by Adam Hall
Something I wanted to know.
'Are you suspending me?'
He looked me over. 'If you think your services can be of any further value, I'd appreciate your staying in. If there's anything unpleasant to be done, I shall do it myself. That is why I'm here.' He turned away.
'Come and sit down,' Bracken told me. 'Get your strength up. Might need it.'
I got across to the painted crate without much bother, but the shoulder was really coming back to life, a good sign but a bloody nuisance. 'Give me some information, for God's sake,' I told him. 'Fill me in.' I'd been out cold for three hours and he said he'd been in signals with London the whole time.
He glanced at Croder, who nodded. 'Our information,' Bracken said, 'had been coming in for quite a time, and from more than one source. We — '
'Quite a time?'
'Some few weeks,' he said awkwardly. 'That's why it was decided to send you out here. One of the reports said that Schrenk faked his abduction at the Hanover clinic with the help of his friends: he meant us to assume the KGB had got him back inside Lubyanka, so that we'd give up and leave him alone. I wasn't told of this until today, but — '
'The first reports,' Croder cut in, 'weren't directly from our own people: they were from the underground dissident faction and passed to London for raw intelligence analysis. The dissidents believed that Schrenk was acting officially and with the backing of the British secret service — revolutionary fervour always has an element of insanity, as I'm sure you know.'
I began going cold. 'If I'd been given this information,' I said, 'I would have eliminated Schrenk the minute I found him.'
Croder wheeled on me. 'The instructions were already there. I told you specifically in Berlin that all we required was his silence.'
'Perfectly true.'
'Thank you.'
There was still some of the chicken broth left in the cup and I finished it.
'Feeling all right?' Bracken asked.
I managed something like a laugh. 'How would you feel?'
'Don't worry. We'll find him.'
I looked at Croder. 'I suppose you've considered warning the Soviets?'
'Of course. It would be suicidal. The situation at this moment is that an attempt on Brezhnev's life might be made and might succeed. If it succeeds, the interests of Russian dissidents will suffer unimaginably in terms of reprisals, since some of the action group are bound to be caught. But if we even leaked a warning to Russian security the repercussions could be disastrous, not only for the Jewish dissidents but for East-West relations, even if no attempt were made at all.' His feet had come together and he was standing perfectly still again, his black eyes brooding. 'Those two possibilities are unfortunately not the worst. The worst possibility is that Schrenk might make an attempt, and succeed, and be discovered and identified as a Western agent.' When he stopped speaking the room was intensely quiet. 'Not long ago, when it was known in the United States that Oswald had offered his services to the KGB shortly before he assassinated President Kennedy, the KGB themselves were terrified that one of their number might have instructed him to do so, and that the Americans might find out. I can imagine few situations that could push us closer to the brink of world war, and that is the situation we are now faced with here in Moscow.'
The intense quiet came back into the room. The shock of what Croder was saying had left my head strangely numbed, and I didn't have any particular thoughts, except perhaps, This is an awful lot to handle, even with Croder running things in the field. An awful lot.
'When do you think this idea began,' I asked Croder, `in Schrenk's mind?'
Bracken was turning his head, but not to look at me.
'That's hard to say. He'd applied for the post of agent-in-place a few months ago, so it seems that he was then involving himself with the dissidents. I would think that his experiences in Lubyanka not only left him outraged but determined on taking revenge, and finally the Jewish dissident cause provided him with the necessary rationale.'
Bracken and I both had our heads turned to listen, and now Croder heard it too. Someone was coming along the passage outside and we waited, our eyes on the door. It would of course be Zoya. It had to be Zoya because if it were anyone else we were wiped out. It's always like this in a safe-house: you'll stop with half the toothpaste on the brush or your shoelace half tied while you listen, facing the door; but tonight our nerves were strung tight because we were the three major components of a mission cooped up together in one small room and we wouldn't stand a chance in hell if we got raided.
Knocking on the door. I sensed Bracken jerk his head a degree but he didn't speak. It was Croder who spoke, his cold voice perfectly steady.
'Who is it?'
'Zoya.'
'Come in.'
She opened the door and I heard Bracken let out his breath. I supposed he was closer to this thing than I was: he'd been in signals with London and London would be panicking; he'd also had Croder on his back, and the knowledge that unless we could do something the life of the Soviet chief of state could be running out.
'There are two men,' Zoya said.
'Did they give the parole?'
'Midnight red.'
'Please have them come up.'
'They are English,' she said. Croder nodded and she went out.
'We have six people,' Croder told me, 'to support you in the field. I have asked two of them to come here for briefing. They are Shortlidge and Logan. Do you know them?'
'No. Not by those names.'
'Logan was an a-i-p in Bangkok,' Bracken said, 'liaising with the Embassy when you — '
'Yes, got him. Have any of them worked in the field?'
'No.'
'Combat trained?'
'Three of them have been through Norfolk,' Bracken said. 'They're contact and liaison, outside of their post duties.'
'They can tag?'
'Oh yes.'
'Fair enough.'
'I guaranteed you full support,' Croder said.
