Quiller Balalaika Read online

  I got out and went up the soaked strip of red carpet they'd laid across the snow under the canopy. The two escort vehicles had peeled off when we'd pulled away from the church: they'd been there to protect the rendezvous, nothing else. From now on I'd be working solo.

  It didn't mean, I thought as I went through the revolving door, that Croder had checked me in personally under Dmitri Berinov; it was simply the mission code-name for the executive, applicable to anyone he could get. He'd set things up for Balalaika as a certainty as soon as he'd left 10 Downing Street, trusting in whatever pagan gods he granted the privilege of his prayers.

  People in the lobby as I went through to the staircase: a group of Japanese entrepreneurs in dark silk suits with leather briefcases; three women in sable coats and hats, one of them wearing too much Chanel No. 5; a Russian in from St Petersburg, according to the label on the pigskin suitcase that was just being swung onto the porter's trolly; two hotel security men standing near the elevators. The only character here I didn't care for was the Russian sitting in one of the red plush chairs on the far side from the registration desk with a copy of Pravda open in front of him. I put him down as a government security peep. I watched his blurred reflection on the pink marble wall as I reached the stairs but he didn't turn his head – not that he had any reason to: I was a total stranger here and Legge's security had been perfectly sound since I'd met him at the airport. But later there could be peeps on the watch for me and I would take more notice.

  The door of Suite twenty-nine on the second floor was heavy to swing and two inches thick with a deadbolt at shoulder-level; the suite itself was spacious and ornate, with glass-fronted cabinets of Sevres objets de vertu and gilt Louis XIV chairs, a four-poster bed with a red silk fagoted canopy and solid marble furnishings in the bathroom with gold-plated taps. I felt uneasy here, was more used to a back-street safe-house with peeling walls and a rusted fire-escape at the rear and a scrambler on the phone and total security.

  I'd been dead wrong about Croder: he had indeed booked me into this hotel personally as Dmitri Berinov because the five suits laid out on the bed were my size and London-tailored by the firm that works for the Bureau when we need sartorial camouflage more appropriate than something off the peg, our presence requested at an embassy party or a host-country bash. The shoes lined up in a row on the burgundy pile carpet were hand-made by Simpson and Webb and the snow boots were tooled Russian calf. Again I felt uneasy, preferring jeans and a windbreaker and shoes with quiet, flexible rubber soles, the uppers softened with beeswax.

  Croder may, yes, have asked Fern and Teaseman if they had the stomach for Balalaika before he'd called me in from Paris, but only as reserves in case I came unstuck. He'd put me in the sights as his main target the minute the prime minister had told him what he needed done.

  I heard the echo of Croder's voice in the freezing chapel: There isn't anyone else capable. A compliment, if you like, or a sentence of death; you choose.

  Thai silk shirts and a quilted dressing-gown and a box of linen handkerchiefs initialled DVB; a dozen French silk ties – three conservative, the others on the flashy side, the kind a mafiya capo would sport; gold cuff-links and a pleated scarlet cummerbund; a matching set of Givenchy shampoo, aftershave and cologne, but only for show in the bathroom because that stuff can kill you if you leave traces when the hunt is up, and they'd known that when they'd packed it.

  Three knocks and the bell rang and I checked the one-way viewer and opened the door.

  'Comfortable?' Legge asked me and dropped two attache cases onto the bed. 'The door's metal, as I'm sure you noticed. The windows are bullet-proof and there's a direct line to the hotel security switchboard – the white phone over there.' He clicked the locks of an attache case and opened it. 'These rooms are updated versions of the royal suite, fitted out for mafiya guests who like privacy; most of the big hotels have come into line and of course there's no charge: they get automatic protection by the syndicates.' He began taking things out of the case.

  'I want round-the-clock surveillance,' I said, 'on those two windows from the street, and people in the corridor, one at each end.' As a substitute for the rusting fire escape.

