Another white face appeared right in front of McColl. Its owner, it seemed safe to assume, was not employed by the Cheka. He was about sixty, had a prematurely wizened face surrounded by white hair and beard, and carried a bright green parrot on his left shoulder. A large canvas bag hung from the other. “You want your fortune told,” he told McColl, first in German, then, with bewildering fluidity, in a succession of other languages, most of which sounded vaguely Balkan.
McColl laughed. “Why not?” he replied in Russian. “How much?”
The man looked surprised. “You are Russian?”
“Of course.”
The man just shook his head.
The Cheka could use this old man, McColl thought. “How much?” he asked again.
“A Kerensky note.”
It was only an opening bid, but it was far too hot for bargaining. McColl took a note from his pocket and placed it on the mattress on which he was sitting. The man unslung his bag and opened it up at the neck, then offered it to the parrot, who delved in and brought out a tiny envelope in its beak. After offering the prize to its master, the parrot turned its gimlet eyes on McColl, with a look that said: “Why do I do all the work?”
The old man passed the envelope on to McColl and scooped up the note with his other hand.
“And where do you come from?” McColl asked.
The man cackled. “I was born in Serbia, but that was a long time ago.” He was slowly backing away, as if concerned that the fortune foretold in the envelope might not be to his customer’s taste.
McColl watched him sidle off as he opened the envelope. On a small piece of rice paper, the words “She loves you” had been neatly printed in several languages. He smiled to himself and placed it in his pocket. “Maybe she does,” he murmured. In the distance the parrot squawked, probably in derision.
The Chekist—if that was what the man was—was still calmly sipping his tea. McColl would have to lose him, without giving the appearance of doing so. Which shouldn’t be too hard in the alleys of the old town, McColl thought. Without another glance in the man’s direction, McColl left the chaikhana and headed up Takhtapul Street, steadily increasing his walking pace as he did so. One abrupt turn led into another, and a half-demolished cart offered something to hide behind. If the Chekist saw him, he could say that he’d taken the man for a footpad; if he didn’t . . .
After a minute had passed, he reached the conclusion that he wasn’t being followed after all.
Watching out for the man just in case, McColl retraced his steps to Takhtapul Street and continued up it until he reached the covered bazaar he remembered from 1916. After passing booths containing silk workers, coppersmiths, and carpet makers, he recognized the narrow alley alongside the large rug emporium and, after one last glance around, ducked into it. Counting off the doorways, he let himself into the fifth.
The Indian was sitting in the small courtyard, watching one of his wives energetically beating the dust out of a Bokhara rug. He leapt up in alarm when McColl abruptly appeared, but once he realized who it was, his smile was almost too effusive. “Welcome to my home once again,” he said formally, offering space on the carpet. He shooed his wife into the house with a few sharp words, then quickly recalled her to order tea. “I trust you are fighting fit, Mr. Voronovsky,” he said in English.
“Yes, thank you,” McColl said. “But I am now Mr. Davydov. I hope you and your family are all in the best of health.”
A second wife, clothed in a jade-green sari, appeared with a silver dish of sweetmeats and was swiftly followed by a third with a plate of fresh figs. The two men nibbled in silence until the tea arrived, and all the women were back inside. McColl wondered, not for the first time, why sitting cross-legged was so uncomfortable.
“It is very hot, is it not?” the Indian said politely.
“Yes, it is. This meeting must be a short one, I’m sorry to say. I need to make contact with the head office.”
The Indian poured the tea unhurriedly. “I most regret,” he finally said, sounding not in the least regretful, “that our wireless set has not been received. They promise machine for several months, but . . .” He shrugged. “Do you wish sugar?”
McColl found it hard to conceal his annoyance.
“However,” the Indian continued, “not all is despairing. I can get a message to Delhi in three weeks.”
“Thank you, but I’m afraid my need is more urgent than that.” He got to his feet. “I will remind London that you’re waiting for a wireless.”
“That will be most exciting of you,” the Indian said solemnly.
McColl let himself out and walked slowly back through the old town. What should his next move be? The wireless in Samarkand was still operational—or had been when he left England—but that was a full day’s journey away. And once he’d abandoned Komarov, there’d be no coming back. He would lose touch with the Russian’s pursuit and, of course, with her. Again.
As it turned out, he was given no choice in the matter. Two Chekists were waiting outside the hotel; they bundled him into the back of their car, where his suitcase was already resting. Which was probably a good sign—if this was an arrest, they wouldn’t have bothered to collect his belongings.
He also recognized the street the car drove down—they’d come down it on their way from the train station.
The train was waiting in a bay platform: one locomotive and two crimson coaches. Komarov and Maslov beside it, obviously waiting for him. The fact that they’d delayed their pursuit for a mere interpreter was gratifying but also seemed slightly mysterious.
“Where now?” he asked them cheerfully.
“Samarkand,” Komarov said shortly. “Get the train moving,” he told Maslov.
It seemed that fate was conspiring to help him. “Have they been caught?” he asked Komarov.
“No. But one of them’s been killed—we don’t know which. Not an Indian.”
“So it might be Piatakova’s husband.”
