Snow Falcon

? 'Rather an expensive jaunt — for him.'

'Quite. No, for the moment I don't think we have to worry about GSFG starring the next war just before this Helsinki business reaches an admirable conclusion. However, with Smoktunovsky coming over to survey the Federal road system disguised as a driver's mate of humble origins — one can't take chances.'

'And you enjoyed your elaborate trap?'

'A hit — I do confess as much.' Aubrey nodded. The gesture was almost sanctimonious, certainly smug; yet there was a flash of something Cunningham almost described as self-disgust, just for a moment. 'However, perhaps you would turn to page thirty-six of the interrogation transcript. I have marked the passage.'

Cunningham took his spectacles from his breast-pocket, then nipped through the typed pages. Typescript, done with Aubrey's neatness of touch, on an old manual machine. A Russian had lived and died in those pages — Aubrey himself his only comforter and confessor; perhaps the most successful and remorseless interrogator Cunningham had ever known. There was nothing of the cramped, dose intensity of those hours and days suggested by the double-spaced type.

As if reading something in Cunningham's face, Aubrey said, 'I could admit that the whole thing was quite awful, if you wish.' Cunningham looked up sharply, 'But it is over now. And there may be something of interest for us.' He nodded at the typescrpit and, as if bidden, Cunningham began to read. When he had finished, he looked up again.

'Mm. I am to make something of this?' He sounded as if he thought Aubrey was making the false judgement of a tired man.

'I'm not that tired, Richard,1 Aubrey said softly. 'You may understand better, with a little perspective. Smoktunovsky was almost certainly GRU, Military Intelligence, as well as senior GSFG tank tactician. His rank at fifty-two was an affectation. As such, he was hard to crack, despite his injuries and poor morale. What I have underlined there came only towards the end, when he had broken almost completely, was rambling, trying to cover tracks, that sort of thing. But still he tried to hide this from me. I formed the distinct and certain impression that he thought it was what I was after all the time, and he certainly did not render it without the fiercest struggle.'

'So?'

'Ciphers — code-words. Little else. If I had so much as last hours with Smoktunovsky had been desperate, wearing; he had shortened the Russian's life by perhaps more than a day because he would not let him rest. In the end, he had had to lock the door against the medical staff while he went after what the crazed mind was still trying to keep from him. Cunningham was shaking his head.

'Opposed, yes. That is to be anticipated — '

'Richard, I put Smoktunovsky in the bag because we were afraid of what Exercise '1812' could mean on the NATO central front. It turned out to be a false alarm. But that snatch was the result of well-founded suspicion on our part that the Army was engaged in a bitter quarrel with the Kremlin. Smoktunovsky didn't tell me that they'd kissed and made up.'

Cunningham rubbed his chin for a while, then nodded. 'It all seems very slim to me, Kenneth. Perhaps you were in there too long with him — ' Aubrey's old blue eyes flared. 'No, I withdraw that. Very well — talk to people, send in a man if you wish. Where might you begin?'

'I'll talk to a couple of people at MOD — the less dense among them. As to a penetration mission — I accept that I have nowhere to send someone at the present. But, the Red Army is not going to lie down and let its balls be cut off by Khamovkhin and the rest of the Politburo. I'm quite certain of that.'

'Kenneth — I do hope you're wrong about this.'

'Exactly my own sentiments. Exactly.' 'Very well, play it back. If it's any good, then we'll send it upstairs for analysis.' The tape-operator made as if to rewind the spool of the tape on the recorder, then his team-leader stopped him. 'Who did you say this old man was?'

'His name's Fedakhin — Bureau of Political Administration of the Army.'

'Are we interested in him for any reason?'

'No. He just used a Secretariat telephone, that's all. He wouldn't have expected it to be tapped, but it was. I was just playing through last night's efforts after I came in, and I heard it. He's talking in code.'

'OK, Misha, the floor is yours. Impress me.'

'Captain.'

The younger man switched on the rewind, and they watched the spools changing their weight of tape, and the numbers rolling rapidly back. Misha stopped the tape, checked the number with a list at his elbow, then wound back a little more. Then he switched to 'Play' on the heavy old German recorder.

The captain noticed that, as usual with taps done as routine, the installation, and quality both left much to be desired. The voice was tinnily unreal, and distant.

'Our man for Group 1917 is in place,' the old voice said.

'Good. But you should not have called.'

'I apologise. Let the illness of an old man excuse me.'

'Very well.'

'You need have no worries concerning Finland Station, my friend. It has been settled, in terms of personnel, and it can now proceed satisfactorily. I shall be able to retire a happy man, and await the great day.'

The captain's nose wrinkled at the cliches, and he tossed his head, Misha being invited into the contempt he felt. He knew with certainly that contempt for the old fart on the tape was driving out curiously, but the knowledge didn't worry him. Old men — his wife's father — talked endlessly of great days, and happy retirement, and golden ages, come to that 'Thank you, old friend. Take care of yourself.'

Misha let the tape run for a few seconds, then switched it off. He looked up eagerly into the captain's broad face, so that the older man felt obligated to feel interest 'Well, sir?'

'Yes — tell me, then. Who was the other man?'

unidentified.'

'What number was dialled?'

'Wrong sort of tap — no record.'

'A name was asked for?'

'No. I'll play it, if you like — ' The captain shook his head, lighting a cigarette. 'Only an extension. Could've been anyone.'

'So — what's the excruciating importance of all this, Misha?'

'I don't know, sir. But he was talking in code, obviously and people who do that have something to hide, don't they?' After a silence, the captain said, 'Usually, they do.'

'Stig, old boy — it's you.'

The heavily-built, florid Englishman who never spoke Finnish if he could avoid it, looked up from the newspaper he was reading, recognised his visitor — unsurprising since he had been waiting for him in the bar on the Mannerheimintie for half an hour — and gestured him to another seat at his table. The bespectacled, fur-hatted Finn sat down, briefcase across knees pressed primly, and tightly together. The Englishman watched him peer nervously into the less well-lit corners of the bar — a nervous tic that Stig always demonstrated, at every meeting — over five years now, too. He'd probably done it with his predecessor, Henderson. Poor little sod 'I — you always choose these public places, Luard. Do you have to?'

The Finn's English was excellent; unlike Luard, he had no distrust of a foreign tongue, speaking four languages other than his own. Luard's Finnish was improbable at best, Stig considered.

'Sorry, old boy. Standard procedure. And no one follows you about, old boy. No one has done for years — ' It was as if Luard suddenly became irritated with his companion. 'Everyone lost interest in you years ago, Stig. They wouldn't care if they knew you passed stuff on to my lot — I should think Finnish Intelligence hopes someone does, just in case they ever get hold of something of importance.'

Stag's narrow, tired face with its doughy complexion suddenly sharpened, took on a vivacity of anger.

'You need not insult me, Luard. I asked merely on this occasion because I have something that you must see — and this is not the place to start passing round infra-red photographs.'

Luard's narrow eyes slid into their creases of fat. Then his features went bland as the waiter approached. Stig ordered a beer, and Luard another Scotch. When the waiter had brought the drink, and Luard had made a