  'No problem – I assumed you'd want that done.' Legge turned suddenly to swing a look at me, his eyes not quite level because of the plastic surgery to the left frontal area of the skull. He dropped two folders and a bank card onto the bed. 'Dossier on Vasyl Sakkas, general information on the Moscow organizatsiya with names and modes of operation, Barclay gold card. Did Mr Croder tell you what funds you've got at your disposal?'

  'Yes.'

  'Okay.' He took out ten bundles of bank-notes and dropped them onto the bed. 'This is for ready cash, US $100,000. I'll leave you to find a place for it wherever you want.' He slid the locks of the other case and opened it and took out three guns. 'Heckler and Koch P7, 9mm, squeeze-cocking, gas-retarded slide-locking system for better control. This one's a compact SIG P228 9mm with a magazine capacity of thirteen rounds, weight twenty-nine ounces, but it's got a lot of punch. And this one's a Smith and Wesson high-capacity DA auto 12-shot -'

  'I don't use guns,' I said. I hadn't interrupted him before because I'd been watching the two windows, looking for movement behind the windows opposite across the street. This place was so very exposed.

  Legge swung round to look at me again.

  'I heard that, yes. But there's something you've got to understand. If you're going to be infiltrating the mafiya they'll expect you to dress correctly, I mean you get into a bad situation and they frisk you and there's no gun, it's going to look -'

  'I'll take care of that when it happens. Who uses that building across there?'

  Legge let out a short breath and dropped the guns back into the case. 'With respect,' he said, an edge to his tone, 'my knowledge of this town is more informed than yours at this stage of the game, simply because I've been here close on ten years. I've also studied the mafiya here since they moved in. You want to take on these people without a gun, you'll be walking through a snake-pit without even a stick.' He turned his eyes on me and they were hard. 'As the chief of your support group, I'd like you to reconsider.'

  I looked away from the windows across there. 'If anything goes wrong it won't be your fault. You've warned me. Now tell me about that building.'

  Legge didn't look at the windows, looked down, fitting the guns back into their baize-lined case. 'It's an RAOC headquarters.' Regional Administration – Croder had spelled it out for me in the church – for fighting Organized Crime. 'I wouldn't,' Legge said over his shoulder, 'have picked a room for you overlooking a building where anyone could put you in the cross-hairs, bullet-proof glass or no.'

  Got his back up, the executive in from London turning down his toys, the Heckler and Koch and the SIG and the Smith and Wesson, but I always have trouble going through Clearance when I refuse to draw weapons. What people don't realize is that your hands are always available – you don't have to reach for them in a hurry and they don't jam.

  'You've seen a lot of service,' I told Legge. 'You're a survivor, like me.'

  'Sure. That's because my own preference is the Austrian Glock 19, fires fifteen rounds, and since I arrived in this town I've put six notches on it.' He snapped the locks of the attache case and swung it off the bed and put it carefully by the door, coming back and pulling a coloured brochure out of the other case and handing it to me, no eye contact. 'For transport I've picked you a Mercedes S420, the flagship of the line, luxury sedan V-8, 275 horse-power, a bit on the heavy side so it takes eight seconds to hit sixty from a standing start, but there are things you'll need here in winter time – you can adjust the traction-control system to give you some wheelspin so the chains can bite through the snow, for one thing. The headlights have got their own heated washer jets and wipers, which'll give you good visibility even in a blizzard, and the outside rearview mirrors fold back at the touch of a button so they won't snap off if you run things close. The headrests also drop
on demand to give you a clear view behind. I tried out six cars and this one came up the best: it's got a hundred-thousand-dollar black market price on it, which in terms of your mafiyosa image is the least a successful capo would want to pay, plus it's got storm windows and all the other stuff.' With a shrug: 'You want something different, there's more brochures here, but in the meantime this one's in the hotel garage under support surveillance with the engine kept warm every hour on the hour, and it's got chains on. And by the way – you won't like this – I put an AK-47 assault rifle in the trunk with two boxes of ammunition.' He got out a small black velvet bag with a drawstring and handed it to me. 'These are direct from Antwerp.'

