Or at least try.
They didn't know enough about me but they'd know enough to damn me, to kill me, once I'd found my way inside. All they'd need to know was that I was trying to blow up their programme, the second one, the silent one. Then they'd knock me off. They'd set the trap and that was all they'd had to do: they knew, as I knew now, that I'd have to spring it myself, and hope to survive.
The main line station was three blocks from the hotel and I walked there. I'd had to get free of the claustrophobic confines of Room 54 and I'd had to take a first step towards their base and this was it.
He was a thin quick-eyed boy with a lot on his nerves and I'd have preferred an older man but there was only one rank and his beaten-up two-door Wolga stood at the head of it and I didn't want to waste any time.
'Hotel Kuznia.'
The smell of burnt clutch linings filtered through the ripped carpet. After two blocks I told him to pull in.
'This isn't the Kuznia. It's farther on.'
He watched me in the cracked mirror.
'You can leave your engine running.' We spoke in Polish and I let my accent show. 'How much would it cost to hire you for the rest of the day?' It didn't matter how much it would cost because that bloody woman was going to pay the bill anyway but I didn't want him to think I was a madman. Only a madman would commit himself too this kind of expense without asking how many noughts there were: that would be his point of view because he was half starved and I wanted to keep him with me.
'I'm on the station run. You'll have to get one from Orbis.'
'They're shut today.'
It was still there so we were all right.
'I can't help that.'
'Five hundred zlotys. That's fair.'
'I haven't got a licence, only for station runs.'
'You can check in at intervals. Your friends'll cover you.'
He twisted in the seat and looked at me. 'There's rules and I'm not breaking them.'
'You'll be breaking a few on Wednesday.'
His young mouth tightened. We listened to the ragged beat of the engine. He didn't look away. I said: 'Put it this way: if you'll keep your car at my disposal you'll be helping things along, firing the first shot. You shouldn't miss a chance like that.'
'I don't know what you're talking about'
'You see that big Moskwicz over there? I want you to keep it in sight when it leaves the Commissariat. I want to know where it goes, that's all. You're lucky, you know, got a chance of being a hero of the revolution. But you'll have to do what I tell you. Go on past the Kuznia and make a turn before the bridge and come back and stop when I say the word.'
He licked his thin lips, looking away, looking back at me. 'Show me your papers.'
They didn't mean anything except that I wasn't a Russian but that was enough. He took his time, just for the look of the thing, and I knew he was hooked. They were dreaming of Sroda, those who were left, and I was bringing it closer for him.
I put my passport away. 'When you can do it without anyone seeing, break another hole in the front of your driving-seat and put the gun in there. If you leave it where it is now they'll find it without even trying, and you haven't got a licence for that either.'
He stuffed the yellow duster on top of the bulge in the side-pocket and his quick eyes flicked to the mirror. 'You don't miss much.'
'You're up against people a lot smarter than I am so you'd better watch it, that's all.'
The smell of the clutch rose again. There weren't any chains on but we wouldn't need any. The filthy snow was permanently rutted now along the major streets and the trick was to settle into them and find traction on the bare tarmac in the troughs. He turned at the bridge and came back.
'Pull in here.'
We waited nearly an hour. They came down the steps together, Foster empty-handed, the agent with a full briefcase. I couldn't see the guard at the entrance from here but I knew all I needed to know about him: he was civil police, not military, revolver, not rifle, and his post was inside the main doors on the left-hand side going up. There wouldn't be any trouble with him because when I went in there I wouldn't be alone
At this time, 15:40, I didn't have an alternative operation worked out but there'd have to be one because the thing was so sticky with risks.
'Not yet. Give them a minute.'
It really was the most disgusting design, the rear windows like nostrils and domed hubcaps protruding like warts.
'Now.'
East and north at the first lights and then left again, back towards the Slasko-Dabrowski Bridge. There was more traffic than usual towards the city centre: a lot of the people here for the talks were using their first Sunday for sightseeing in taxis and Orbis cars.
'Don't get too close.'
'I don't want to lose it.'
'You won't lose it. It's like a bloody elephant.'
Orbis was no use to me. You'd got to present your papers and let them record the details and that was how I'd blown the Longstreet cover. Blow the Dollinger and there wouldn't be time to get another one before Sroda and Sroda was the deadline, three days from now. Fast driving didn't figure in the operation I was now setting up but if something came unstuck and I had to do some it would have to be in a private banger, whatever I could pinch.
The Bureau wouldn't like that. You were aware of the. strict standing orders that in all circumstances the property of private citizens must be considered inviolable.
Memo to Controclass="underline" Since the private citizens of Warsaw were filling the detention cells at the rate of a hundred per day a fair percentage of motor vehicles parked in the streets were going to stay there until their blocks froze so I respectfully suggest you go and commit a nuisance.
'Hotel Cracow.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Go on past.'
It was an old building in the grand style not far from the river and the Moskwicz had turned through massive gates into a courtyard. As we came abreast I took a look and told him to pull in.
After the fumes inside the Wolga the air was fresh. The gates hadn't been shut for a long time: the traffic going through had gradually spread the tarmac to the sides and against their rusted bolts. Half a dozen cars in the courtyard, one of them abandoned, the marks of birds' feet across the thick snow on its roof and bonnet, the block presumably frozen. No one about, no one on foot. The hotel took up one entire wing of the building, mullioned lattices and a hewn portico, griffons rampant, part of the fifteen per cent of the city that didn't have to be rebuilt after the bomb doors had closed again.
Foster and the agent were going up the steps and the driver and escort were sitting behind the windscreen with nothing to do but watch people and in a routine situation I would have spent an hour doing this, hanging about for cover and using the rules, but there wasn't enough time and I had to rely on risky premises: that the driver and escort were a relief shift or if they were the two who had driven me across the Slasko-Dabrowski yesterday morning that they hadn't got a good look at me. They were taking a good look at me now but they could have seen me actually coming through the gates and that had been the point beyond which I couldn't have turned and gone back so I kept on and made for the entrance with the image rearranged, shoulders a little hunched and the pace shortened, head down in thought, one of the habitual clientele with no more interest in the aspect of the place.
They were going into one of the lifts and I turned to stamp the snow off my shoes and then went to the desk.
'Would you have a private suite for one week beginning next Wednesday? For two people.'
A quick glance down. It didn't matter how well trained they were: mention that day and there was a reaction. He was wondering how I'd manage to reach here through the barricades.