She almost missed Leonid Zenin when he did appear because she’d been looking for an official car and Zenin was on foot, striding past the small commemoration to Peter the Great’s favorite general, Swiss-born Francois Lefort, who was never to know-and doubtless wouldn’t have liked it if he had-that his was going to be the name given to one of the most infamous prisons in Russian history. Olga decided that the bearded militia commandant looked even more impressive in civilian clothes than he did in uniform and felt a pleasant stir of interest, wondering what the obviously athletic body looked like in neither.
She was well away from the window, to avoid hinting any impatience, when Zenin came urgently into the dusty waiting room, smiling as Olga imagined he smiled during their telephone conversation. Despite the white-coated Nicholai Badim beside him Zenin said, “God, what a place! An incentive never to become ill.”
Affronted, the surgeon-administrator said, “Heroes of the Crimea were treated here!”
“Probably in beds that haven’t been changed since,” said Zenin, briskly careless of offense. “What’s the situation with the prisoner!”
“You can have thirty minutes.”
“I wasn’t asking for a time limit. He’s fully conscious?”
“Yes.”
“And fully comprehending?”
“According to Guerguen Semonvich Agayan.”
“What’s Bendall said?”
“Your officers are with him.”
“I meant to you.”
“He’s responded to our medical questions.”
“Nothing else?”
“We haven’t asked him anything else.”
“It’s about time someone did then.”
The almost overbearing confidence surprised Olga. In official surroundings, only those in which she’d been with him until now, Zenin had always appeared more subdued.
Striving to achieve some of his dismissed authority, the doctor said, “I’ll check with Guerguen Semonvich. Wait for me here.”
Zenin said, “I’ve come directly from the Kremlin. Okulov’s panicking, everyone’s panicking. They’ve doubled the protection around Yudkin. Many more security people at the Pirogov hospital and they’ll have to shift patients out to make room …” He smiled again. “And there’s going to be a presidential commission into the missing KGB stuff. I suggested it at this morning’s meeting: Okulov ordered it on the spot when the conspiracy was confirmed.”
“The one person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall. I’ve permanently doubled the guard here.” She had to find a way to tell him about the things missing from the Bendall apartment.
“Nothing’s going to happen to him, believe me,” said Zenin. “What’s it like at the American embassy?”
“I don’t know about stepped up internal security. The American ballistics man claims he’d recognized the difference but was waiting for our material.”
“What’s the excuse from our people at Chagino?”
“They hadn’t got around to it yet.”
“After more than two days!”
“They obviously thought they didn’t have to bother.”
“Log it, for it to be dealt with later.”
“I already have.”
“Is the Englishman crowing?”
Olga hesitated. “Not noticeably,” she answered, honestly. Itwould be better if Zenin heard the other embarrassments from her. “He asked about the bullet casings. They were looked for, of course, after the area was cleared. We didn’t find any.”
“Would they have been automatically discharged from the rifle?”
“Apparently.”
“We should have recovered some,” complained Zenin.
“Further evidence of the conspiracy. How well planned it’s all been.” She wished that excuse had come to her in the embassy basement.
“Yes,” accepted Zenin, doubtfully.
It was an acceptable excuse. “There’s something else. You remember Vera Bendall saying militia officers took away her son’s papers, among his other belongings?”
“Yes,” said Zenin, cautiously.
“No written material is recorded among what was taken from Bendall’s apartment. I’ve spoken to the squad that went there first, personally, to all three of them. Each insist there weren’t any documents, nothing written down at all.”
“The woman could have been wrong,” Zenin pointed out.
“Or other people could have got to the apartment before our officers.”
“Was there any indications of a search, ahead of them?”
“They said his room was a mess,” Olga replied, honestly again.
“It should be laid before the commission,” agreed Zenin.
Home clear! decided Olga, as the doctor reentered the room.
“Half an hour,” stipulated the man.
“We’ll see how long it takes,” dismissed Zenin.
The walls of the corridor along which they followed the doctor were stained and in places adorned with uncleared graffiti-“fuck” and “hell hole” appeared several times-and narrowed by bed frames, once by two ancient, boat-shaped perambulators and unrecognizable scraps of metal and frame-like pieces of wood.
Zenin said, “This come up from the Crimea, too?”
The doctor ignored him.
Bendall’s ward was identifiable some way off by the phalanx of guards outside it. Olga said, “Do you want to lead the interrogation?”
“You’re the investigating officer, Olga Ivanova. I’ll sit and listen.”
The feeling she experienced surprised Olga. It wasn’t unease. It was, almost sexually, of anticipation. She didn’t normally feel she had to impress a man. “I’d appreciate your input, if you think it’s necessary.”
“It’ll be there, if it is.”
