“What was it?” Felicity asked.
“Land mine,” I answered briefly. We’d been lucky to be in a car with a long bonnet. The mine was probably not an especially big one, but it had done what it had been set to do.
Who had set it, and why? I suspected the official stalwarts of WUSWIPP, ridding themselves of a Greenfly or two and never mind Felicity and me, that is assuming they’d known we were in that car. Meanwhile the heat was intense and I pulled Felicity down below the lip of the road, the bank of the frozen lake, and I did this just about in time. From the other side of the road firing started, and in the light from the flames I saw our guard go down in a heap and lie still. The gunfire was kept up for a few seconds, spraying around the area. I heard the buzz of bullets overhead, heard them ping off the ice some distance behind.
It stopped, and there was a dead silence apart from the sound of burning car. That apart, the night was very still, very dark beyond the rim of the conflagration. I felt the drip of blood down my arm and hand, into the snow. Then I saw movement on that rim. An ambush, and the explosion most probably set off by remote control.
Figures came slowly, stealthily, into view. Figures that seemed to me to be out of history, out of Russia’s past, although the sub-machine guns they held across their bodies were modern enough. It was their clothing: they were dressed in white, long ankle-length greatcoats with wide lapels and nipped-in waists, and they wore tall, odd shaped headgear of astrakhan. Cossacks, out of the long ago, but without their horses. Beneath the hems of the greatcoats as they came closer I saw what looked like riding boots. And on their backs, looming above the astrakhan hats or caps, they carried skis and ski sticks. Somehow they didn’t look like WUSWIPP.
“Soviet troops,” I whispered to Felicity. “The sort that operate in snow conditions. But I don’t get the whys and wherefores.”
“So what now?”
“Masterly inactivity,” I said. There would be no point in trying to run for it, that was obvious. Even to sneak away right or left below the bank wouldn’t get us far by the time that lot fanned out, looking for survivors. Nor could we hope to live off that barren country if we did elude the troops. Wandering, it wouldn’t be long before we froze to death: already the cold was biting right into both of us, through to the marrow. “We’ll see what develops. The thing to do is not to scare them by any sudden movement, like a bull in a field. If they just happen upon us, they may not open fire straight off.”
“I don’t like the idea of Siberia,” Felicity said. I knew what she meant: better to die now and quickly. We were not going to be exactly welcome inside the Soviet Union. I had Felicity in my arms and she was shivering as if she’d never stop. I held her closer, trying to give her as much of my body warmth as I could and give her hope at the same time. Her hair fell across my face, wet with snow that had dropped from the bank above. I peered briefly over that bank: the figures, skirting the still burning car, were approaching the ice, slow and cautious still. Not a word was said. One of them, presumably an officer or NCO, was passing orders by hand signals, waves and pointing, gloved fingers.
I scarcely breathed: they came up to the bank, forming a line. The officer produced a powerful torch; the beam searched along the nearer ice until inevitably it picked us out. An order came; it came, surprisingly, in a woman’s voice. The line closed in on us and the Kalashnikov submachine guns pointed down, grim dark metal outlined starkly against the snow and the white greatcoats and the remains of the burning limousine.
Another order came and its meaning was obvious.
I said to Felicity, “Come up. We have to face it now. We might get away with it,” I added though I didn’t think this likely: we were on duty as it were for Britain but Max wouldn’t help and Whitehall couldn’t afford to get involved. Never before had I been so conscious of the lot of a field operator, right out on his/her own.
I got to my feet, taking it slow and lifting my arms above my head. As I came upright and got a better view I saw that all the troops were women … and again I wondered why Soviet troops had destroyed a vehicle carrying WUSWIPP, or anyway Greenfly, operatives. Men of science who must have a value to the Soviet leadership. Until now I’d been in a degree of shock: it’s not pleasant to be blown up and survive only by the skin of one’s teeth and then to have one’s thoughts frozen by the Russian General February. But now I was getting there.
I said in English, “Women. Very unexpected if I may say so.”
There was much surprise. “English?” the officer asked incredulously. “Who was with you in the car?” Her own English was very good indeed.
I said, “Comrade Senyavin, Comrade Grulke, plus gunmen. All Greenfly. As if you didn’t know.”
“You know about Greenfly?”
“Yes,” I called up. The snow was starting again now, big flakes, a heavy fall drifting through the night. I decided the time had come to take a chance: not too much of a chance. I was pretty certain I’d arrived at the facts. I said, “My name is Shaw. And you … you’re the Ladybirds.”
*
The torch had been extinguished; the women clustered about us, asking questions. I told them the details of the aborted border crossing near Braunlage, I told them of the killings of the Schulz family and of my meeting with Storvac and my entry into Russia via Poland, of the crucifixion of Irina Yasnova in the flat in Minsk, her disposal in the marshes near Mar’ina Gorka. Some of this they knew already, some was news; but it helped to establish our bona fides. For her part, the Ladybird leader, who said her name was Olga Menshikova, showed me a small jewelled locket hanging from a gold chain about her neck, with a ladybird enamelled on its reverse, black-spotted red on peacock blue.
