Marcus was happy to drive out of the city, past blocks of new high-rise apartments, which were surrounded by mountains of cement and sand and the occasional thin tree. These were depressing areas, and boring – the more so when you contrasted them with the rich medieval architecture of old Tallinn – and yet people were expected to live their lives in such prefabricated tedium. He kept driving until the city was behind him and the sun was rising over the landscape and the countryside around him was rich and green. He turned the car off the highway about thirty-five miles from Tallinn and drove down a narrow track between pine trees. On either side of the track, obscured by thickets of trunks, dark green meadows stretched out and the surface of a narrow lake was visible. The car rocked and swayed over ruts for three or four miles, then the pathway twisted and an old farmhouse came in view.
Whitewalled, shuttered, it appeared at first sight to have been abandoned. But fresh tyre-tracks in the forecourt suggested recent activity and, under a tarpaulin that had been hung across a roofless outbuilding, were three vehicles – a grey Volvo station-wagon, a small Zaporozhet, and a Soviet Army truck that only a day before had been in Riga in Latvia.
Marcus parked the Moskvich, entered the house, stooping as he did so because the ceiling had been built at a time when human beings were smaller. The room in which he stood was furnished only with a table and four roughly-carpentered chairs. Marcus removed his overcoat. He heard the click of a magazine being inserted into an automatic rifle, a slight echo from another room. A figure appeared in a doorway, a young man with an M-16 rifle held in the firing position.
“Relax, boy.” Marcus smiled, sat at the kitchen table, rolled a cigarette from a leather tobacco pouch. He was tired and it showed on his face. He smoked, watched the young man approach the table, saw the automatic weapon being propped very carefully against the leg of a chair.
The young man drummed his fingertips on the table. It was less a sign of nerves than it was of restlessness. He was ready to go into action. He’d dreamed of nothing else for a long time now. Marcus watched the young man, and his thoughts drifted to Aleksis Romanenko. When tasks had been allocated, functions delegated, Aleksis’s role had been to make certain that those members of the Soviet armed forces he’d recruited wouldn’t fail at the last minute, and that their escape routes were firmly in place. This role had suited Aleksis because it involved travel – both in the Baltic and in Russia itself – and as a ranking official he could go almost anywhere without question. Now, with Aleksis dead – gunned down, or so it was rumoured: hard news was a precious commodity – Marcus had been obliged to assume Aleksis’s part, like an understudy stepping in at the last moment. Marcus, a deserter from Afghanistan, didn’t have freedom of movement. As a fugitive, his style was cramped. His original role had been to make sure the weapons smuggled into Latvia from the United States were distributed between the Baltic countries, and that the various groups would move in unison when the hour came. But now he was exhausted at having to play Aleksis’s nerve-racking part.
Thirty-four hours. He sat back in his chair, enjoyed the cigarette, gazed at the young man, whose rather innocent face concealed a certain ferocity, a dark purpose. The boy, who called himself Anarhist, meaning Anarchist, had spent two years in the Soviet Army in Chabarovsk on the Chinese border and a further two years in a military prison for distributing pamphlets of a nationalist nature, calling for freedom for all the nationalities – the Baits, the Georgians, the Armenians, the Kazakhs, the scores of other races – harnessed by the Russians. There were hundreds like this boy throughout the Baltic, brave and determined and patriotic, and many of them were waiting for the moment.
Marcus crushed his cigarette out. He thought of the trips he had already made – to Riga, Haapsalu on the Baltic coast, Moscow itself – and the final arrangements he had concluded with the people Aleksis had bought. They were all like Uvarov, scared and yet mildly defiant, ambitious to leave a country and a military system that both terrified and stultified. And they were all impatient men too, filled with the belief that the Soviet system was changing but at an intolerably slow pace which couldn’t satisfy their needs. A few had indisputably genuine philosophical differences with the system. Others had grievances, complaints that the system was unfair, or uncaring, that it didn’t listen to the small if reasonable voices of dissent. Some had grudges that went back years, often to a time before they were born, back to grandparents who’d been purged by Stalin, relatives conjured out of existence by a political programme that could never conceal its inherent barbarism, no matter how much cosmetic surgery was done. Some resented the way their careers had failed to take fire, that their wives were discontented, their homes inadequate, their long separations from family intolerable. A few had material aspirations, their minds filled with pictures from glossy Western magazines. What they all shared was the belief that they were innocent inmates in a drab prison, and that the only light they could see, if one existed at all, was at the end of a very long tunnel. And none of them knew the nature of the plan, although some might have guessed it, but if so they’d repressed the knowledge, blinded themselves to their own conclusions.
Aleksis had chosen these people masterfully. He had tapped into deeply-rooted discontentments, old grudges and fears, and he’d assembled a team of key personnel, keeping them afloat on money, and passports, and promises. He’d also manipulated them through their families, providing passports to wives and children, making sure the families travelled out of Russia the day before the action was scheduled, thus locking the husbands firmly into the plan. It was, Marcus had often thought, a scheme of quite extraordinary insight, and he could only marvel at the patience with which Aleksis had put it together, the energy involved, the charm and persuasion needed, the clandestine meetings conducted in an atmosphere of fear and distrust and uncertainty.
