by Thomas Craig
He crossed to the window. Any of the cars down there, any of the many he didn't recognize, could have his office under surveillance. Serov needn't hurry, he wasn't going anywhere. He flung aside the corner of curtain he had moved, groaning aloud, then turned and saw the surprise mingled with contempt on Katya's face.
"What the devil do you expect me to do?" he challenged guiltily. "What can I do, dammit?" His fist banged the desk in muffled, limp emphasis. What was the point of taking it out on the woman? He shouldn't even have told her, used her as a sympathetic ear for this, of all things. He could have sentenced her to the same fate as himself, if Serov ever suspected that she… "Sorry," he murmured, waving his hand indecisively. "Sorry." He walked quickly away from her. "Dear Christ in Heaven, I almost wish Gant had got away with it." He turned to face her. "And you understand what that thought is costing me."
"Can't we do anything?" Her hands might have been held up in sign of surrender.
"What?" he shouted. "Me, not us — can't I do anything? It's not your problem, you keep your head down."
"But I know."
'Then forget." He rubbed his head and began once more to pace the room, motioning the old dog back to its position near the radiator. After a few moments, when Katya thought he would never stop and that her head would burst, he turned to her, then to the map on the wall. Posed himself in front of it, hand cupping his chin, head slightly on one side; a furious effort of concentration, or no more than an actor's posture, she could not tell.
"What are you looking for?" she asked finally, hearing her fingernails drumming on the desk and unaware for how long the noise had been going on. He did not answer, and she stood up and moved across the room, to stand beside him.
"Aral'sk is a hundred miles away," he murmured, as if thinking aloud. "There's a little more than a day left — say, half a day if I'm to use the night to hide in."
"How?" she asked.
"I'll have to walk it" He turned to her. "I can't just sit around and wait for what's bound to happen." His eyes were wide, looking beyond her.
"You can't walk it, not in a night, not in twenty-four hours."
"Then I'll drive as far as I can, to the security perimeter."
"Which way?"
His hand indicated the map. "The way poor bloody Kedrov went — out to the deserted silos, then across country here." His fingers stroked circles rather than a course of escape, yet his voice appeared convinced by his scheme. "Back through the marshes might be best."
"That's less than half the distance. It can't be done."
"I can't wait here," he snapped. "I don't want to end up like that poor creep Rodin! Pills stuffed down my throat or felling out of a high window. Serov knows I know — don't you understand, Katya?" He had gripped her upper arms, and they hurt with the pressure of his fingers. He was shaking her like a disobedient child with whom he had lost patience. "I'm frightened out of my skin, Katya, and 1 know I have to do something. I'm afraid for myself, I'm afraid for you, even for Kedrov. I'm afraid for the whole bloody world if these madmen have their way." He was utterly unaware of the pain he was causing her, the degree to which she was being shaken. "The whole bloody world — the poor, tired, sick-to-death bloody world!
"Dmitri!" she shouted at him, and his eyes focused, saw her, felt her arms, and released her, shaking his head as if to clear it.
She rubbed her arms gingerly, regained her balance.
"I'm sorry."
"Its all right." She forced herself to stop rubbing her arms. "You won't make it," she asserted. "It's too far."
"Then I'll have to steal or commandeer a car or a truck or a fucking tractor once I'm outside the perimeter."
She walked away from him, considering his desperation and his scheme. She was afraid for him.
"I'll need food, walking boots, my gun. You'll look after the dog?" She nodded absently. She realized he had to make the attempt, some attempt, but she could only visualize failure; and his death. Lightning, or whatever he called it, was still unreal to her; less real than the enmity of Serov. Her horizons were narrower than his; her practicality did not allow her madcap schemes or desperate remedies, but enclosed her in a narrow steel box of facts that could not be breached. She could not think, especially while he talked.
"…a backpack, a good map, this way, across the marshes— they'll be empty now… making what? Five, six miles an hour. If I drive out as far as here…"
A truck pulled into the parking lot below the window. A military truck.
