serenity through the remaining hours of the night, trying to puzzle it out, and a little before dawn he remembered the words he had muttered in the face of the delusion. Simple words; but oh, their power.
'I don't believe . . .'he said; and the commandments trembled.
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It was half an hour before noon when he arrived at the small book exporting firm which served Suckling for cover. He felt quick-witted, despite the disturbance of the night, and rapidly charmed his way past the receptionist and entered Suckling's office unannounced. When Suckling's eyes settled on his visitor he started from his desk as if fired upon.
'Good morning,' said Ballard. 'I thought it was time we talked.'
Suckling's eyes fled to the office-door, which Ballard had left ajar.
'Sorry; is there a draught?' Ballard closed the door gently. 'I want to see Cripps,' he said.
Suckling waded through the sea of books and manu- scripts that threatened to engulf his desk. 'Are you out of your mind, coming back here?'
Tell them I'm a friend of the family,' Ballard offered.
'I can't believe you'd be so stupid.'
'Just point me to Cripps, and I'll be away.' Suckling ignored him in favour of his tirade. 'It's taken two years to establish my credentials here.' Ballard laughed.
'I'm going to report this, damn you!'
'I think you should,' said Ballard, turning up the volume. 'In the meanwhile: where's Cripps?'
Suckling, apparently convinced that he was faced with a lunatic, controlled his apoplexy. 'All right,' he said. Til have somebody call on you; take you to him.' 'Not good enough,' Ballard replied. He crossed to Suckling in two short strides and took hold of him by his lapel. He'd spent at most three hours with Suckling in ten years, but he'd scarcely passed a moment in his presence without itching to do what he was doing now. Knocking the man's hands away, he pushed Suckling against the book-lined
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wall. A stack of volumes, caught by Suckling's heel, toppled.
'Once more,' Ballard said. The old man.'
'Take your fucking hands off me,' Suckling said, his fury redoubled at being touched.
'Again,' said Ballard. 'Cripps.'
'I'll have you carpeted for this. I'll have you our!' Ballard leaned towards the reddening face, and smiled.
'I'm out anyway. People have died, remember? London needs a sacrificial lamb, and I think I'm it.' Suckling's face dropped. 'So I've got nothing to lose, have I?' There was no reply. Ballard pressed closer to Suckling, tightening his grip on the man. ''Have /?' Suckling's courage failed him. 'Cripps is dead,' he said.
Ballard didn't release his hold. 'You said the same about Odell -' he remarked. At the name, Suckling's eyes widened. '- And I saw him only last night,' Ballard said, 'out on the town.'
'You saw Odell?'
'Oh yes.'
Mention of the dead man brought the scene in the alleyway back to mind. The smell of the body; the boy's sobs. There were other faiths, thought Ballard, beyond the one he'd once shared with the creature beneath him. Faiths whose devotions were made in heat and blood, whose dogmas were dreams. Where better to baptise himself into that new faith than here, in the blood of the enemy?
Somewhere, at the very back of his head, he could hear the helicopters, but he wouldn't let them take to the air. He was strong today; his head, his hands, all strong. When he drew his nails towards Suckling's eyes the blood came easily. He had a sudden vision of the face
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beneath the flesh; of Suckling's features stripped to the essence.
'Sir?'
Ballard glanced over his shoulder. The receptionist was standing at the open door.
'Oh. I'm sorry,' she said, preparing to withdraw. To judge by her blushes she assumed this was a lover's tryst she'd walked in upon.
'Stay,' said Suckling. 'Mr Ballard . . . was just leaving.'
Ballard released his prey. There would be other opportunities to have Suckling's life.
Til see you again,' he said.
Suckling drew a handkerchief from his top pocket and pressed it to his face.
'Depend upon it,' he replied.
Now they would come for him, he could have no doubt of that. He was a rogue element, and they would strive to silence him as quickly as possible. The thought did not distress him. Whatever they had tried to make him forget with their brain-washing was more ambitious than they had anticipated; however deeply they had taught him to bury it, it was digging its way back to the surface. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was near. More
than once on his way back to his rooms he imagined eyes at his back. Maybe he was still being tailed; but his instincts informed him otherwise. The presence he felt close-by - so near that it was sometimes at his shoulder - was perhaps simply another part of him. He felt protected by it, as by a local god.
He had half expected there to be a reception committee awaiting him at his rooms, but there was nobody. Either Suckling had been obliged to delay his alarm-call, or else the upper echelons were still debating
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their tactics. He pocketed those few keepsakes that he wanted to preserve from their calculating eyes, and left the building again without anyone making a move to stop him.
It felt good to be alive, despite the chill that rendered the grim streets grimmer still. He decided, for no particular reason, to go to the zoo, which, though he had been visiting the city for two decades, he had never done. As he walked it occurred to him that he'd never been as free as he was now; that he had shed mastery like an old coat. No wonder they feared him. They had good reason.
Kantstrasse was busy, but he cut his way through the pedestrians easily, almost as if they sensed a rare certainty in him and gave him a wide berth. As he approached the entrance to the zoo, however, somebody jostled him. He looked round to upbraid the fellow, but caught only the back of the man's head as he was submerged in the crowd heading onto Hardenbergstrasse. Suspecting an attempted theft, he checked his pockets, to find that a scrap of paper had been slipped into one. He knew better than to examine it on the spot, but casually glanced round again to see if he recognised the courier. The man had already slipped away.
He delayed his visit to the zoo and went instead to the Tiergarten, and there - in the wilds of the great park - found a place to read the message. It was from Mironenko, and it requested a meeting to talk of a matter of considerable urgency, naming a house in Marienfelde as a venue. Ballard memorised the details, then shredded the note.
