by Thomas Craig
Anger swelled once again in Priabin's throat. He banged on the door with his gloved fist, quickly, repeatedly. He realized Zhikin was watching him disapprovingly, head to one side. He went on banging, yelled Orlov's name in the quiet morning of the narrow, old street. Zhikin put his finger to the bell at the side of the door. What if, what if—? Priabin's mind drummed, as if to accompany the beat of his fist.
"Orlov!" he yelled. "Orlov, open this bloody door!" Voice becoming higher.
A helicopter drummed and grumbled overhead. He looked up. A vapor trail crossed the sun. Across the street, he heard the driver's radio. What if Orlov had gone underground along with Kedrov, slipped away in the night? If the army found out about Kedrov — they must, now that the man had disappeared from his work — he'd be bloody ruined.
"Orlov. Orlov, you old bastard, open up!"
He had to get Kedrov back at once. Then he might win the game that had suddenly turned deadly.
Zhikin's hand was firm on his arm.
"OK, sir?" he asked, his face concerned and cautioning.
"What?"
"You need — to calm down. Orlov will be no help if you…"He did not need to finish the sentence. Priabin glared, then swallowed and nodded.
"OK, Viktor, OK. Usual style, old techniques — sure." Come on, come on—
He craned toward the door and heard the slow shuffle of something — slippered feet or an old dog's noises — coming through the shop. A bolt slid back. A sigh escaped Priabin's lips, a smoky signal of relief. Zhikin's face settled into satisfied lines.
Another bolt, then a security lock. A gnarled hand slid up the blind. Orlov's face appeared, blinking at them like a threatened mole, its tunnel blocked behind it. Orlov wore thick glasses, was thin and elderly, but cunning — already counting them, assessing their mood. His head was bald, liver-spotted like the back of the hand still holding the raised blind. A shrunken but loose stomach sagged like a phantom pregnancy under a stretched gray cardigan.
He opened the door slowly. Priabin wanted to drive through it, rush into the shop bellowing Kedrov's name. But he knew the spy would not be there.
"Yes?" Orlov asked, his voice cautiously deferential, testing their mood like an antenna. His tongue licked his gray lips and his eyes blinked again. "Yes, comrade Colonel? I'm not open—"
"You are to us," Zhikin replied wearily, holding up the red ID card in its plastic folder.
"Yes, of course," Orlov replied. "Please come in, comrades. How can I help you?" Priabin, enraged by the man's calculated replies, realized he had been forewarned. He had been practicing his part all night.
Careful, careful… Viktor's right — Priabin could almost smell Kedrov upstairs, above the shop. He must have come; was he still here? What message had he sent? Steady, steady… Orlov's setting the pace just now.
They entered the shop. Bare floorboards, dust; the smells of lubricating oil, heavier greases, welding gas, paint. A litter of parts, a couple of complete bicycles; a new, bright-green man's bike in the shop's bay window that bulged into the narrow street outside. It was ready to be exposed to envying eyes as soon as the blinds and the security meshes were removed when the shop opened. Orlov seemed unwilling to invite them farther into the shop's secret reaches.
Priabin's excitement was evident in his voice. "Where is he?" he blurted. Zhikin's face disapproved.
Orlov stood behind the counter of the shop, as if to serve them. On its surface, yesterday's paper was covered with oil and a bicycle chain. Then he was startled by the noise of locks being smashed at the rear of the building. His head turned wildly. Priabin nodded to Zhikin.
"Search everywhere," he whispered insistently.
Zhikin seemed to weigh his mood and find it acceptable, and nodded. "I don't think he's here," he commented, then passed behind the shop counter into the rear of the building. Orlov had begun to whine.
"I — what do you want? I let you in, there was no need to break the door….." His voice trailed off as Priabin approached the counter, more like an intruder than a customer. He touched the day-old local Tyuratam paper — its reports seeming to indicate a separation of existence between Baikonur and the old town — shunting its edges parallel with those of the counter. The bicycle chain slithered like an almost dormant snake. Priabin looked up from the newspaper into Orlov's gray features.
