Traitor's Gait

by Geoffrey Osborne

  ‘Why do they turn idiots like that loose? He could have wrecked us.’

  ‘True,’ said Dingle. ‘So the sooner this mission is completed, and we get ourselves home, the better. Finish up your beer; it’s time we went to Minin’s flat to get everything sorted out.’

  Chapter Nine

  Stakan, wearing the uniform of a GRU corporal, steered the five-seater Volga — which Jones had hired earlier in the day — into the side of the road and brought it to a gentle halt. He switched off the motor.

  The metallic clicking of the cooling engine sounded unnaturally loud in the still, heavy silence of the countryside.

  ‘There’s the turn-off to the research station,’ Stakan said.

  The narrow opening in the trees showed up faintly in the weak starlight.

  Dingle, sitting beside him, nodded. He was dressed as a major of the GRU. He twisted awkwardly in his seat, feeling uncomfortable in the loose-fitting uniform, to face the three others in the back of the car. They were all wearing civilian clothes, and they all carried KGB identification.

  Nadia, sitting between Jones and Yuri Minin, was nothing like the ‘English’ girl who had accompanied Dingle the day before. Now she wore the sober, practical clothes befitting a woman operative of the KGB.

  ‘This is where you get out,’ said Dingle. ‘Got your torches and red paper?’

  ‘We’ve got them,’ answered Jones, opening the door on his side. The three climbed out, Minin closing the door quietly.

  Dingle wound down his window, and Jones leaned in.

  ‘Give us about five minutes,’ he said quietly.

  Dingle nodded, wound up the window and watched Nadia and the two men cross the road. Soon they melted into the shadow of the trees.

  The girl waited at the bottom of the road which led to the research centre, while the men walked up it together. After about one hundred yards, there was a slight bend. Minin waited there, and Jones walked on alone for another two hundred and fifty yards. Then he stopped, listened and strained his eyes. There was no sound, no movement.

  Satisfied, he turned and flashed his torch, briefly. Had there been any hint of danger, he would have held a piece of red paper over the glass of the torch.

  Minin, still standing at the bend, picked up the signal and relayed it to Nadia. She, in turn, flashed her torch towards the car.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Dingle. ‘All clear.’

  Stakan restarted the engine, eased the car into gear and drove slowly towards the opening. He stopped to pick up Nadia, and again for Minin. Then the car rolled smoothly forward once more, quietly, slowly, engine just ticking over in third. Stakan, driving on sidelights only, was hunched forward, straining to see the road. Dingle’s eyes were focused further ahead, watching for any red warning light that might come from Jones, who was walking on.

  A dark shape materialised eerily in the dim glow of the sidelights, and Stakan braked. It was Jones.

  Dingle climbed out of the car.

  ‘O.K?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘The opening through the outer wire is a hundred yards further on,’ the Welshman whispered back.

  Dingle began to walk slowly up the road with Jones, studying the dark trees on his right. The car crawled along behind them.

  Soon, Dingle found the spot he had noted the day before. He turned and signalled to Stakan. The Russian swung the Volga off the road and into the woods, guided by Dingle. He stopped about twenty yards in, and switched off the engine and the sidelights.

  Five minutes later, fallen branches and brushwood had been piled up behind the car. It would never be seen from the road.

  ‘That’s good enough,’ said Dingle. ‘Let’s unload the gear.’

  Four field telephone sets, wire, tools — well wrapped to prevent them rattling — and a blanket were taken out of the boot. Dingle checked the tools and wire and rolled them in the blanket, which he tucked under his arm. His four companions each picked up a telephone set.

  ‘Got everything? Let’s go then.’

  They walked in single file, five black shadows among the trees. Occasionally, the silence was broken by the sharp crack of some unseen twig as it was snapped underfoot. Once Minin muffled a curse as he tripped and almost fell when his foot caught in a hidden root.

  They reached the outer perimeter wire near the point where it met the road. Dingle paced alongside the fence, counting under his breath. He halted, turned right and marched off again, into the wood. When he stopped he looked all around him.

