'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'So, he disobeys his orders and turns a routine exercise into a bloodbath. Not that I'm worried about these d.a.m.ned dissidents we use here. One way of forcing them to serve their country. Who were the policemen, by the way?'

'I'm not sure. Give me a moment.' Cherny picked up the telephone. 'Levin, get in here.'

'Who's Levin?' Maslovsky asked.

'He's been here about three months. A Jewish dissident, sentenced to five years for secretly corresponding with relatives in Israel. He runs the office with extreme efficiency.'

'What was his profession?'

'Physicist - structural engineer. He was, I think, involved with aircraft design. I've every reason to believe he's already seen the error of his ways.'

'That's what they all say,' Maslovsky told him.

There was a knock on the door and the man in question entered. Viktor Levin was a small man who looked larger only because of the quilted jacket and pants he wore. He was forty-five years of age, with iron-grey hair, and his steel spectacles had been repaired with tape. He had a hunted look about him, as if he expected the KGB to kick open the door at any moment, which, in his situation, was a not unreasonable a.s.sumption.

'Who were the three policemen?' Cherny asked.

'The sergeant was a man called Voronin, Comrade,' Levin told him. 'Formerly an actor with the Moscow Arts Theatre. He tried to defect to the West last year, after the death of his wife. Sentence - ten years.'

'And the child?'

Tanya Voroninova, his daughter. I'd have to check on the other two.'

'Never mind now. You can go.'

Levin went out and Maslovsky said, 'Back to Kelly. I can't get over the fact that he shot that man outside the bar. A direct defiance of my order. Mind you,' he added grudgingly, 'an amazing shot.'

'Yes, he's good.'

'Go over his background for me again.'

Maslovsky poured more coffee and vodka and sat down by the fire and Cherny took a file from the desk and opened it.' 'Mikhail Kelly, born in a village called Ballygar in Kerry. That's in the Irish Republic. 1938. Father, Sean Kelly, an IRA

activist in the Spanish Civil War where he met the boy's mother in Madrid. Martha Vronsky, Soviet citizen.'

'And as I recall, the father was hanged by the British?'

'That's right. He took part in an IRA bombing campaign in the London area during the early months of the Second World War. Was caught, tried and executed.'

'Another Irish martyr. They seem to thrive on them, those people.'

'Martha Vronsky was ent.i.tled to Irish citizenship and continued to live in Dublin, supporting herself as a journalist. The boy went to a Jesuit school there.'

'Raised as a Catholic?'

'Of course. Those rather peculiar circ.u.mstances came to the attention of our man in Dublin who reported to Moscow. The boy's potential was obvious and the mother was persuaded to return with him to Russia in 1953. She died two years later. Stomach cancer.'

'So, he's now twenty and intelligent, I understand?'

'Very much so. Has a flair for languages. Simply soaks them up.' Cherny glanced at the file again. 'But his special talent is for acting. I'd go so far as to say he has a genius for it.'

'Highly appropriate in the circ.u.mstances.'

'If things had been different he might well have achieved greatness in that field.'

'Yes, well he can forget about that,' Maslovsky commented sourly. 'His killing instincts seem well developed.'

'Thuggery is no problem in this sort of affair,' Cherny told him. 'As the Comrade Colonel well knows, anyone can be trained to kill, which is why we place the emphasis on brains when recruiting. Kelly does have a very rare apt.i.tude when using a handgun, however. Quite unique.'

'So I observed,' Maslovsky said. 'To kill like that, so ruthlessly. He must have a strong strain of the psychopath in him.'

'Not in his case, Comrade Colonel. It's perhaps a little difficult to understand, but as I told you, Kelly is a brilliant actor. Today, he played the role of IRA gunman and he

carried it through, just as if he had been playing the part in a film.'

'Except that there was no director to callcut,' Maslovsky observed, 'and the dead man didn't get up and walk away when the camera stopped rolling.'

'I know,' Cherny said. 'But it explains psychologically wh) hehad to shoot three men and why he fired at Murphy in spite of orders. Murphy was an informer. He had to be seen to be punished. In the role he was playing, it was impossible for Kelly to act in any other way. That is the purpose of the training.'

'All right, I take the point. And you think he's ready to go out into the cold now?'

'I believe so, Comrade Colonel.'

'All right, let's have him in.'

Without the hat and the raincoat Mikhail Kelly seemed younger than ever. He wore a dark polo-neck sweater, a jacket of Donegal tweed and corduroy slacks. He seemed totally composed, almost withdrawn, and Maslovsky was conscious of that vague feeling of irritation again.

'You're pleased with yourself, I suppose, with what happened out there? I told you not to shoot the man Murphy. Why did you disobey my orders?'

'He was an informer, Comrade Colonel. Such people need to be taught a lesson if men like me are to survive.' He shrugged. 'The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. Lenin said that. In the days of the Irish revolution, it was Michael Collins's favourite quotation.'

'It was a game, d.a.m.n you!' Maslovsky exploded. 'Not the real thing.'

'If we play the game long enough, Comrade Colonel, it can sometimes end up playing us,' Kelly told him calmly.

'Dear G.o.d!' Maslovsky said and it had been many years since he had expressed such a sentiment. 'All right, let's get on with it.' He sat down at the desk, facing Kelly. 'Professor Cherny feels you are ready to go to work. You agree?'

zo

'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'Your task is easily stated. Our chief antagonists are America and Britain. Britain is the weaker of the two and its capitalist edifice is being eroded. The biggest thorn in Britain's side is the IRA. You are about to become an additional thorn.'

The colonel leaned forward and stared into Kelly's eyes. 'You are from now on a maker of disorder.'

'In Ireland?'