A little money on the side, that's all it was. He'd call it providing a service, probably. Always reasonably safe, since the KGB bought their new stereo headphones or styluses or pop tapes here, too. Got their Jap hi-fi repaired by Orlov. Priabin himself had done so on one occasion, after the officially approved electrical shop in the town had buggered his cassette player. Orlov was safe—
— until he wanted to start playing in the first division, with the big boys. Being the transmitter man for Kedrov.
Priabin soothed himself narcotically into the familiar role of interrogator. Softly, softly.
"Where's Kedrov?" he asked almost gently.
"Who?"
"One of your best customers by the number of times he's been here."
Orlov was distracted by feet thudding overhead, by the destructive noises coming from behind the shop. The ripping of wood, tumbling of contents, the smashing of china, the heavy whispering of moved rugs and carpets; the groans of furniture being manhandled across bare boards.
"I don't understand. You want to know about a customer?"
Priabin swallowed his disappointment. Kedrov was not there. He must have called Orlov to warn him he was going into hiding. Where the hell was he? Panic mounted; he eased it away with the small rituals of the interrogator's foreplay.
"No. I want to know about the transmitter."
"Transmitter?"
A turn of the head, a fearful gleam behind the glasses as the clatter of parts tipped out of some box was clearly audible. There'd be a lot of damage, and some looting, of course. Priabin had no feeling either way; par for the course. New, shiny amplifiers would disappear, and the latest tapes. It didn't matter so long as they found the transmitter. That could be used to open up Orlov like the key to a tin of sardines. The transmitter—
— or its components!
"Viktor! Viktor!" he yelled. Orlov had stayed because he thought he was safe. He'd hidden the bloody transmitter. Zhikin appeared in the doorway to the rear of the building, dust on his overcoat, his hands grimy. "Viktor, tell them to look for the bits and pieces, yes?"
Zhikin's face brightened. "Should I get a couple of technical boys out from the town office?"
"Yes, do that."
"Phone's in the back — I'll do it now." Zhikin disappeared, whistling. Orlov's eyes were narrow with calculation as Priabin grinned at him.
"After all, you could have spent all night taking it to pieces, now couldn't you?" Priabin said lightly. Yes, he could play this role— interrogator-as-seducer. Apart from anything else, it kept his anxiety at a controllable level. He purred: "Where is it now? Forming the innards of a couple of new hi-fi systems?" He grinned. "We'll find it, Orlov. You shouldn't have tried to play with the big boys — not the Yankees, anyway. Where's Kedrov?" he snapped suddenly, harshly.
"He's—"
Priabin nodded. "What did he tell you last night? That he was suspected, he was getting out? Something spooked him. Did he say what it was?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, comrade Colonel, sir." His eyes were still narrow with cunning. There was a kind of daring, too, that Priabin was forced to admire. The man wasn't really afraid, but then, he didn't know the stakes Priabin had put down on the table. "I don't understand what you want. You already know about this place. I mean—"
"We know. We know." Priabin sighed. His gloves tapped on the edge of the counter, flicking back and forth like windshield wipers. "But we just wondered whether you'd gotten into some other things, say like drugs?"
"Never!" A prim, virginal refutation—what do you think I am?
"I have never touched such things, believe me, comrade Colonel.
Never!"
"I don't doubt it, now. That's why we were watching you in the first place, not for the hi-fi's. That's how we stumbled on the transmissions, and then onto Kedrov. You see, we've known for a long time. It's why we sent in a burglary squad last week, looking for the damn transmitter." Priabin's voice broke off, his gloves slapped almost playfully, but hard, at Orlov. There was the tiny clatter of eyeglasses falling behind the counter, and the rustle of the disturbed chain-snake on the oily newspaper.
As Orlov scrabbled for his glasses, Priabin said: "Where is it? How much information has gone to the Americans, Orlov? How much?" The anxiety mounted again, as if he had pressed his tongue against a rotten tooth. It was obvious; the laser weapon. Kedrov had worked on it, part of its huge technical services team. How much had been passed via Orlov's transmitter?