  Three diamonds the size of grapes, all faceted, dazzling under the lamp on the bureau where I took them to have a better look.

  'Worth?'

  'For all three the current dealer price is half a million pounds sterling – they're 24-carat. London would like them back if you don't use them to trade anything.'

  Such as my life. 'Your idea?'

  'Mr Croder's.'

  I put the diamonds back into the velvet bag, the bag into my pocket.

  'Micro recorder,' Legge said, and put a matt-black Sanyo compact on the bed, 'if you need one. Set of tapes.' He shut the case and snapped the locks shut. 'The cleaning staff will come only when you request it by calling Housekeeping. I would advise being here all the time they are, even though they've been carefully screened by the hotel security. People can make mistakes. Don't tip them. Have you got any questions?'

  'Safe house?'

  'We've got three lined up for you to look at. Addresses and keys are with the Sakkas dossier and the other stuff on the bed. As soon as you've chosen the one you want, let me know. Our contact numbers are there too and I'll be at the base most of the time and you can get me on the beeper if I'm away. My second in command is Zykov, Russian-born, naturalized Englishman, thrown out of the SAS because he wouldn't always obey orders, but I like his creative approach.' He looked at me steadily now and the resentment over the weapons thing had at last gone from his eyes. It had taken its time, and I noted that: the chief of any support group in the field is strictly subordinate to the executive at all times, not as a matter of military-style protocol but as a matter of life and death.

  He was waiting for more questions but for the moment I kept them to myself; I was only a few hours in the field and I hadn't yet been briefed by my DIF and I needed time to orientate, mentally and physically.

  'I think that's it,' I said.

  'Okay.' Legge swung away with that trapped energy of his and turned at the door. 'I've got fourteen men, active. Four of them are going to cover the passage outside in two shifts, four more will be on surveillance in the street. That leaves you with only six bodyguards, and if you need more than that I can call some sleepers in from -'

  'No bodyguards.'

  His head jerked up an inch and he hesitated, working out how he was going to put what he had on his mind: this was my impression. 'All the mafiya chiefs have bodyguards,' he said carefully, 'some of them twenty or thirty. It's as much for show as anything else, prove how big they are, you know? But they also live a lot longer like that. Six isn't too many, and I'd like to bring in -'

  'I'll let you know,' I said, 'if I need bodyguards. Until I do, keep them well clear. Those are my express instructions.' I was getting fed up, that was all, with having to repeat myself so often. Legge stood there for another five seconds, six, then swung to the door. Over his shoulder: 'Infiltrating the Moscow mafiya with no weapons and no bodyguards, I give you three days.'

  'That's not a bad start.'

  When Legge had gone I used the phone and called the chief of hotel security to come and see me and gave him a hundred-dollar note and told him he'd get one every week if he looked after me, and if he didn't look after me he'd be found shot dead in the Katerinberg Forest, and by his reaction it seemed like language he understood.

  3: SCORPION

  I didn't want to work too close to the Hotel Moskva International so I walked across the street and went into the RAOC building and told the desk clerk that Inspector Loshak wanted to see me and they said there wasn't any Inspector Loshak there, maybe I was mistaking this branch for the one down on Suharevskij Prospekt. I said they could be right – how would I get there?

  Then I got the Mercedes S420 from the garage and drove sixteen blocks and found the other place and left the car halfway on the pavement – A car like that, Legge's briefing noted in the Field Information file, can be left almost anywhere you can find a space. The police won't touch it: the image is distinctly mafiya.

  The snow had stopped in the early hours of this morning; I'd slept for a time and then got up and gone through the whole of the briefing again, committing the essentials to memory and testing them, looking down from one of the windows at intervals to check on the movements of the two surveillance people, bundled in their black leather coats to look like plain clothes policemen, hands pushed into their pockets and snow on their fur hats and their breath clouding as they shifted their feet, giving an oblique glance upward at my windows every time they reached the end of their beat and turned, could have been looking at the sky, wondering when it would clear.

  The fax had come just before five this morning.

