Snow Falcon

movement there. Not the senior officers, too attractive to the magnet of surveillance, they. Someone, some group — able to move freely?

Which was why his soldiers on the wall all came from different military districts — in their grainy blow-ups which savoured of secrecy and the power of unseen watchers. Odessa, Kiev, Central Asian, Siberian…

They might tell him something about the methods of communication, if they had anything at all to tell.

Substitutes? Still no ident on the Ossipov-substitute, that infuriating figure whose dead hand he had held. He could still feel the thrill of the cold thin wire, running into the sleeve of the black overcoat with the fur collar. Were there others?

It meant going back to the photographs — he would need his team, and here in the flesh not at the other end of a telephone, to do the same thing as he had done with General Ossipov.

And why Finland? Why Vrubel, who was dead?

He wanted to go to Finland. For whole minutes, the idea possessed him with an impatience great as that of any child. He knew that someone would be checking; he wanted it to be himself, or one of his team. The egotism of the small room, the dusty light of it and the work there, was strong. Why Vrubel? Was he a courier?

The doorbell rang, startling him. Automatically, he looked at his watch. Four o'clock. In the afternoon? He had been staring at a picture of Marshal Praporovich, just about to step into a Moscow taxi. He had no idea how it came to be in his hand, nor the cigarette he had been absently smoking.

He got up as the bell summoned him again. Reluctant, he felt, then quickly aware of the dishevelled state of his appearance. He locked the door of the small study behind him, and went out into the narrow hallway.

Mihail Pyotravich Gorochenko stood on the doorstep, snow glistening as it melted on his shoulders. Vorontsyev's face immediately creased into a smile of welcome.

'Mihail Pyotravich — how wonderful to see you!' The two of them embraced, the younger man feeling the rough skin against his cheeks, the paternal fervency of the old man's kisses. Then he ushered him into the lounge — sparsely and unconcernedly furnished from some warehouse which stocked furniture of a standard kind for KGB apartments. Gorochenko sat himself near the electric fire, switching it on — then he glanced quizzically at Vorontsyev, sensing that his adopted son had not inhabited the frosty lounge that day.

'Busy, Alexei?' he asked as Vorontsyev poured vodka for them both, then set the bottle between them on a low table, scuffed with storage, nicked with wear. There were rings from wet glasses on it that he had not polished away.

Voronstyev glanced at the locked door, wanted to tell the old man, but said, 'A bit. There's no leave, you know!' He laughed. The old man nodded sagely, and downed the vodka. Vorontsyev refilled the glass.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union watched his face carefully, as if for signs of pain or age.

'I'm sorry I have not been to see you earlier, Alexei, my boy,' he said. 'Politburo business — things are buzzing…' Vorontsyev felt a twinge of shame at his own reluctance to confide. It was a habit he automatically obeyed. And the old man expected it. 'You were badly hurt?'

'No — father.' Vorontsyev enjoyed the ease with which he used the word these days. Not so well, perhaps, when the old man periodically tried to patch things up between himself and Natalia — he wondered whether the old man would use the visit as an excuse to do so again — but today, with a lot of preliminary work done, he could relax into an older familiarity. He smiled, and the old man's bright blue eyes smiled back at him from the strong, square face.

He leaned over and patted his thigh. 'Good. Just bruises, the doctor told me. I rang the hospital yesterday. Comes of having a thick skull — like your father!' They laughed, recalling the same dead man. No hint of a gap between them because of their lack of propinquity.

Gorochenko lit a cigarette, and expelled a blue funnel of smoke towards he ceiling. Then he said, 'It's a pity you haven't a woman about the place, to help you get well…' He held up his hand as Vorontsyev's face puckered with displeasure. 'Oh, I know what you are going to say. I meant her.' As if his mind turned a hunched, protective shoulder towards the old man, Vorontsyev said. 'I don't want to discuss my wife — father!' This time the word was a plea.

'No, no. I have no wish to give you pain, my boy. But — you were once so happy, eh? And — Natalia has been to see me — yes. Little Natasha who went so far away from you. She came to me, and told me about — the other night.'

It was as if his ribs protested; Vorontsyev drew a sharp breath of pain.

'What?'

'Yes, my boy. Today. This morning, she called to see me at the Ministry. A private interview.'

'What for?' Vorontsyev winced with suspicion.

'She — asked me, to arrange an interview. She wants to talk to you.'

'About what? She's never needed my permission before for the things she does!'

Gorochenko's face darkened. He said, 'Don't sulk, Alexei! Listen to me. Your calling there the other night — it disturbed her. And I think she felt humiliated. And even sorry that it had to happen.' He spread his hands for silence. 'I'm not saying she's changed, or that she wants to begin again. Just that she wants to see you.' He patted Vorontsyev's thigh again. 'I want to help you — not her, but you, Alexei. You believe that, don't you?'

Vorontsyev fought back something akin to tears. He felt young, brittle as glass, foolish. And he did want her back. He had always known that, as Gorochenko knew it. He knew he would agree to it, agree that they meet. He nodded.

'I believe it.'

'Then I'll say no more. You can think it over. Then let me know. I said I would — let her know what you decide. A meeting with no promises, on either side.'

'Very well,' Vorontsyev said stiffly, sitting upright, starched by the emotion beginning to move in him. He poured two more vodkas with a perceptibly shaking hand, then said, 'You look tired, father. You are working too hard.'

'May be, my boy.' He played with the thick white moustache, his homage to Stalin as he called it, and smiled. He drew on the cigarette, coughed, and added, 'That cunning old bastard, Feodor, sniffs treason — as usual!' His eyes seemed suddenly to focus on Vorontsyev's face.

'Treason?'

'Don't worry. I'm not digging. Merely telling. The last meeting of the full Politburo. A performance of exceptional merit from our First Secretary. Plots against him, against all of us — inspired by the West, naturally. And he was hot on the trail! Quite like the old days.'

'You — discount the idea?'

'Not necessarily.' He barked with sharp laughter, and in the sound he was a powerful man, and unafraid. Wisely cynical, wordly-wise. 'But I have heard the whole thing before. I think it comes with age, like prostate trouble or sciatica.' He laughed again. Then he said suddenly, 'Who tried to kill you, Alexei?'

'I–I don't know,' Vorontsyev said, seeing the hard anger in his adoptive father's eyes. The old man looked at him for a long time, then, seemingly satisfied, he nodded and looked at his watch.

'I must go, Alexei. I have an important meeting.' He stood up. 'You — take good care of yourself,' he added gruffly. 'Understand?'

'Yes, father.' The words were so sombre, so charged with parental domination, that Vorontsyev felt as if the old man were rehearsing him in his school learning, or overlooking his mathematics. Or perhaps in the days of his student arrogance, arguing with him.

Gorochenko said, as if divining something, 'To try to kill an SID man means it is serious. Whatever it is — take care of yourself. You know what it would do to me if anything happened to you — eh?' Vorontsyev nodded again. 'And — think about that other matter. Natalia. I don't like things as they are…' A hint of inflexible command in the voice, then: 'Try to allow yourself to see her. Try to solve things, eh?'

'I–I'll try.'

When he had seen the old man out, he had no desire to return to the study. Faces on the wall or relegated to the frayed carpet. He wanted — yes, wanted, he admitted, to think about his wife.

Folley was in little condition to register tangible scenes. Only the sense of personal movement, the grip of