  ‘The telephone pole should be here somewhere,’ he murmured.

  The others didn’t answer.

  Light from Dingle’s torch stabbed the darkness, described a half circle, and then vanished as he flicked the switch to “off.” The night, trapped by the trees, closed in on them again, forcing them to pause while their eyes adjusted to the blackness once more.

  ‘It’s over on the right,’ the girl whispered.

  ‘I know. I saw it,’ Dingle answered, moving slowly. ‘I wasn’t far off course … ah! … here it is.’

  He knelt down, unrolled the blanket and placed the tools at the base of the telegraph pole.

  ‘Glyn! Will you, Nadia and Yuri hold the blanket while Alex and I get things fixed.’

  Jones picked up the blanket and Stakan crouched down beside Dingle. Then the blanket was arranged carefully around and over Dingle and Stakan, like a tent. Under its cover, Dingle switched his torch on again.

  ‘Any light showing out there?’

  ‘Not much,’ Jones replied.

  ‘O.K. Alex. Let’s get cracking,’ said Dingle.

  Stakan was already tackling the casing that protected the wires. He worked slowly, carefully. There was no margin for error.

  ‘There they are,’ he said at length. ‘You were right; three sets of wires. The only problem is’ … he grunted as he prised the wires well clear of the pole … ‘which is which?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ replied the Englishman. ‘Glyn! Pass in three ’phone sets. We’ll put a tap on all of them.’

  Jones passed the ’phones under the blanket.

  ‘We’ll tee-in to the left-hand pair of wires first,’ said Dingle.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Stakan.

  ‘All right. But be careful. Don’t let the wires touch and don’t make a contact across them, or the bloody bell will ring in the guard room.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Stakan said irritably. ‘I’ve done this sort of thing before.’

  He fixed the two leads from the field telephone into place.

  ‘You see? It’s simple. Now we’ll …’

  Both men jumped as the phone they had just connected to the wires began to buzz insistently.

  ‘So soon?’ said Dingle. ‘I thought we’d have to hang around for ages before anyone called.’

  The buzzing stopped and, gently, he picked up the field telephone’s receiver. He listened for a few seconds, and then smiled. He handed the receiver to Stakan, whose teeth gleamed in the torchlight as he grinned back at Dingle. Then, with infinite care, he replaced the handset in its cradle.

  ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ said Dingle.

  Jones stuck his head under the blanket.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘It sounded like one of the scientists’ wives ’phoning her mother,’ Stakan told him. ‘Now we know which is the general outside line. So all we’ve got to do is break into the other wires — which must be the KGB and GRU hot lines.’

  ‘Will it take long?’

  ‘Couple of minutes each, that’s all.’

  ‘Good,’ Jones said and withdrew his head.

  Stakan was already back at work, disconnecting the ’phone from the first pair of wires and reconnecting it to the pair in the middle. Then he linked a second field telephone to the same set of wires, making the connection about nine inches below the original one.

  Despite the cold, Stakan was sweating now.

/>   ‘Must be the heat generated by this hot line,’ he joked.

  ‘Is it all right?’ Dingle asked.

  ‘We’ll soon find out when we cut the wires between those two connections,’ the Russian replied. ‘But it should be all right.’

  ‘You’re sure it won’t set off an alarm system when we cut those wires?’

  ‘Not with these field ’phones linked on. You see, there will be unbroken lines between here’ … he patted the first telephone … ‘and the guardroom switchboard, and between here’ … he touched the second ’phone … ‘and KGB or GRU headquarters, whichever of them this line goes to. So there should be no reason for the alarm to go.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ breathed Dingle. ‘We’ll leave the wire-cutting until the last minute. You’d better fix the other line.’

  Stakan nodded, and connected the third telephone to the right hand pair of wires.

  ‘Glyn!’ Dingle whispered urgently. ‘The other ’phone, please.’

  ‘Right.’

