Stroika

by Mark Blair

  ‘Still with us, General,’ he said, laughing and crying at the same time, no doubt in disbelief that they were here, alive, in one piece.

  Chapter 44

  Leningrad

  Viktoriya sat on the edge of her bed in the windowless cell. She had slept fitfully on the hard horsehair mattress, randomly disturbed by cell checks and the incomprehensible shouts of inmates.

  The noise of door hatches being opened and shut again and the rumbling of a trolley alerted her to the sound of breakfast. She had not had anything to eat since the night before and realised now how hungry she was. Her hatch slid open and a steaming bowl and a mug of something were placed wordlessly on the inside shelf. Viktoriya picked them up and carried them to a narrow shelf table. She was surprised how good oatmeal porridge and stewed tea could taste.

  A half-hour later, the sound of the lock turning in the door brought her to her feet. The sergeant from the previous afternoon led her back to the interview room where the other officer sat with his now familiar brown file.

  This time he produced a police photograph of the girl she had seen that last time in Kostya’s office.

  ‘Do you know this woman?’ he asked.

  ‘Know is probably not the operative word. I have seen her once or twice at a friend’s club. I have never spoken with her.’

  ‘And is this friend Konstantin Stolin?’

  Viktoriya couldn’t see how she could avoid a straightforward answer and told him that was the case.

  ‘This woman has confessed to falsely implicating you in the murder of Pavel Antyuhin… All the same I find it all very convenient, as is the disappearance of your old flatmate.’

  The sergeant sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and looked at her belligerently.

  ‘If it wasn’t for pressure from on high, I wouldn’t be releasing you.’

  ‘So you are letting me go?’

  ‘Yes, you are free to go, once you have signed your release papers.’

  He got up and left the room.

  ‘You’d better watch out if you don’t want to land up back here,’ the sergeant whispered, clearly aggrieved that she would not be staying longer.

  ‘I don’t like being intimidated,’ said Viktoriya, ‘Sergeant…?’

  ‘Sergeant Bobrika,’ she replied looking slightly rattled.

  The sergeant led her resentfully up to the reception hall. On the other side of the glass partition she saw Misha talking with Ivan. He caught sight of her and signalled.

  ‘Just sign here,’ said the sergeant aggressively.

  Viktoriya gave the form a cursory review and added her signature.

  Misha greeted her with a much-needed hug.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘I certainly don’t want to be visiting here again anytime soon,’ Viktoriya replied, staring at the sergeant through the glass.

  ‘I had a call from Kostya, an hour ago. Some girl that works for him fitted you up. She’s been taken into custody.’

  ‘I’ve been told.’ Viktoriya wondered what Kostya had done to force a confession. ‘Can you please take me home? I need a shower and a change of clothes. Have you heard from Yuri?’ she asked, half expecting him to be there.

  ‘Constantly, it took all my persuasion to stop him getting on a plane to Leningrad. I told him he would be more use in Moscow if we could not secure your release. He’s on some mission out east, top secret and all that. He’s been calling me every few hours asking about you, although he seems to have gone silent this morning. Maybe he’s lost interest… you two clearly hit it off in Smolensk,’ Misha said, smirking.

  Viktoriya felt unexpectedly relieved, as if a niggling doubt she had been unaware of until then had been suddenly exorcised.

  Outside, Ivan waited with the security detail. Viktoriya took in the scene: two men at the bottom of the steps; a half-dozen more across the street, their backs to the iron railings of the square, Kalashnikovs idled at waist height, three cars, engines running, tight against the kerb. A guard threw away his cigarette while another pushed himself off the railings. Eyes turned in every direction. A passing motorist slowed, curious, and was waved quickly on.

  ‘Twitchy?’ said Viktoriya.

  ‘I’ve capital flight, you, and Yuri sending up distress flares. Yes, you could say so.’

  She knew he was right; hadn’t she been telling him for weeks to up his protection?