"… what's the time at this point? Say eight, eight-thirty, outside the perimeter. I need to know more about the terrain up there, the security…"
Soldiers, GRU troopers, descended from the canvas-flapped back of the truck, whose exhaust plumed grayly in the icy air. Six soldiers and an officer.
"Dmitri—"
"… fanning… that would take me farther west if I wanted to find a car — maybe this road here."
"Sir—'*
The soldiers moved toward the building, looking up at the windows, spreading out to cover the exits. The officer strode to the main doors. Katya turned.
"… one farm, yes? Yes, another there. What's the distance?"
"Colonel!" she shouted.
He looked around at her, plainly startled. "What is it?"
"It's too late — they're here."
"What?" Priabin's voice suggested complete surprise. She looked at him. His face registered a slow coming to terms with what she had said. Then the color drained from it, and the realization gave him a stunned expression. He moved jerkily to her side at the window, in time to see the officer and two of the armed soldiers enter the main doors. Priabin whirled around, as if itemizing his office furniture, his possessions — a man about to be robbed. He ran his hands stiffly down his cheeks.
"What do we—?"
"Get out, Katya — get out of here! You're not involved. Just go back to your office — look as if you've been working there all the time — go on."
He had grabbed her by the arm and was pushing her roughly across the room.
"What about you?"
He shook his head. "Depends what they want. Look, whatever happens, you know nothing."
"But if you're arrested, taken away, what do I—?"
"Nothing. There's nothing you can do. Just keep your head down." Misha stood up and shook himself, tongue lolling. 'Take the dog with you," Priabin added. "Quickly. Come on, Misha, quick, boy!" He opened his door, pushing Katya and the dog into the outer office, snapping at his secretary: "Lieutenant Grechkova hasn't been here — I've been alone all morning. Understand?"
His secretary, red mouth still wide, merely nodded.
"I have to—" Katya began.
"Nothing. Understand me, Katya — nothing. Now go."
Priabin closed the outer door behind them, and felt the perspiration stand out on his forehead. His secretary, the widow of a KGB officer, appeared concerned.
"We're in for a visit — GRU. They may want to talk to me. I might have to go with them — just a routine panic!" He grinned shakily at her. Soothed her by patting the air in front of him with his hands. "Nothing to worry about. Just remember, no one's been here, I haven't even spoken to you. I'll explain when it's all blown over." He had walked to his own door, paused, holding it open, looking back at her. She was nodding her understanding; her eyes were bright with anxieties, her hands fluttered above her typewriter, as if he were dictating to her. "OK, Marfa, just play dumb. It's me they want to talk to. When they get here, show them straight in." He nodded, smiled palely, and closed the door behind him.
He looked at the map on the wall with a deep, sharp regret. He sat down at his desk, lit a cigarette quickly, puffed at it hungrily* then slowed his exhalation, trying to find a pose of relaxation, so that he would seem surprised. Fear, regret, a looming sense of disaster regarding Lightning. He felt the jangling of his nervous system in his chest and arms. Try to relax.
Secretary's face, then the GRU officer's feature
s and bulk behind her, beside her, in the room ahead of her. He assumed surprise, molding the shock he could not prevent. Two soldiers were in the room immediately behind their officer. His secretary mumbled an apology, but he waved to her to calm herself even as he addressed the GRU major. A major — arrest, then.
"What is it, Major? What prevents you from waiting to be announced?" he asked with studied lightness; a sting in the tone, too, because that helped dissipate his fear.
"Colonel Priabin?" the major asked stolidly; aware of his authority, confident, but tied to a defined script. A minion.
"Naturally. What is it you want, Major? I'm rather busy, as you can see." He lazily waved a hand over his desk, then drew on his cigarette. Puffed smoke at the ceiling. "Do you need those two men just to speak to me?"
"Colonel Priabin, I must ask you to accompany me to GRU headquarters." Priabin was on the point of interrupting him, but the major ignored his hand, his poised lips. "Colonel Serov wishes to interview you."
