Snow Falcon

our time, with Finland's most prestigious guest of the moment. The First Secretary will be informed of the call at lunch. He'll have to take it in the Embassy here.'

'I see.'

'What of your people, Kenneth?'

'I am sure they would rather not believe it — any of it. But I do think they're worried.' Frustration burst out almost as petulance, suddenly. 'Charles, are we the only two sane people in the world, or the only two madmen?'

'Hang in there, Kenneth. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes activity in Washington — meetings, dialogues, contingencies, war-games. It isn't being allowed to fall down the back of the wardrobe. There'll be an alert issued by now. Brussels is in constant contact, and I guess we're stepped up to Readiness Two by now.'

It sounded a little more reassuring. Buckholz had not been wasting his time, and he could divine the mood in Washington perhaps more clearly than any other CIA officer Aubrey had ever met. Aubrey decided to be conciliatory.

'Very good, Charles. Then we must await developments. One other thing — that trace your people are doing for me — '

'You're worried about that — now?'

'I think it may be more important than ever.'

'OK — I won't cancel.'

'I'd be very grateful if you didn't. My people in Moscow have come up with nothing so far. I'm on to Africa, Satellites, and Far East now, and its getting urgent.'

'Why?'

'You told Wainwright about the twenty-fourth?'

'He laughed — a little. But, he doesn't ignore things. I'll come to see you before this evening.'

'Very well. I must allocate some people here to the mysterious Captain Ozeroff — or whoever he is.'

Ten: Proof of Intent

It was the acceleration of events that tired him so much. Having waited for ten years, it was as if he had adjusted to a somnolent, covert pace, and could not shake off what was now lethargy. In the Diplomatic Lounge at Cheremetievo, waiting to meet a courier, he was confronted by the almost archaic method of communication he had carefully and secretly constructed. And knew that he would have to issue the order in the next twelve hours to switch to radio traffic.

Kutuzov hated feeling a tired old man — but he could not escape, or disguise, the impression his old body forced upon him, the leaden grooves in which his physique seemed to make his thoughts function. Folley, the English soldier — the desperate ambush in Helsinki, after the border incursion — the accident on the road outside Oxford, where Ozeroff's body had fallen into the hands of the SIS — Ossipov's presumptuous destruction of the Khabarovsk KGB Office He rubbed his hands down his leathery cheeks. A system of deep-cover couriers transmitting verbal orders and instructions disabled him — broken nerves, failing to transmit in time to the brain, so the hand gets burned, injured, the legs bang into things. The body of Group 1917 thrashing blindly about like an automaton.

The operation was beginning to develop a frightening momentum. He had to go to Leningrad, to see Praporovich, even Folley, to establish, if he could, what level of suspicion or half-knowledge had prompted three separate attempts to investigate Finland Station Six. Yet he could not blame them — they had acted on assump tions, and they had acted out of the kind of precipitate confidence he had felt himself a couple of days before — so close, he could taste it, feel it against him like another body, the sense of victory. The Army induced over-confidence, and the kind of action that had been taken on his authority, without his orders.

When it all came down, in the final analysis, to the word of one old man over the telephone. He felt chill, and ancient, and imprisoned in the weak, stick-like, hateful body. Really, was it like that? Yes, he admitted, then wondered if anyone in the lounge, especially the security men, had seen him nod absently in concert with the admission — trick of a decrepit, of the senile He had to give the order, on the 24th. Valenkov, at Moscow Garrison, insisted on that. Part of the total operation, he had said, part of the whole. Praporovich would give the orders to the Attack Groups at Kirkenes and along the Finland border. Dolohov would give the Fleet its orders. Below them, perhaps a dozen generals to transmit those orders further down, to regimental commanders, to sections of regiments, to companies and platoons — to each tank and rifle and gas-wagon.

His thoughts stung him like an attack of insects; but all the time, with the clarity that pain sometimes had brought him in the past, this emotional infliction cut away at the confusion — and the few small lights upon which his enterprise was founded gleamed brightly and in isolation. But they were small lights, little bulbs strung together — and each one of them dependent upon the others, and he, the fuse that prevented them going out.

Praporovich, Dolohov, Valenkov in Moscow — himself. Millions of men, millions — and nothing would happen unless he and those others gave their orders on the 24th. 06:00 to be precise.

He looked at the security men as he fidgeted in his seat and pretended to read a book — there were more of them on duty at Cheremetievo. No, there were enough of them on duty, if they knew their targets, to prevent Rabbit Punch, and to prevent the overthrow of the regime. Ridiculous, but true.

He glanced at his watch, put down the book, and walked out of the lounge, waving his personal security guard to relax. He went down the steps to meet the courier.

Simple, simple, he told himself. They do not know, and there are only fifty-six hours of former days left. Fifty-six hours. And no one knew, no one. Valenkov and the Moscow Garrison would be incommunicado in eight hours' time, until the dawn of the 24th. Praporovich and Dolohov need take no risks, could make themselves unreachable.

And, in forty-eight hours, he would disappear himself.

Simple, simple, simple — the litany relaxed him.

He found the courier in the main departure lounge, still in his uniform, and they sat a little apart on a plastic-covered bench set below a panoramic window which looked out over the light-splashed tarmac, the garishly illuminated plumage of the aircraft caught by the lights. The courier read Pravda, and he smoked a cigarette as nonchalantly as he could, and drank bad coffee.

When the courier had finished his brief narrative, Kutuzov said: 'Ossipov cannot be forgiven for attracting attention to Far East District, even though he cannot see where he was at fault. However, on second thoughts, he must continue with the 'Exercise Mirror' operations as far as the gas-attacks are concerned — yes…' His voice tailed off. The gas was the most necessary. The chemical attack had to be right, and it had to be done without the assistance, in planning and practice, of scientific advice and knowledge. They were soldiers, not research scientists, and the gases they had in sufficient supply in GSFN were unreliable, even unpredictable. And it had to be right! Ossipov was too important to be disliked, and his task too important to be postponed, or cancelled. Anger had betrayed him into issuing an order that Ossipov was right to ignore — even though the courier might not understand.

'Very well,' he went on. 'You have one more trip to make, back to Khabarovsk. You will instruct Ossipov to radio his final report direct to Praporovich — and you will tell him that the SID Major, Vorontsyev, is not to be eliminated. He is to be taken and held in custody until — You understand?'

'Sir.'

'Very well.' He looked at his watch. 'They will be calling my flight in a moment.' He stood up, and walked immediately away, his cigarette-stub burning in the ashtray where he had left it.

'Goodbye, sir,' the young man said to his back, and went on reading his paper.

All the way back to the Diplomatic Lounge, Kutuzov wondered what the Englishman, Aubrey, was doing — and kept repeating the litany of time running out. Fifty-six hours, fifty-six hours,