“Look, Mr. McGregor, I am not against you. We could be friends.”
“Good. Let’s be friends. How?” He noticed that the captain slowly transferred the plastic bag from the right to the left hand. If and when he tried to draw his gun, both his hands would be occupied momentarily. Rust had to wait for the moment.
“You make a statement and we let you go.”
It gave Rust a flash of hope that something could be worked out. But he was wrong. The captain did not bother to draw his gun. He knew he could deal with the man in his way. He would not even need to hit him and risk eventual complaints of unnecessary brutality. He just grabbed the beard and pulled hard. Reluctantly, the head would follow. For half a second he was amazed how little resistance he had met. For that half a second the two men faced each other, both silenced and immobilized by that shared surprise. Rust’s face felt cold in its sudden nakedness. The captain stared at the bunch of hair in his hand; his lungs were already filling up, ready to yell for assistance.
Rust had no choice. He went for the throat with both hands. His thumbs pressed hard. No sound could escape. But that left his body undefended against the captain’s knee. The kick exploded in his loins and made him feel faint. The natural reaction was to protect himself, but he fought it off. A groan spurted from his chest, bringing up bilious vomit into his mouth. And the knee was driven into him once more. The third time it was less like an explosion but hard enough to drain away his strength. His arms felt heavy, and his fingers loosened their grip. The captain staggered backward, into an open cubicle. A painful rattle was the only sound that could pass through his damaged throat. He grabbed at thin air in search of support. His calves were stopped in their movement abruptly by the toilet bowl, and he found himself seated. The beard and the bag fell out of his hands as he groped desperately for his gun. Rust knew he had to do something fast. But his arms would not be raised, and he could hardly stand up straight. All he could do was to push the captain off the seat and kick his temple when he was down.
There was some noise behind him. The door. They had been in there for about five minutes by now. It was a miracle that nobody had come in before. Rust stepped inside the cubicle and pulled the door shut.
The captain lay there stunned. He would have to die. Silently. But pain had made Rust too weak to kill. From behind the door he heard the gurgle of the urinal. Somebody was whistling. The tap at the washbasin was turned on. Rust looked down at Barch. His eyes caught the toilet: it was full of water almost to the brim. The man outside was whistling more and more enthusiastically. Rust stared at the toilet. He knew there was no other way. He grabbed the captain by the hair and hauled him up, only to force him face down into the water. The speaker above began to crackle. It was the second call for the BO AC flight to London. He leaned on the captain’s twitching body with all his weight. But he tried not to think about it. Yes, he had killed before. In fights. Not like this. Not in cold blood. Captain Barch tried to raise his face out of the water. Rust held him. “Sin without guilt!” Schramm bellowed at him from somewhere in his past. “Go on! You see? It’s easy.” Barch stopped wriggling. Rust felt no guilt. Or shame.
The speaker in the ceiling crackled again. The second call for the flight was not repeated in English. Rust remembered Yelena’s warning that the calls were expected to be answered without any delay. He was not to attract attention to himself by being late.
*
The pathologist hated the bearded man on the marble slab. His assistant waited patiently for the chief’s standard joke to come. Inevitably, he had not long to wait.
“Damned corpses. They just know how to turn up at the wrong time. After six P.M., this place ought to be quiet as a morgue.”
The KGB officers who had brought it in eagerly watched every move he made. The pathologist could read their faces: they were inexperienced juniors who would expect instant pronouncements about the cause and time of death, and all sorts of other details providing clues to the identity of the killer. But he was not to be rushed.
“You say he’s an American. Mm, must be a poor one.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t you see? Ill-fitting clothes. Might have been bought secondhand. You know, in … ” He was about to say something about New York and his visit over there, but changed his mind. None of these young thugs’ business where he had studied in his youth. The phone on the wall rang. He answered it, listened without saying a word, hung up — and began to swear heartily. “Another one’s coming in! What’s going on?”
One of the KGB men was standing right behind him, breathing down his neck. The other took over the office, laid out all the papers found in the dead man’s pockets, and put through several “trace and ident” calls to find out more about Helm Rust, U.S. citizen. To cover himself against any possible accusations of delay that might arise, he carefully jotted down the time, 18:13.
He called the department and talked to the duty officer. “Anything about those witnesses?”
“They’re processed.”
“What do they say?”
“Nothing. As yet. We’ve checked some of their statements, and those are correct. It’s true that they’re printers and that they were on their way to work. And they say they had nothing to do with the American or his death. Which may be true.”
“Maybe. We’ll find out.” He hung up. His guess was that the printers were innocent, but thorough interrogation could do no harm. It might even uncover something else the two men might be guilty of.
*
Dead, Captain Barch would not sit straight on the toilet. So Rust tore off the long chain and tied him to the pipes on the wall. If somebody peeped into the cubicle through the gap under the door, he would see a pair of feet in a position only to be expected. Rust felt shaky. It was no good to keep telling himself that he had had to do it. It was murder nevertheless. And the pain persisted. He could not stand up straight.
