Understrike

by John Gardner

  “You will want to know what all this is about, Boysie Oakes. And I do not blame you for that. In fact, I think we can give you a pretty extensive picture. I think we owe that to you at least. There would be no danger in that.” The eyes were static, unblinking. “No danger, because, Mr Boysie Oakes, you will not be around to pass on any information to your friends in London. Or San Diego. Or anywhere, If you want to talk, you can perhaps chat up St Peter, or the nasty gentleman with the horns and pitchfork. Do you believe in St Peter? I find him harder to comprehend than the Dark Angel—there is certainly a Dark Angel, don’t you think?”

  “Do you mind very much if I sit down?” It was about the most foolish thing Boysie had said that day. But a man is not often sentenced to death in such an off-hand manner.

  “Oh, I am sorry, Mr Oakes. A chair for Mr Oakes, Cirio.”

  Cirio moved a stand chair from the window corner and pushed it behind Boysie’s knees. He sank gratefully on to its hard seat and, through the series of black concentric circles which appeared to be his brain, tried to concentrate on what the fat pudding was saying.

  “In my particular line I am a rather important person. My name is Gorilka. Dr Gorilka.” He reached out to the little coffee table on the right of the chair, picked up a small, flat, black and green box and took out a long Russian cigarette—two-thirds cardboard tube and one-third tobacco. With immense care, he crimped the end of the tube. Henniger leaned forward from the bed and lit the cigarette for him.

  “In Russia, they laugh at my name.” He gave a highly bronchial, chesty wheeze which Boysie took to be the progenitorial spasm of a laugh. “They think it is funny because in the Ukraine, Gorilka is a kind of vodka. I do not drink, incidentally. That is a useless piece of information given gratis, but I am told it renders the joke about my name even funnier. To Ukrainians, that is.”

  Boysie saw nothing hilarious about the name, or the fact that Gorilka was TT.

  “In my own country,” Gorilka continued, allowing his mouth to hang open and pushing out a cloud of smoke in a short, quick exhalation, “I am a Doctor of Law, a Doctor of Philosophy, a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Languages. So you see I am not exactly without an academic background. For the past year I have been in this country—incognito, of course—organising a particular project on behalf of . . well ... The Project is quite simple. Quite clear cut. But when you arrived, it was decided to add a small refinement. An extra safety precaution.” He drew in on the cigarette. “Our job was, first, to get hold of you. My friends here were given this simple assignment.” The hand rose, indicating Ritzy and Cirio: a gesture bordering on disdain. “As you know, things went wrong, and Mr ... er ... Mr Henniger thought it might be a good idea to eliminate you altogether.” He gave a weary sigh. “I must apologise for that, Mr Oakes. The attempt was rather crude and haphazard. You will be eliminated, of course, but it must be done privately, quietly, with taste (I think reptiles such tasteless creatures, don’t you?), and, of course, without any witnesses.”

  Boysie was rapidly falling into a state of mind which refused to accept reality. “But why me? I’m not important. Surely?” He was not altogether with this conversation.

  Gorilka smiled—it was the look morticians engineer on the faces of corpses. “You would be suprised to learn just how important you have become. Let me try and show you.” He turned his head towards the bathroom door and raised his voice: “Are you coming? He’s here. He wants to meet you.”

  “Ready in a moment.” The voice from behind the door was very familiar. Boysie’s mind sidetracked, trying to work out where he heard it before. Then the bathroom door opened.

  For about fifteen seconds Boysie did not recognise the man who had come into the room. He knew him well, but just could not place the face. Slowly it hit him. It was crazy. He was seeing things. He was looking at himself.

  “Hallo,” said the man. Even the voice was Boysie’s; and the friendly smile. Grief, he looked at this in the mirror every morning—wasn’t that enough? The man came towards him, hand outstretched. “This is very odd, isn’t it? Meeting oneself?”

