by John Meaney
"That's why you skipped the first fallback."
"You mean Kopernik Aleja. There was a watch-team on me."
"Shit. You got clear?"
"Of course."
Or he wouldn't be here. Understood.
But what about those Nazis waiting on the dock in Hamburg, gatecrashing another rendezvous known only to members of Branch 7? A nasty theme might be developing.
"You've got papers," I said, "that will get me into the mines."
"I've a Kowary Podgórze worker's pass, the full ID, in the name of Brezhinski. But not with me."
"Understood."
Because there might have been watchers around, and I might have been the one who was compromised. He couldn't have risked bringing the documents here.
"Your handover point is Warsaw," he said. "Once you have the data."
"You're not my contact there?"
"No, it's another member of our cell. She'll be in Blade Heaven, a skating rink, every night at twenty-hundred hours."
"All right."
"Standing or sitting by a pillar, wearing a blue scarf. Standard password-and-reply."
"Pillar, blue scarf. Got it."
Lenin Beard was speaking fast now, his breath steaming in the cold night air, as if he wanted to give me information very quickly.
"I'm sorry, but you have to get clear."
"What have you—?"
Then I heard it: not so much a sound as a shift in air quality. Insulating snow continued to rush down, thickening the sky. There might have been engine noise.
"Break off now," said Lenin Beard. "Fallback at the Centrum, fourteen hundred hours."
"Agreed." There was no time to argue. Yet another rendezvous in the sequence was pushing our luck, but I needed that ID to get me into the mines.
"Shit," said Lenin Beard.
A definite sound of engines, multiple vehicles, was growing beyond the immediate snowfall. Time to bug out. Or perhaps the time was ten minutes ago, and this was fatally late.
We moved in opposite directions, very fast.
Seconds later, trucks wheeled in from three directions, growling through cascades of snow. They arced into position, followed by a covered jeep that bumped over the tracks. I went low, spinning, heading for the nearest empty train.
Lenin Beard – whatever his real name was – was in the open, pumping his legs as he ran, trying to sprint but slipping. He was on snow-covered ground and I wanted to scream out to lift his knees high, but time had run out. Even muffled by snowfall, rifle bolts clicked as the kneeling soldiers brought their weapons to bear.
"Cover them in mud, and they'll still fire." The words of Zeev, then my combat instructor, nowadays my friend. "Kalashnikovs are simple and they do the job."
Handheld torches stabbed their light through falling snow.
No, no, no.
Have you ever seen a butterfly pinned to a board?
Lenin Beard could have stopped and given himself up, and the soldiers would have held their fire – but he was leading them away from me, forcing the pace now, moving faster, unable to slip out of the shifting cone of light. Then they fired. Crouching beneath a cold freight carriage, I could only watch and listen as the rifles banged and Lenin Beard arced back with bullets ripping through his spine.
He dropped.
On the ground, he writhed, one leg bent back at a horrible angle, and the mewling sound that came from his mouth was not human but primal agony. An officer strode forward, pointing a powerful torch whose light glistened from blue-grey intestines steaming in the snow where they slid from Lenin Beard's split abdomen.
Oh God, oh God.
The officer unholstered his sidearm.
Stop it...
So awful, that high, pitiful sound.
...God.
The shot cracked flat, and movement stilled.
Call it mercy.
NINE:
KATOWICE, December 1962
I crawled, scarcely feeling the hard stones or cold snow, fear filling my every cell. The ground seemed to float beneath me as my body moved, anaesthetized and disconnected from the world, toward an opening in the wall. Beyond was a roadway and a loading-platform with an empty-looking truck parked alongside.
Brummie Greenmore had drilled survival skills into me, and his voice sounded loud in my mind as if he was standing behind me – "Slow down, you stupid bugger" – and I obeyed, taking the time to lay a false trail, subtle tracks in the snow. Trained men such as Spetsnasz would find them if they looked. If they were not satisfied with one kill.
Oh God oh God.