“Yes, she’s distressed. As you would expect.”
McColl boarded the train, wondering why Komarov hadn’t asked where he’d been that morning. Then again, his fictional self was supposed to come from Tashkent, so maybe the Cheka boss had assumed he was visiting family or friends.
He rapped softly on Caitlin’s compartment door and, when he got no answer, gently pushed it open. She was sitting with hands clasped between her knees, a glimmer of tears on her face.
“Can I help?” he asked.
She looked up, managed a quarter smile, and shook her head. “No. Thank you, but no. I need to be alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He retreated into the corridor, taken aback by how upset she was and disappointed with himself for feeling that way.
In the saloon he found Komarov and Maslov. “If one man was killed, what happened to the others?” McColl asked the senior man.
“They escaped,” the Russian said wryly. “And at this rate we’re never going to catch them. Why the hell aren’t we moving?” he asked, sticking his head through a convenient open window in search of the answer.
As if in response, the wheels jerked forward, causing Komarov to draw in his head, and spread his hands wide like a magician completing a trick. McColl couldn’t help laughing; Maslov’s expression suggested they’d both taken leave of their senses.
The magic soon wore off. The train kept stopping and starting at what seemed increasingly frequent intervals. McColl took up residence in the saloon, which by now felt almost like a home away from home—the smell of leather and the rattling wheels, the familiar books and companions. It took him most of the afternoon to notice what had changed; Maslov was no longer able to look him straight in the eye.
McColl got up and walked through onto the rear veranda, feeling butterflies looping the loop in his stomach. He lit a
cigarette and watched the rails recede across the empty desert. What had he done to cause such a change in the way the Ukrainian looked at him? He couldn’t believe that his sleeping with Caitlin would affect the young man so.
No, they knew. Perhaps there’d been more than one shadow that morning; perhaps the Indian had already been under surveillance or was himself a Cheka informer. It hardly mattered. They knew.
McColl’s admiration for Komarov went up another notch. A lesser man would simply have arrested him. He also realized with a sinking heart that now he’d have to keep his distance from Caitlin. If he didn’t, she might wind up in front of the same firing squad.
Piatakov crouched down beside the tracks, supporting himself with one hand on a coach buffer, calculating distances and angles. The two Chekists were leaning against the wall of the Kagan station building, talking idly to each other and smoking cigarettes. They had checked all the alighting passengers’ papers when the train arrived but had shown no inclination to investigate those still on board. Presumably the search was still unfocussed: there would have been no time to get a message through before they’d cut the wires. Though that in itself, once discovered, would be suggestive enough.
A one-coach train was sitting in a bay platform some hundred yards away. Beyond it, across a wide expanse of yellow-ochre desert, Piatakov could make out Bokhara’s mud walls and a line of trees that presumably followed a river. Which probably meant that the small train was headed that way. In which case, where was the one to Kerki? The only other wheeled vehicles in sight, aside from the train he’d been on, were the rusted wagons standing in the sand-blown siding.
The two Chekists were looking away, talking to someone inside the station building. Piatakov took his chance, moving out from behind the train in a crouching run. After reaching the end of the building without raising any alarm, he took a cautious look around its farther corner, and found himself eye to eye with a middle-aged Russian woman. She was sitting in a droshky, shading herself with a red parasol. An Uzbek was busily tying her luggage onto the back, stressing the efforts he was making on her behalf with a series of groans and mumbled asides.
Piatakov walked across and offered a respectful bow. “Good afternoon, madam,” he said. “Would you happen to know if there’s a train to Kerki?”
She stared at him for several seconds, probably wondering how a wretch in native clothes could act and talk like a civilized Russian, then decided to be generous. “I’m afraid not,” she said with a gracious smile. “I have only just arrived here myself. My husband is the new consul in Bukhara,” she proudly added in explanation.
“Kerki,” the Uzbek said, emerging from behind the droshky, “nyet.” He made a throat-cutting motion to emphasize the point. “Basmachi trouble,” he added with a grin, and swung himself up into the driving seat. He flicked the whip casually across the back of the pony, which turned to look at him as if expecting confirmation of these travel arrangements. The driver provided it with another flick, and the pony, apparently satisfied, set the droshky in motion. As it turned a tight circle and clattered off, the new consul’s wife gave Piatakov a suitably regal wave.
There was no one else in sight. A whistle announced the departure of one of the trains. “Nyet” seemed clear enough, the Basmachi rebels a reasonable explanation. Piatakov walked back along the end of the station building and again put his head around the corner.
The two Chekists had disappeared, and the one-coach train was in motion, chuffing its way down the single track toward the ancient city walls. He walked swiftly across to the stationary train, stepped up onto the rear veranda, and made his way forward to the carriage they were sharing with a horde of Uzbeks. There were no empty seats and barely room to sit on the floor, but they’d managed to colonize a corner.
“No,” Piatakov told the others in response to their questioning looks. “It’ll have to be the boat.”
As the train continued its fitful journey, Caitlin braced herself for the news that Sergei was dead. It felt such a waste, seemed so stupid, and the sorrow she half expected was already riddled with anger. In truth, she didn’t know what she was feeling, only that something was tearing at her heart.
