“They were just supposed to bring her back.”
“You ballsed it up!”
“I will call the pack off,” Burmeister said firmly.
“No,” Callows said.
“Pardon?”
“I said no. I’ve been thinking about this. We may be able to redeem something from it yet, without becoming a laughing stock. Our objective was to get Morton’s daughter here. Why? Because she may have her father’s files, or she may know where they are.”
Burmeister nodded.
“Don’t call off the hounds,” Callows snarled. “Blow the horn instead! Quayle was close to Morton. He’s close to the girl already. If he thinks that we aren’t going to let up until we have the information, then he’ll shake it out of the bitch. Their lives will depend on it.”
“That’s very, very dangerous, Sir Martin,” Burmeister said, hiding his glee at the thought.
“We are in a dangerous business! And we don’t have any choice. Who else is there? We don’t even know where to start. There are too many good men dead already to give up on this, and as far as I am concerned Quayle is expendable.”
*
Hugh Cockburn sat uncomfortably in a narrow row of seats, wedged between a bulky General of Tanks and a Colonel from some border regiment, and tried to keep his attention on the speaker in the stuffy auditorium. Glasnost had arrived in Hungary and he was already bored witless with its inevitable familiarisation trips and cries for global peace. On the small stage, a major swung a pointer like a sabre across huge green lines on a faded map, attempting to describe to the gathered dignitaries and reporters the field exercise they were about to visit in the hastily assembled buses outside. Taking a sneaky peek at his watch, he grinned guiltily at the Colonel who saw him do it. The Colonel grinned, winked and passed him something under a mimeographed programme of the day’s events.
He took the offering, carefully smiling to himself when he felt the familiar weight and shape of a full hip flask. Things are looking up, he thought lifting it to his lips.
He was a tall man, six foot three in his stockinged feet, with sandy blond hair with a frosting of grey above his ears. His face was lean and the lines around his green eyes were pressed in by a constant smile. He seemed to go through life laughing at its vagaries. Today he was here, ostensibly as cultural attaché. Somewhere behind him was the embassy’s military man, an Air Force Group Captain, wedged between other visitors.
He burped softly and handed the flask back to the Colonel, who took a deep swig and coughed as the fiery vodka hit the back of his throat, attracting the attention of the General who glared over his substantial jowls like a walrus.
“Sorry,” Cockburn whispered, covering for his dipsomaniac neighbour. There were another three hours to go and he thought he would need both the ally and his vodka on the bus.
It was nine that evening when he got back to the Embassy and, as routine, headed straight to his office to clear the cipher machine and check the days status log. As Chief of Station that was his responsibility. The message regarding a new Metro order, the first in over a year that he had seen, was flashed in with a priority clear prefix, and as he read the details he went pale. He thought he had made a mistake and de-coded the message again, but the details remained constant. He sat back with his hands to his mouth in horror.
My God, Ti, he thought, they want to kill you. What have you done?
CHAPTER SIX
Kirov stood deep in the shadows, watching the doorway to the building until darkness settled and the orange street lights flickered on.
Occasionally people walked past, but few looked down the alley where he stood amongst the battered bins and hungry stray cats. One large brindle-coloured tom recognised another of its ilk through its one remaining eye and, forgetting its suspicion, bravely threaded its way through Kirov’s legs. Looking down, Kirov smiled briefly, before his eyes flicked upward again. He had watched the building for three nights now. The old woman had visitors but, so far, none after dark. Tonight she would, and he didn’t want to be disturbed – so he waited another half an hour, then crossed the street, walked into the fish and chip shop, ordered and stood politely waiting. Finally, his wrapped bundle in his hand, he walked up to the building he had been watching and swiftly picked the lock. It was done in a second and, sliding through the door, he took the stairs three at a time.
Once at her door, he did the same trick with the pick and stepped into a small hall.
“Who’s there?” a fierce old voice demanded.
He walked through to a small drawing room. There the old woman sat.
“Gabriella Kreski?”
“Who are you?” she demanded, hands pushing at the seat, seemingly trying to stand. “Get out!”
“Sit down. I am not going to hurt you,” Kirov said pleasantly.
“I know you’re not,” she replied. She hadn’t be trying to stand at all. She had been reaching for something under the cushion on her seat. In her bony old hand was a small calibre automatic pistol.
Kirov smiled fleetingly.
“My name is Alexi Kirov,” he said in Russian. “I am from the Fourth Directorate of the Komitet Gergashnov Borsnavo… and I need your help. I have also brought fish and chips.”
She studied him for a second speechless. In all her years in the intelligence community she had never heard a KGB officer admit his profession, but the gun didn’t waver an inch.
“You had Adrian Black go out for fish and chips, didn’t you? I know. I was watching him.”
“Get out!”
“They got him, Gabriella. They threw acid in his face. He never had
