'You're not from Karelia, are you?' the old man asked conversationally, without turning round.
'From the Russian part — we had to learn Russian at school.' Ozeroff was reluctant to reply. Philipson admired the story, but that small feeling was swept away as the feeling of delight overcame him, Ozeroff was here, pretending to be someone else. He concentrated on not moving, then on allowing all the tension of his frame to flow into a desultory shuffle of his feet, as if he was bored with waiting. Ozeroff did not look round.
The old man turned from the pigeon holes, and held out a letter to Ozeroff — Philipson watched as the hand came out, almost in slow-motion, to take it, then speed up as it was pocketed.
'Thank you,' Ozeroff said. 'She will be pleased to hear from her sister.'
'A pleasure,' the old man replied, staring at the breastpocket into which the letter had gone, as if envious of it or its Russian stamps. Philipson stepped aside as Ozeroff turned away and headed for the door. The old man adjusted his glasses, put his head on one side, and was about to ask Philipson what he could do for him.
Philipson said, 'Who was that letter addressed to?' The old man was taken aback. 'Quickly.' Philipson held out the Helsinki CID card that identified him as an Inspector, so that the old man adjusted his glasses once more, stared at the photograph that matched the face of the man in front of him, nodded a couple of times, and cleared his throat, as if he were about to utter a solemn promise of prayer.
'Ah, Inspector — a letter for the young man's aunt. I think the man is Russian, but he could be from Karelia, eh? The Russian part. Lots of people have crossed the border in the last-'
'He hasn't got an aunt from Karelia. Now — who was the letter for?'
Philipson tried to be neutral, because the old man ought not to remember him too clearly, for any reason — and he was staring attentively at him now, enjoying a sense of conspiracy.
'A strange name — probably a Jew, mm?'
'How would I know — you haven't told me yet.'
'Oh, sorry, Inspector. I hear myself in my head most of the time, living alone. Think I've spoken when I haven't. Fanny Kaplan — that's her name. Strange, isn't it? Fanny Kaplan.'
'Thanks. And keep this to yourself, uh?' There was no hope of it, but it had to be said.
'Of course, of course—'
The old man watched Philipson join the man filling out the form and both men as they went out of the doors, shaking his head with puzzlement, and excitement, all the time.
Outside, Greaves pointed out Ozeroff's retreating back.
'He's probably heading somewhere he can read that,' Philipson remarked. 'Unless he already knows what's in it. Let's go.'
As he went gingerly down the frozen steps, he considered the addressee of the letter with the Russian stamps. There was something familiar about the name, but he could not remember what it was. And it had nothing to do with espionage — he had a ridiculous idea that it had something to do with sixth-form history lessons. Ridiculous, of course.
'Fanny Kaplan—'
'What?' Greaves said, stepping carefully alongside him, a hundred yards behind Ozeroff.
'Look, I'll report this over the radio. Aubrey might as well know at once. You follow our chum, and I'll pick you up in the car.'
'Don't be long, then,' was all Greaves said by way of reply.
As he crossed the Mannerheimintie, Philipson tried to remember where he had heard the name before — but all he could think of was getting drunk after the school fifteen had beaten the old boy's strongest side in his last year. The history master had played at wing-forward, being an old boy. Fanny Kaplan — he could almost hear him saying it now.
Praporovich stared down from the gallery at the huge map table. He had come out of the glass booth where the computer-operators were feeding in movement reports and dispositions, because the atmosphere seemed unreal in there. The glass had become that of a soundless fish tank, and the events registering down there on the board of no more interest that gawping faces staring into the tank. Out on the gallery, there was still little noise. Each of the staff-officers round the table wore headphones and throat-mikes, and their murmurs were indistinct and desultory. But it was more real — the lights glowed more brightly, and he could see through them to the tanks and guns and ships they represented.
Pnin was across the border, taking up concealed position prior to the attack on Ivalo and the capture of the airfield. He thought of Pnin because of the trouble his rehearsals had almost caused — the other Finland Stations were also in position. Attack Force One was massed on the Kirkenes road, right up against the border with Norway. Dolohov's Red Banner Fleet units were putting to sea from ice-free Murmansk — troop-carriers and their submarine and destroyer escorts. And the submarines — the big ones, were in position at the mouths of the principal fjords all the way to Tromsø. Further to the east on the map, well inside the Soviet Union, GSFN airborne troops were being moved up to forward positions; they were less than an hour behind schedule, well within the tolerances they had set.
The size of it — the reality — ran through him with the effect of an electric shock. He could not help his features assuming a fierce smile, as if he had been confronted with some massive present in childhood, or some anticipated sexual joy as a young man. There, there Ships, tanks, APCs — the chemical platoons, because Ossipov had got it right in time and the computer programme for the use of the VX gas on each of the target areas had been transmitted to GSFN HQ. Ships, tanks, guns, men; regiments, battalions, divisions, armies; concepts, words, little pictures from old army exercises rolled through his mind in the humbled image of a dreamer.
Tomorrow.
'Very well — Kapustin, order the eliminations to be carried out! You have the list.'
Andropov watched Kapustin's back until the Deputy Chairman had closed the door behind him. Then, just as clearly, he seemed to watch his own features, though there was no mirror before him and no reflection from the polished surface of his desk. Something was happening to his face, and he could see it clearly, as if each muscular twitch and movement was a brush-stroke on the wall in front of him. His face was collapsing into a mirror of fear.
It was like a nightmare — he put up his hand to remove his glasses, because he was sweating around the eyes, then put his hand hastily away because that nakedness would have further reduced his face to a frightened blob. He remembered his trick of making the light catch his spectacles, so that his eyes disappeared into two moons of light — but there was no one to see the trick, so it would not work. His hand, then trembling. He put it away, silting on it with his thigh; and he could feel the quiver in his thigh.
Yuri Andropov, Chairman of the KGB, sat on his hands, his body hunched forward in his chair, as if he had been caned at school and was trying to still the throbbing. Yuri Andropov's face was out of control, sliding into an expression of terror at what he ordered, and its now undoubted consequences. He had just ordered the deaths of a dozen men, Yuri Andropov hated himself.
When the man died, the invasion would be stopped. It would begin. He had used the only weapon he had, murder, and it was insufficient. Just as his face was insufficiently endowed with muscular control to present another look than the one of terror he knew it was assuming.
The coup would go ahead — they knew nothing, nothing.
Vorontsyev — Major Vorontsyev. A few men, raiding a house in Leningrad. How could that stop anything? He, as Chairman, could stop nothing by ordering the deaths of Praporovich and Dolohov and a dozen generals. It could not come to good. They had left it too late. Too late. He realised, as his body calmed, and the persistent image of his collapsing features went away, that he was a fatalist. They had played and they had lost. Temerity, poor investigative technique, over-confidence — it did not matter what the reason was. They had lost.