Waking in the night, she was suddenly convinced that her sleeping with Jack had rebounded on Sergei, that by betraying her husband, she’d somehow abandoned him to the ultimate fate. Which was, of course, absurd. Sergei had left her. He had chosen to follow Brady and Shahumian, and whatever he was, he wasn’t a fool—he must have known what the likely end would be.
Which was no consolation at all. Had she tried hard enough to stop him? Had she been too impatient, too involved in her work? Had she loved him enough? Had she ever loved anyone enough to put them first? A brave heart was good, but maybe a kind one was better.
When the sun eventually rose on another day, she sat and watched the desert go by, thinking that she’d never felt less sure of who she was and what she wanted.
The train reached Samarkand early that afternoon. In the stone station building, a Cheka chauffeur was waiting to lead them to the shiny car parked in the forecourt. It had obviously just been washed in their honor: the ground underneath it was damp; a pile of empty kerosene cans lay scattered on the verge.
They crammed into the car, which should have been parked in the shade. The metal was too hot to touch, the interior like an oven. Caitlin shared the back seat with Maslov and Jack, feeling like she hadn’t slept for days.
The drive through the Russian town took five minutes, ending outside a small house where several Uzbek militiamen were reluctantly standing to a semblance of attention. A thin, bald, and rather cadaverous Russian emerged through a doorway to greet them.
“Welcome, comrades,” he said. “Chechevichkin, chairman of the Samarkand Cheka,” he introduced himself, before leading them through a detention room full of anxious faces, across a shaded inner courtyard, and into his personal office. A map and several exhortatory posters lined one white wall; on another a single framed photograph held pride of place. It showed a mass meeting in a square surrounded by mosques; the caption underneath read, the proclamation of the revolution, 28th november 1917, in the registan.
“Where is the body?” Caitlin wanted to know.
“In the next room—”
She strode past Chechevichkin and through the open doorway. A wooden coffin lay in the center of the floor, and for a moment she hesitated, fearful of whom she would find inside it. Then, with what felt like enormous effort, she moved herself forward a couple of paces.
It was Aram Shahumian, or rather his corpse, stripped to the waist, laid out on a bed of half-melted ice. Dried-brown blood caked his chest and folded arms. A handful of flies hovered hopefully over the open box, drawn by the flesh but repelled by the cold.
Caitlin let out an explosive breath. She had met the Armenian on several occasions, and while she’d considered him one of Sergei’s more likable friends, she’d been wary of his chronic restlessness, the trouble he had in simply sitting still. Now his face looked almost serene, as if aware that his struggles were over. For a moment she wished it were Sergei lying there, anger and heartache gone, finally at peace.
“Have you nothing to cover him with?” she heard herself ask.
Chechevichkin looked at Komarov, who nodded. “Aram Shahumian, I presume?” he asked her quietly.
“Yes,” she said softly. Next time it would be Sergei.
Chechevichkin came back with a sheet and draped it across the coffin.
“Did he ever regain consciousness?” Komarov asked him.
“Only for a short time in the car. He only said one thing.” The Chekist hesitated.
“Yes?”
“Long live the revolution.”
Caitlin didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.
After Komarov had sent them both off in a droshky, McColl wasted no time in telling Caitlin his news. “He knows I
’m a spy. God knows how, but I’m sure he does. I doubt he knows that you know—I don’t see how he could—but then I didn’t think he knew about me. We need to keep our distance from each other, in case we give him ideas.”
She looked at him. “You must run.”
“I will. As soon as I get the chance.”
“Where will you go?” Caitlin asked.
“I’ll have to head south to the border, and if Komarov doesn’t catch Brady on this side, I’ll do my best on the other.”
She placed a hand in his. “Jack.”
“Yes?”
“If you can, spare Sergei. He’s not a bad man, and he’s doing what he thinks is right.”
And killing people who get in his way, McColl thought. As he had himself, for masters no better than Brady. “I will,” he promised as their droshky drew up outside the Kommercheskaya Hotel.
Four rooms had been requisitioned, apparently at rather short notice: the previous occupants were still disputing their eviction in the lobby when Caitlin and McColl arrived. He asked the clerk for directions and was swiftly besieged by an angry mob. For a second he looked for someone to hit—it had been a stressful day. The thought must have shown on his face—the complainants went back to work on the clerk.
Their rooms were on the upper floor. Caitlin disappeared into hers without speaking, closing the door behind her. His was next door, the usual white-walled square with its soiled mattress and jug of dirty water. He folded back the shutters to reveal the boulevard. Across the way an ex-bank was boarded up behind a row of ragged trees. The soft clatter of typing drifted up from a room below.
It would be dark in an hour and easier to lose whomever Komarov would have on his tail. And that would still have to look accidental, or Komarov might decide there was no point in leaving him free.
He felt tired, incredibly tired. But there was no knowing how long they’d be in Samarkand or how long he’d be at liberty. It might be days, might be hours. He paced up and down, willing the light to fade, wondering how to do it. Nothing clever occurred to him, but then the old tricks usually worked.
The Dark Clouds Shining Page 26