'Even though you said you were honoured to talk to her, and no doubt found her very attractive.'
'I needed sleep.' I looked at my watch. 'I'm on a plane for New York in the morning, if they've got a runway cleared.'
Then there were suddenly no more questions. He settled further back in the corner, keeping the gun in the aim and not moving his head or his eyes beyond ten degrees or so from my body. The safety catch was off and his finger was inside the trigger guard: the bullet would be in me before I could even prepare for the strike.
In the silence I sat listening to the soft hum of the heater fan.
The driver's eyes were in the mirror, watching the other man, waiting, I thought, for orders. The heavy snowflakes were steadily deepening the blanket on the bonnet of the car, jewelling it with a rainbow scintillation; some of them eddied, touching the windscreen and melting there, to leave water trails. A vision of Christmas flashed through my mind, robins and holly and candles on the tree in the firelight, reality seeking shelter.
Then the man beside me was speaking again in a monotone, watching my face now, his eyes moving from one of mine to the other. 'I don't like your story. It has many gaps, many inconsistencies, many… improvisations. I have listened to stories like yours before. I think -'
'But look, I've answered every -'
'I think you may be dangerous to certain associates of mine, and so we will remove the danger.' Flicking his eyes to the mirror, meeting the driver's. 'You know where to go.'
15: ORION
It was beautiful in the forest.
There was more light now from the sky, and its reflection on the ground gave an unearthly radiance among the trees, their tall black trunks standing in orderly ranks and supporting the weight of the snow on the branches above them.
The headlights of the Mercedes cut through this faerie, beguiling scene with an obtrusive brilliance, throwing shadows carved out of night. The silence, at this moment, was absolute. Uri, the driver, had switched off the engine and was standing off a little with the assault rifle just below the horizontal. He'd got out of the car first, of course, to cover me. The other man, Igor, was also standing in the snow, his boots deep in it; but he was closer, waiting for me to join him, the 13-shot Parabellum cradled in his right hand.
Mr Croder would not be pleased.
Flakes of snow were still floating from the sky and making the silence visual, to be listened to with the eyes. One can't watch a falling snowflake and imagine sound.
I got out of the car.
He'd ordered me home, after all, Mr Croder, and if I'd reached London in a more or less presentable condition they could at least have put that much into the records: Executive recalled, will be able to resume duties. When the AK-47 went through its rat-tat-tat routine a few minutes from now, the records would look less favourable for the Chief of Signals: Executive missing in the field, untraceable. It's every control's responsibility to bring his ferret back alive, and if he can keep on doing that it means we can think of him as an okay guy. But there would be nothing in Croder's records to show that his executive had in fact ignored his instructions and stuck his neck into a noose and paid the ultimate price, and that would be upsetting for him, and I hoped he wouldn't flay Ferris alive for letting it happen.
A mass of snow unshipped itself from a branch not far from where Uri was standing, leaving a cascade of jewels to stream through the headlight beams. Uri didn't move, or turn his head.
'Walk,' the other man told me, and shifted his gun upwards an inch.
I looked at him in silence. On the drive here from the city I'd thought out some compromises in terms of my behaviour. I had to continue playing the luckless innocent, victim of mistaken identity, because I couldn't switch now. But an innocent citizen would be going through a kicking-and-screaming fit by this time, Please, please, I've got a wife and kids, asking to be dragged out of the car by his collar and pushed headlong to his execution, You can't do this to an innocent citizen, lurching among the trees with his body heaving with sobs, so forth. This would have clouded the issue with melodrama and these people might have simply opened fire to bring the curtain down.
So I was playing it a touch more subtly, still an innocent but appalled, bewildered, numbed, speechless, and therefore non-threatening, easy to handle, just in case there was a chance.
'Walk,' the man said again.
'Walk where?' No longer capable of cogent thought.
'Into the trees. Follow the headlight beam.'
I began walking.
But there was of course no chance left of survival, none, and when this happens the psychochemistry of the doomed organism is interesting: fatalism, moving in to occupy the mind, leaves the subconscious to sort over any options that might be left, and this was happening as I made my way through the snow, my shadow stark in front of me.
They must surely send, then, this time, a rose for Moira, as a signal to let her know what had happened. This had been agreed, though she'd told me not to worry, I'd always come back.
Meanwhile follow the shadow, my shadow, and keep conscious thought aware only of the crunching of my calf-skin boots through the snow and beyond it the vast silence of the night, of the universe, leaving the gossamer-fine attentions of the subconscious to address my karma and conjure if they could a ray of light.
'Over there.'
His voice fainter, that of a character lost among the trees in the midwinter night's dream.
'Over where?'
'Stand against that tree. Face this way.'
To my aid, Oberon, if you are there.
The conscious mind fanciful, free-wheeling, stand back to the tree, this tree, this one?
The headlights dazzling; all I could see were two short figures against the snow, the one with the AK and the other one, closer, their faces blurred. I didn't think he would take an interest, the closer one, because of any avarice, but simply because of its power in the mind of man as I pulled it out of my pocket and held it up to assert its brilliance in the light, the universal power of the diamond.
The snow drifted down between us, black against the glare. Burning bright at the edge of my vision field as I went on holding it at arm's length, turning it, tilting it to make it flash. Time drew out, leaning across the silence, forgetting to count.
'What is that?'
'A diamond.'
He turned to look behind him, make sure that Uri was well positioned, then turned back and began walking towards me.
A kaleidoscope of colours freckled the snow on the ground as shards of light were sent arrowing from the gem.
Suddenly he was standing in front of me, a black silhouette against the headlights, his left hand held out, the Parabellum in the other hand, in the aim. I gave him the diamond.