Orlov's face appeared above the counter, glasses replaced. His mole features sniffed the danger in the electric silence of the shop.
"Come on, Orlov. I have the power, all the power. It doesn't matter if you deny it, if we find nothing, like the burglary squad. You'll never crawl out of the hole I can put you in. You know that, don't you?"
Orlov shuddered, a small, thin, old man's shudder, like the breeze flapping a semitransparent shower curtain. Priabin could see through Orlov, as if he were vanishing before his eyes. He knew Orlov now regretted everything.
"And there's always a family, isn't there?" Priabin persisted. "Son, daughter, grandchildren probably, in your case — all flesh and blood, all with jobs, some of them in the Party, expecting to go places." Priabin was smiling an open, almost joyous smile. Orlov was shivering; vulnerable as much as chilly. "Cars drive too fast on slippery roads, pupils are downgraded and moved out of the Science School to one of the — oh, agricultural places." Orlov appeared aghast. "You know I can do anything to you, or to them, whoever they are. Orlov, tell me about Kedrov. Tell me everything. We might even decide to leave you alone — you never know."
"May—" After a long silence, his voice seemed rusty, or grappling with a foreign language. "May I sit down?"
"Where?"
"In — in the kitchen. It's warmer."
"Of course. You can make coffee. Then we'll talk."
Excitement rose in Priabin; anxiety thrust into it like a bout of indigestion. Orlov looked at him with a myopic squint. His nose twitched. The blind mole scenting the air. His cheeks seemed hollow with defeat. Then he said, in a quavering voice, "I don't understand anything you've said, comrade Colonel. Drugs, transmitters— anything."
Priabin sighed, pressing close behind the little old man as they went down the narrow, dusty passage toward the kitchen. His head was cocked to one side, as if listening for the noises of the old man's inward collapse. Impatience. He pressed the heel of routine down on it. No one knew, not yet, only his people. Kedrov was out there somewhere. Orlov would know, would be able to make an informed guess.
When they found the transmitter or its component parts — circuitry, dish aerial, control panel, anything — he would be able to break the old man like a dry stick.
The ice-cold concrete corridor whispered, even after he had stopped walking. His clicking footsteps simply wouldn't stop; they continued, echoing and fading gradually. Yes, silence at last. There was no one behind him except the phantom of his own footsteps, his own fear. He smelled grease, oil, dust. Concrete dust. He touched his hand along the rough wall, seeking the metal conduits that carried the land lines, the firing circuits, the ceiling lights. His ankle ached because he had twisted it — not climbing over the roof, merely slipping in the tunnels leading to this place. He'd stumbled over the rails that had once carried the missiles on their long trolleys along this underground section of the abandoned silo complex.
Kedrov calculated he was seven or eight miles from his flat. It was a frozen, sub-zero morning above ground. It was cold here, too. He was shivering despite his heavy clothing. His hand continued its scrabbling along the icy conduit. He moved his body after his hand, stepping carefully but with the panic that the deep silence had brought. He kept his shoulder, then shoulder and arm, then shoulder, arm, and hip in contact with the wall, shrinking to one side of the long tunnel, the air in front of him alive with the danger of becoming solid, a dead end, at any moment. He had discovered this hideout weeks before, memorized and mapped it. Now memory seemed to fail like a weakening bulb. He rubbed his arm and hip along the wall, step after step.
Switch?
He touched its outlines, the button, hesitated, then threw the heavy switch. It clicked. How could he have simply forgotten the carefully noted locations? Dusty white light seemed to shower like plaster from the roof. There were pools of light on the concrete all the way down to the steel doors that marked the entrance to the silo. Warning signs, the scribbled graffiti of security and danger, littered the walls. Conduits, rails, the scent of concrete dust and dampness. He shivered. It was icy cold down here.
The claustrophobia weakened, fear diminished. He was alone, saw he was alone, sensed he was safe. No one came here, not any longer.
He turned, counting the steel doors that led off the corridor. Four. He wanted the seventh door. He hurried, limping slightly but heedless of the now-innocent rails. Six, seven. The room behind it had not even been stripped when the old silo system had been abandoned for more sophisticated warrens elsewhere within Baikonur. The tunnel had not been used since the early sixties.