  Jones lifted up the edge of the blanket and gave him the remaining field telephone.

  Stakan connected it up.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Both hot lines well and truly fixed. How are we for time?’

  ‘It’s only just turned seven o’clock,’ replied Dingle. ‘Are you certain this chief scientist … what’s his name?’

  ‘Butovo.’

  ‘That Butovo works until nine every night?’

  ‘Quite sure. He likes to work alone, quietly at night, going through the reports of the other scientists. My contact tells me he often doesn’t start work until about eleven in the morning.’

  ‘O.K. I think we’ll wait a while. It might be better to go in just after eight. He’ll probably be getting anxious to finish up and get back to his wife by then.’

  ‘Yes. And he’ll certainly be alone in his office at that time,’ commented Stakan.

  ‘While we’re waiting, you can explain which ’phone is which to Nadia and Yuri,’ said Dingle. ‘I think I’ll stroll over to the car and make sure nobody has spotted it,’ he added crawling out from under the blanket. ‘It’ll give me a chance to watch the road for a while, too, to see if there’s much activity there.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, boyo,’ said Jones, who had overheard the last remark. ‘I’m getting cold standing around here.’

  ‘All right,’ answered the Englishman. He turned to the others. ‘Nadia, Yuri, if you stick your heads under there, Alex will show you the telephone set-up. Come on Glyn.’

  He marched off towards the outer perimeter wire. Jones fell into step behind him.

  *

  The trees were grotesque, misshapen giants, petrified with fright as they were suddenly emblazoned against the inky sky. Equally fearful — yet with the power to instill terror into imaginative mortals — dark, ghostly shadows flitted between the trunks and branches; they played a deadly game of hide and seek with the brightness which, if it caught them, ruthlessly shattered their illusion of solidity, liquidating them as surely as if they had been trapped in the beam of a science fiction ray gun.

  Dingle and Jones emulated the shadows, diving for cover behind a substantial tree at the roadside.

  The car sped up towards them, its lights on high beam, punching a path through the blackness. Then it was past, hurrying on towards the research centre, allowing the velvet balm of the night momentarily to return before a second car sped up, headlights dancing over the uneven surface, stirring the shadows into flight once more.

  ‘Could you see how many people were in those cars?’ asked Dingle.

  ‘I couldn’t see a thing.’

  ‘Hmmm. Perhaps there’s a party going on up there.’

  ‘Perhaps. Or it could be a spot security check,’ said Jones gloomily. ‘Just our luck if it was.’

  ‘We’re committed now, anyway,’ Dingle replied. ‘Come on, we’d better get back to the others. If we pull it off, Glyn bach, we’ll be home tomorrow. Don’t forget to buy a present for Gillian before we leave.’

  Jones’s belly began to rumble loudly.

  ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘I know we’ve been on a lot of dicey jobs together in the past, but this one’ … he hesitated … ‘Well, I feel I ought to tell you …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh skip it … I was just going to say it’s been good working with you.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Dingle.

  *

  Stakan was excited.

  ‘There’s been a call on each line,’ he said. ‘We listened in and so now we know which is the KGB and which is the GRU one.’

  ‘You listened in?’ asked Dingle incredulously.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Christ! I hope they didn’t hear you. You sometimes get a clicking noise when there’s a tap on the line you know, and these security boys would notice a thing like that.’

  ‘I don’t think they noticed.’

  ‘What were the calls about?’

  ‘Just routine checks. I gathered from the conversation they make a call every hour. It was useful to Nadia and Yuri; they’ve had a chance to listen to the voices and the procedure.’

  ‘When did the calls come through?’

  ‘Just a few minutes ago, at eight o’clock.’

  ‘That’s handy,’ said Dingle. ‘It gives us nearly an hour until the next routine call. By then it should all be over.’

  ‘You want to move now?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s get the show on the road. Cut the wires Alex.’

  Stakan knelt down, picked up his cutters and, while Jones and Minin shielded him with the blanket, carefully snipped the two hot lines by the light of his torch.