He rolled another cigarette. A third person stepped into the room now, a girl of about twenty with short yellow hair and light blue eyes. She had just awakened from sleep and she looked bleary. She wore an old American combat jacket, khaki pants, a black t-shirt. Her feet were bare. She sat down at the table and put her feet up on the rough wooden surface, rubbing her eyes as she did so. She was hardly more than a child, Marcus thought, but she had already spent eighteen months in a psychiatric hospital for her role in editing and distributing an underground newspaper critical of Russification. She’d been given electric-shock treatments, the only permanent effect of which had been to leave her with a rather attractive laziness in one eye. Marcus knew her only as Erma. There was an intimacy between them, something that wasn’t fully realised as yet, but it was the kind of closeness developed between people with a common cause.
She rolled a cigarette from Marcus’s leather pouch, smoked in silence for a time. She was impatient, and anxious. Her spell in the so-called psychiatric hospital hadn’t instilled patience into her. Marcus reached out and laid his hand over the girl’s.
“You can’t hurry time,” Marcus said.
The girl stared at him, as if his truism were beneath her dignity. Tucked in the belt of her pants was a Colt automatic. She let her hand drift over the butt of the pistol. Marcus felt it then – the youthful eagerness of this girl, the desire that was in her to fight, something she could barely restrain.
“I had a dream,” she said.
“Bad or good?”
“I dreamed the time came and all the streets were empty.”
The boy, Anarhist, made a snorting sound. “Dreams don’t mean anything,” he said.
Marcus stood up, stretched his arms. He would go upstairs now, and try to nap, to settle his mind down in that place where it lay perfectly still. But lately he’d been having a difficult time sleeping. He’d shut his eyes and try to make himself comfortable but then the images would come back in at him the way they always did. He’d be standing on dry, rocky terrain under a terrible yellow sun, his mouth filled with dust and his eyes stinging. Three Afghans kneeled some yards away, their faces turn
ed from him, their hands tethered behind their backs. Marcus noticed – a detail that never escaped him, no matter how many times he played this dreadful movie in his head – how the ropes cut into the skin of the bound men. He blinked his eyes as the wind blew over the rocks and his nostrils filled with dust and somebody on the edge of his vision thrust a revolver into his hand, which he took, understanding what he had to do with it. The wind flapped the headgear the Afghans wore and in the distance was the noise of rockets screaming. Shoot, somebody said. And Marcus raised the revolver and fired into the heads of the three men, who fell forward into the dust even as the wind, whistling through the cavities of rocks, still made their clothing flap against their bodies. The same memory, always the same bloody memory, images of a pain he couldn’t exorcise. He’d been involved in other things in Afghanistan – the shelling of villages, blowing up bridges and highways, direct combat – but they didn’t match the execution of the three guerillas, neither in shame nor in terror.
He climbed upstairs in the old farmhouse, hating his own recollections, but hating the Russians more for having created them in the first place.
London
V.G. Epishev, who operated on the principle that a man in constant motion left a confusion of trails, had checked into a hotel in Earl’s Court, a few streets behind the underground station. It was not a great hotel, but it had the merit of obscurity, located as it was at the end of a warren of narrow thoroughfares. He had a room on the top floor, one of the very few rooms in the establishment with its own telephone. It’s extra, you know, the woman at the desk told him, as if she were pleased by his little touch of extravagance and proud that her hotel could provide the opportunity. But it’s ever such a convenience, dear.
Epishev lay on the bed, turned his face to the window. It wasn’t quite light outside yet. He thought of making a call to Dimitri Volovich, but what did he have to report so far? The prospect of going through the rigmarole of raising the international operator, then being put through to East Berlin, and from there patched to Volovich in Moscow only to speak in terse, uninformative phrases, had no appeal. Greshko could wait. What choice did he have anyway? There was something enjoyable in the idea of exercising a little power over the old man, of being Greshko’s eyes and ears, his brain, in a foreign country. And Epishev was determined to savour the novelty of the feeling.
Besides, he’d been struck once or twice lately by the suspicion that this whole project, this undertaking that had forced him to travel hundreds of miles and had involved him in murder, was less a patriotic task than it was the construction of an epitaph for a sick old man who wanted to be remembered as the saviour of Russia. Perhaps it wasn’t the well-being of the nation that primarily interested Greshko, perhaps it was more the prospect of some gratifying words on his tombstone that compelled Vladimir Greshko to sit in Zavidovo like some conniving spider.
Epishev got up, performed some routine exercises, toe-touching, then some brisk sit-ups. He went to the window, opened it, breathed deeply. When the telephone rang, he picked it up on the second ring, understanding it could only be Alexei Malik, since he’d told nobody else of his whereabouts.
“I’m in the lobby,” Malik said.
Epishev hung up. He walked down the six flights of stairs to the foyer, which was a threadbare square of a room that smelled of very old carpet and dusty curtains. The desk was unmanned, the foyer empty save for Malik, who stood close to a curtained window. Epishev crossed the floor, noticing a red double-decker bus clatter past in the street. The hotel was shaken a moment by vibrations.
