by Brian Lumley
Harry could see he was making an impression. 'Keys?' he grinned, however tightly. 'I have an entire door! Lots of doors!'
He was mad, surely. But he was different from the others here, totally different. 'I don't understand,' she said, still backing away. Her legs struck the edge of her bed and she flopped down on it again.
Running footsteps sounded, and the tight grin slipped from Harry's face. 'They're coming,' he said. 'Get up.' The sudden authority in his voice had her on her feet again in a moment.
There was shouting outside, the jangle of keys, Khuv's voice hoarsely commanding: 'Open it! Open it!'
Harry grabbed Tassi by the waist. 'Put your arms round my neck,' he said. 'Quickly, girl. No arguments, now!' She did it. She had no reason to trust him, but she had no reason not to. 'Close your eyes,' he said. 'And keep them closed.' Tightening one arm around her narrow waist, he grunted as he lifted her feet from the floor.
She heard the cell door grating open, then silence — but such absolute silence.
'Wha — ?' she commenced a question she couldn't finish, and shrank from the booming of her own voice. Startled, she opened her eyes for a moment — but only for a moment. Then she snapped them tightly shut again.
'There,' said Harry, and he lowered her feet to a solid floor. 'You can open your eyes now.'
She did, the merest slit… then opened them wide, wider — and sagged against him. Her eyes rolled up and she began to slide down his body.
Harry caught her up, lifted her, laid her on the Duty Officer's desk. Behind his newspaper, the DO had just this moment realized that he had visitors. Then the girl's arm and hand flopped into view under his open newspaper and he reared up and back with an inarticulate cry: 'G-yahhh!'
'It's OK,' said Harry, who was growing accustomed to excusing himself. 'It's only me, and the friend of a friend of mine.'
'Jesus! Jesus! — oh, sweet Jesus!' the DO clutched at his desk for support. Of all people, it was Darcy Clarke. Harry nodded the very briefest of greetings, began to massage the unconscious girl's hands…
It had been 1:15 a.m. when Harry arrived at E-Branch HQ, and it was almost an hour later when he left. In between times he passed on some information, told Clarke all he had learned, and in return received a little information from the other. His instructions for the welfare of Tassi Kirescu were these:
She was to be given refuge, comforted as best the staff of E-Branch knew how, offered permanent political asylum. A Russian interpreter was to be provided for her, and she should be debriefed (but with a great deal of care and sensitivity) with regard to the Perchorsk Projekt. For the present she was to keep a low profile: her presence here in the West should be kept secret, and when she was released it must be with a new identity. Lastly, E-Branch was to use such usual and paranormal means as were required to discover the whereabouts in the USSR of her mother. Harry had made Kazimir Kirescu a promise and it was one he intended to keep — eventually.
As for the information Darcy Clarke had for Harry:
'It's Zek Foener,' he had told the Necroscope.
'Zek? What about her?' The last time Harry had seen Zek was eight years ago. She had been a telepath at the Chateau Bronnitsy, the USSR's equivalent of E-Branch HQ, which had made her an enemy, but a reluctant one. Harry could have destroyed her, but he'd sensed a deep-rooted decency in her, a desire to be free of her KGB masters. All she had wanted was to return to Greece. He had suspected she would. But… he had warned her not to come up against him again.
'She may be part of this,' Clarke had told him.
'How do you mean? Part of Perchorsk?' Was Zek the one who'd betrayed his presence there? She would have known his mind at once, as soon as he materialized in the place. Of course, there was also Khuv's detachment of espers; they could have picked him up just as easily. For the moment Harry preferred to believe the latter. At least he hoped so.
'Part of Perchorsk, yes. A cog in the wheel of the place. We've kept an eye on her ever since the Bodescu affair.
She was doing time at a forced labour camp; not especially hard stuff, but not pleasant either. Then they sent her to Perchorsk. This was some months ago and we've just had news of it. We can only assume she's working for Soviet E-Branch again. And for the KGB…'
Harry's face soured. 'Again,' he said. 'I warned her not to. Well, if I have to mix it with them again…' He let the threat hang there.
