Snow Falcon

'Where?'

'Hotel — a couple of drinks.'

The scenes flicked, as if accompanying the narrative. Back of the man, then the taxi, back of the man outside the Moskva Hotel, entering the foyer… 'You followed him in?'

'Yes. He stayed in the bar, then went to the toilet, then caught another taxi…' Both of them were bored, it was evident now. Brushing aside a minor irritation, Vorontsyev watched the screen. Back of the man, entering a taxi. 'Where next?'

'The cinema. On the Marx Prospekt. Some epic extolling the usual virtues, school of Eisenstein. Wartime stuff, I think. I almost went to sleep.'

'But you watched him throughout?'

'Yes. He went to the toilet again — must have a bladder problem, or it was the cold — then took his seat, sat alone for two hours, came out, oh — went to the toilet again, then caught a taxi back to the Moskva for a light meal…'

Slides. Back of the man entering the cinema, grainy with snow, head bowed, hat held on head. Back of the man coming out of the cinema. Other people. 'Back!'

'What?'

'Back! The shot of him going in — then this shot again.'

'Sir.'

Vorontsyev watched, felt the tension close on his bowels, then ungrip again as he sensed an error. The two young officers had hardly risen from their langour, except that the girl whispered the time to Ilya. 'No — ' Vorontsyev whispered. 'No.'

'Shall I go on, sir?'

'Yes. How close were you when he went into the cinema?'

'A bit back. Not many customers at that time.'

'And he went into the toilet?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You're sure? On the way in?'

Alevtina consulted her notes. 'On the way out…'

'You said on the way in!' 'I — no, only on the way out.'

'Quickly, go back to the Moskva — to the shot of him leaving the hotel, getting in the taxi. Quickly!'

Ilya fumbled with the cartridge; stuttering clicks, then the smoother sound as images flashed on the screen in quick succession.

Back of the man entering the taxi. It was inconclusive, Vorontsyev recognised, as if he had hoped for something clearer. Yet he sensed how it might have been done.

'What is it, sir?' Alevtina asked, craning forward in her chair, staring at the flecked expanse of overcoat. Snow, the flurried curtain.

'Where were you when he came out of the toilet — the hotel toilet?' Vorontsyev snapped.

'Recess in the foyer.'

'At the bar,' added Ilya.

'Where did he put on his coat?' Vorontsyev enunciated the words slowly, carefully. They sensed the importance of their answer. They screwed up their faces helpfully.

'In — the bar,' Ilya said finally.

The girl added eagerly, 'He was wearing it as he crossed the foyer.'

'And you were behind him all the time, from the moment he left the toilet until he got into the taxi?'

'Yes.' Her voice held an apprehension of failure, but puzzlement was more evident.

'Then that's it!'

'What is?'

'What's the next slide?' Vorontsyev calmed himself, afraid of his leap of insight, the certainty of suspicion. 'Before this one, I mean.'

'Entering the hotel — there.' The cartridge clicked like the bolt of a rifle, Vorontsyev thought, his imagination gleaming with effort.

'Back again… back again… back again. See it?' The two slides were swiftly interposed — back of the man, entertaining in a comic juxtaposition. In and out of the revolving doors of the foyer of the Moskva Hotel. A television trick, Alevtina reminded herself, stifling a smile.

'What — sir?'

Vorontsyev, an impatient parent, yet happy in his own secure knowledge, crossed to the wall, and his finger jabbed, mottled monochrome, at the back of the dark overcoat.

'See the tilt of the shoulders here?' The hand wiggled impatiently, and another back appeared, leaving the foyer. 'Now here… If you enlarged the hand…' He squinted at the hand holding the dark hat down on the head — the snowflakes were huge, like irritating butterflies on a specimen slide, obscuring some scientific data. 'If you enlarge the hand. I've no doubt you will find a different one — fatter, shorter fingers, or shorter nails.'

He turned to them, grinned, and dramatically crossed to the window and let up the blind. Strong morning light now, not so grey.

'It's not the same man. The man you sat behind in the cinema was not the Colonel-General! You spent two hours following the wrong man.' In the pleasure of confirmation, Vorontsyev was uncondemning. 'So — why and where did the General go?'

'How did they switch back, sir?'

'The cinema toilet. I'll bet you were given a good look at the face, coming out of the cinema…' Alevtina's face betrayed a childish sense of being made to appear stupid by an adult. 'Of course. Now, go back to the man in the Museum of the Revolution — the one with the dark coat and hat, about the General's age. And place your bets, my children — place your bets!'

Folley rumbled a new film into the camera, the cold stiffening, thickening his fingers in the few seconds since he had removed his mittens. Already he had six rolls of film — infra-red the first two, then a change when dawn came — in his pockets, but he seemed possessed now to record everything he could. He was overwhelmed by the evidence, and by a disbelief that made him collect every scrap of it he could; perhaps he already heard Waterford's mocking tones, or those of the superior, affected queer, Davenhill.

He closed the back of the camera, raised it to his eye, focused, checked the exposure, and pressed the stud. The camera began to photograph, silently and automatically, a group of soldiers erecting a camouflage net, beneath which rested, somnolently evil, three T-72 tanks, the gun of each seeming to point straight at him.

He had been there for three hours, and he knew he should have left long before. Whatever luck there was had to be disappearing rapidly. Twice already, patrols had almost stumbled upon him as he skirted the fringes of the camp beneath the forest roof, pointing his camera like a gawping eye wherever he could — a child in a huge military exhibition.

All the time, he felt an irrepressible urgency to continue taking photographs — snap, snap, snap, move on, snap, snap, move on — lie wondered whether he was acting out some caricatured parade-ground behaviour in order to avoid considering the reality of what he photographed.

Snap, snap, snap — tanks, two guards lighting cigarettes, erection of an HQ hut; snap, snap, snap, move on — a man peeing behind a tree, lifting lie skirts of his winter overcoat, head with its fur hat bent in solemn inspection, motor rifle transports; change lens to telephoto; snap, snap, snap — smoky distance brought nearer, the ranks of T-72s stretching away, giving a sense of the size of the area they occupied; he sensed he was even beginning to compose the shots.

Voices. He stumbled backwards, ducking behind a tree, straining to catch their direction, number. Three, four? Coming closer, moving from the left, calling so they were spread slightly apart, having to raise their voice. He felt nothing, nothing more than alertness to every tiny noise of movement, below the clear voices. He dropped the camera into a deep pocket of his combat clothing, the long lens hard against his thigh, and brought the rifle slowly round to a pos ition where he could fire it through the canvas sleeve. He flexed the cold index finger.

Four of them. Sweep patrol, round the perimeter. One of a number of teams, perhaps as many as six. Coming with the dangerous morning. Twenty yards — he caught a flash of whiter