  Ivan kissed her on both cheeks without taking his eyes off the road and indicated the middle car, flanked by four security men, parked only a few feet away. Viktoriya slid in first, Misha next.

  The first and last cars filled quickly. Waved on by a bodyguard, the convoy pulled out into the road, crossed Suvorovskiy and ran a red light into Rozhdestvenskiy Square.

  Viktoriya reached for Misha’s hand and squeezed it, nuzzling her face against his black leather jacket, pleased to be free and in the company of her best friend.

  He turned to say something, when the car in front disintegrated in a ball of fire. Deafened by the explosion, Viktoriya instinctively covered her ears. Wreckage fell like rain, heavily at first and then light, drifting in the smoke that pushed its way past them. There could be no survivors. The blazing carcass of the stricken Volga blocked the north exit.

  ‘South exit! Flat down! South exit!’ Ivan bellowed to the driver, who was already flooring the accelerator.

  Black smoke rose from the spinning tyres and the car lurched forward, dodging debris. The windscreen shattered. Splintered glass stung her face as bullets thudded into the car. Twenty metres on, the fusillade stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The car behind moved into a blocking space. Ivan leant forward and smashed out what remained of the front windscreen.

  Misha slumped forward in his seat, unconscious. Viktoriya grabbed him. Her hands came away wet and sticky with blood.

  ‘He’s been shot!’ she shouted, but where? It was then, in all the chaos, she saw the bullet wound to his head. She felt for his pulse. He was still alive.

  ‘Hospital!’ she shouted. Ivan nodded, but they had to survive the square first.

  Intuition comes sometimes with divine clarity. Viktoriya knew beyond any doubt that the southern exit to the square was a death sentence. Whoever had planned this attack would expect them to take it.

  ‘Hard left!’ she screamed over the pounding of the car engine. ‘Hard left, into the square!’ They had to regain the initiative if they were to come out alive.

  The driver swung the car through ninety degrees up onto the kerb. Wrenching the gateposts free of their moorings, the half-ton battering ram careered down a wide footpath to the small mountain of boulders that excused itself for a decorative feature. Once covered in alpine flowers, it was now a canvas for anti-police graffiti.

  ‘Behind that!’ she shouted. ‘We can take cover here. Ivan, the south exit, they’re going to be waiting there.’ She knew they only had seconds before their attackers figured out they had turned off the square.

  ***

  Ivan jumped out of the car and signalled two men – Iosif and Vladek – from the car behind to follow as Vladimir and Roman shinnied up the rock, Kalashnikovs strapped to their back.

  The three ran full tilt out of the square towards the south exit. A grenade whooshed passed Ivan to his left and exploded against the railings as he dived for cover behind a line of parked cars. Iosif ran in behind him, quickly followed by Vladek.

  ‘Did you see how many?’

  Both of them shook their heads.

  Ivan counted to three. Vlad and Iosif leapt to their feet and fired of a clip of shells. Ivan clocked the muzzle flash from two guns and a third man on the corner holding a GP-25 grenade launcher.

  Using parked cars for cover, Ivan quickly worked his way to within twenty feet of his attackers. He shot the first as he swung an AK towards him, Vladek killed th
e second. Ivan watched the man with the grenade launcher raise it to his shoulder and Iosif run forward from behind, raise his gun and fire. The rocket grenade man froze and slowly toppled forward onto the pavement. Whether it was the force of the fall or the dead man’s final twitch on the trigger, the percussion cap detonated, sending shards of shrapnel in every direction. Iosif took a chunk in his shoulder and fell to the ground as a fourth man emerged from nowhere. Vladek took advantage of his blind side and loosed a burst from his Kalashnikov. The perpetrator, dead on his feet, smashed into a gate behind him and slid to the pavement.

  Iosif stood up, clutching his shoulder, and gave the thumbs-up.

  ‘Vladek, let’s go… the square… we’ll be back for Iosif.’

  Ivan paused at the mangled entrance to the square. Fifty metres to his front he caught sight of the limp figure of Roman dangling precariously from a high boulder he had seen him climb only minutes before. His Kalashnikov hung around his neck like a tourniquet pulling him downward. Blood trickled from his open mouth and his eyes stared unblinking.

