It was very quiet in the room.
'You'd better be more specific.'
'Now you're talking.' I turned back to him. 'Did you bring in Ludwiczak for me?'
'He's on his way.'
'But I told you to fly him in and that was thirty hours ago!'
'It's not really the problem of transport. There are always formalities.'
'How long's he going to be kept hanging around while they're filling in forms? He's our key man and we can't do much without him. Can't you phone someone?’
He spoke to Voskarev in Russian and he stopped staring at the wall and picked up the telephone. Merrick had left his chair and stood with his back to us and I heard the atomiser pumping. The guard was still by the door.
I had to do it now and the sweat was coming out because if it didn't work first time it wouldn't ever work at all and I watched Voskarev at the phone as if it was important that Ludwiczak was here.
He spoke to Foster, not to me.
'They are bringing him through the airport.'
Foster nodded and looked at me to see if I understood.
'We can't wait for him,' I said. 'You'd better leave orders that he's to be brought here and kept under close guard till we get back.'
The pain in my head was starting again and the bruises along my arms felt like muscular fever.
'We're not,' Foster said gently, 'going anywhere.' I shrugged, looking at my watch.
'Do it your way, I'm easy, but the Praga Commissariat's due to go up in an hour from now. I make it 21:05 hours, that about right?'
'To go up?'
His tone was extra sleepy and that was all right: he was absorbing reaction.
'It's detonated for 22:00 hours.'
He glanced at the gilt sunburst clock. 'Oh is it?'
I saw Voskarev transferring his stare to Foster. He understood English all right.
Foster drained his tumbler and took it across to the trolley, his steps short and with a slight spring to them. He nodded as Voskarev went to the telephone, then turned back to me.
'What sort of detonators are they?'
'Ludwiczak could tell us that. I'd imagine they're radio-controlled like the ones at the Tamka power-station. I suppose the police found that stuff there, did they?'
'They did, yes.'
He watched me attentively, no smile now, the eyes less sleepy.
'Fair enough. Tamka was for midnight.'
He nodded. 'Yes, they told us. Nobody told us about the Commissariat.'
'Then you're lucky.'
Voskarev was speaking in Polish, quite fast and with a lot of authority. When he'd put the phone down he got his coat and the heavy black briefcase that had been resting against the chair.
Foster hesitated and I knew why. The Praga Commissariat was his base and he'd got to get in there and out again while the walls were still standing.
Then he got his coat.
'I want you to come with us. I want to talk to you on the way.'
'I thought maybe you would.'
The courtyard was cobbled and the big saloon drifted a bit on the snow in spite of its chains.
Foster took the occasional seat and sat hanging on to the looped strap as we turned east towards Praga. He spoke more quickly than usual and his eyes were alert.
'You weren't actually sent from London to take any kind of action against Czyn?'
'I told you what had come up.'
'Yes, but keep on filling me in, will you?'
'There's nothing new except that my people have started panicking at the last minute because the F.O.'s putting pressure on them. First they told me to explore and report on the Czyn situation and then they began chucking fully urgent signals for me to assist and advise the U.B. and now I'm apparently expected to keep the lid on Warsaw single-handed, their usual bloody style. I opted to co-operate with you off my own bat, why should I skin my nose on the grindstone while you sit on your arse?'
He gave a brief smile but the nerves still showed through it. 'I've hardly been doing that. I think. We've quite a big problem here, and I don't expect you to understand its proportions. These urgent signals,' he said with polite interest, 'didn't reach you through the British Embassy, I suppose?'
'Oh Christ,' I said and we both laughed.
It was a private joke: we were two seasoned professionals and shared the understanding of our trade and our trade was deception so I knew what he was doing: he was testing his own agent, Merrick. 'Of course they didn't. He would have passed you the dupes.'
'I just wondered.!
'Give the little bastard his due: he did a first-class op. for you and if London hadn't sent me new orders it would have been chop-chop and no flowers, you know that. Surely that's worth at least a lance-corporalship in the Red Army?'
He laughed again but it didn't have quite the same sound because he knew I was guying his colonelcy.
I wiped the steam off the window and looked out at the people along the pavements. The reaction was starting to set in, the delayed shock of what had happened in the station buffet. One minute I was watching Merrick and feeling glad that he'd soon be back in London and safety and the next minute I was trying to absorb the realisation that his job in Warsaw had been to cut me down and trap me for the K.G.B.
I hadn't thought about it since it had happened because there hadn't been time: it had floated in my head like a nightmare you can't remember in detail but can remember having had. I was thinking of Egerton now, rather than Merrick. Egerton with his chilblains and his prim confidence in what he was doing: he's been fully screened, of course, I've no intention of saddling you with a potential risk.