The protective cordon stiffened, respectfully, at their approach, then parted for them to enter. It was an individual ward, further crowded inside by three more militia officers. Recording apparatus was already assembled. Its operator was late standing when they came into the room. The walls were streaked and discolored but there was no graffiti, at least none that was apparent. The sheets matched the grayness of the blankets, though, which also toned with the doubtful color of the bandages helmeting George Bendall’s head and seeming to extend, unbroken, to the dressings trebling the size of the man’s broken shoulder. A half-circular frame kept the bedding off the shattered leg but he was not connected to any monitors, although a catheter tube ran to a container beneath the bed. There was a perfect spider’s web covering the inside of one of the upperpaned windows, complete with its spread-legged creator, and rivulets of long-past rain had tracked top to bottom patterns through the caked grime. The recording apparatus occupied the only table and its technician had the only chair. Militia-discarded cigarettes pebbled the floor. The cubicle stank, not just of cigarettes but of stale bodies. Maybe, thought Olga, indulging herself, patients from the 1850s really had been here.
“We think thirty minutes,” said the psychiatrist.
“I think as long as it takes,” said Zenin.
Olga, concentrating upon the prisoner, saw Bendall’s eyes darting from person to person. When he became aware of her staring at him he abruptly stopped, gazing fixedly up at the ceiling. She said, “Everyone can go now. We need another chair.” The recording technician looked surprised but then shrugged.
The doctor said, “I think I should stay.”
“I’ll stay too,” announced Agayan.
“You won’t,” said Olga.
“No,” agreed Zenin. “Neither of you will. Out!”
“We’ll be directly outside,” insisted Badim.
A chair was chain-passed in from outside by the departing inner squad, one of whom cupped the doctor’s arm. Zenin took the chair and sat just inside the door. Olga realized the militia commandant would not have come into Bendall’s vision: the man would believe she was the only person-the only possible interrogator-in the room. Bendall’s virtually unbroken gaze r
emained fixed upon the ceiling. Olga glanced up, seeing it was as dirty as everything else.
Looking more towards the recording apparatus Olga said, “George Bendall-alias Georgi Gugin-you are charged with murder and attempted murder. There will be other charges officially proffered at a later date.”
Bendall smiled, turning slightly towards her.
“But you failed,” Olga declared, her tone at once sneering.
The man continued to stare at her, unresponsive.
“The person you killed was an American guard. You’ll still get the death sentence.”
Nothing.
“And we know there are others. They found the perfect idiot in you, didn’t they? That was clever of them.”
A blink. A throat-clearing swallow. The mummified head remained unmoving.
“Your mother’s dead, too. She would have suffered, poor woman.”
There was a spurt of blinking, swallowing. A nearly imperceptible-instantly corrected-head movement towards her.
“The story of your life, isn’t it Georgi? Always failure. Failed father, failed mother, failed son. End result: total, miserable failure.”
“How?” The voice croaked, dry-throated.
Now it was Olga who stayed silent.
“How?”
She allowed her eyes to flick to Zenin. The man was leaning forward with both arms on his knees but not looking directly at her, concentrating entirely upon the words.
“How did she die?”
The crack had been made in the dam; it had to be widened from inside, not out. “Hanged.”
“Shouldn’t have been hanged.”
He’d have lost track of time, believed it to be official punishment. She’d let it go for the moment. “Why not?”
“Didn’t know anything.”
“I thought she did.”
“No!”
“What didn’t she know?” The crack was creaking apart.
“Anything.”
“About what?”
The muscles stood out on Bendall’s jaw, so tightly did he bite his mouth closed.
“Died for nothing then?” Bendall had sealed the crack. And she didn’t know how to prise it open again.
Nothing.
“She knew you hated everything. Didn’t believe you hated her though, after what your father did to her. Bringing her here.”
“Fucking bastard!”
Another weakness in the wall, Olga recognized. “He was the one who should have died, not her.”
There was the faintest of sounds from the doorway, where Zenin shifted in his chair. Bendall gave no indication of hearing anything.
“Should have been him.”
“Did you want to kill him?”
“Yes.” The word hissed out, emotion for the first time.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Didn’t.”
This man was her only hope, thought Olga, the only one who could provide a lead. She had to break him. Trick or tilt the already unbalanced mind, however and whichever way she could. British consular protests were irrelevant, if there was a complaint. All she had to concern herself with was getting a Russian conviction in a Russian court and she could get a confession and evidence any way she liked to achieve that. “Frightened of him, were you?”
“No!” It was a shout. Proper anger.
“Of course you were.”
“No!” He jerked his head around to look directly at her for thefirst time, wincing at the pain the movement caused. “Was going to kill him. Died first.”
Olga shook her head theatrically, disbelievingly. “Why didn’t you get the others to do it, like they killed your mother.” It was convoluted but got her to where she wanted to be.
The eyes upon her noticeably focused, clearing. “What?”
“Why didn’t you get the others in this with you to kill him, like they killed your mother?” repeated Olga.
“You said she was hanged.”
“Not sentenced, by a court. Strangled. Murdered,” invented Olga.
“She didn’t know!” The denial this time wailed from him.
“They thought she did. The court won’t believe you didn’t know they were going to do that. I don’t believe you didn’t know they were going to do that. You’ll be considered an accomplice.”