Then I retreated into the yard and slid lizard-like beneath an empty carriage, coming out the other side and rolling into the open. Ahead was a dirty brick building with barred windows, clear ground free of snow in front of me, so I could move without leaving traces. But between me and the brick wall was a deep ditch part-filled with virginal snow, while freedom was on the other side of the building.
The ditch flew beneath me as I leaped, then the wall thudded into me and my fingers hooked on like claws, crimping hard. If you've ever seen a kitten dangling from a curtain you'll know what it was like as I hung in place, clinging, before starting to traverse the slippery brickwork. Then I was around the external corner and dropping clear.
Fern, God, I'm still alive.
Moving fast, I left the marshalling yard, my spine sensitive to the imagined shot that would precede the crack of gunfire, sound travelling slower than the hard reality of death.
Soon I was in a near-empty street, one more solitary drinker trudging home late through the snow. But with miles to go, it became a trek, a test of endurance, counting paces – me'ah v'achat, me'ah v'shtayim – until finally I neared the hotel.
We'd had thirty-mile training runs in the SAS, with Brummie Greenmore telling us: "It's one hundred percent mental, you sorry bastards." (And Moshe once replied: "It's fuckin' mental all right." At that, Brummie laughed hard, before announcing: "And that's one hundred push-ups, for insolence. The lot of you.")
This was nothing by comparison.
Slick intestines, steaming in the snow.
I shook the image from my mind, searching for the narrow shadow of the line I'd left dangling, seeing nothing—
For God's sake they've found me.
—except that the soldiers would have left the line in place if they wanted to trap me, and I couldn't frigging count, that was all. So try again, four windows from the right, got it.
Stupid idiot.
Brummie's imagined Black Country tones told me to get my bloody arse up there. I took hold of the line, pressed my right foot against the wall and stepped up with my left. Then another step, and another. Finally I was back inside my room. Unable to summon the strength to close the window properly, I sank down upon the floor, trembling, powerless to stop the vibration, becoming an observer in my own body.
After a long time the symptoms of shock receded and a kind of sleep enveloped me, some form of recovery. But in my dream, Lenin Beard was saying: "You've seen the extra patrols?"
"I saw the Russians." It was like speaking underwater. " Have uranium shipments increased lately?"
"No." Lenin Beard was looking down, frowning at the glistening viscerae he was holding in his hands. They kept spilling from his torso. "But security has." Then he stared at me with maggots squirming through his eyes. "You look after yourself, David."
And I realized, as the corpse liquefied and shivered apart, leaving cold fluid down my front, that the voice was Fern's, not Lenin Beard's. A scream started to rise, clutched in my paralysed throat as I tumbled into wakefulness.
A pale winter sun was shining into my room. The floor was hard and cold beneath me, and the cool liquid was melted snow on my clothes.
Oh, God.
It wasn't just that Lenin Beard had died, screaming and mewling, knowing only pain. My mission had expired in the same instant, because my access route into the uranium mines, my vital fake ID, was gone. Perhaps we, meaning
some other case officer, could still stop Black Path. Or perhaps my failure was part of a sequential chain of events leading link by iron link to an atomic fireball in New York City, Manhattan turned to ashes.
There's always another way.
Nice fucking saying, but if someone could tell me how to get inside a secure military site with no sodding ID, then do it now.
Another way.
Yes, maybe, but painful tiredness filled my limbs and my eyes were sore, as if I'd been crying inside my nightmare.
Always...
Turning over, I closed my eyes, falling back into sleep.
My room was bright with winter sun when I woke next, and images of what I had to do were clear inside my mind.
My restaurant seat overlooked the forecourt. An orange Lada pulled up, and Dyenisovitch's younger colleague, the neophyte, climbed out, keys in hand. He headed into the hotel. Some ten minutes later, he left on foot, looking cold as he trudged off through the snow.