'I appreciate it.' The bastard meant that he hadn't sold me short despite the fact that I'd let him down by neglecting to kill Schrenk. Or perhaps he didn't mean that; perhaps I was being paranoic, because of the size of this thing we had to handle, and because of the time factor: we had no idea of the deadline, and Schrenk could be going in at any minute, including now.
Then they came in, Shortlidge and Logan, both typically nondescript men with quiet voices and poker-face reactions to what Croder told them. All he missed out was the bit about the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet: he used the word 'coup' every time.
'The situation, then, is that we have no idea when the coup is planned to take place, and we have no idea where. What we have to do is to find our way in, and our target for surveillance is of course this man Ignatov.' He looked at Bracken. 'How many are watching for him?'
'Two. The other two are watching the Pavillon building.'
'They never left there, I assume.'
'No, sir.'
'Shortlidge, you can join them and make enquiries after a woman named — '
'Misha,' I said, and described her.
Then Croder went through the whole of the briefing again and we repeated paroles, countersigns and contact modes until we'd got it right. We were to dispense with signals through the Embassy: he gave me an Ultravox walkie-talkie, told me that Bracken and the six members of the cell would keep in contact by that medium alone, using speech code only and using the air with extreme discretion.
On street mobility Logan told me: 'We've got most of the blood off the inside of your Pobeda and she's tanked up. We didn't have time to find new plates so we've altered the old ones and rubbed some mud on. Don't forget to lose your papers.'
Bracken told us he'd be based here at the safe-house, since he wouldn't be able to enter or leave the Embassy without surveillance. Croder and I would wait here with him until we got a signal from the field.
'What was the street like?' I asked Logan.
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br /> 'Looked clean enough. Three cars this side of the intersection, all facing towards it. Truck outside the warehouse opposite with a lot of snow on it. Nobody moving. The militia work east and west across the intersection and their nearest phone is a hundred yards west of there.'
It was one a.m. when he and Shortlidge left us. By that time I felt ready to eat solids and Zoya brought me some goat's milk cheese and black bread.
'Is there some pain?' she asked me.
'Yes.'
'That is good.'
'And a happy birthday to you too,' I said, and she laughed because it was becoming our favourite joke. The left shoulder was throbbing to the rhythm of the pulse but it was only muscle and tissue pain: Ignatov hadn't hit bone. 'If I don't see you again,' I told Zoya, 'you did a great job and I want to thank you.'
'Of course you'll see me again,' she said, and left us.
Bracken was getting increasingly nervy and couldn't keep still. I did some walking about myself and tried out the arm for movement as far as the sling allowed; the shoulder flared up but the pain was confined to that area: the nerves and muscles through the lower arm to the fingers were unaffected and I'd be able to drive a car with the sling off.
Croder stood still for most of the time, keeping dear of the window and taking a few short steps occasionally and coming to a stop with his feet together and standing still again, his thin neck buried in the collar of the military coat, his dark eyes impassive. Sometimes we heard sounds from inside the house, and turned our faces to the door. The stove began losing its heat after a while but we didn't put any more wood on.
I went over the street scene as Logan had given it: three cars parked this side of the intersection, a truck in the other direction, so forth. I went over the briefing pattern, contact modes, signals, the whole thing. I was getting thirsty because of the anaesthetic and the saltiness of the cheese, and kept going to the tap over the basin and coming away with the taste of chlorine in my mouth. We didn't talk much, though Bracken began voicing his nerves after a while.
'I don't see how he can expect to do anything on that scale and get clear.'
'I don't imagine for a moment,' Croder said thinly, `that he can get clear. What concerns me is that he might reveal his identity. If he is discovered to be a London agent I hesitate to consider — ' he stopped and in a moment said so quietly that we barely heard him — ' but we've already gone into that.'
I thought about Schrenk. 'He won't want to live, once he's gone in.'
Croder turned his head. 'You don't think so?'
'He was quite an athlete, before. Tennis champ, good-looking, lots of girls. Now he's a wreck. This is a suicide run.'
In a moment Croder said bleakly, 'So we have that aspect to contend with too.'
I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything we could do about it: a potential assassin who means to get clear after the act will take a lot of care and might finally baulk at the risks, but a kamikaze will go right in for the kill with nothing to lose.
We grew quiet again, and every five minutes Croder took his few short steps and halted again, his death's head staring at the wall. Bracken lit a cigarette and then began chain smoking.
Just before three o'clock we got a signal.
18: ZIL
Driving was more difficult than I'd thought. The left arm worked all right with the sling off but I was still feeling the loss of blood and I got into three front-end skids over the snow before I reached the rendezvous because of partial blackouts. Within ten minutes of leaving the safe-house I passed seven militia patrol cars, one of which made a U-turn and followed me for five blocks before it peeled off, presumably in answer to a radio call. The whole environment was strictly a red sector because the number plates of the Pobeda weren't legible and traffic was so thin at this time of night that I was liable to get pulled up by the police just to relieve their boredom. The operation could blow at any given minute and Croder knew that but all he could do now was run the whole thing into the ground if he had to, because of the time factor: we didn't know when Schrenk was going in.
