obsessive, childhood habit, as if he could, by appearing before the officers with irritation plainly written on his features, prompt the operators into jogging the computer into more rapid activity. Thus far, the computer had failed to answer his question — who was the man in the truck with Upenskoy. This was despite the fact that it had at its disposal the files, descriptions, possible disguises — a whole identifit library of each face in every file, and suggestions as to how those faces might be disguised successfully — and present whereabouts, if known, of thousands of known or suspected agents — American, European, Israeli; even Warsaw Pact countries and developing African nations had their places in the computer-banks as possible enemies of the KGB.
Priabin was angry with the computer — he had presented the machine with a simple problem, the sort of problem it would take a large team of men a week to complete, and he wondered what machines were for if they couldn't come up with the answers he required. He puffed angrily at his cigarette now that the conversation had idled, and wished that, indeed, Tortyev could help with his problem — what was it he was worrying about, some body in the Moskva, with its face beaten in?
'Who is this man you're after?' he asked, as much for the sake of distracting himself as for the sake of conversation, or interest in what Tortyev was doing. Kontarsky would already be at Bilyarsk, strutting like a turkey- cock, attempting to drive doubt from his mind by an over-zealous inspection of security there. While he left his assistant holding the damned baby! Priabin concluded. What was it Kontarsky had said to him, just before leaving, and for perhaps the twentieth time since he had seen that bloody photograph of the man who called himself Glazunov, and who had popped up out of nowhere like the devil himself. What was it? Find out, Dmitri — for your sake, and for mine. Find out tonight. Yes — that was it.
Priabin grimaced at his thoughts. Dmitri Priabin was doing it for Dmitri Priabin's sake — he would find out, if that damned computer didn't break down — for his own sake.
'Ah,' said Tortyev meditatively in reply. 'That is what I want our noble machine to discover — I know him as Orton…'
Priabin creased his brow in thought, and said: 'What's he supposed to have done?'
Tortyev looked slighted for a moment, and then replied: 'He came to my attention as a drug-smuggler.' Priabin nodded, and appeared to lose interest. Tortyev continued, nettled that a man with whom he was at training school should regard his problems as unimportant: 'But, the strange thing is — this Orton, who died by the hand of one of his associates — or so we believed — is not the man who arrived at Cheremetievo two days ago.'
'Two days ago…'
Priabin sat bolt upright in the comfortable armchair. 'When?' he snapped.
'Two days ago…'
'When did he — die?' Priabin asked, his voice shaky with excitement. Even as the surface of his thoughts leapt at the impossible proximity, he was telling himself that he was being merely foolish.
'The same night.'
'You — caught the men?'
'We rounded up all of Orton's known associates — and found nothing to connect his death with them,' Tortyev explained, gratified that he seemed to have stung Priabin into interest, though he was puzzled at the man's upright, attentive posture.
'Who killed him, Alexei?'
'We — don't know, in fact, we don't know who died.'
'What?'
'As I said — the man who died was not the Orton who arrived at the airport, complete with passport and papers from the London Embassy…'
'Then who the hell was he — who were they
Tortyev spread his hands in a gesture of ignorance. 'I have enlisted the aid of our glorious revolutionary computer to discover that very fact.'
Priabin nodded, then said, a tone of suppressed excitement in his voice: 'All right — you think there was a substitution — yes?'
Tortyev nodded. 'Why?' asked Priabin.
'One reason only — the one who arrived two days ago — is an agent, covering his tracks with this dead body.'
Priabin slapped his forehead. His face was flushed with excitement — then paled, momentarily with doubt, then he smiled at Tortyev.
'What — happened to the men who — left the body?'
'They ran off.'
'Where?'
'To the nearest metro' station — the Pavolets.'
'And then?'
'Nowhere. They were lost — by the people from here, and the police — they weren't looking out for Orton then.'
Priabin said, 'We're looking for a man — an agent, we are sure — who appeared suddenly driving out of Moscow in a truck early yesterday morning…' His face drained of all colour. 'Stop…' he breathed, as if realising for the first time with the whole of his mind what he had stumbled upon. 'Stop…'
Tortyev leapt in the same direction as Priabin, a fact which pleased, and comforted, Kontarsky's lieutenant.
'You think—?'
'There's no record of a man of his appearance arriving in the Soviet Union during the past two weeks. He could have been here longer but, even then, how did he get in? I'm having the computer run down all known or suspected American or British agents, trying to match the photograph.'
'And I'm looking for Orton…' Tortyev added. 'Where is this agent of yours now?'
'In Bilyarsk.'
'God! You mean he's…'
'Probably he's inside the complex by now — in another disguise.'
'To do what?'
'Who knows? Anything — blow up the bloody plane, perhaps?'
Tortyev stared at Priabin, seeing the fear, the recurrent fear, that had replaced the earlier fiery enthusiasm.
There was a knock at the door. 'Come in,' Priabin said abstractedly.
A young, crumpled individual in a dirty white coat entered, a sheaf of photographs in his hands. He stood before Priabin, evidently pleased with his work, but nervous of its reception by the KGB lieutenant.
'We haven't run down your man…' he began.
'You haven't?'
'No. Nothing in the files on him, under American or British.'
'Then start with the…' Priabin began.
'What we've done meanwhile,' the young man pressed on, keeping his eyes behind their horn-rimmed spectacles on the sheaf of photographs, 'is to draw up for you a series of identikit pictures of what he might look like in various disguises — without detectable make-up or surgery. We're running these through the computer, to see whether he appears in any guise. It'll be a long job, I'm afraid.'
Priabin looked up at the young man, scowled, and said: 'You'd better bloody get on with it, then — hadn't you?'
The young man, considering himself let off lightly, turned on his heel and scuttled from the room, leaving the sheaf of papers in Priabin's lap. Priabin glanced down at them, shuffled them disconsolately.
'Well?' Tortyev asked, on the edge of his chair.
'Well what?'
'Look at the bloody pictures, man!' Tortyev said angrily.
'What's the point?'
Tortyev crossed the space of dark carpet that separated them, snatched up the sheaf and flipped through them. Once or twice, he stopped, or looked back at a previous identifit mock-up, then he threw the sheaf away from him. Priabin smiled at his irritation, until he saw his face and the fact that he retained one picture still in his