"Oh. Concerning what?"
"I am not able to divulge that, Colonel," the major announced stiffly, staring past Priabin's shoulder; but there was no sense of awe, of being daunted. Just the indifference of a machine. "Should you decline to accompany—
"It's an arrest, Major — I understand!" Priabin shouted, standing up quickly, surprising the two armed soldiers, whose guns moved, then stilled, in their hands. He sensed the confidence with which he had begun ebb from his face. "An arrest," he repeated firmly. "Ludicrous."
This minion was not his enemy, and he had tired of the fencing match. It did no good, it merely wasted breath and energy. He Would need all his wits, all his cunning and strength for his meeting with Serov, who was his enemy. If he were to save his life—
He could not complete the thought. Instead, Rodin's somehow decadently splayed limbs spread on the rumpled bedclothes filled his imagination. The same fete, the same fate, he heard the soft drumbeat announce, pulsing in his temple. He plucked his cap from the coat stand, glancing at the map on the wall as he did so. It seemed such a huge place, suddenly; so many miles, so many hectares in which he might have hidden…
"Let's go, Major," he growled. "Well? I don't have all day. Let's go."
They were already engaged in the process of breaking him down. It was natural to them, and inevitable. There might be beatings, there might not; humiliations, drugs, starvation, half drowning — it might take weeks or hours. They would choose. He could either endure for as long as he could or crumble like an old, honeycombed wall. It would not matter, just as it did not matter to that poor bastard Kedrov he'd failed to rescue. At the end of the breaking, there would be the disposal of what remained. Very little; husks of corn or empty peanut shells littering the floor.
Gant watched his clenched hands shivering. His wrists rested on his thighs, his hands faced each other like armored and frightened crabs, weighing each other. The shiver was not simply muscular. It was fear; the admission of fear is not of assistance, he remembered — some psychologist, some expert; keep fear at arms' length or you may not be able to control it — it might end up controlling you… forget perspective…
… if you don't have a future, don't think about it…
What was that crap? Why was it here now, like laughter in the dark? He was cold, he was hungry — par for the course — and the walls of the cell had started to contract in his imagination. He was waiting for the first interrogation, the first pain, or the first enema of the mind, of the personality, that the drugs would bring. That was almost more difficult to bear — never mind to resist — than the beatings and the starving and the electrodes. The sense of being utterly without will. Gant shivered more violently. He knew he had begun to think too much. He had enlivened his imagination instead of drugging and sedating it with numbers or distractions of other kinds. Worst of all, he'd admitted to himself that there was no way out; no way back.
Because he was Gant, they would gut him like a catfish. Catfish? Catfish. He squeezed his memory like an orange, but nothing flowed. He could not get back to his youth, to the Valium of the past. They would want everything he knew. He would be in no condition — no condition — to be returned by the time they had finished with him.
He was cold. The shiver was in his arms now, in his body, too-Cold—
— door. He could not stifle his gasp of relief — fear seeped in whole seconds later — as the cell door opened. He had not even seen the preliminary eye at the peephole. The pit in Vietnam, in the Cong village, which had been approaching him again, retreated in his mind. He looked up with an almost pathetic eagerness.
Smell of spicy food. One of them had a rifle and kept his distance, the other moved closer with the food. Thin stuff, he saw, slopping in the mess tin; then it splashed on his flight overalls, down the sleeve of his leather jacket, soaked the thighs and crotch of his trousers. He snarled and almost rose.
The rifle moved, drawing a bead on him, the first round clicking into the chamber of the AK-74. Gant dropped back against the icily cold wall, hands pressed against his thighs, his body posed as if ready to absorb a blow. The corridor outside taunted him with its inaccessibility. The guard close to him was grinning, the armed one anticipated pleasure. Gant, involuntarily, flinched. The nearer guard unzipped his trousers, chuckled, then began to urinate on Gant's one gray blanket. Gant sat immobile, staring down at the food stains on his flight overalls. The guard whistled, as if using some public convenience. The urine spread in a pool. Both guards watched Gant greedily.
