Mazurka

by Campbell Armstrong

  The man followed Pagan’s line of vision in the direction of the phones. “I wouldn’t,” he said, and the smile finally was gone.

  “Give me a damn good reason not to,” Pagan said.

  “We’ve got a communications problem here, Frank, and it bothers me. What I’m trying to say is that as far as you’re concerned, those phones are off limits.”

  “Off limits?”

  “Precisely.”

  “If I want to make a call, you stop me, is that it?”

  The man said nothing.

  Pagan briefly closed his eyes, hearing the sound of something he should have caught minutes ago, something that echoed in his head and throbbed. Realisation, a cold dawning, the noise of a frozen penny dropping inside his brain. He looked into the man’s face, which had all the animation of a stiff mask.

  “You want it to fly,” Pagan said quietly. “You want the fucking plane to make it!”

  The man continued to be silent.

  Pagan could still hear the coin tumbling down the chutes of his mind, gathering momentum as it moved, and he was reminded of a game he used to play at carnivals as a kid, when you stuck a penny in a slot and watched it roll towards a variety of possible destinations – some of which returned your coin, most of which kept it. Christ, what had he stumbled into? Where was the rolling coin destined to go? You call the Pentagon, you report the possibility of a stolen plane, an impending disaster, and the duty officer turns you over to Blue Eyes, who’s seemingly in no great hurry to prevent destruction. What the hell was going on here?

  “Let me see if I can guess it,” Pagan said. “Are you and Andres Kiss working together? Is that it? With a little help from some friends inside the Pentagon? Am I right? Is it some kind of elaborate military conspiracy?”

  The man shook his head. “That’s too simple, Frank. There’s no military conspiracy. There’s no vast involvement at the Pentagon.”

  “What is it then? Just a chosen few? A helping hand here, a little support there? Why don’t you spell it out for me, friend?”

  “I want you to meet somebody, Frank. Somebody who can give you a better perspective on this whole matter. He’s waiting outside. He doesn’t like public places.”

  Pagan hesitantly followed as the man began to walk across the concourse in the direction of the exit. Outside the station a long black limousine was parked in defiance of No Parking signs. Pagan understood he was to move towards it. The back door was opened from inside. Pagan hesitated.

  Blue Eyes said, “You’ll be fine, Frank. Go ahead.”

  Pagan looked inside the car. A fat man, his face in shade, occupied most of the back seat. There were two televisions, a couple of phones, decanters of scotch and sherry.

  “Go ahead,” Blue Eyes said again.

  Pagan concentrated on the fat man’s face, the eyes that were hardly more than two very narrow gashes, the cheeks that appeared to be stuffed with food – as if the man were a hibernating animal preparing himself for the long sleep of winter.

  “Frank Pagan,” the fat man said, and patted the space on the seat alongside him. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. But we can hardly talk like reasonable men if you insist on standing in the street, while I sit in the comfort of this car. What’s it to be?”

  “You step out,” Pagan said.

  “Humbug. It’s more comfortable in here.”

  Pagan shook his head. The fat man sighed and emerged from the limousine, looking just a little testy but forcing a smile anyhow. Blue Eyes moved some distance away, browsing through newspapers at a news-stand.

  “Stubborn, Pagan,” the fat man said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  They walked a few paces. The fat man asked, “How is Scotland Yard?”

  “Is this going to be small talk? I already told your man out there that I had a situation I thought should be checked out. He appeared completely reluctant.”

  “He’s a good man. Don’t be hard on him. He takes orders well.”

  “From you?”

  The fat man nodded. “I understand you want to stop a certain plane flying to the Soviet Union, Frank.”

  “I had a notion,” Pagan said. He was suddenly very impatient.

  “Question, Frank. How much do you know? How much have you glued together?”

  Pagan studied the man’s face. He had a small mouth and rather tiny teeth. Pagan thought for a moment before he said, “Why should I tell you what I know? I don’t even know who you are, for Christ’s sake.”

