Firefox

hand.

'It's him — Orton,' he said softly, turning the picture of a seedy, tired, moustached individual with spectacles in Priabin's direction. 'It's him…'

Priabin stared at him. The knock on the door caused him to leap to his feet, as if guiltily surprised. The door opened to reveal Holokov, out of breath, his overcoat badly tugged on, collar up, his face red with exertion. Tortyev had left him in the restaurant at the Centre, upstairs, where the food was as good as any of Moscow's principal hotels, and cheaper. Holokov had spilled tea on his tie, which was askew, Tortyev noticed.

'What is it?' he said sharply, rising to his feet.

'Stechko…' Holokov said wheezingly. 'Phone call from headquarters — that bloody little Jew, Filipov, has been in contact with the British Embassy.'

'What?'

'True. They were monitoring the phones in the rest-room, and he placed a call from there. Stechko's got him in your office now.'

Tortyev continued staring at Holokov for a moment, digesting his information. Then he turned to Priabin, and said: 'All our problems solved in one fell swoop, Dmitri — eh? This bloody little traitor must know who Orton is, and why he's gone to Bilyarsk! He's warned the British that we're close to finding out who he is — we have the answer in the palm of our hands.'

Priabin's face broke into a slow smile. 'Come on,' he said. 'Your car still waiting for you?'

Tortyev nodded. 'Then I'll come, too — with your permission?'

Tortyev smiled. 'Naturally, Dmitri.'

As they passed through the door, and fat Holokov closed it behind them, Priabin said: 'The value of gossip, eh, Alexei — the value of gossip!' He slapped Tortyev on the shoulder, and he and the detective laughed loudly in unison.

* * *

Priabin stood at Tortyev's desk, the telephone receiver in his hand, waiting for the Centre's code-room to answer him. He looked across the room, to where the unconscious, bloody form of Filipov was collapsed into a chair, held there only by the straps on his wrists. The man's dark, ascetic features were bruised and swollen. Blood had run over his chin from broken teeth and a damaged lip, and the skin was split and discoloured around his closed eyes. His nose had bled freely when Holokov's huge fist had broken it. Stechko and Holokov hovered in that same corner of the room, silenced machines awaiting fresh commands, while Tortyev paced the room. The time was after one in the morning.

Priabin was indifferent to the damage done by Tortyev's apes. They had had to work swiftly — too crudely for his taste but, surprisingly, not for Tortyev. Perhaps Alexei Tortyev was angry with Filipov, especially angry because he had trusted him — or merely because he was a Jew. Such anti-Semitism was by no means unusual in the KGB.

Priabin had communicated with Kontarsky, as his first priority, reporting that the man in the truck was obviously an agent, and that he expected swift results from the interrogation of the traitor, Filipov. At twelve-fifty, he had to call his chief again, to report that Filipov had not talked, even though he had confessed himself an agent of the British, had spilled the whole story of his recruitment by the Cultural Attache, Lansing. Filipov had talked, but he had not told them what he ought to have been able to tell them.

Kontarsky was thus left suddenly in the dark as to the present appearance of the man known to Filipov as Orton, despite the fact that Priabin had wire-printed the pictures of Orton. Kontarsky already had with him the photograph's of Upenskoy's companion from the security checks at Moscow, Gorky and Kazan, wire-printed to him from the local KGB offices as a matter of urgency.

Kontarsky, Priabin now had to admit to himself, was panicky. He knew that a human bomb was in Bilyarsk, somewhere, but he had no idea of the time-mechanism, the extent, the force… He was hamstrung. He had requested all the identifit pictures of Orton supplied by the computer to be wire-printed, a task which had just been completed.

What concerned him now, as the code-room answered Priabin's call, was sending coded instructions to the Russian Embassies in London and Washington, in order to request the senior KGB Resident at each of them to supply information, descriptions, and whereabouts of all recent arrivals at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, or at the Ministry of Defence in London, or any of the various SIS offices in the city. It might be, he knew, a forlorn gamble, but it was one he had to take. At best, such records of arrivals and departures at the security headquarters of the two organisations were patchy and incomplete; nevertheless, unlike Tortyev, who seemed unable to ignore, or leave alone, the beaten, bloody policeman in the-chair, he had doubts that Filipov even knew the real identity of the man who had been Orton, and then had posed as Glazunov. His only real hope was to obtain a lead which would enable them to discover just what kind of agent the man was, and thereby to forestall his purpose at Bilyarsk.

'Hello — Priabin, Department 'M', 2nd Directorate here,' he said into the mouthpiece. Tortyev looked up at him for a moment, and then looked away. 'I want the following coded messages transmitted, on the authority of Colonel Kontarsky, to the Washington and London Residents, as soon as possible…'

The call took only a couple of minutes.When he had finished, he put down the telephone thoughtfully. He looked in the direction of Filipov, and saw Tortyev attempting to revive the man for further questioning.

'Not for the moment, Alexei,' he said. 'I've an idea — I may want to make another call.'

Tortyev turned away from Filipov, as if with reluctance, and said: 'What is it?'

'Let's review what's been done thus far,' he said. 'We've checked on known or suspected agents of most of the Western intelligence services, who might be interested in the Bilyarsk project, and capable of mounting this sort of operation.' Tortyev nodded. 'Because the man's been clever, we've assumed that he's a very good agent, one of their top men — which means we ought to have found him by now — eh?'

'Agreed. He's obviously new, or been kept back for this one job — it's big enough to warrant that.'

'Too bloody true,' Priabin commented gruffly.

'Exactly. So — why haven't we found him — and where do we look?'

'Just my own thought. As I was saying — he's either a top agent or, he's not an agent at all.'

'He has to be — with this kind of cover-operation going on.' Tortyev nodded over his shoulder at the slumped form of the Jew. 'They've used Filipov knowing they might be expending him. They expended another top man, the truck-driver. That's two down. The British are always careful of their operatives, Dmitri, they don't throw them away! '

'No — I don't mean he's not working for the British, or the Americans… just that he's been recruited from some other field. Look at it this way. What if he's not there to damage the project? After all, what would be the point? As far as we know, the Americans are so far behind, they'd need ten years to catch up with the Mig-31 despite being handed a Mig-25 by Belenko four years ago.' Priabin's voice had sunk to a confidential whisper, and he glanced sideways at Stechko and Holokov who, politically, seemed to be occupied with the limp form of Filipov, minutely inspecting him in a grotesque form of damage-report.

'I agree — from what you've told me.'

'So — our security has been able to intercept most of what has been passed to London and Washington by the underground at Bilyarsk, via the Embassy here. Therefore, the Americans and British want to know more. They want a first-hand report of what's going on, perhaps even photographs, and an eye-witness account.'

'You mean — an expert?'

'Yes!' Priabin's voice was suddenly louder. 'What if they've sent an aeronautics expert, who knows what to look for, what questions to ask?'

'God — it could be anyone — someone we don't even know!'

There was a silence.

'I don't think he knows,' Priabin said, nodding towards Filipov, who groaned with returning consciousness as he did so.

'He could do,' Tortyev replied. 'Besides,' he added in a menacing tone, 'I haven't finished with him yet, the little Jewish shit!'

Priabin shrugged. 'Suit yourself,' he said. 'But don't start on him again until I've made another call. I want a check run through the computer on the entire American and British aerospace industries.'

'It'll take hours…!' Tortyev protested.

'No longer than it will take your gorillas to beat it out of Filipov. There won't be many names — not capable