“Let’s walk,” Malik said. He moved to the door, held it open for Epishev. Outside, there was a slash of milky light in the sky over Earl’s Court. Both men moved in silence through the streets, pausing in front of a newsagent’s shop which displayed bold headlines concerning the violent slaying of two policemen. Malik paused to survey the tabloids, shaking his head as he read.
“The English don’t like it when their policemen are killed, Viktor,” he said. “It touches something raw in the British psyche.”
Epishev said nothing. He had no interest in Malik’s perceptions of British society. He walked away from the newspaper display, the headlines that shrieked about the murder of policemen and the deterioration of law and order throughout the island in general and how gun-control laws had to have every remaining loophole closed.
Malik fell into step beside him. “I had a meeting with two men from British intelligence, Viktor,” Malik said. “They called me at the Embassy, insisted on an urgent conference.”
“And?”
“Your name came up several times. They seem to think you’re responsible for the killings.”
“Preposterous,” Epishev said.
“As you say.” Malik looked up at the sky in the manner of a man who thinks he feels rain in the air. “I denied all knowledge of your existence, Viktor. What could I possibly know about KGB personnel in any case?”
Epishev stopped on the corner of Earl’s Court Road. He saw people plunging into the underground station, workers heading towards their places of employment in the half-dark. He turned to look at Malik. “You want to know how they came up with my name, of course.”
“I’m curious,” Malik said. “Did they pull it out of a hat like a rabbit? Did they conjure it out of nowhere?”
“British intelligence is hardly known for its powers of extrasensory perception, Alexei.” Epishev, who didn’t like the idea of standing on a main road, moved in the direction of the side-streets again. “The explanation is very simple,” and he told Malik about Kristina Vaska, about how she’d recognised him outside Pagan’s apartment.
Malik and Epishev turned into a quiet street of trees. From somewhere nearby there was the rumble of an underground train, breaking the silence.
“It’s unfortunate,” Malik said eventually. “Mistaken identity, of course. Besides, how could this woman recognise you after all this time? When the men from British intelligence come back, and they’re bound to, I’ll tell them I made further inquiries and that the only KGB operative by the name of Viktor Epishev is enjoying his retirement in the Crimea, or something to that effect. Therefore, you couldn’t possibly be in England.”
“That’s only going to work so long as they don’t start making some inquiries of their own through their network in Moscow. If word gets back to the Chairman that I might be in London …” Epishev had no need to finish this sentence. He was conscious of how fragile everything was.
“I shall be completely convincing, Viktor.”
Epishev was impatient suddenly. He hadn’t accomplished what he’d come all this way to do. He hadn’t ensured the security of the Baltic plan. And now there was the disturbing connection between Pagan and Kristina Vaska. He felt exposed, endangered, saddled with complexities he didn’t need. His memory of the gunplay in the street last night didn’t help his mood much either. Pagan had moved too quickly, squeezing under the car with such alacrity that Epishev hadn’t had time for accuracy. It was a good thing to learn for future reference that Pagan’s instinct for survival was extremely sharp. It was something to take into account.
Malik looked at his wristwatch. “I need some breakfast. Let’s go somewhere for coffee.” He clasped Epishev by the elbow and steered him gently back in the direction of Earl’s Court Road. Epishev went with reluctance, following Malik into a coffee-bar a few blocks from the underground station, a busy, smoke-filled room run by Turks.
“Why this place?” Epishev asked. He was uncomfortable in this crowded room.
“There’s somebody I want you to meet,” Malik said.
Feeling vaguely alarmed, Epishev asked, “Meet? Meet who?”
Malik spotted an unoccupied table and headed towards it, drawing Epishev with him. Epishev asked his question again, but Malik was already gazing at the menu, a grease-stained, typewritten sheet, and seemed not to have heard.
“Who?” Epishev asked a third time.
“A friend,” Malik
replied. “Do you want coffee? Toast? Eggs?”
“Friends should have names,” Epishev said with some anger in his voice. “I don’t like being introduced to people without warning, Alexei. I don’t like having things sprung on me.”
Malik shook his head in vigorous denial of any underhand behaviour. “I’m talking about an ally, Viktor. An important one.”
Epishev was about to say something when Malik stood up and waved an arm in greeting. Epishev turned his face towards the door, seeing the newcomer step in. The man, who wore thick glasses and a lightweight suit, smiled at Malik and came across the room, threading through the clutter of tables and the harried waitresses balancing trays with the agility of circus performers. The man reached the table and pulled up a chair. He shook Malik’s hand. Epishev, displeased by what he perceived as subterfuge on Alexei’s part, unhappy at the notion that Malik was bringing in an unknown third party, absorbed only a brief impression of the stranger before turning his face to the side.
“Viktor,” Malik said.
Epishev looked at the newcomer again. He saw round, rather flabby features, a button-down shirt, a seersucker jacket of pin-striped design, a crewcut.
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