“No!” Another wail.
“You’re right to be frightened.”
“Not frightened.”
“They’ll try to kill you, if they can.”
“Not frightened!”
“They would kill you, if they could.”
He was looking at the ceiling again, lips tight together.
Mistaken direction. He wasn’t rambling, either. But then why should he? Mentally deranged people didn’t necessarily ramble. Wrong to have started with that preconception. There was sudden noise from the door, a muffled voice. Olga saw the doctor gesticulating from beyond the wall of security men. Zenin turned at it, too, making waving away motions with his hand.
Olga went back to the embalmed man. “The other sniper was a lot better than you, Georgi. Should have practiced more.”
“No one else.”
The words jolted through Olga. She was aware of Zenin coming further forward on his chair, too. She said, “We know there was. Two different rifles, different bullets.”
“Liar!”
Which way to go! “They couldn’t leave it to you. Knew you weren’t good enough to do it by yourself.”
“Not true.”
“You think you’re a good sniper, Georgi?”
“Trained.” For the first time there was an inflection in the man’s voice, a whisper of pride.
Olga thought she saw a pathway. “You killed people before?”
“A lot.”
“How many?”
“A lot.”
“When was that?”
“In the army.”
“Did you train every day when you were in the army?”
“Course I did. Had to.” Now there was a hint of indignation.
“But you’ve been out of the army a long time now, haven’t you?”
Bendall’s face clouded, in an effort to understand. “Good sniper,” he insisted.
“Do you still train every day, now you’re not in the army?”
The smile was knowing, crafty. “Maybe.”
“You do, don’t you?”
Nothing.
“Who with?”
Nothing.
“Where did you get the rifle?”
The smile remained but he didn’t reply.
“Did you fire as quickly on Wednesday as you did when you trained every day in the army? And since?”
“I’m good.”
“Two shots, over eight seconds? That’s not fast, not for a trained marksman.”
“Less than eight seconds.”
Got it with the wrong correction! snatched Olga, triumphantly. She actually looked at the slowly revolving tape spool. “There were five shots, Georgi. Not two. The other man really did do better than you. Hit our president twice. And the American First Lady. You were rubbish.”
“No one else,” He wasn’t blinking anymore; the eyes were positively drooping now.
“We know there was. You know it, too.”
There was fresh outburst from the corridor outside and Olga saw the doctor and the psychiatrist both arguing with the guards outside. She distinctly heard “enough” and “protest” over the barricading heads and shoulders of Bendall’s protectors and this time Zenin stood up and gestured the two men through. Badim flustered into the room, still protesting, and Olga snapped off the recording just before he got to “outrage.”
Zenin blocked the man just inside the door. “Shut up! We’ve stopped. He’s OK.”
“Stalin’s not in the Kremlin anymore, this isn’t a police state.”
“You want to prove that enlightened opinion, doctor, you just go on shouting and yelling and making too much noise. I’ll even give you your own choice of camp at Kolyma.�
��
The professional anger seeped from Badim like air from a punctured balloon. “This man is still officially in intensive care!”
Olga saw George Bendall’s eyes were shut, not twitching with feigned sleep. The man’s chest rose and fell, evenly.
“Which is precisely where I want him kept,” said Zenin, looking between the two hospital officials. “If anything goes wrong-if he dies under your intensive care-then neither of you will even get a choice of Kolyma camp. You hear me loud and clear?”
The small, stained-coated surgeon-administrator momentarily remained in eyeball to eyeball confrontation, his mouth and throat working with unspoken words. Finally, pitifully, he said, “You proud of what you do?”
“Hardly ever,” said the militia commander. “It’s something that has to be done.”
Zenin led the hurried pace to get out of the hospital, trailing Olga with him. Short-breathed she said, “I was almost there! I could have broken him!”
“‘The only person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall,’” Zenin quoted back at her. “You did brilliantly. But we pushed him. Keep him the right side of sanity, we’ll get the others. Push him over, we’ve got what you said he was, a chosen idiot. George Bendall isn’t important. I want the people who manipulated him. The conspirators.”
Minutes, thought Olga, infuriated, in just minutes Bendall wouldhave given them the lead. “The British are invoking their access agreement tomorrow. I want to see him again, before they do.”
“Good idea,” agreed Zenin. They were nearing the exit on to Gospital’naya Ulitza. “I am going back to the Kremlin. They’re waiting.”
“Yes?” she said, curiously.
“We need to talk more. Please wait for me, at headquarters.”
“Of course.”
“I meant what I said, Olga Ivanova. You did brilliantly.”
“I told the militia everything,” said Vladimir Sakov. “I told the Yanks to go to hell. Now I’m telling you. You want to be helped out, I’ll help you.”
A bravado-and vodka-fuelled bully, thought Charlie. But definitely able to fight, from the evidence of the television struggle with George Bendall that the world had watched. The NTV camera room was cluttered with equipment, discarded cups and food containers, cigarette debris and protective outdoor clothing.
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