  Vladek touched Ivan on the shoulder and pointed at the dead body of one of their assailants, lying in the open to the side of a tree. Two others, using the same trees for cover, worked their way forward trying to get behind Vladimir, who was crouched behind a rock only a couple of metres from the dead Roman.

  Ivan and Vladek were directly behind them. Neither of the two antagonists noticed their approach. When they were less than ten metres distant, Ivan and Vladek opened up with their automatics and kept firing until the two lay still on the wet grass.

  Ivan looked up to the sound of spinning tyres. Two Volgas broke cover from behind the rock and raced forward. Ivan jumped into the first and Iosif and Vladek the second.

  ‘Vladimir… the Mariinsky!’ Ivan shouted at the second car, as his, with its critically wounded passenger, pulled forward and exited the killing field.

  Chapter 45

  Cherepovets

  A blanket over his shoulders, wet through and covered in mud, Yuri sat with a mug of hot coffee squeezed between his palms in the officers’ mess at Cherepovets airport. Derevenko sat across the table, making notes while the crash was fresh in his mind.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ asked Yuri.

  ‘Fuel line, I guess, never happened before… ruptured, loose? Odd, though, it was inspected this morning. I saw the mechanic on the wing, making an inspection.’ The captain frowned.

  ‘And…?’

  ‘He wasn’t one of the usual ground crew. I know them all pretty well, see them every day. This guy was new.’

  The double door swung open and a major marched into the room with two soldiers and snapped to attention.

  ‘General, Captain,’ he addressed the two seated officers.

  ‘General,’ the major looked awkward, ‘I have a warrant for your detention.’ The two soldiers stepped forward, fingers resting on the trigger guard and safety catch in the fire position. ‘Please hand over your firearm and come with me.’

  Yuri rose to his feet, furious.

  ‘On what charge, Major?’

  ‘It doesn’t say, General.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ exploded Yuri. ‘Who is it signed by?’

  ‘Comrade Dubnikov, the minister of defence.’

  Yuri inspected the fax now held out to him by the major.

  ‘Military police are flying out from Moscow later this afternoon to take you back to Moscow.’

  ‘I want to speak directly to the colonel general, General Ghukov, at the GSHQ.’ He would surely sort this out.

  ‘General, I have been trying to reach his office for confirmation but he is unavailable. I’m sorry.’

  Yuri looked from the major to the two soldiers and shook his head.

  ‘Give me the fax again.’ He looked at the date and time of the warrant and up at the clock. It had only been issued half an hour ago, a good hour after the crash. Was this their fallback position?

  ‘Please, this way. I have prepared an office for you, General, rather than the detention cells. You will be under guard, but I hope your stay will be as comfortable as possible given the circumstances.’

  The major led him across an expanse of tarmac to the edge of the airfield where a small group of buildings hugged the main gate. The office was on the second floor, thirty feet above ground, its window facing inward to the runway. In the corner a gas heater glowed next to a low armchair, opposite a desk and chair on which was perched a neat pile of clothes: jeans, T-shirt and a heavy sweater.

  ‘General, I took the liberty of organising you some clean clothes. I think we are pretty much the same size. If you hand your uniform to my men I will have it bagged and returned with you.’

  ‘Thank you, Major… don’t I recognise you from the military academy… 1986?’

  ‘Yes, sir, we were on the same course, Organisational Theory and the Army. I remember how your views used to wind up the senior officers.’

  ‘They still do, Major. I suspect that is why I am here.’

  The major looked embarrassed and took his leave, promising to return in an hour or so to check on him. Two soldiers were posted guard in the outside corridor.

  Yuri stripped off and changed into dry clothes. They were a good fit. He could almost have been off duty at home. He slumped down in the armchair and rotated his left arm above his head: whiplash, he was beginning to ache, he rubbed his neck. What was going on? he asked himself for the tenth time. And why was Ghukov unresponsive? None of it made sense. There was a knock on the door and the major entered. He looked perplexed. Yuri wondered what had brought him back so quickly; he had been gone for less than half an hour.