  The room began to fog up. Boysie could only think that this was his doppelgänger: the apparition one saw just before death. Gorilka had said that he was about to be eliminated, and by some weird psychic phenomenon Boysie was face to face with himself. In a moment there would be oblivion.

  “It is really quite amazing,” said Gorilka.

  “Kinda spooky,” said Henniger.

  Boysie looked into his own face, and the flesh and blood of his own face looked back at him.

  4 – SOLEV

  Normality was returning. Boysie was conscious of discrepancies. For one thing, he and the doppelgänger were not wearing the same clothes, though there was no doubt that they shopped at the same places. The check trousers and black polo neck were definitely Jaeger. Boysie looked at the ensemble with some satisfaction. He had the identical things back in the flat off Chesham Place. He reflected that he had always considered them rather hip.

  “How do you like your double, Mr Oakes?” Gorilka heaved him back to the matter in hand. “That’s who he is. Your double. Did you think it was the end? That he was your doppelgänger?”

  “How the hell . .?”

  “... Did I know?” The creamy smile was set into the doughy face. “If you had the chance to be around as long as I have, you would begin to recognise the signs. You are not unintelligent...”

  “Thank you very much.” Boysie’s terror was now seasoned with arrogance.

  Gorilka took an impatient breath and started again. “You are not unintelligent, but you have a transparent mind. This gentleman, your own familiar, is Mr Vladimir Solev. Vladimir...” He gestured: an introductory palm flapping between the two men... . “Vladimir, Mr Boysie Oakes. Boysie, if I may be allowed to call you so, Mr Vladimir Solev.”

  The situation saw so macabre that Boysie could only say: “How do you do?”

  Solev grinned, took Boysie’s hand in his, shook it, and said warmly (in Boysie’s voice), “How do you do? I really am so glad to meet you at last. I feel that we are quite old friends.”

  “I bet you do.” Incredulous.

  “Before you two start falling on each other’s necks,” Gorilka was impatient, “I still have one or two things to tell Mr Oakes. You will have already come to certain conclusions, my dear sir. Mr Solev is quite a property, and you will have, rightly, deduced that he is going on to San Diego as yourself. It will be Mr Solev, and not you, who will be present at the Playboy firing trials on Monday; and it will be Mr Solev who will be able to give great assistance to our operatives in San Diego in connection with the firing trials. We have a few surprises planned for Monday.”

  Boysie was beginning to come out of his bewilderment. Though death hovered near, he had just noticed that Solev’s face was grave. As the creamy gent spoke, Boysie saw that Solev’s mouth was tipping up in a series of jerks; beads of perspiration were forming above the eyes; starting to saturate his eyebrows. They were signs that Boysie knew well. Intimately. Vladimir Solev was afraid. Come to that, considered Boysie, so was he. Bloody terrified. But Solev’s fear might be put to some concrete use. Gorilka was still speaking. “It would have been quite easy for us simply to get rid of you. Liquidate you, would probably be a better phrase in view of your past activities. But I felt that it would be a nice touch to allow the two of you to meet. To let you talk. To let Vladimir here put the finishing touches to his excellent impersonation. I mean, it would be foolish to turn down such an opportunity.”

  Boysie was still staring at Solev. The likeness was uncanny. Solev caught his eye and smiled nervously.

  “They have done a good job on him, don’t you think? Much time and energy has been spent on perfecting the likeness; but an hour alone with you will be of great value. Good?” He leaned forward. Henniger stood up, and Cirio moved closer to Boysie’s chair. Gorilka looked at his watch. “It saddens me to tell you this, Mr Oakes, but you have roughly one hour l
eft to live. It will be spent here, in this room with your new-found friend, Vladimir. I trust that you will be able to help him. And please do not try anything foolish. Vladimir is armed; so are the guards, and they will only shoot to wound. I might as well tell you now that the manner of your demise depends on how much value you are to Vladimir. If you help him, it will be quick and comparatively painless. If you—how do you Americans put it?” He looked towards Henniger.

  “Clam up,” said Henniger without expression.