  “My dear fellow, I’m a great fan of Scotland Yard. You and I, old man, we’re on the same team. Nobody’s going to hurt you, Frank. We’re friends here. My affiliation is a wee bit difficult to explain.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “National security.”

  “Whose national security?”

  “The whole Western world, Frank. I’m not speaking only of our own backyard, my friend.”

  Pagan started to move away. He was tired of obfuscation, weary of allusion, sick to his heart with mystification. All he wanted to do was to go back inside the station and call the Commissioner. The fat man caught the sleeve of his jacket and held it.

  “Don’t rush away, Frank. Tell me what you know. Besides, you’ve got nothing to worry about, have you? You’re armed. I’m not. I’ve read your dossier and I know you carry a Bernardelli in a rear holster. And I wouldn’t be seen dead near a gun. All I’m interested in is your version of the situation.”

  Pagan assembled his thoughts, which raced here and there like doomed summer butterflies eluding a net. He said, “The KGB found some use for a group of Baltic freedom fighters. At least certain factions in the KGB and their friends did. The Baits don’t seem to have a clue they’re being used by the very people they despise most. I assume the KGB motive is related to a power-struggle inside the Soviet Union – old against new. That’s my best guess. I can’t see any other reason for the support of the Baits. But now I get the distinct impression from your friend over there that there’s more to this than I imagined. Now it appears that the Baits aren’t only getting help from the Soviets, they’re also getting assistance from certain Americans as well, some of whom have military connections.”

  The fat man shrugged. His small eyes were very bright and hard like two polished brown stones. He appeared to be just a little amused now.

  Pagan said, “American and Soviet collusion. It explains some things. Such as how Epishev knew I’d come to the United States. The Americans told him. How Andres Kiss could steal a NATO plane and fly it inside Soviet territory. The Americans could provide the aircraft, the Soviets the means of entry.”

  “Ingenious,” said the fat man. He pressed his chubby fingers to his mouth.

  “What I don’t entirely understand is American involvement,” Pagan remarked.

  “Think about it, Frank,” the fat man said. “I’m sure it’s on the tip of your tongue.”

  Pagan was quiet a moment. Traffic chugged past the entrance to the station, taxicabs honking at the black limousine that impeded their movement. Pagan observed that the limo wasn’t equipped with the usual licence plates. Instead, it had the kind of temporary plates used by car dealers.

  He said, “My best bet would be that some Americans would like to see the new Soviet regime replaced. I’m naive enough to wonder why.”

  “Replaced is understatement. Try removed and forgotten, Frank. Buried with all its manifestos of good intentions. Interred with all its spurious nonsense about democracy and freedom. That’s closer to the mark. It’s a matter of protecting our civilisation, for want of a better word.”

  “So Andres Kiss flies an aeroplane inside the Soviet Union and that act of terrorism protects our civilisation?” Pagan asked.

  The fat man grinned and his eyes vanished off the planet of his face. “You know, Frank, some of us long for the old days when we knew who the Russians were. We had a set of rules, and we could get along with the Soviets because they were predictable. We under
stood how they operated. We knew their level of incompetence. Government by geriatrics. What do old men love more than anything else, Frank? I’ll tell you. They adore the status fucking quo, that’s what. But all these goddam changes have upset things more than a little. When the old farts started dying off, we always assumed other old farts would take their places. We thought the Soviets had an endless supply of old farts. We didn’t see a new breed rising, did we? We didn’t think ahead. Now we don’t know where they stand these days. And worse than that, we don’t know where we stand either.”

  Pagan said nothing. He felt restless. Was the fat man trying to stall him? Detecting Pagan’s restlessness, the fat man raised his voice.

  “When they talk about reforms, and how they’re going to change the Soviet Union from top to bottom, that really troubles me. Ye gods! who knows what they’re going to release? Vast reservoirs of untapped talent lying around, skills that have gone unused because nobody gave a fiddler’s fuck about a system that disregarded basic human rights. But give people a sense of dignity, give them some comforts, make them think they’re really important, and we might see a goddam Russian renaissance in technology, science, energy. And then what?”

