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 entitled 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 circumstances 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 circumstances.’
‘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 aptitude 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 call cut,’ 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 why he had 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, damn 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 God!’ 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?’
‘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?’
‘Eventually, but you must undergo more training in the outside world first. Let me explain your task further.’ He stood up and walked to the fire. ‘In nineteen fifty-six, the IRA Army Council voted to start another campaign in Ulster. Three years later, and it has been singularly unsuccessful. There is little doubt that this campaign will be called off and sooner rather than later. It has achieved nothing.’
‘So?’ Kelly said.
Maslovsky returned to the desk. ‘However, our own intelligence sources indicate that eventually a conflict will break out in Ireland of a far more serious nature than anything that has gone before. When that day comes, you must be ready for it, in deep and waiting.’
‘I understand, Comrade.’
‘I hope you do. However, enough for now. Professor Cherny will fill you in on your more immediate plans when I’ve gone. For the moment, you’re dismissed.’
Kelly went out without a word. Cherny said, ‘He can do it. I’m certain of it.’
‘I hope so. He could be as good as any of the native sleepers and he drinks less.’
Maslovsky walked to the window and peered out at the driving rain, suddenly tired, not thinking of Kelly at all, conscious, for no particular reason, of the look on the child’s face when she had attacked the Irishman back there in the square.
‘That