My guess was that the Lada was Dyenisovitch's transport, that the inspection was tonight, and that he would drive alone to Kowary Podgórze. Low key, because this was a surprise visit to the mine and processing labs. Good. Perhaps before leaving the hotel, he would take the time to write up an evaluation of the neo. In that case, he might do the poor sod a favour by giving him bad marks and getting him kicked out of the GRU, granting him a life that might be drab but would at least be normal.
Normal. Right.
To observe the main staircase meant relocating to the lobby, but Dyenisovitch saved me the bother. He came into the restaurant, pocket chess set in hand, and sat down to work through problems, fortified by black tea. After he'd settled, I got up and ambled past his table, pausing as if interested in the chessboard.
I said: "Check, yes?"
(In Russian this was Shach, da, while shachta means 'mine'. Ambiguity lies at the heart of hypnotic language patterns.)
"Tonight," Dyenisovitch murmured unconsciously, gaze on the chessmen. "At seven."
Yesterday, the covert trance induction had been for the challenge. Today, with Lenin Beard dead and no ID for me, it was crucial to the mission, my only way in.
"Sorry, you'll be unable to see me later."
There was no shift in his eyes, no tracking of my movement as I walked on, and one thing was certain: this was either the most spectacular set-up yet or my death sentence.
Fern would be sorry if the bastards killed me.
Outside at 6:45 p.m. it was already dark. Grit was on my tongue: airborne pollution, stuff that the citizens were sucking into their lungs every minute of the working day, in contrast to the cleaner air during the early hours when Lenin Beard lay dead in the snow. Maybe there was a Mrs Lenin Beard who had woken to an empty bed, or to the front door crashing in and rough voices shouting their command: Don't move! Don't move!
It was cold, standing outside the hotel in a pool of shadow near the corner. I didn't stamp my feet or do anything to draw attention.
Dyenisovitch came out, briefcase in hand. He stopped at the rear of the Lada, opening the boot. He leaned inside, then stood up and pushed the lid down. If I were going to drive across the freezing Polish countryside, I'd check the spare wheel, too.
He didn't lock the boot. No one else was around. This could work out well.
When he climbed behind the wheel, I crossed the forecourt fast, raising the lid and crouching to roll inside, tucking my legs in and pulling the lid down, closing myself in. I listened for shouts.
Nothing.
This is insane.
The boot was dark and hard. I adjusted my foetal position, nose wrinkling, trying not to sneeze. There was old sacking in here, dusty and smelling of oil.
After a moment, the engine growled. Say what you like about Ladas, the bastard things start first time, even ice-cold. Then it rolled forward, inertia bumping me against the metal rear, as we moved down the uneven path toward the main road.
Soon we turned, heading out of town, across the countryside.
It was the beginning of a prolonged, bumpy, agonizing ride, filled with worries about everything from leaks in the exhaust pipe – carbon monoxide could be fatal, turning the boot into a metal coffin – to whether I could remember my Fortran, or whether Jean-Paul would look after Fern as they grew old together, long after my death.
What I tried not to puzzle over was how, exactly, the soldiers had known where my rendezvous with Lenin Beard would be. I really tried not to think about that.
Really.
It felt like weeks later that the car began to slow. Then someone spoke. The muffled tone was military, no mistaking it, with the scrunch of bootheels on gravel. Several pairs of boots.
This was it. Kowary Podgórze.
Dyenisovitch was a GRU officer on an unscheduled inspection, but if the guards wanted to make an impression, they could exercise their right to check his vehicle. When the boot-lid swung open, Dyenisovitch might be confused, but the soldiers would react fast. Young reflexes would be dying to pull the trigger for real, to see the blood spurt, the body fall back... for I was an enemy of the state.
The car rolled on.
A faint echoing screech told me we were turning onto concrete that was free of snow. Then we came to a halt, and the engine shuddered once before growing silent. Upholstery creaked, the car's weight shifted, and the door slammed. Dyenisovitch was out.
So was he staring at the boot-lid, frowning, his hand reaching towards his gun, not knowing why he felt uneasy?