  “Yes. If you clam up, it will be very painful; and it will take a long time. So please do not be silly.”

  Boysie still could not really believe all this talk about being killed. He feared pain and death more than anything, but still retained man’s essential optimism that it could never happen to him. He remembered Chicory.

  “What about the girl?” he asked.

  “Ah yes, the girl.” Gorilka inspected his finger nails frowning.

  “Her destiny is in your hands also,” he said, cryptically. “So help friend Vladimir, eh? Now we go to lunch. I will see that some coffee is sent in to you. Have a nice chat.”

  Gorilka eased himself out of the chair. For the first time, Boysie saw that he was partially crippled, walking with a slow lumber, leaning heavily on a thick stick. Cirio came forward and took the fat man’s arm, guiding him towards the door. As they reached the threshold, Gorilka turned, looked at Solev and spat out a sentence in rapid Russian. The frightened look was more deeply set in Vladimir’s eyes.

  “Da,” replied Vladimir.

  Even Boysie knew that da meant “yes”. “Yes what?” he asked himself starting to think how best he could use their mutual fear.

  *

  “That’s a Makarov, isn’t it?” Boysie was looking at the compact little automatic pistol that Solev held loosely in his lap

  “Yes. Very accurate weapons. Like to have a look? Oh no. Perhaps not.” Solev had been about to hand the gun across to the Englishman. He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting. What I said just now was perfectly true: you really do seem like an old friend.” He looked at Boysie, the eyes troubled. “Please, this is not my fault.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it is, but that doesn’t help me, does it?” said Boysie curtly from the edge of the bed. Solev was in the armchair recently vacated by Gorilka. Between them, on the small table, stood two plastic cups soiled with the dregs of their coffee. Boysie had no idea how he was going to play this. All he knew was that there must be a way out; though he had the distinct notion that by some strange chemical process his whole internal complex was being quickly changed into calves’-foot jelly. “You know,” he said, trying to sound at ease in the face of the odds stacked against him. “It really is fantastic. You’ve even got my voice. I suppose you were educated in England?”

  “Never been there in my life. I was born in Moscow. I’m five days older than you by the way.”

  “Never been to England? You’re joking. How the…?” Boysie vaguely remembered reading somewhere (he thought in Gunther’s Inside Russia Today, which had been on the Department’s prescribed reading list) that Muscovite radio announcers, who had never been outside their own country, could imitate almost every kind of British or American accent.

  “Until eight months ago I was just, how would you say it, ‘an ordinary man in the street’? My father was a doctor. I suppose I grew up with the revolution, but I’m not very good at politics.” He gave a half-hearted laugh. “Just did as I was told. I’ve always been one for keeping out of trouble.”

  Boysie tried to look understanding. Solev went on, “Since the war I’ve been working in industry—on the clerical side, of course.” A hint of pride in his voice as he added, “Last year I was promoted Assistant Deputy Head Clerk at the tractor factory in Volgograd—you know, used to be Stalingrad.”

  “Bully for you,” said Boysie without much enthusiasm. “How the blazes did you manage to get into this business then?” His thoughts whipped over the time when he had been recruited to the Department. He had been the owner of a down-at-heel cafe and aviary then; the most unlikely person to get mixed up with the secret war of plot and counter-plot.

  Solev, shifted uneasily. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm to tell you.” He kept biting at his lower lip, rolling the red skin out slowly from between his teeth. “But there are some questions I must ask you.”

  “You’ll have time,” Boysie was desperately fumbling for some clue, some fact on which he might be able to work: a lever to jemmy his way out of unthinkable death.

  “Oh well. All right.” It was obvious that Solev was pleased at the opportunity to talk about himself. “It started one day last winter. Nothing unusual except that we had a visiting deputation of officers from the Defence Ministry. You know the kind of thing: they’re shown round the factory; make speeches to the workers.” Boysie nodded, he could imagine the dreary political round and comic task. “One of them was a very important name in security circles. I’d never heard of him then, of course. Have you heard of Khavichev?”