  Yelena and the children arriving Sheremetyevo Airport 18:12 hours today on China Airlines Flight 2129, no need to meet them, will be staying at Hotel Romanov. Have a successful trip. No one called, no messages.

  Ferris.

  And already I was beginning to feel uneasy about Tully, the shadow executive for Rickshaw, out there in Beijing and just going into the end-phase with a replacement director in the field less capable than Ferris – any DIF would be less capable than Ferris.

  Does it look sticky?

  St Pyotr staring down with his plaster eyes, Croder's steel claw flashing in the candlelight.

  Not at present, though in the end phase anything can happen, of course.

  Yea, verily: the end-phase is when the executive goes in close and starts feeling the heat, confronting the risk, taking final chances he'd never have taken earlier, committed at last to bringing the mission home or leaving it wrecked in the field – You can't win them all, love – Daisy in the Caff, small comfort, it takes a lot of tea to wash away the penitence, the self-reproach as those snivelling bastards spell it out in blood on the files: Mission unaccomplished.

  Conscience pricked as I stood under the noon sky watching the RAOC building, this one smaller, shabbier than the one opposite my hotel, red brick and grimy windows, the brass handles of the entrance doors tarnished with age, birds there, pecking at crumbs someone had thrown down.

  But you wanted Ferris, didn't you?

  Right.

  And you've got him. So forget this conscience shit.

  Whatever you say.

  People starting to leave the building now.

  Whatever you say, my good friend, forget it, yes, we've got work to do.

  The entrance doors banging back and the birds darting upward to perch on the window sills, complaining. Most of the office workers came down the steps in groups, with only a couple of men walking alone so far, one of them slipping on the crusted snow and laughing as he found his balance, the sound clear in the cold air, the others turning to look and a girl in a white fur hat giggling, some of them crossing the street now, lurching their way across the deep frozen ruts in the snow, their boots crunching.

  In a small building like this there wouldn't be too many on the staff and I watched them, concentrating, needing only one, just one of them, the right one if I could find her, it had to be a woman, a woman walking alone, independent of groups, easily bored in company, needing to do her own thing in her own way, to hell with the rules and regulations. A tall order, this I admit, small chance of finding someone like that in a government office, a freethinking bureaucrat, but hope springs eternal and I waited patiently, watching the entrance doors, the steps, because this was important,
this was the first day of the opening phase for Balalaika and I wanted information, a lot of information, to give me the one quintessential requirement the mission demanded before anything else could happen, before I could get inside the mafiya infrastructure in Moscow, before I could move in to the target: Vasyl Sakkas.

  Access.

  It's a heady thing, when you find it. It's the first signal the shadow's going to send, right at the outset of the mission, the one they're waiting for under the floodlit board in Signals, the one they'll scrawl in chalk across the slate.

  Executive has access.

  The air cold against the face, a blood-red leaf circling downward from the black skeletons of the elms, smoke drawing out in a skein as someone lit a cigarette, the flame of the match bright on his cheeks and flashing on his glasses, three more people coming down the steps in a group, one of them swinging a blue woollen scarf round her neck as they went along the pavement under the trees, and suddenly there she was, a young woman walking alone, pulling on her black sable gloves as she looked around her, not seeing anyone she felt like joining, shaking her head to someone who called her name – Mitzi – and asked her if she was going to the library this evening, shaking her head to tell them no as I began moving, crossing the street behind her, taking care on the ice as a beaten-up Trabant went past with its front wheels shimmying through the ruts, exhaust gas clouding on the cold noon air.

  She went into the fast food place almost opposite the RAOC building and I hung back until the door had swung shut and then pushed it open again, going inside. Steam and tobacco smoke and the comfortable smell of cabbage, three servers working hard behind the counter, four people waiting, Mitzi the last in line.

  When her battered tin tray was loaded I shuffled forward a bit too fast and my foot got in the way and she tripped and the soup and the dish of shashlik slid off and crashed onto the floor, much laughter from a couple of workmen who'd just come in, Mitzi's face open with shock and her eyes flashing as she looked at me.