Clarke stared hard at him. 'But isn't it more serious than that, Harry? At the end of the Bodescu affair, Zek Foener was working with Ivan Gerenko — '
'Had been working with him,' Harry cut in, correcting him. 'But she'd quit. I thought so, anyway.'
'But you know what I mean,' Clarke insisted. 'Gerenko had some crazy idea about using vampires. That's why he and Theo Dolgikh — and Zek — went back to that mountain pass east of the Carpathians: to see if, after all those centuries, anything remained of Faethor Ferenczy's buried creatures. Zek knows about vampires! It makes it that much more definite that the Russians have discovered a way to make the damned things, and that they're doing it there at Perchorsk!'
'So you're saying…?'
'Harry, you remember how you dealt with the Chateau Bronnitsy?'
After a moment, Harry had nodded. Oh yes, he remembered it well enough. Using the Mobius Continuum, he'd laid plastic explosive charges there. Gouting, shattering fire and lashing heat, and the Chateau reduced to smouldering rubble. And the Soviet E-Branch reduced along with it, for their sins. In the space of less than a minute, enough sheer destructive savagery to last any man a lifetime. 'I remember,' he had finally answered. 'Except — '
'Yes?'
'Darcy, if you're right, well, obviously the place has to go. But not until we're sure one way or the other, and not yet. I have this feeling that the answer to my one big problem is right there. It may be risky — I mean, I know what has escaped from that place, and what could presumably escape from it in future; indeed, I've seen and dealt with an example — but for the moment I can't, daren't, try to close it down. Not if I want to see Brenda and Harry Jnr again.'
For a moment it had seemed that Clarke understood, but then he'd said, 'Harry, it's not just a case of "risky" — it's deadly! Unthinkable! You must see that?'
And then it had been Harry's turn. Coldly he had answered: 'There are a couple of things you have to see, too, Darcy. Like old man Kirescu being dead — his death probably precipitated by your sending Jazz Simmons in there. And that poor girl having lost both her father and her brother. And her mother, probably in a forced labour camp by now, half out of her mind with grief and worry, no doubt. These are things you can't write off, Darcy, and you're certainly not going to write off Brenda and Harry Jnr. So for now we'll continue to play this my way.'
White-faced, Clarke could only agree. 'So… what's your way going to be? What's your next step, Harry?'
'Well, there are questions I need answered. It looks like I'll have to go right to the top to get them answered.'
The top?'
Harry had nodded. 'The Perchorsk Projekt. If I'm right and it's not about breeding vampires, then what is it about? Someone in that place knows and is going to tell me. There has to be a boss, a controller. Not Khuv but someone above him.'
'Of course there is,' Clarke had answered at once. 'Khuv's in charge of security, that's all. The man you want is Viktor Luchov.' And he'd gone on to fill Harry in on Luchov's background.
When he was done Harry had nodded grimly. Then he's the man I need to talk to. If anyone has the answers, Viktor Luchov has to be the one.'
'When will you try to see him?'
'Now.'
'Now?' Clarke had been taken aback. 'But the place will still be on top alert!'
'I know. I'll create a smoke screen.'
'A what?'
'A diversion. Let me worry about it. You just look after that girl.'
Clarke had nodded, stuck out his hand. 'Best of luck, Harry.'
The Necroscope wasn't one for holding grudges
. He shook hands, conjured a Mobius door. Clarke watched him take his departure, thought: I was there once! Pray God he'd never be there again…
Viktor Luchov was back in his own executive quarters (which meant that they were slightly less austere than anyone else's at Perchorsk) and he was furious. Quite apart from this latest incident — this 'intrusion', if such it had been — the Projekt Direktor had chosen the period of the alert to approach and challenge Khuv in respect of certain rumours which were beginning to circulate through the Projekt, rumours alleging brutality and murder. They concerned the KGB officer's prisoners, Kazimir and Taschenka Kirescu.
Perhaps Luchov's approach had been a little too liverish (he had after all been shocked awake in the middle of the night, with klaxons sounding all around like wailing demons out of hell) but that could not excuse Khuv's response, which had been brusque to put it mildly.