Outside, the tap was turned off. Then the door was opened and shut. Rust picked up the beard and pressed it back into position on his face. He hoped the glue would last through the next thirty minutes. With his penknife he forced and twisted the lock. It would be jammed when he slammed the door shut from the outside. That might give him an extra few minutes.
While he washed his hands, a man came in heading straight for the locked cubicle. Rust was ready to jump on him from behind. But the jammed lock held. The man mumbled something and went into the next cubicle. Rust picked up the plastic bag and took it with him, but he left his briefcase behind. It was his excuse for returning.
In the main lobby nothing had changed. The barman was busy; people wanting a drink read the long list on the menu only to be told about the export beer, their only option today. Rust passed the telephone booths, stopped as if looking for something in the bag, and slipped an Out of Order sign off a door handle. He then returned to the bathroom. The speakers above sprang to life once more: it was the third and final call. He hung the sign on the locked door. The man in the adjoining cubicle pulled the chain and swore heartily. The rush and overflow of water must have splashed him. A routine problem. Except that the washroom might be flooded, and if the cleaners were called … Rust chose not to think about it. There was nothing he could do. He left in a hurry and almost bumped into Yelena. She wore an ordinary overcoat and looked very pale. She might have guessed that there was trouble, but she was unable to help. Rust nodded, reassuringly and imperceptibly, he hoped. She answered with an emphatic look at her watch. Yes, Rust knew, he was late. But the pain slowed him down. Two plainclothesmen and a Russian stewardess were checking lists at the single gate. Rust was ushered to a near-empty bus and the doors clanked shut behind him.
It was a short ride to the aircraft, where another two buses, one crammed, the other half full, waited with their doors locked. The three vehicles were watched by armed guards. Officials aboard each bus began a head count. The time 6:24 P.M. Rust doubted that they could take off
at 6:40. The numbers did not tally. Officials from each bus conferred, then a recount was carried out. At 6:27, the doors were still locked. Some passengers exchanged glances, but nobody complained.
*
Telephone bells shattered the solemnity of the morgue. The pathologist looked up. One of the KGB men was already running toward the office. It was a call from Moscow. “Yes, we’ve found Roost, Helm Roost, American, on the lists.”
“Which lists?”
“Both the visitors’ and wanted lists.”
“Wanted for what?”
“Perhaps you could tell me, comrade, why you’ve put through the trace in the first place.”
The Leningrad man thought for a second. If Rust was on the wanted list, this was an important case. Being in charge and being successful could bring him accelerated promotion. If he answered this duty officer, the case would be taken out of his hands before he had a chance to talk to and make a good impression on the man who mattered. “Who’s the case officer?”
“Major Boychenko.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He’s not in the building. We’ve already checked.”
“Then find him. And get on with it! What the hell are you waiting for? You’re wasting my time.” He slammed the phone down. As he looked up, a rolling table with a body came into view. A big man with a gaping wound. As if half the skull had been blown away. The officer fought to avoid throwing up.
*
The doors of the buses were opened at 6:28. Boarding between armed guards began immediately to allow passengers the minimum opportunity to view and memorize the layout of the airport.
Aboard the aircraft there was a final head count. Russian personnel left, and the doors were shut. Welcome aboard. Rust resisted the temptation to talk to the captain and ask him for help. The man could do nothing if the airport authorities ordered the evacuation of the aircraft for some “technical reason.” The big machine began to roll smoothly. 6:39. Unless there was some unexpected delay, takeoff might commence at 6:40 after all.
*
Boychenko’s call went straight through to the morgue. The pathologist answered it, using the set on the wall.
“You have Helm Rust in there?”
“Yes.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
“That’s what his papers say. But that’s not my department. Do you wish to talk to the officers who brought him in?”
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
“Yes. He was fished out of the canal.”
“So it’s drowning.”
“Probably. But first he must have taken quite a battering. There’re several vicious lacerations. Even under his beard.”
“What beard? Rust has no beard.”
“He has.”
“It must be false. Take it off.”
“Look, major, I don’t try to tell you how to do your work, you let me do mine. I can surely tell if a beard is false or not. I’m holding it right now.”
“Pull it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Give me one of the officers.”
The pathologist handed the phone to the KGB man, who listened intently, then grabbed and tried to pluck the dead man’s beard. “It doesn’t give … Yeah, it seems real … Yeah … Yeah. Gray tweed jacket, that’s right … No, it’s a very full beard, it wouldn’t grow in six days.” The officer shrugged his shoulders and tugged at the beard ferociously. A few hairs and a strip of skin peeled off. The pathologist turned away in disgust.
Boychenko’s investigation was now concentrated on Leningrad. That was how he heard the news right away when Captain Barch’s body was found in the lavatory at 7:20. Rust. It had to be his doing. But it meant that Rust had definitely slipped through customs and passport control. Which turnstile had he passed through, and how? The stack of “departures” documents revealed the answers by yielding the visa photograph of a bearded man. Andrew McGregor. Staff of the Astoria were to be summoned to identify the corpse. The border guard responsible for clearing the man was arrested and charged with negligence. Boychenko ordered his intensive interrogation leading to a confession of complicity. Boychenko could have requested fighters to be sent after the plane, except that the flight had long been out of Soviet airspace. But Rust was certainly not going to be out of his reach.
