Snow Falcon

The two personal files he had requested might tell.

He felt a twitch of fear. The night's fatalism had disappeared not so much with the dawn, but with this sudden knowledge, and the danger offered by the disappearance of Vorontsyev.

They could not have known, of course. He allowed himself to think that, quite clearly and precisely. Even now that he knew, it was hard to believe, hard to elevate the shambling has-been Gorochenko to the level of arch-plotter, overthrower of the state. A broken-winded nag who's toed every line ever pointed out to him, whoever owned the pointing finger. Army, yes — they'd spotted that right away, but that was during the war, and he'd gone straight back into government. A good man with paper, patient on committees, a good right-hand for Gromyko. Never any trouble As Andropov rehearsed the innocuousness of the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, the confidence that the KGB had been rightly and unavoidably fooled became the hollow laughter of the hoaxer. He could almost hear Gorochenko laughing at the manner in which they had been taken in for thirty years — by a caricature of the third-rate Party man!

He dosed hands into fists, one containing the other, and the knuckles whitened as he squeezed. He had played the booby, and taken them, Beria and himself. His very spotlessness should have been sufficient proof I He released his hands from the mind's grip, and nibbed them, as if washing.

Concentrate on Gorochenko. Think, think — forget Vorontsyev, concentrate on Gorochenko. Find him — stop a coup. He reached for the telephone. There would be time to tell Khamovkhin at Lahtilinna later, when he had given his instructions. Perhaps they had as much as twenty hours A tyranny is sufficient, he thought. He is ours already.

Kutuzov sat in his study. He concentrated on each item of furniture, each painting and photograph, even the grandfather clock which told him it was almost nine-thirty, as if in valediction. He felt very tired. He had been unable to sleep — who would have done, in his situation?

Twenty hours to go. Only twenty.

He stared at the telephone. Praporovich dead, Dolohov dead, Pnin and other generals — dead, too. He put his head in his hands for a moment, then shrugged and made himself sit upright in his chair. He was angry, and would not accept, not for a moment, the image of defeat such a slumped posture would portray. An angry movement of his hand, as if brushing something aside, rattled the bone-china cup and saucer on the delicate little table with the leather surface at the side of the chair. He glanced at it, then replaced the base of the cup firmly in the centre of the saucer.

He was all will-power; a strong man. He had always known that. He had needed it, all of it, then, as he had listened to the report from Leningrad. Or, most of all perhaps, when he had been told that Vorontsyev had talked to the Englishman, and then disappeared.

He stood up. There, he could do it steadily, betraying no reaction from the news he had received. It was as if he were aware of some audience. He laughed, a deep, almost threatening noise. Yes, he did behave as if for an audience, a great deal of the time. He was his own audience now. Once, the audience had been Kyril Vorontsyev, Alexei's father. Then Alexei himself. Not usually his wife. She, though he had sometimes loved her, occasionally needed her, had borne with him as he was without make-up and a role to play.

Yes, Alexei would know by now — would have talked to the Englishman, primed by Vassiliev as to what to look for. And he would know about the stupid bitch, Natalia, and how she had been used against him. There was a moment of admiration for his adopted son. He was clever, and brave, and dogged.

And now, doubtless, would be coming for him. And, even if he had not told Andropov — he might not have — Andropov would have guessed.

He crossed to an escritoire, opened a drawer, and took out a Makarov automatic. He checked the mechanism, and inserted a full clip. Then he put two more clips in his coat pocket. He closed the drawer again.

The invasion — that may have been stopped. But the coup — that would proceed. Oh, yes, that would proceed. He swept his hand through the air in a slicing motion. That, and Fanny Kaplan. The Kremlin gang and their secret police would be swept away. Valenkov would obey him, as long as he was free to make the telephone call at six the next morning.

The traitors to the Revolution would be swept from power, from life. Andropov and his gang of thugs and leeches. The KGB — Beria's gift to Russia, descendant of the MVD, the NKVD, and OGPU, the Cheka — the Cheka alone might have been necessary. The others were sores and lice on the bear.

He went to fetch his overcoat, and a small bag he had packed. He would only come back after it was all over. He paused for a moment before a photograph on the wall, of a young man, which he had draped with black crepe. He shook his head, and left the study. He had the city of Moscow in which to hide, and only twenty more hours to hide.

'Alexei — !' he cried involuntarily, ashamed of the sound in the moment he uttered it. He tugged on his coat stiffly. Then he picked up his bag, heard the dog snuffle at the closed kitchen door, and went out into the below- zero temperature of Kropotkin Street. He stopped at the gate for a moment, and looked back at the restored house. Then he walked away, upright, his stick clicking on the icy pavement.

Galakhov looked up at the window of Khamovkhin's bedroom as if studying a target or an obstacle in his path. He was on the point of being relieved of duty. He would disappear until the following night, when his return to duty would provide him with the opportunity of killing Khamovkhin.

Kill him — for what? A part of him he did not wish to acknowledge asked the question in a precise, cool mental voice. Kill him, now that they knew who Kutuzov was? And the generals were all dead? It had been a long night, after he had heard the gossip of the radio traffic coming in from Moscow — a longer early morning after Andropov's last message, the one they had relayed direct to Washington and London — the ringleader, code-name Kutuzov, has been identified and is on the point of being arrested in Moscow. Subject identified as Mihail Pyotravich Gorochenko, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. Subject identified — Kill Khamovkhin, who had laughed like a bully-boy when he heard the news, so the rumour said? An American CIA agent had told Galakhov, had sounded relieved, and then spat into the snow cursing all Russians for bastards.

Security was relaxed — except that they still worried where 'Captain Ozeroff' was. He could kill — but why?

He saw a guard hurrying along the path to relieve him.

Kill him for revenge — do the worst you can. Kill him because it did not work, he told himself.

Sixteen: Anna Dostoyevna

Vorontsyev let himself into the empty house with the key that he had been given on his sixteenth birthday — an inordinate time to wait, he had thought as a youth, before Mihail Pyotravich Gorochenko had let him come and go as he pleased. But he had always kept the key, and now it enabled him to enter the house silently by the front door.

The dog barked from the back of the house as he pushed open the door. He knew the house was empty, and that Gorochenko had left the dog. Vorontsyev laughed — of course he had left the dog. He intended coming back — the next day, or the day after that.

He pushed open the kitchen door, and the big, overweight bundle of red fur was planted against his chest, the pink tongue slobbering for his face. He lowered his head and let himself be licked, ruffling the fur, bunching it in his hands as memory assailed him, making the small incident perilous with allusion.

'Down, boy,' he said softly, pushing the dog away. The great paws left his chest, and the dog ambled beneath the kitchen table, curling in its huge basket which was still too small. Brown eyes stared up at him, tongue lolling out, breaths wheezing. It was always hard to realise the dog was old.

Like Gorochenko.

He looked at the sink-unit. A cup filled with water, a single saucer and plate. A slight smell of the breakfast that had been cooked remained. Gorochenko was not long gone, and he had left in no particular hurry.

Swiftly, after closing the kitchen door behind him, he searched the rest of the house. He did not go near the room he had once occupied himself, nor the room that had confined his adoptive mother in the months before her