Namely, he had told Luchov that he should get off his back and let him attend to the Projekt's security with a minimum of interference. Or better still, with no interference at all. This confrontation had taken place not in private but in the detention area, where Khuv's espers had been crowding one of the cells in their search for something or other. 'Sniffing the ether!' as one of them had put it.
Appalled at the apparent chaos and confusion, Luchov had demanded to see the prisoners, which was when Khuv had rounded on him.
'Listen, Comrade Direktor,' the KGB Major had hissed. 'I would be delighted if I could show you the girl Tassi Kirescu. This was her cell. A little over one hour ago she was here, and a guard on duty in the corridor outside. Then — ' he had thrown up his hands, ' — she was no longer here, and the door still locked! Now, I know you hold E-Branch in small regard, and the KGB in no regard at all, but surely it must be amply apparent even to your oh-so-scientific mind that something quite exceptional — something, indeed, entirely metaphysical — has occurred here? My espers are attempting to discover what that something was. And I, who have no ESP talent of my own, am trying to make sense of what they're telling me. So… now is not the ideal moment for you to come interfering!'
'You go too far, Major!' Luchov had shouted.
'And I shall go further,' Khuv had shouted back. 'If you do not get out of my way I shall have you escorted back to your quarters and locked in!'
'What? You dare — !/'
'Listen, you damned scientist!' Khuv had then snarled at him. 'In my capacity as the Projekt's security supervisor I dare almost anything! Now I'll tell you one more time: the creature from the Gate is dead, destroyed by some unknown person or thing; the Kirescu girl, formerly my prisoner, is missing; her father is… dead: an unfortunate accident. I shall ensure that you get a copy of the report. And finally, the Projekt has had an intruder. Our security has been breached in the worst possible way. I repeat: our security. My sphere of work, Direktor, not yours. So go back to bed. Go back to your mathematics and your physics and what all. Go study your magmass and your grey holes and your particle beam acceleration — only leave me alonef
And Luchov, shouted down, had returned to his rooms and commenced to write a furious, comprehensive report on Khuv's suspected activities and his rank insubordination.
Meanwhile:
For the last five minutes Harry Keogh had been making a nuisance of himself. First he'd appeared outside the Projekt, on the patrolled ramp cut into the Perchorsk ravine's wall, where he'd taken a half-hearted pot shot at a guard. He hadn't attempted to hit the man, for he'd need serious reasons before sending yet another human being to join the Great Majority. Before the soldier could fire back at him, Harry had ducked into the cover of darkly swirling snow — and through a Mobius door.
From there he'd returned to the room of the thing. Emerging there, he'd been ready on the instant to return into the Mobius Continuum. But the room was empty and so he'd simply gone to the locked door and banged on it, shouting to be let out. The guard outside the room had responded to this, of course, and moments later so had the alarm system.
Tassi Kirescu's cell had been next; Harry emerged amidst a handful of baffled espers, struck two of them rapid, stunning blows, retreated to the Mobius Continuum. Behind him he left Leo Grenzel and Nik Slepak groaning on the floor, and others white-faced and wide-eyed, astonished by what they'd seen and felt. Grenzel was still feeling it, and not just the two front teeth Harry had loosened.
That's him!' he gurgled, sitting up and spitting blood. That's him!'
Khuv was heading for KGB accommodation when the klaxons began to sound again. He cursed, put on speed. Coming through a door between sections of the corridor, he ran into Harry Keogh. He knew him at once — or thought he did. Khuv had a good memory; he'd seen photographs of this man: a one-time head of British E-Branch — Alec Kyle!
Harry pressed his Browning up under Khuv's chin, said: 'I can see by the look on your face that you know me. Which puts me at a disadvantage — but let me guess anyway. Major Chingiz Khuv?'
Khuv gulped, nodded, shoved his hands high in the air.
'Major, you're in the wrong business,' Harry pressed harder with his gun. Take some good advice and get out while the going's good. And pray you never see me again.' He stepped back away from Khuv, looked for a door.
In the moment of Harry's distraction, Khuv snatched his own gun from its holster, triggered off a shot. Harry felt the bullet buzz past his face like an angry wasp to speed forever through the Mobius Continuum. Then Khuv and the corridor blinked out of existence and he headed for somewhere else.