I am not here. The car is empty.
I willed him to believe it, willed myself to grow still, inanimate, broadcasting no chemical betrayal of my existence, no airborne molecules for the animal senses to pick up.
The car creaked, its components cooling at different rates.
No one is here.
There was a long moment when nothing moved...
Calm. Everything is fine.
...and then his footsteps faded across the concrete, and I was alone.
Crunch time.
Rust caused a faint squeal, and I stopped the motion, expecting the percussive crash of rifle-fire, getting nothing. Then I continued, raising the lid by millimetres, peering out at a blank concrete wall. Another pause, but there was no point in waiting, so I pushed the lid higher and rolled over the edge. My muscles yowled at the stretching movement. I crouched, finding myself on a concrete parking apron beneath an overhanging roof. Then I shut the boot.
A pool of light shone down, too bright, and suddenly clicked off, darkness snapping into place around me.
God, God, God.
But no guns opened up, nobody shouted, and when thought kicked in again it was obvious: if you wanted to shoot someone you wouldn't switch the bloody lights off, you'd keep the target trapped like roadkill, scared to move, and then you'd have him. The lights were on a timer, that was all.
For God's sake, keep cool.
I stayed low, moving slowly, and reached a clump of dark bushes. Pressure was building inside my bladder, but there might be dog patrols, and some scents act like public broadcasts. I locked everything tight inside as a shaft of brightness split the darkness off to my left. There was a long, single-storey building; and the man bent over in the doorway wore a white coat. He held something in his hand.
"Ivan?"
Who the hell was Ivan?
"Mrraogh?" A small tabby shape came bounding towards the open door.
"Ah, koshka. Zdrasdvuitye, Ivanchka." The man spoke Russian, not Polish.
Ivan the cat tore at the fatty meat, eating fast: it was cold and his metabolism would be high. There was milk, too, which the lab worker poured from a carton. Ivan licked the saucer.
When it was all gone, the man rubbed the cat's head, then stood up. The cat, Ivan, took that as a signal and loped off into darkness, tail high. Perhaps there was somewhere warm for him to find shelter. Then the man was inside and the door was swinging shut.
Move.
Silent running is a key skill, an
d the cramp from spending ages curled inside a car boot didn't matter. I was across the intervening space very fast, fist raised to strike—
Punch the cervical vertebrae to shock. Twist the head sideways, arching back to snap.
—but he'd been good to the cat, so I dropped right down as I reached the door, using my fingertips to catch the movement, slowing it until the latch touched but that was all. It had not locked.
I hoped the man would not come back. Field-mice were scarce at this time of year, and Ivan would want the extra food. He needed his human friend alive; I needed not to be seen.
Count to thirty.
Achat, shtayim, shalosh...
Time to go inside.
TEN:
KOWARY PODGÓRZE, December 1962
The locker room was utilitarian, with a row of hooks from which stained lab-coats hung, ripe for the taking. First stop was the urinals, then I exchanged my overcoat for a lab-coat and left.
In the corridor I passed a man dressed in grey overalls, allowing my gaze to sweep across his torso as though he were nothing. And if you think that's unusual in the proletarian paradise, you haven't spent much time east of the Curtain. Passing a refectory, I sped up. There were people inside taking a break, and they might have time to be curious about me. Farther on, up ahead, two soldiers were muttering about the unscheduled inspection, and the last thing I needed was for them to get eager and check ID badges, because I had nothing to show.
One of them pushed open a side door, and shone his torch inside.
Room search.
So I backtracked and took two right turns, and came across cardboard boxes of stationery stacked on the floor. The Computer Analysis Department must be close. Exposed piping ran along the ceiling, which could be for the coolant system, so I followed it until soldiers' voices made me retreat again. Tall cupboards stood against a corridor wall, no gap behind to hid in, but a space overhead, between the top of cupboards and the ceiling.
Heart pounding, I swung myself up and flattened myself, waiting.
"—think they're God, showing up without warning."