'Balalaika.'

At this stage it wasn't important; I didn't know why I'd asked. I knew later, a few minutes later.

'So why aren't the Russian police and security services targeting Sakkas, along with the other top mafiya kicks?' I swung away, took a turn, feeling restless, came back and looked down at the Chief of Signals. He sat perched in the half-light like a hooded crow. 'Or are they?'

I caught the slightest hesitation in him, a pause before he spoke. He'd noted the restlessness, and would know what it meant. Blast his eyes.

'The Interior Ministry's Organized Crime Section has been sending in some of its special investigators, of course. The RAOCs have also -'

'RAOCs?' I hadn't been in Moscow since it was the capital of the Soviet Union.

'Our own acronym for the regional administrations for fighting organized crime.'

'Bureau speak?'

'No, it's a straight translation from the Russian.'

Perhaps he wondered why I wanted to know. It was because I was beginning to want to know everything. 'Go on,' I said.

'The RAOCs have also been sending their people in, but the odds against success are suicidally high, because of the corruption at all levels of government. A large number of civil servants are in the pay of the organizatsiya – the mainstream mafiya – and some of them are actually in close touch, so that any incorrupt agents who try to infiltrate the opposition are immediately recognized by their own colleagues and marked down for the hit squads. Part of the problem is that every legitimate agent is to a varying extent terrified of the job.'