The signal had specified a warehouse in Losinoostrovskaja ulica alongside the main rail line between Belokamennaja and Cerkizovo stations and I reached there at 3.21 and slid the Pobeda across the ruts into the shadow of the building and cut the engine and wound the window down and waited, checking for sound and movement. It wasn't likely to be a trap but if Schrenk picked up my trail he'd come for me himself instead of leaving it to Ignatov, I knew that.
There was a train rolling somewhere, north and west of the warehouse, and its sound made a blanket for aural cues in the immediate vicinity and that was dangerous: I would have preferred to leave the car and get into more flexible cover but the contact had to show himself first and it was a safe principle so I stayed where I was, listening to the train and trying to pick up closer sounds. Something was changing in the visual pattern on the other side of the car and I watched it: a door along the wall of the warehouse was coming open. Someone was standing there but I did nothing until a torch was flashed on and off three times, one long and two short; then I got out of the car and walked across the snow with a trickle running through the spine because a night rdv is always risky: a signal can be intercepted and you can find yourself walking straight into an ambush.
'Midnight red.'
I countersigned and he flashed the light briefly over my face and then his own, and I recognized Shortlidge. He led me into the warehouse and shut the door, then switched on the torch and swung the beam across piles of broken crates and sacking and loose timber until it focused on the black Zil limousine.
'OK?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Fill me in.'
'I was watching Area 1 and saw Ignatov's car come up. Two men got out and went into the apartment block — one of them could have been Ignatov but I'd only got your verbal description. One of them came out in about half an hour — not Ignatov, too young and too thin, a dark chap. We — '
'How was he walking?'
'Walking? Quite normally.'
'He wasn't crippled. Hobbling.'
'No.'
'All right, go on.'
'Two of us tagged him here and he stayed fifteen minutes and then left. Logan's still on the tag and we're reporting by radio. I was told to stay here and show you this lot.'
I gazed across at the brilliantly-polished Zil. 'Did you see what he was doing in here?'
'No. He locked the door after him.'
'How did you get in, afterwards?'
'Picked the lock. It's a tumbler.'
'Did he bring anything with him?'
'Nothing too big for his pockets.'
'Take anything away?'
'Not that I saw. He wasn't carrying anything.'
He was moving his feet up and down, his hands stuffed into his pockets. There was no heating on in this place and a freezing draught was blowing across the floor. The building was old and looked abandoned; above our heads there was a gap of light where the roof had started caving in under the weight of the snow, and the whole place creaked. Various smells were distinguishable: rotting timber, damp sacking, sour grain, petrol and rubber.
I went on staring at the big black limousine, not comfortable with it. 'All right,' I told Shortlidge, 'I want you to keep watch outside. I'll be here about an hour. Where's your car?'
'Round the back.'
'Can I use this torch?'
'Help yourself.'
'There's one in the Pobeda glove pocket, if you want one. Listen, if you can't see the door to this place from your car, sit in mine. I want you to warn me if anyone comes, but keep out of the action if anything starts, understood?'
He considered this, moving his feet up and down. 'What about if you're up against it?'
'I'll look after myself. Your job is to get a signal back. Croder's instructions.'
'OK.' He left me.
I stood listening to the creaking of the building, feeling the cold draught numbing my ankles as I stared at the big bla
ck Zil. It was probably going to be all right, but even Schrenk was human and could make a mistake, and it was a minute before I was ready to go across to the thing and start work.
Long wheelbase, four doors, Central Committee MOII number plates, immaculate bodywork and chrome. I shone the torch through one of the windows. Brushed vinyl club seats, thick blue carpeting, two telephones, built-in tape deck, air conditioning vents and controls, cocktail cabinet, wood-grain panelling, dark blue nylon curtains at the rear windows, a thick glass division between the front and rear seats separating the passengers from the chauffeur and escort.
I began underneath, fetching some sacking from a pile near the wall and spreading it on the dirt floor and sliding inwards on the flat of my back with the torch in my right hand. The general layout was massive but clean, with cross-braced box section chassis members and two enormous exhaust silencers running half the length of the car. I checked ledges, niches and junctions, inching my left hand along the topside of every component, the sweat beginning because the organism was confined and wouldn't be able to help itself if anything went wrong, wouldn't even know about it except for a microsecond of cataclysm.
Careful, old boy. Don't touch the wrong thing. Amusement in his tone as he watched me, his eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette.
Bugger off.
I went over the rear axle casing, propeller shaft tunnel, flywheel housing, crankcase flanges and trays while the building creaked and the draught chilled my bones and the bastard began laughing softly with that awful laugh of his that turned to coughing because of the cigarette smoke.
You're taking a chance, old boy, I suppose you know that.
Yes, I knew that. He was human and he might have lost some of his cunning when they'd half-killed him in that bloody place and I couldn't be sure that my hand wouldn't at some time touch a badly assembled trip mechanism or set off a too-sensitive rocking device or break a circuit when I opened a door and triggered the interior lamps. Taking a chance, yes, and I couldn't get his voice out of my head.