  ‘Have you managed to get hold of the GSHQ, and spoke with General Ghukov?’

  ‘General Marov… Colonel General Ghukov has been replaced.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘… General Volkov.’

  ‘Volkov!’ Yuri was stunned. He could see the major had something further to say. ‘And…?

  ‘The general secretary has been taken ill in his dacha outside Moscow and the deputy general secretary has temporarily assumed his responsibility… and there’s more, sir… the Western Army has been put on combat-ready alert.’

  ‘Major, if this is not a coup, I’m my uncle’s aunt. The air crash and now my arrest are just part of this. God knows what has befallen Ghukov. I’ll warrant there are detentions going on all over the Soviet Union as we speak. If the Western Army starts putting down the uprising in East Germany, I don’t think NATO or the Americans will stand by this time… Major, do you want to be on the wrong or right side of history?’

  Chapter 46

  Leningrad

  Viktoriya felt completely numb. Seconds before, the medical team had rushed Misha into the operating theatre, and only the gently flapping doors marked his departure. In the faces around her she read failure and defeat: five men dead, one injured and the man they were paid to protect critical. They had been exposed as weak and unprepared. She had no doubt about who was responsible; it had Kostya’s hallmark. A liability inside a police cell, she was a target outside. And hadn’t he already threatened Misha? Besides, nothing happened in Leningrad without Kostya’s sanction.

  Ivan reappeared, white and shaken. Viktoriya wiped the tears off her face.

  ‘I need to get a grip,’ she said to Ivan but really to herself. She had to bottle up her desperation and the feeling of helplessness. This was not the time nor place for either, not here.

  ‘How many men can you call on?’

  ‘Twenty, at most. Most of our men are covering Roslavi and the route to the border, and we have to cover the vault.’

  ‘Well I suggest you call them in now. We need to secure this hospital.’ A hundred would hardly do it, she thought. The Mariinsky was one gigantic warren of doors and corridors.

  ‘I
blame myself for this. We should never have been so exposed,’ Ivan said, his voice cracking.

  ‘Misha knew the risks too. We all did. We all do.’

  ‘Still, it was my job…’

  ‘It still is, and Misha is still with us. You can’t turn back the clock, but you can stop them finishing the job.’

  Ivan looked at her more calmly. ‘You know whose work this is?’

  ‘I do and he is going to pay for it… now go!’

  A cough made her turn. A uniformed police officer introduced himself as Lieutenant Lagunov.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he started, ‘this must be very difficult.’ He was mid-forties, with greying brown hair and a neat moustache. ‘Was Mikhail Dimitrivich your partner?’

  ‘Friend and business partner, yes.’

  ‘I need to take your statement and then I will leave you in peace.’

  The fact that she was surrounded by armed bodyguards did not seem to concern him at all. Shootings had become commonplace. The last place law enforcement officers wanted to be was between two rival factions, particularly if Konstantin were involved. As far as they were concerned, money bought protection and the more money you had, the more protection you needed, which was why she was doubly surprised when he offered to leave two of his men on guard outside his wardroom.

  Physically and emotionally exhausted and suffering from lack of sleep, Viktoriya lifted two metal tubular chairs from a stack she found in the waiting room, put her feet up and closed her eyes, opening them occasionally to check on the clock. As hard as she might she found it impossible to nod off; her mind would not stop racing. A gentle hand on her shoulder made her sit up. The surgeon stood over her, his mask pushed down around his neck and his blue theatre gown spotted with blood.

  ‘He’s still with us,’ the doctor smiled weakly. ‘He took a bullet to the lung and there has been trauma to the brain. We’ve removed all the shrapnel and stopped the bleeding. I’ve given a dose of barbiturates to reduce the intracranial pressure; he’ll be unconscious for some time. We’re just going to have to wait now.’