“You will now come with us,” she said. It was an order, imperiously given, and I was glad enough to hear it and to obey. The Ladybirds unshipped their skis and put them on their boots and then formed up around us on the hard-lying snow. Olga Menshikova had asked us if we could ski: I said we could. She looked at my arm, which might present difficulties but would have to be borne. She turned to one of the women and a long, thick woollen scarf was produced and wound round my arm and wrist, presumably to soak up any blood that might drip to the snow. We were given borrowed skis – two of the Ladybirds would make their way across the ice and rejoin us later. We were valuable, not to be mislaid. We would go in the same direction as the car had been taking, leaving the smouldering wreck behind us with the bodies. Olga Menshikova said it was unlikely there would be any other traffic along this road while the wintry conditions lasted, that it could be weeks before Senyavin and the others were found. I suggested there might well be a search along the whole route. Her answer was that the snow would deepen and there was nothing, or almost nothing, left of the limousine. Its burned out chassis, and the gunman’s body, would make but small hummocks and would very soon be lost in the virgin flatness of the snowfall.
She would answer no more questions. “There will come the opportunity soon,” she said.
“How far have we to go?”
“You will see.”
So off we went. I’d thought I could ski reasonably well, but I was a novice beside the Ladybirds. There was an air of impatience as Felicity and I stumbled about. This was a different kind of ski-ing from the alpine slopes; more of a slither, an aid to walking on snow, like snow-shoes, and it was hard work, and I kept on stubbing the wretched skis against hidden obstacles. However, we did make progress; about a mile or so along the track Olga Menshikova signalled a left turn with her torch, and we all followed her leadership, the other Ladybirds taking firm charge of me and Felicity so that we didn’t plunge sideways into danger. In some ways it was like the walk on the firm ground in the marsh. Apparently there was more water around, water that was now ice and covered by the snow which was coming down much more thickly than I had yet seen it. Mile after mile of just snow, no distinguishable features, a real feat of navigation on Comrade Menshikova’s part. As we continued along this formless track I was able to
have a brief conversation with Felicity for the first time since we’d come together again. I told her about the photograph Grulke had shown me, of her tied to a cross. She’d been terrified, she said, but in the end nothing had happened in spite of the crucifixion threats. We went on for a long way until, perhaps an hour after we had left the vicinity of the blow up, a light appeared ahead, dim through the falling snow, and the Ladybird leader said, “Now there is not far.”
“A house?”
“A house, yes. A safe house. You need have no worry.” Her voice was light but crisp and she was very much in command, very cool. Earlier in the torchlight, I had studied her face. It was a good-looking face, high cheekbones, eyes that could smile but yet grow cold as ice, I fancied. A wide, full mouth and a determined chin. Dark hair curled below the astrakhan headgear. And she was tall, and moved with a swing of the shoulders, the greatcoat swirling from a narrow waist. Menshikov … I had some knowledge of Russian history: that was one of the many things we had to study as part of our 6D2 commitment. A Menshikov had been a general of Imperial Russia under Peter the Great and had become the guardian of the young Czar after Peter’s death, only to be banished later to Berezov in Tobolsk, one of the most terrible and dreaded parts of Siberia. Menshikov had been an aristocrat; Olga also had the aristocratic look, and I wondered if she might be a descendant and, if she was, whether she and her Ladybirds had impossible ideas of leading another Russian revolution, this time back to the old ways. I had noted a touch of fanaticism in her eyes.
The light grew larger, stronger. Someone, I saw as we came up, was standing in a doorway, outlined by the light, which came from an oil lamp. An old man, bent and white-haired. He called a greeting to which Olga Menshikova responded. We all approached the doorway, removed our skis, and went inside to the welcome warmth of a blazing wood fire, the smell of which pervaded a long, low-ceilinged room. The place was a cottage, the old bent man a peasant. By the fire slept a large tabby cat, making no sign of being disturbed at our entry. Olga Menshikova and the old man talked together in Russian for a few moments, then the Ladybird leader turned to Felicity and me.
“Ivan Melensky will bring food soon. Now your arm must be attended to. I shall do this myself. Sit down.”
I sat on a long bench that ran along one wall of the room; there was another on the other side, filled with the other Ladybirds, who had taken off their greatcoats. Olga Menshikova went through a door at the end of the room opposite the great fire and came back a couple of minutes later with bandages and dressings and a big black pot containing a little water, which she placed on the fire after poking at the wood to make a flat surface. She told me to remove my jacket. When I had done so she brought out a pair of scissors and cut away the shirt sleeve, clicking her tongue as she did so: there was plenty of congealed blood and more began to run as the sleeve came away.
“A jag of metal from the car,” she said. “It hurts?”
“Only a little.”
“Good. I think it is not very serious but must be kept clean.” She went over to the fire: the water was already hot enough. She came back and bathed my arm with a piece of lint, then applied some ointment. “You may ask questions now,” she said. “Such as I can, I will answer.”