At 8:10, a hurriedly convened meeting began at the First Chief Directorate. Boychenko proposed to ask for Finnish police cooperation to apprehend the murder suspect. The meeting decided against it, for the request would involve Foreign Ministry bureaucracy, and by the time the police could be contacted, the flight would probably have left Helsinki. It could be much more profitable to contact British authorities.
The Spetsburo colonel raised objections to that course of action, too: “Once we’re seen to be interested in the man, any more definitive action on our part would be prejudiced.”
The last thing Boychenko wanted to do was to argue with him. But he had no choice. It was not enough to track down and kill Rust in a day or two. By then he might have passed on his message. “If we alert the British police, we’ll know, at least, where he is.”
Major General Yemelin arrived. Boychenko was asked to give him a summary of the discussion. In his final sentence he repeated his proposal, and the Spetsburo colonel tried to torpedo it right away: “The British might refuse to arrest him. A mere questioning would only warn Rust.”
That gave Boychenko the chance to score: “They’ll have to arrest him. He must be traveling with a stolen passport. His own is still in our possession. He’s probably killed McGregor, and we can claim that he murdered Captain Barch, too.”
“Are you sure he’s left the country with that McGregor’s passport?” the general asked.
“Yes, sir. I mean, it appears — ”
“Not an American passport in the name of Arthur Foster.”
“We’ll check it at once.”
“Do we know where he’ll be taken if he’s arrested?” the colonel asked to regain the limelight. An urgent call was put through to the London specialist of the Directorate. He thought the prisoner would probably be held and questioned at Staines or Hounslow, particularly if all charges were restricted to criminal ones. As a result it was decided that a large, as yet unspecified, amount of missing money must also be mentioned to both the Foreign Ministry and the British authorities. Meanwhile, the Spetsburo would instruct the Helsinki KGB Resident to check if McGregor was on the flight from Finland to London. The Resident at the London embassy would also be alerted. A coded telex message would give him a top-priority order: a “wet squad” must eliminate Rust alias McGregor alias Foster at the earliest opportunity.
“Ideally, it should appear to be an accident while the suspect is in British police custody at Staines or … whatever the other place is,” said the colonel. He would have liked to elaborate on it a little more, but the telephone interrupted him. It was a call for Boychenko from the Leningrad morgue. The KGB officer there was anxious to inform him that an “unindentified Russian corpse” had also been brought in.
“So what?”
“I’ve just been told that he was to be arrested following a tip-off at No. 17 on the Nevsky, when he committed suicide.”
“And? Come on?”
“Nothing else, really, but he killed himself with a Tokarev 7.15.”
“Oh. And you say he hasn’t been identified?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you sure he’s Russian?”
“Yes. His clothes, general features, dental fillings … excuse me, the pathologist is saying something … yes, the man’s front teeth have silver cappings and the doctor says it’s not done these days in other countries.”
*
Rust struggled with an overwhelming temptation to leave the flight and try to disappear in Helsinki. He could feign some illness, perhaps appendicitis, anything to get him to a h
ospital, from where he could escape. He had just decided to make his move when it occurred to him that Finland might be a greater risk than Britain. If he was caught, Finnish authorities might yield more readily to their powerful neighbor’s pressure and the KGB might kill or abduct him more easily.
When the aircraft took off again, Rust relaxed but kept asking for cups of coffee to make sure that he would not fall asleep. A young English social worker, who had joined the flight in Helsinki, tried to enthuse about the Finns, the Russians, the Swedes, the Poles and anyone except her countrymen, but Rust was not in a talkative mood and rudely checked her outbursts.
Some twenty minutes from Heathrow, the head steward emerged from the flight deck and stood surveying the passengers. Rust felt sure that his beard was the object of the search. The steward returned to the flight deck and closed the door. Then the copilot came out. He walked halfway down the aisle, past Rust, then back.
Captain Barch must have been found, the Russians must have informed the British, the pilot must have received instructions to land normally but not to allow disembarkation without policemen at the door. Rust prepared to run for it if necessary. Maybe he could use Arthur Foster’s passport and credit cards. The package must be in the box of chocolates, he guessed.
After landing, there were only the usual announcements. Please remain seated. Thank you. Hope you enjoyed the flight and next time …
The aircraft stopped. The doors were opened almost immediately. Disembarkation was quick. Everybody seemed to overtake everybody else as if they could save time that way and be first to pick up luggage. Rust followed them slowly. He felt he deserved a breather.
As he approached the long line at passport control, he spotted two plainclothesmen peering at passports over the immigration officer’s shoulder. Then farther up, another two. They might have been waiting for somebody else, but Rust did not want to risk it. He tapped his pockets as if looking for something. “Must have left it on the aircraft,” he mumbled and turned to retrace his steps along the corridor, searching left and right for something he had never lost. The corridor turned and twisted. Then it forked out. “Transit Passengers” was the sign he wanted.
In the Company of Spies Page 20