He touched the door. Icy. His fingers showed momentarily because, even chilled through, his body was warmer than the door. Then they vanished. He pushed the door open and switched on the long, narrow room's lights. Bulbs set in the ceiling were protected by wire mesh. He saw the familiar rows of bunks, set four high against the walls. Cupboards he had forced open on a previous visit were filled with unrusted cans of food. There was air and running water. But he'd brought supplies of his own, enough to last. The tiny bottled-gas stove and heater, he'd brought that, too. Vodka and beer — some things he'd stored on previous visits against the necessity, the fear, of having to use this place to hide out. Some last refuge — it possessed an old-fashioned appearance, even while it still had a sense of science fiction about it.
He unslung his small haversack and dropped it on the nearest bunk. The place struck him afresh, almost as if men still sat or lay on the bunks and there was a murmur of conversation in the room. The drift of cigarette smoke, the smell of coffee, as they waited to loose their missiles or waited having done so. He rubbed his arms, then rubbed his hands together to warm them. Cold — it was just the cold. He unbuttoned his overcoat and walked up and down the corridorlike room. There was no need, at the moment, to go into the cramped kitchen, check the water purifier or the stove. He had done all that on previous visits, there was no need.
A magazine lay beneath one bunk. He glimpsed old black-and-white photographs; he thought he recognized the face of Kennedy, once American President, peeping from the shadows. He was part of the geological record of the place.
He opened the haversack, then the greaseproof package he removed from it. Bit into the thick sandwich and its sausage filling. It seemed hard to digest, the bread unyielding at the back of his throat. The empty room seemed to murmur with voices again. In a moment, he must go and turn off the corridor lights, just in case. This was a horrid place.
Soon, soon they would know he had disappeared. By now, even. The KGB would question Orlov, the army would be told he had not reported for work, that his flat was empty. The hunt for him would begin. They'd panic — the army would want him, too, because of what he had overheard about Lightning. They'd think it was why he'd panicked — God, it was mad! Those telemetry officers could have killed him on the spot; by now they'd have found out who he was, reported the incident…
… changing the course of history, demonstrating who's really in charge to the Kremlin dodderers… they'd been half-pissed, loud, stupid — having a pee and not realizing he was in one of the cubicles. God, he'd have had to get away from them, even wi
thout the KGB following him!
He opened a bottle of beer. It was gassy, mostly foam, as he tilted the neck of the bottle to his lips. But it made the bread easier to swallow, softening it from the half-masticated stone it had become against the roof of his mouth.
Lightning. He giggled with returning confidence, with a growing sense of safety. Nothing to laugh about. He bit off another mouthful of sandwich, swigged more beer. Going down easier; he was beginning to enjoy the food.
He was safe, he told himself. The Americans would come. While the army looked for him and the KGB ran around in ever-decreasing circles, he was safe here. He sighed, a windy little noise in the long, narrow room. The Americans would be here in — oh, what, two days, three? He could hang on that long.
Couldn't he?
He shivered again. The bread stuck in his throat.
"Now, Orlov, where is he?"
Priabin's gloves tapped the kitchen table, slapping into patternless grains the little comet's tail of spilled sugar he had created near the opened packet. Some grains had adhered to the fingers of his gloves, some to the circuit boards and tape reels that lay on the table like accusations. The technical boys had found it after little more than an hour — it wasn't yet ten o'clock — despite the grumbling reluctance of their search, having been summoned directly from their beds into the winter morning of the old town. Orlov had, indeed, disassembled the transmitter into its component parts. The dish aerial they had found under a pile of old, rusting bicycle parts in the backyard of the shop, the high-speed tape reels in a box of tape-recorder spares; the frequency-agile encoder inside a degutted amplifier case; other pieces in speaker enclosures, inside the hollow frames of bicycles. There was enough on the table — never mind elsewhere in the shop — to represent, undeniably, a satellite-using, American-made transmitter and receiver of coded signals.