  “Who hasn’t?” said Boysie. “The man’s a legend. Actually he’s quite respected on our side of the fence.” It was really big stuff if Khavichev was concerned.

  “That’s interesting. They really respect him?”

  “We still manage to keep our sense of chivalry, you know. Give credit where credit’s due,” said Boysie pompously. “What about Khavichev?”

  “They all came into our room—where we were working—and Khavichev just stood there looking at me. Nearly had a fit. Went quite white.” Solev’s face crumpled into a smile and he chuckled. “Looking back, it was quite funny. Frightening at the time, though. Place seemed to go mad. One minute I was preparing a report for my superior; the next, they were dragging me into the Comrade Director’s office. Khavichev wouldn’t let me speak to anyone. Two of his men with me all the time. All the time. It was very embarrassing. Kept asking them what it was all about, but they wouldn’t tell me a thing. Then some uniformed police arrived with a van. Took me to the airport—outriders, all sorts of precautions—and flew me to Moscow. They had me in Security Headquarters for two days. Question after question.”

  “Question after question. Fancy!” Boysie tried to sound suitably bland. “Why?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “He didn’t think you were ...?” Boysie began tentatively.

  “You. Yes.” Solev clinched it. “You can’t really blame him, can you? I’m pretty shaken myself, now that we’re face to face.”

  Boysie nodded. “Bet he was mad when he found he’d made a mistake.”

  “I gather he was at first. Then he decided he could use me. They moved me out of headquarters and into a villa in the Lenin Hills. Do you know Moscow? ... No, of course you don’t. It’s a nice area, the Lenin Hills. Near the University. I’d never known such luxury. Magnificent—everything a man could wish for. Everything. If you follow me.”

  “I’m way ahead of you.” Boysie was thinking of the first time Mostyn had taken him to the flat—which was to become his own—off Chesham Place. That had been a new experience of sumptuousness for him.

  “Khavichev came to see me. Apologised for the inconvenience, and told me that I was the double of a very important British agent.”

  “He called me important?” Boysie was not unhappy at the thought.

  “Of course. You are important.”

  “Oh come off it.” Inexplicably, Boysie felt himself going a light pink.

  “No. Really. You should see the information they have about you—the dossier they have compiled. Anyone in the game would be proud of such a dossier being drawn up by the opposition.”

  “No?”

  “Yes. Films, tape recordings, your habits. We have similar tastes, by the way. That nice girl Elizabeth, you were seeing so much of. The secretary with the Board of Trade. Did you ...”?

  “Yes,” said Boysie. “Frequently.”

  “Oh good. She looked super. Th
ey had some good movie film of you together. They really have an awful lot of you.” He faltered, realising that he had shunted from the main story-line. “Khavichev said that he could make me a Hero of the Republic if I worked hard. Well, everyone would like to be a hero, wouldn’t they? Secretly, that’s what we all want. He promised me all kinds of things ...” Boysie’s thoughts slewed back to the time when Mostyn had offered him the earth; promised him riches beyond the dreams of Archie Rice if he would take on that special formidable job with the Department.

  Solev continued: “And I worked. My life I worked. I knew some English. They taught me more: then gave me your voice ...”

  “That slays me. The voice bit. How ...”

  “Deep hypnosis mostly. In a sound-proof cubicle at the University. They say the brain is at its most receptive under hypnosis: nothing else can get in the way. Days on end I did it. Lying there while a tape-recorder played back your voice—how you sound your vowels and consonants.”

  “A touch of the Professor Higgins!” murmured Boysie.

  “Oh no, Professor Engler was my chief language instructor—brilliant man—used to give me post-hypnotic suggestions: when I woke up I would pronounce things your way. And I did.” He shrugged, scratching the back of his neck. “Then there were lists of the words you used most; phrases; expressions. I spoke nothing but English after that interview with Khavichev. Couldn’t speak English in any other way now. Does it really sound like you?”