  ‘Right,’ he said tensely.

  ‘Your turn, Nadia,’ said Dingle softly. ‘Can you manage without a light?’

  ‘Yes. KGB line or GRU?’

  ‘KGB.’ Dingle turned to Stakan and added: ‘I hope you’re right, Alex, and the ’phone does ring at the other end when she picks up this receiver.’

  ‘It will. It’s automatic. There’s no need for a hand generator.’

  The girl said: ‘Now?’

  Her throat sounded dry.

  Dingle nodded in the darkness.

  ‘Now.’

  She picked up the ’phone attached to the KGB line which would connect her with the research station’s switchboard.

  ‘I have First Deputy Chairman Semyon Tsvigun on the line,’ she said briskly. ‘He wishes to speak to your commandant.’

  ‘I will connect you.’

  There was a two-minute delay before the operator said, ‘You are through now.’

  Nadia hastily passed the ’phone to Minin.

  ‘Suvarov?’

  ‘Yes First Dep …’

  ‘What took you so long?’ Minin growled irritably.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was …’

  ‘Never mind, never mind. This is urgent. I am at a meeting with the Defence Minister and the Head of Space Research of the Academy of Sciences. They want all the files on Project SP7. Is that clear? Project SP7.’

  ‘Yes Comrade First Deputy, but …’

  ‘Inform Butovo to have them ready. One of my men is on his way now with a GRU major to collect them. Warn your guard commander and the sentries that they are coming. There must be no delay. This is top priority.’

  ‘Very well,’ the commandant answered stiffly. ‘Will you want Comrade Butovo to accompany your men? He won’t be keen to let the files out of his possession.’

  ‘No. We don’t need him here. The KGB officer will give him a receipt signed by me. Now hurry!’

  ‘Yes, Comrade. I will have to ring you back to confirm your order. Security procedure.’

  ‘I know all about that. Be quick because I am due back at the meeting.’

  Minin replaced the receiver.

  ‘Phew!’ he said nervously.

  ‘You did damned well,’ Di
ngle said.

  The ’phone buzzed urgently. Nadia picked it up.

  ‘KGB headquarters,’ she said smoothly.

  ‘Put me through to First Deputy Chairman Semyon Tsvigun.’

  Nadia handed the receiver to Minin.

  ‘Is that you Suvarov?’

  ‘Yes, Comrade.’

  ‘Then I confirm my previous order.’

  ‘Thank you, Comrade. Will there be just the two men in the car you are sending?’

  Minin sighed histrionically.

  ‘There will be three. A KGB officer, the GRU major and a GRU corporal driver.’

  ‘Er …’ Suvarov paused nervously. ‘Will you give me tonight’s code word please, Comrade?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Minin testily. ‘It’s …’ he began to cough violently, and covered up the receiver.

  ‘Christ!’ he whispered to Dingle. ‘He wants the bloody password!’

  Stakan leaned forward.

  ‘Try “Klyazma” That’s the word they used on the security calls we listened in to.’

  ‘Klyazma’ Minin barked into the ’phone.

  ‘Thank you Comrade First Deputy Chairman. I will alert my men and there will be no delay. I can assure you that I shall be pleased at all times to …’

  Minin replaced the receiver.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Dingle. ‘But that was a nasty moment when he asked for the password. Your eavesdropping was amply justified, Alex.’ He turned to the girl and Minin. ‘You two know what to do now?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘We just answer any ’phone that rings,’ said Nadia. ‘If we’re asked a question that’s too awkward, we simply say we’ll ring them back immediately. Then we get through to the other end, repeat the question, and pass the answer back to the original caller.’

  Dingle grinned. ‘Amending the answer suitably if the question has anything to do with us.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘See you later, then. Are you ready Alex?’

  ‘Ready,’ replied the Russian.

  ‘Glyn?’

  Jones’s belly gurgled.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  Chapter Ten

  The sentry on duty outside the gate flagged the car down. More guards came running through a narrow opening at the side of the main entrance.