  The fat man took a handkerchief out now and blew his nose in short, trumpeting sounds. “The big question is, can this fragile globe stand a really powerful Russia? Will the old power pendulum swing over to the red zone? What kind of world would it be if the Russians dominated it? I get chills up and down my spine. You see, I liked things the way they were, Frank. I think what we’re doing can help us keep the upper hand. We’re not discussing some lunatic right-wing bullshit here, Frank. Let’s just say a few people, with different motives but a common goal, put their resources together. Certain Americans don’t like this new Russia. More importantly, a good number of Russians don’t like it either. Change, they say. Screw change. We want things the way they were. Let’s have it back the way it used to be. What a nice coincidence, don’t you think? Here’s something the Americans and the Soviets can get together on finally. A joint Soviet-American venture to destroy all this unwanted newness in Soviet society. A collaboration, Frank, between ourselves and some sympathetic Russians. Fraternity and cooperation.”

  “With the Baits playing the fools,” Pagan said.

  “That’s your choice of description, Frank.”

  “When you say ourselves, who are you referring to?”

  The fat man fell silent now. Pagan knew his question was going to go unanswered. The fat man was something within something within something, connected to the US government, but tucked away, and well-hidden, and finally beyond the pale of the federal bureaucracy.

  “And this plane?”

  “It’s going to cause a commotion, Frank. And we’re gambling that it will bring down the present Politburo – leaving a nice empty space for some reliable old faces.”

  “If I might use an Americanism – the whole thing sucks.”

  “Pray tell.”

  “It’s a volatile plan. You don’t know the precise consequences of it. If you attack the Soviet Union, if a NATO plane violates Soviet airspace and drops a bomb – how can you tell there won’t be retaliation of some kind? Even if that doesn’t happen, I don’t like the idea of people needlessly dying, which I imagine will happen if this plane flies.”

  “Needlessly, Frank?”

  “I don’t want to argue with you. Your outlook’s unreal. The world changes, and you can’t stop it. You can’t interfere.”

  “Oh dear,” the fat man said. “I thought you might reach a more balanced judgement than that, which is why I gave you the benefit of this nice little chat. Think again, Frank. I do wish you’d keep in mind the fact that an arthritic Russia is a containable one. Anything else is, well, a little too unpredictable.”

  Pagan shook his head. There was nothing in the world so astonishing to him as the compulsion of organisations and fraternities and secret societies that think they can alter history, nothing that reduced him quite so quickly to speechlessness. Partly it was the conceit of it all, the terrible arrogance. Partly it was the desperation of these men, and their obsessions, which lay beyond reason. For Kiss and Romanenko it had been vengeance. For the fat man and his Russian cronies it was nothing less ambitious than trying to preserve a Russia to which they’d become complacently attached for their own reasons. Anything new, anything that might bring about a different Soviet Union, even a progressive one – God help us all – was not remotely acceptable.

  “You think you can get away with it?” Pagan asked.

  “Get away with it? We can get away with anything. Shuffling paperwork so that a plane can be taken without authority – by a former pilot who’s utterly deranged, of course, as all the records will show – that’s child’s play. Don’t worry about us.”

  Pagan was quiet a moment. “I don’t walk away from here, do I?”

  “Frank, really. Step out of my life. I never met you. You never met me. And you never will again. Simple. I love Scotland Yard, and I wouldn’t dream of harming one of its people. But I do wish you’d stay a little longer and chat some more with me. I’d like to talk about more pleasant things. London, for example. Tea at the Ritz. Dinner at the Connaught. The South Coast. I have so many fond memories. There’s a small town in the West Country, Bideford, and I recall –”

  “Some other time,” Pagan said.

  The fat man smiled, looked at his watch. Then he shrugged. “Goodbye …” He snapped his fingers in frustration. “Christ, I’ve already forgotten your name.”

  Pagan stepped away from the man. He felt tense, dehydrated. The fat man returned to the big black car, stepped inside along with Blue Eyes. The car pulled away, vanished. Pagan moved back in the direction of the station entrance. Back to the telephones.

