just gone through their revolutions; each was a new, emerging nation. Words and decisions had to be practicaL" "Your erudition does not change my judgment. I've seen too much, used too much." "I don't want to change anything, least of all your talents of observation. I would only like you to keep things in perspective. Perhaps we're all in a state of transition." "To what?" Mikovsky put on his spectacles. "To heaven or hell, Vasili. I haven7t the vaguest idea which. My only consolation is that I will not be here to find out. How will you get to Essen?" "Back through Helsinki." "Will it be difficult?" "No. There's a man from Vyborg who'll help." "When will you leave?" "In the morning." "You're welcome to stay the night with me." "No, it could be dangerous for you." The scholar raised his head in surprise. "But I thought you said that my performance on the phone removed such concerns." "I believe it. I don't think anything will be said for days. Eventually, of course, the police will be called; but by then the incident-as far as you're concerned-will have faded into an unpleasant lapse of procedures." "Then where's the problem?" "That I'm wrong. In which case I will have killed us both." Mikovsky smiled. "There's a certain fmality in that." "I had to do what I did. There was no one else. I'm sorry.
"Don't be." Ile scholar rose and walked unsteadily around the desk. "You must go then, and I will not see you again. Embrace me, Vasili Vasilovich.
Heaven or hell, which will it be? I think you know. It is the latter and you have reached it." "I got there a long time ago," said Taleniekov, holding the gentle old man he would never see again.
"Colonel Maletkin?" asked Vasili, knowing that the hesitant voice on the other end of the line indeed belonged to the traitor from Vyborg.
"Where are you?" "At a telephone in the street, not far away. Do you have something for me?" "Yes.
"Good. And I have something for YOU." "Also good," Maletkin said. "When?" "Now. Walk out the front entrance of the hotel and turn right. Keep walking, I'll catch up with you." There was a moment of silence. "It's almost midnight." "I'm glad your watch is accurate. It must be expensive. Is it one of those Swiss chronometers so popular with the Americans?" "There's a woman here." "Tell her to wait. Order her, Colonel. You're an officer of the KGB." Seven minutes later Maletkin emerged ferret-like on the pavement in front of the entrance, looking smaller-thanlife and glancing in several directions at once without seemingly turning his head. Although it was cold and dark, Vasili could almost see the sweat on the traitor's chin; in a day or so there would be no chin. It would be blown off in a courtyard in Vyborg.
Maletkin began walking north. There were not many pedestrians on Brodsky Street, a few couples linked arm in arm, the inevitable trio of young soldiers looking for warmth somewhere, anywhere, before returning to the sterility of their barracks. Taleniekov waited, watching the scene in the street, looking for someone who did not belong.
There was no one. The traitor had not considered a double-cross nor had any soldier of the Matarese picked him up. Vasili left the shadows of the doorway and hastened up the block; in sixty seconds he was directly across from Maletkin. He began whistling "Yankee Doodle Dandy." "There's your cablel" said the traitor, spitting out the words in the darkness of a recessed storefront. "This is the only duplicate. Now tell me. Who is the informer in VyborgT' "The other informer, don't you mean?" Taleniekov snapped his cigarette lighter and looked at the copy of the coded message to Helsinki. It was accurate. "You'll have the name in a matter of hours." "I want it nowl For all I know someone's already checked with Vyborg. I want my protection, you guaranteed itl I'm leaving first thing in the morning." "We're leaving," interrupted VasilL "Before morning, actually."
"Yes. You'll make that roster after all:' "I don't want anything to do with you. Your photograph's on every KGB bulletin board; there were two of them down at the Ligovsky headquartersl I found myself sweating." "I wouldn't have thought it. But, you see, you must drive me back to the lake and put me in contact with the Finns. My business here in Leningrad is finished." "Why me? I've done enough!" "Because if you