Quiller Balalaika

I told Ferris: 'I can't see him leaving you out here with no executive and no mission.'

'There's a chance.'

'All right. Try.'

The flat of his hand came down softly on the table and he let out a breath. 'Let us pray, then, for Balalaika.' It was the closest, in my experience, Ferris had ever got to showing the slightest emotion.

'Amen.'

But I didn't think there was going to be any dancing in the streets. No control of Croder's stature would take kindly to his executive going to ground on his own decision: it was the ultimate offence, implying distrust and indiscipline.

'I'll give you three days,' Ferris said. 'Unless of course the Chief extends that.'

'I'll signal you.'

Headlights swung across the window again and he watched the wall. Then the lights were doused and a car door slammed and a man came in, stomping the snow off his boots.

'D'you need anything more to eat?' Ferris asked me.

'No.'

'Then we'll go.' He nodded to the man as we made for the door and he followed us out. 'This is Dr Westridge,' Ferris told me, 'from the UK embassy.'

Jolly and red-faced, despite the hour. 'And this is the patient?'

Yes.'

'Let's get into my car,' Westridge said. 'There's all my gear in there.'

'Look,' I said, 'I'm perfectly -'

'Just for the moment,' Ferris cut across me, 'you're under my instructions, so get in.'

Westridge got his bag and opened it. 'Been in the wars a bit, have we?'

'Not really.' God protect me from jolly red-faced men at three-thirty in the morning. 'I need some sleep, that's all.'

'Don't we all! Let's have your wrist.'

Three days. That was generous of Ferris. I could check out my one frail lead in less than twenty-four hours. 'What's that?' I asked Westridge.

He pushed the air out of the syringe. 'Tetanus. Sleeve up, which arm is it to be?'

We took it from there, the knee jerk reaction, flashlight in my eyes, tongue out, blood pressure, 'Still feel a bit skew-whiff, do we?'

'Just need sleep.'

'No giddiness when you stand up? Headache?'

'I feel like shit.'

A breezy chuckle. 'Well that's putting it in a nutshell! Now hold your hand still, you'll just feel a little prick, that's all.' I didn't say anything, didn't feel like jokes. 'Tell me when the numbness sets in,' he said.

Snow drifted across the windscreen. 'Is that it?' I asked Ferris.

'What?' He swung his head to look. 'Yes.'

Mercedes SL-4 E, black, two-door, Moscow plates. 'Got a phone?'

Ferris looked at me and said nothing, looked away. Point taken: did I really think he'd fix me up with transport that didn't have a telephone? He's always good at the touche, however long it takes.

'Gone dead,' I told Westridge.

'That's the stuff. Now hold still. What did you cut your hand on?'

'Glass.'

'Clean glass?'

'Some alcohol around.'

'Good, I've always said Chivas Regal's the best antiseptic. Bar-room brawl, was it?' A gusty laugh. 'Lucky you didn't get into anything worse than that, in this fair city. You hear about Seidov, the banker?'

'Car bomb,' Ferris said, 'I believe.'

'Second in a week, and he was the head of the Moskva Trust.' The curved needle and its thread went in again.

'Known for his defiance of the mafiyosa, it just isn't worth it, pay them and cut your losses. Hurt?'

'What?'

'Still numb, is it?'

'Yes.'

He got out some Band-Aids. 'Any more cuts anywhere, grazes, bruises, joints feel limber?'

'I'm fine.' Got him in focus again.

'That's the stuff! Now go and get some shut-eye, do you the world ofgood.'

When we got out ofhis car Ferris asked me, 'You all right to drive?'

'Yes.'

'Follow you up?'

'There's no need. Look,' I said as Westridge left us standing in a cloud of exhaust gas, 'how will I know if Croder drops me cold and calls you in?'

Ferris looked at me, his eyes amber now under the street light. You'll know,' he said, 'when you signal me and there's no answer.'

13: MARIUS

She danced prettily, Antanova.

I watched her through the pearl-framed opera glasses, alone in the box on the second tier. Her glissades wereenchanting, but she lacked the strength for the grands fetes, her balance wavering a little. In any case it was her face I was interested in.

They're for Sakkas' mistress, I'd told Vishinsky in the hotel. The diamonds.

Antanova?

Yes.

One name to conjure with, in all Moscow. The floor of my new safe-house had been littered with ballet programmes when I'd left there; I'd got them this morning from the Tourist Bureau.

In any case – Vishinsky – he never lets Natalya wear jewellery. To Sakkas she's cattle.

Out of the seven major ballet companies I'd found twelve Antanovas, nine of them in the corps de ballet, three of them soloists, one of them with the first name of Natalya, appearing in Giselle at the Metropolitan.

An entrechat cinque, prettily done. The theatre was overheated, and women with bare shoulders and diamante necklaces were fanning themselves. The performance had been running for an hour.

I'd arrived thirty minutes before curtain-up, taking off my overcoat and leaving it in the Mercedes, going across to the stage door in the overalls I was wearing underneath.

'I'm here to fix Antanova's car,' I told the stage doorkeeper. 'Which one is it?'

'What?'

Hard of hearing, a drip on his nose, his hands chilblained. I told him again.

'There are two Antanovas,' he said, 'in the company.'

'Natalya.'

'The BMW.'

'There are three BMWs out there.'

'The gunmetal-grey coupe.'

'Are you sure?' This was important.

He stared at me, rheumy-eyed, as if I were mental. 'I know all their cars,' he said, and picked up his newspaper again, shaking it out.

Snow was whirling under the lights as I went back to the Mercedes; it had been coming down harder in the past hour; the forecast had warned of a blizzard moving in before midnight. I peeled off the overalls, pulling my dinner jacket straight and checking the tie, putting on the overcoat and walking down the pavement for half a block to the first taxi in the rank, giving the driver a $50-note and telling him what I wanted him to do.

'I'm going to lose a fare,' he said, 'when the audience turns out, this snow and all.'

I was ready for this and gave him another $50. 'Do it right, or I'll skin your hide.'

'I don't think there'll be any problem.'

I didn't let the thought worry me, as I sat watching the exquisite Antanova, that the whole of the mission could now depend on whether that driver out there did exactly what I'd told him to do. Go anywhere near the stage door or remain in sight and he'd blow Balalaika.

Another glissade, this one enough to catch the breath. If Natalya Antanova was working to become a prima ballerina, what was she doing with a man like Sakkas?

I didn't hurry when the curtain came down; she'd take a little time getting the grease paint off. People were bunching on the pavement outside the vestibule as the limousines and taxis came rolling in, forming a double lane. My driver wasn't among them.

I was sitting in the Mercedes when the dancers came through the stage door, seeing the snow and hunching forward as they crossed to their cars. With their fur collars raised to shield their faces I wouldn't have recognized Antanova, had to wait until she reached her BMW and saw the taxi blocking it in and turned to look around for the driver.