It was perfectly possible that the invitation was a trap of course, set either by his own faction or by the opposition. Perhaps a way to test his allegiance; or
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to manipulate him into a situation in which he could be easily despatched. Despite such doubts he had no choice but to go however, in the hope that this blind date was indeed with Mironenko. Whatever dangers this rendezvous brought, they were not so new. Indeed, given his long-held doubts of the efficacy of sight, hadn't every date he'd ever made been in some sense blind'?
By early evening the damp air was thickening towards a fog, and by the time he stepped off the bus on Hildburg- hauserstrasse it had a good hold on the city, lending the chill new powers to discomfort.
Ballard went quickly through the quiet streets. He scarcely knew the district at all, but its proximity to the Wall bled it of what little charm it might once have possessed. Many of the houses were unoccupied; of those that were not most were sealed off against the night and the cold and the lights that glared from the watch-towers. It was only with the aid of a map that he located the tiny street Mironenko's note had named. No lights burned in the house. Ballard knocked hard, but there was no answering footstep in the hall. He had anticipated several possible scenarios, but an absence of response at the house had not been amongst them. He knocked again; and again. It was only then that he heard sounds from within, and finally the door was opened to him. The hallway was painted grey and brown, and lit only by a bare bulb. The man silhouetted against this drab interior was not Mironenko.
'Yes?' he said. 'What do you want?' His German was spoken with a distinct Muscovite inflection.
'I'm looking for a friend of mine,' Ballard said. The man, who was almost as broad as the doorway he stood in, shook his head.
'There's nobody here,' he said. 'Only me.'
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'I was told -'
'You must have the wrong house.'
No sooner had the doorkeeper made the remark than noise erupted from down the dreary hallway. Furniture was being overturned; somebody had begun to shout. The Russian looked over his shoulder and went to slam the door in Ballard's face, but Ballard's foot was there to stop him. Taking advantage of the man's divided attention, Ballard put his shoulder to the door, and pushed. He was in the hallway - indeed he was half-way down it - before the Russian took a step in pursuit. The sound of demolition had escalated, and was now drowned out by the sound of a man squealing. Ballard followed the sound past the sovereignty of the lone bulb and into gloom at the back of the house. He might well have lost his way at that point but that a door was flung open ahead of him.
The room beyond had scarlet floorboards; they glistened as if freshly painted. And now the decorator appeared in person. His torso had been ripped open from neck to navel. He pressed his hands to the breached dam, but they were useless to stem the flood; his blood came in spurts, and with it, his innards. He met Ballard's gaze, his eyes full to overflowing with death, but his body had not yet received the instruction to lie down and die; it juddered on in a pitiful attempt to escape the scene of execution behind him.
The spectacle had brought Ballard to a halt, and the Russian from the door now took hold of him, and pulled him back into the hallway, shouting into his face. The outburst, in panicked Russian, was beyond Ballard, but he needed no translation of the hands that encircled his throat. The Russian was half his weight again, and had the grip of an expert strangler, but Ballard felt effortlessly the man's superior. He wrenched the
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attacker's hands from his neck, and struck him across the face. It was a fortuitous blow. The Russian fell back against the staircase, his shouts silenced.
Ballard looked back towards the scarlet room. The dead man had gone, though scraps of flesh had been left on the threshold.
From within, laughter.
Ballard turned to the Russian.
'What in God's name's going on?' he demanded, but the other man simply stared through the open door. Even as he spoke, the laughter stopped. A shadow moved across the blood-splattered wall of the interior, and a voice said:
'Ballard?'
There was a roughness there, as if the speaker had been shouting all day and night, but it was the voice of Mironenko.
'Don't stand out in the cold,' he said, 'come on in. And bring Solomonov.'
The other man made a bid for the front door, but Ballard had hold of him before he could take two steps. 'There's nothing to be afraid of, Comrade,' said Mironenko. 'The dog's gone.' Despite the reassurance, Solomonov began to sob as Ballard pressed him towards the open door.
Mironenko was right; it was warmer inside. And there no sign of a dog. There was blood in abundance, however. The man Ballard had last seen teetering in the doorway had been dragged back into this abattoir while he and Solomonov had struggled. The body had been treated with astonishing barbarity. The head had been smashed open; the innards were a grim litter underfoot. Squatting in the shadowy corner of this terrible room, Mironenko. He had been mercilessly beaten to judge by the swelling about his head and upper
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torso, but his unshaven face bore a smile for his saviour.
'I knew you'd come,' he said. His gaze fell upon Solomonov. They followed me,' he said. 'They meant to kill me, I suppose. Is that what you intended, Comrade?'
Solomonov shook with fear - his eyes flitting from the bruised moon of Mironenko's face to the pieces of gut that lay everywhere about - finding nowhere a place of refuge.
'What stopped them?' Ballard asked.
Mironenko stood up. Even this slow movement caused Solomonov to flinch.
'Tell Mr Ballard,' Mironenko prompted. 'Tell him what happened.' Solomonov was too terrified to speak. 'He's KGB, of course,' Mironenko explained. 'Both trusted men. But not trusted enough to be warned, poor idiots. So they were sent to murder me with just a gun and a prayer.' He laughed at the thought. 'Neither of which were much use in the circumstances.' 'I beg you . . .' Solomonov murmured, '. . . let me go. I'll say nothing.'
'You'll say what they want you to say, Comrade, the way we all must,' Mironenko replied. 'Isn't that right, Ballard? All slaves of our faith?'