I had many questions to ask. For a start, I asked her how the Ladybirds had known the route to be taken by Senyavin’s limousine, and the timing of the journey. Her answer was that the Ladybirds had their informers: they were no inconsiderable organization. I asked how they stood vis-a-vis the authorities, the Party and the State.
“We are good Party members,” she said. I pressed her on that, but she was non-committal. I got the idea that the State was better kept at arm’s length and I wasn’t surprised, taking into account what Arthur Webb had told me in Focal House about sabotage and ambushes and so on. But I sensed a dichotomy in her mind as between Party and State.
I said musingly, “Menshikov … “
She looked up from the tying of a bandage. “Yes?”
“There was a General Menshikov, an aristocrat of Czarist Russia.”
“Yes.”
“Is there a connection?”
“Yes. He was an ancestor.”
“But you are still a good Party member.”
She nodded. “Yes. Many years have passed since the time of my ancestor, Comrade Shaw.”
“And inside Russia there are many factions – even today, even under the Soviet.”
She gave me a sharp look. “What do you mean by that?”
I shrugged. “Just an observation.” I was thinking of WUSWIPP acting for the State, of Greenfly acting against WUSWIPP, of the Ladybirds acting currently in the interest of the enemy – Great Britain. So far I could make sense of none of it and Olga Menshikova was being of little help; she didn’t like giving much away in spite of having invited questions. I asked her more as we waited for the old peasant to bring food and she continued being noncommittal. In the main, anyway; when I asked her what she knew of Felicity and me she answered openly that her organization had been passed information that we were to meet the woman crossing the border at Braunlage. Later word had come through of the abort and of my entry into Russia.
“But you didn’t know we were in that car?”
“No.”
“You would have tried to make contact with me at some stage?”
“Yes. Very much yes! You are our link, you are the one who must take word through to your government in London.”
“Word of what?”
She was putting away her medicaments now; and an appetising smell was already seeping through from the kitchen quarters beyond the door. She said, “It is too soon to tell you everything. You are still in danger. Until it can be arranged for you to leave Russia in safety, I cannot speak. You must accept this.”
I said, “I’ve come a long way, so has Miss Mandrake, to learn what you have to tell. And I understand time was short.”
“Yes. It is short. But for now you must accept. And you must trust.”
“Very well,” I said with reluctance. I had no option. “I’ll both accept and trust.”
“That is good.” She gave me another sharp look. “You said nothing of value in the house with Senyavin and the doctor of whom you spoke?”
I said honestly, “I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”
“You refer to the drug-induced visions, the extra-sensory perception and the screen?”
I said yes, I did. I asked what she thought about all that: was it genuine, was it actually viable? She laughed, an attractive sound. No, she didn’t believe. It was, she said, the word sounding odd in her pronunciation, boloney. But there were those who did believe in it, and those believers were in the Kremlin. Men who were sympathetic to the aims of Greenfly, she added, and were infiltrating the decision-making of the leadership.
I asked her directly, “What are your aims, Olga Menshikova? What are the aims of the Ladybirds?”
don’t know whether she would have answered or not; but just at that moment old Ivan Melensky came into the room bearing food, simple food of thick soup and beans and black bread with jugs of some sort of wine, and Olga Menshikova turned away from me, at any rate momentarily. She might have turned back; but before she could do so there was a heavy banging on the door that led out into the cold of the snow-filled night and then a sudden silence fell on us all. The banging hadn’t sounded like the two women rejoining from across the frozen lake.
8
All the Ladybirds had taken up their Kalashnikovs. Olga Menshikova moved over to the door and stood to one side of it. The old man, Ivan Melensky, lifted the bar that he had set in place across it after we had all entered earlier.
Snow blew in on a bitter wind, a wind that had not been there during our journey from the wrecked car: blizzard conditions were coming up.
No-one entered. The silence continued, broken only when Ivan Melensky called out, “Who is there? Who knocked?”
There was no response. Then I saw the old man st
iffen as he looked out into the darkness, and I heard his sudden exclamation.
“What is it?” Olga Menshikova asked. She moved closer, coming up into the doorway with her Kalashnikov aimed through. The old man muttered something that I didn’t catch, then the woman went out into the snow. A moment later Ivan Melensky followed, and so did I, and found Olga Menshikova bending over a dark object that at first sight looked like a long parcel, wrapped in furs and tightly roped. It was a moment or two before I realised that it was a body, one that could be alive but most probably was not. The three of us lifted the bundle and carried it into the cottage where we laid it on the floor and I went back for the open doorway.
I said, “There were marks of snow-shoes. They can’t be far away.”
“Leave them,” Olga Menshikova said sharply.
“If we can find them – ”
“You will not. They will know how to lie low. And what would be the use? We have many enemies. To find a handful, for you to risk yourself for small reward – this would be stupid, Comrade Shaw. And I am in charge.” She said again, “You will leave them.”
Greenfly (Commander Shaw Book 18) Page 9