“I don’t believe he is. Winkler would never have visited the lair of the tiger himself. I believe he’s still out there somewhere, and that he’ll come.”
“Very well. One week, John. Friday next, it is.”
Sir Bernard hung up. Preston stared at the handset. The election was thirteen days away. He was beginning to feel dejected, that he could have been wrong all along. Nobody else, with the possible exception of Sir Nigel, believed in his hunch. A small disk of polonium and a low-level Czech bagman were not much to go on, and might not even be linked.
“All right, Sir Bernard,” he told the buzzing receiver, “one week. After that I’m packing it in, anyway.”
The Finnair jet from Helsinki arrived the following Monday afternoon, on time, as usual, and its complement of passengers passed through Heathrow without undue problems. One of them was a tall, bearded man of middle age whose Finnish passport claimed him to be Urho Nuutila, and whose fluent command of the language could be partly explained by his Karelian parentage. He was in fact a Russian named Vassiliev, by profession a scientist in nuclear engineering attached to the Soviet Army Artillery, Ordnance Research Directorate. He spoke passable English.
Having cleared customs, he took the airport courtesy bus to the Heathrow Penta Hotel, walked in through the front, kept going right past reception, and emerged at the rear door, which gave onto the parking lot. He waited by that door in the late-afternoon sunshine, unnoticed by anyone, until a small hatchback sedan drew abreast of him. The driver had his window open. “Is this where the buses from the airport drop the passengers?” he asked.
“No,” said the traveler. “I think that is around the front.”
“Where are you from?” asked the young man.
“Finland, actually,” said the bearded one.
“It must be cold in Finland.”
“No, at this time of year it is very hot. The main problem is the mosquitoes.”
The young man nodded. Vassiliev walked around the car and climbed in. They drove off.
“Name?” asked Petrofsky.
“Vassiliev.”
“That’ll do. Nothing more. I’m Ross.”
“Far to go?” asked Vassiliev.
“About two hours.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Petrofsky made three separate maneuvers to detect a tail, had there been one. They arrived at Cherryhayes Close by the last light of day. On the next-door patch of front lawn Petrofsky’s neighbor Mr. Armitage was mowing the grass.
“Company?” Armitage asked as Vassiliev descended from the car and walked to the front door.
Petrofsky took his guest’s single small suitcase from the back and winked at his neighbor. “Head office,” he whispered. “Best behavior. Might get promotion.”
“Oh, I should think so, then.” Armitage grinned and nodded in encouragement, and went on mowing.
Inside the sitting room, Petrofsky closed the curtains as he always did before putting on the light. Vassiliev stood motionless in the gloom. “Right,” he said when the lights went on. “To business. Have you got all nine consignments that were sent to you?”
“Yes. All nine.”
“Let?
??s confirm them. One child’s ball, weighing about twenty kilograms.”
“Check.”
“One pair shoes, one box cigars, one plaster cast.”
“Check.”
“One transistor radio, one electric shaver, one steel tube, extremely heavy.”
“That must be this.” Petrofsky went to a closet and held up a short length of heavy metal in heat-resistant cladding.