  But he knew he wasn’t going to be allowed. He wasn’t going to make it that far. He sensed it. Even the morning air around him was charged suddenly with the electricity of fear. He moved slowly towards the station, passing under the shadows of the building, turning his face from side to side, seeing nothing, but knowing, just knowing that somebody was about to prevent him from reaching the phones.

  He didn’t see the sniper on the roof of the station. He didn’t know he was being closely observed through a telescopic lens by a sharpshooter, a former Marine champion, who held a Weatherby auto rifle. Pagan only knew that as he walked towards the entrance he was exposed and vulnerable, but at the same time didn’t want to break into a run, he wanted to look totally calm. Halfway towards the station entrance he paused, looked from left to right, saw nothing unusual, nothing concealed in shadows, nobody seated in parked cars. Just the same, he still knew.

  He kept moving. He didn’t see the glint of the rifle as the early sun struck the walnut stock, or the way the sharpshooter took out a pair of dark glasses and pulled them over his eyes. Pagan had to stop because several cars blocked his way into the station. But he didn’t think to look up, he was concentrating on the station entrance, the idea of making it as far as the telephones. When the traffic passed, he stepped off the pavement. He had perhaps fifty yards to go. He hurried now for the first time, unaware of the fact he was trapped in the dead centre of a lens, a moving target neatly bisected by crosslines.

  And then something, an inexplicable impulse, made him raise his face and look up, and he saw the way the sunlight caught the weapon, although for a second he wasn’t absolutely sure of what it was that glinted high above him, and he thought of a bird carrying a piece of silverfoil, or a sliver of broken glass. When he understood what it was he knew the realisation had come a little too late for him.

  He barely heard the voice from behind.

  “Frank!”

  He did the only thing he could think of. He threw himself forward, hearing the noise of a gun, realising it was too loud to have come from the roof, that it originated from a point just behind him. It was followed by a second shot, then a third, and the sound echoed around him. He raised his face and ga
zed up at the roof, but the gunman was gone, scrambling out of view, leaving behind him only an expensively modified weapon that bore no registration number, no marks of ownership, and no clue to the identity of the person who’d altered the weapon.

  Pagan rose slowly to his feet, aware of cars crowding around him, irate drivers, delayed commuters, the screaming of horns. And there, standing alongside her idiotic little car, her Pacer, stood Kristina Vaska, looking very solemn and quite lovely in a pale, tired way, one hand on her hip, the other wrapped loosely around her pistol, a tiny smile on her face – enigmatic, and quite unfamiliar to Pagan, but nevertheless at that moment the most welcome gesture he’d ever received from another human being.

  He returned the smile and then he went inside the station and walked towards the telephones.

  Moscow

  Deputy Minister Tikunov, who hated to admit he was ever wrong about anything, and who thought crow the most disgusting taste a man could carry in his mouth, spoke into the telephone. “It appears that your information is genuine, General. An F-16 was stolen from a NATO base in Norway. It’s heading for Russia.”

  “Stolen?” Olsky asked.

  “That’s the official NATO statement. I’ve just had their Commander on the line from Brussels.”

  “Then do what you have to do,” Olsky said. “But do it quickly.”

  Tikunov flicked a switch on a communications console on his desk. He ordered a top priority check of every radar installation between Moscow and the Baltic. He also ordered squadrons of MIG-29s and MIG-25 Foxbats to fly immediately on a seek and destroy mission.

  21

  Saaremma Island, the Baltic

  When he saw the F-16 go flying past in the far distance, Colonel Yevgenni Uvarov hurried in the direction of the beach. The falsified maintenance order he’d issued meant that any radar sightings, which would normally have been relayed to his control centre and from there to Moscow, were effectively contained inside the computers under Uvarov’s command. Because technicians worked on the computers, the line of communication from Saaremaa Island to Moscow was severed for the hours of their labour. Uvarov had short-circuited the system, and since no sightings could be reported to the Ministry in Moscow, no order could be given to destroy the intruder. Only the Minister, or the Deputy Minister, or somebody authorised by them, could issue such an order.