He emerged in a military Duty Room situated just inside the Projekt's service bays, put the muzzle of his pistol in the Orderly Sergeant's ear where he sat at his desk and ordered him to tell him the way to Direktor Luchov's quarters. The terrified Sergeant showed him what he wanted to know on a wall chart, a diagram of the Perchorsk complex, and Harry rewarded him with a chop to the neck that would keep him out of things for at least half an hour. Then he was on the move again.
Harry's 'smoke screen' was now established. It was 5:22 a.m. precisely, local time, when he materialized in Viktor Luchov's claustrophobic suite of rooms. Luchov was on the phone, demanding to know what this fresh spate of clamouring alarms was all about, when Harry arrived. His back was to Harry, who let him finish his conversation and slam the telephone down before he spoke:
'Direktor Luchov? I'm what those alarms are all about.' He pointed his automatic at Luchov's heart, said: 'Better sit down.'
Luchov, whirling from the telephone, saw Harry, his gun and where it was pointed, in that order. He staggered as if he'd been struck in the temple. 'What — ? Who — ?'
'Who doesn't matter,' Harry told him. 'And what is what I'm here to find out.'
'Khuv's intruder!' Luchov finally gasped. 'I thought it was all part of some elaborate scheme of his.'
'Sit,' Harry said again, waving his gun toward a chair.
Luchov did as Harry ordered, the yellow veins pulsing rapidly under the scar-tissue skin of his seared skull. Harry looked at Luchov's disfigurement, saw that the damage was fairly recent. 'An accident?'
Tight-lipped, breathing just a fraction too quickly, Luchov said nothing. Both he and Harry jumped as the telephone came janglingly alive, ringing repeatedly. Then Harry scowled. They must have some clever people working here; it seemed they'd already located him; he wouldn't have time to interrogate Luchov — not here, anyway. 'Get up,' he said, reaching out and jerking Luchov to his feet.
And still holding him, he conjured a door and dragged the other through it.
In a moment, for the moment, they were out on the ramp in the ravine, snow stinging their eyes and a cold wind rushing down the length of the canyon. Harry looked up at the bleak mountains showing their fangs through the snow. Luchov, seeing where he was — where according to all the laws of science he had no right to be — had barely sufficient time to voice some inarticulate query before -
— Harry dragged him squalling through another door, passed through the Mobius Continuum and exited-on a led
ge high over the Perchorsk ravine. Luchov saw the sheer drop under his feet and almost fainted. He let out a wild shriek and pressed himself back into the face of the cliff behind him. And again Harry commanded: 'Sit — before you fall.'
Luchov carefully sat down, hugged his dressing-gown to him, shivered partly from the cold and partly from the terror of this totally unbelievable and yet entirely inescapable experience. Harry went down on one knee before him and put his gun away. 'Now,' he said. 'I should think that dressed as we are, we've about ten to fifteen minutes before we freeze to death. So you'd better talk fast. There are things I want to know — about the Perchorsk Projekt. And I have it on good authority that you'd be the one to tell me. So I'll ask the questions and you'll answer them.'
Luchov collected his whirling senses as best he could, recovered something of his dignity. 'If… if I have only fifteen minutes left, then so do you. We both freeze.'
Harry grinned wolfishly. 'You don't catch on too quickly, do you? I don't have to stay here. I can leave you right now. Like this — ' And he was no longer there. Snow swirled in the space where he had kneeled. He returned, said: 'So what's it going to be? Do you talk to me or do I simply leave you here?'
'You're an enemy of my country!' Luchov blurted, feeling the cold start to bite.
'That place of yours,' Harry nodded toward the grey sheen of lead far below, 'appears to be an enemy of the world — potentially, anyway.'
'If I tell you anything — anything — about the Projekt, then I'm a traitor!' Luchov protested.
This wasn't getting Harry anywhere, and now he was cold, too. 'Listen,' he said. 'You've seen what I can do — but you haven't seen everything. I'm also a Necroscope: I can talk to the dead. So I can talk to you alive, or I can talk to you dead. If you were dead you'd be only too glad to talk to me, Viktor, for then I'd be your only real contact with the world.'
'Talk to the dead?' Luchov shrank even further down into himself. 'You're a madman!'