The guard finished.
"Should have drunk more beer," he called over his shoulder, zipping his trousers.
"You can't piss worth a kopeck anyway."
Gant felt the shiver in his body and attempted to quell it. The casualness of the humiliation was worse than a beating. A clear statement: You are ceasing to exist.
"You want a turn?"
"Piss on him, you mean? Who cares? There'll be plenty of time."
Gant stared at the rectangle of tiled corridor he could see through the open door. They had left the door open to undermine him further. The fact that he understood what they were doing did not help. The urine stank, but he did not move. He heard a squeaking noise in the corridor, a voice murmuring. Boots.
The surgical cart stopped directly opposite the door of the cell. He recognized Kedrov's profile, saw the blank, wild eyes staring at the ceiling, saw the furiously working mouth — and heard the insane, disconnected, drugged babble of sound coming from him. He Was still deeply drugged. Here he is, they were saying. Your role model; your future. Gant hunched further into himself; wanted to fold his arms across his heaving stomach, wanted to concentrate on something, anything other than the darkness that loomed in his mind. Two attendants in white coats peered into the cell. Kedrov babbled, screamed, denied, confessed, complied, rejected.
They had overdone it. Kedrov might be lost for good in his own head, amid that ceaseless, whirling jumble that filled his mind. He should be sedated now, quiet; spent. Instead, he raved like a lunatic. They'd most probably done it deliberately, just to make an impact on him.
Gant growled, but the noise seemed to whimper in the cell. Kedrov raved. The guards watched and weighed, the attendants looked around the cell like prospective house buyers. Gant's lips were wet. He continued to growl but could not make the noise assertive or defiant.
Kedrov's voice vanished. The cell was darker. The urine's stink predominated. They were gone. Gant groaned softly, cradling his chest and stomach with his arms, head forward.
And slowly but insistently, the stench of the guard's urine became transmuted into the smell of stagnant, muddy water. The bamboo cage was opened, he was thrust into the pit, the bamboo grill was closed over his head. The walls were wet, the water reached his chest. The strange, small Eastern faces looked down at him, then left him alone; utterly alone.
After a while, when he covered his face with his quivering hands, his father's face seemed to look down through the slatted bamboo
, and be satisfied. Gant knew he would die. Once he had been emptied of everything he knew, every tiny chip of information.
Standing on the metal catwalk outside the long glass windows, it was as if he were able, at last, to look down not only on the main assembly building and its contents, but on recent events. That appalled and appalling silence at the other end of the telephone connection with Moscow, the silence that had gone on and on until he thought his head would be crushed by it. It had been as if his wife had died, too, at the moment he gave her the news concerning their son.
The silence had had the effect of allowing a slow, betraying light to leak into his mind, illuminating dark corners he did not wish to inspect; his failings, his treatment of Valery, his lack of affection for his wife. Eventually, he had tried to soothe her, gain some response. The line went on humming, and he could not make out her reply. Possibly, she was no longer even in the same room as the telephone — somewhere else in the flat, staring at photographs, at
Valery's room, at—? Rodin could not guess and was reluctant to pursue his questions. He had, after a further time, put down the receiver. And yes, he had wanted to tell her it was suicide, and his suspicions as to Valery's motives, but could not… not quite.
He tried to clear his thoughts, use the scene below him to erase his memories. Uniforms, white coats, the Raketoplan shuttle, the laser weapon now assembled and undergoing its final scrutiny… uniforms, uniforms… army, army. The repetitions, the sights that filled his eyes and thoughts, began to cleanse his mind. He could begin to think of Valery as — as a soldier. The detritus of his recent life was being cleaned from him, like pigeon droppings from the statue of someone honored and eminent. Yes, a cleaned statue… yes, he could begin to think along those lines now. His breathing became easier, his chest seemed to expand, as if he were exercising his lungs in front of a window on a cool, fresh morning. His head felt cleared, sharply attentive.