by Steve Cole
Perhaps Karachan sent these men here for me, James thought.
Heart starting to hammer, he slipped quickly out through the National’s doors and into the bright morning sunshine. A black Ford Model A – or rather, NAZ-A, given the stand-in Russian marque – was parked just outside, its engine idling. Is that the Intourist car?
A scream from the entrance made James turn round. The rat-faced man that Elmhirst had greeted was reeling back through the doors, hands flailing at his blood-soaked throat. A gunshot followed, loud as a bell peal; James couldn’t see what had happened for the terrified people swarming through the doors. Automatically he started through the throng to get to Elmhirst in the lobby.
But then someone gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him back. Caught off-guard, he started to struggle but found himself swept into the back seat of the black car, his face forced down against the cracked leather.
‘Hey!’ James shouted as, with a screech of tyres on cobblestones, the car reversed sharply away into the thin traffic on Gorky Street. ‘What are you—?’
A man’s voice, accent thick and English stilted, rasped into his ear. ‘You come with us . . . You not hurt.’
James’s thoughts were racing. Elmhirst’s warning, then the man with the slit throat, the gunshot, now abduction . . . These could only be Karachan’s thugs – or agents who answered to a higher authority. For all the bravado, James had recognized real fear on Elmhirst’s face as he’d gone to meet the sinister men, to try to keep James from them. Why? He knew that James could handle himself, but what had happened in there? Who’d taken the gunshot?
These questions buzzed above the roar of the engine as the car thundered along the main road. Where was he being taken? It didn’t matter, James decided. He would never arrive. Slowly, carefully, he twisted round and tried to sit up straight. The man who’d bundled him inside, with a face like a carbuncle that had formed around a bushy moustache, didn’t hinder him; he had a cigarette to his mouth and his thumb to a lighter. It didn’t produce a flame first time, but for a split-second the man glanced down to check.
That was all the time James needed. He swung his fist upwards. The man took the blow to the jaw, jerked back and bashed his head against the window. James punched him again in the face. A red split opened over his right cheekbone and his eyes flickered shut.
The man driving started shouting in angry Russian, swerving hard right onto another street. James got on all fours in the foot well, facing the rear passenger door. The car had slowed a little for the bend, but as he pulled down on the handle and pushed open the door, the road below was still a terrifying blur of grey and black.
James didn’t hesitate. With his father’s pack on his back, he brought his elbows together, kept his chin tucked into his chest to protect his head and then launched himself out with his right shoulder closest to the ground. There was a terrifying moment of flight, then the screaming pain of impact. The air was punched from his lungs as he rolled over and over, his senses assaulted by the spin and screech of traffic, the cries of onlookers, by the thumps and scrapes of his own body as he rocketed over the asphalt – and then smashed into a newspaper stand. An old man and his chair were sent sprawling across the pavement, the papers flapping madly through the air like birds with broken wings.
James was too winded even to shout out; he looked down at his trembling hands, knuckles oil-black and bloody, badly grazed. His shoulders felt raw beneath the backpack, his knees throbbed as he tried to get to his feet and recover his wits. A crowd was gathering to help the old man, pointing and staring. James saw that the black car had screeched to a halt and was reversing back towards him.
Staggering, his legs barely supporting him, James managed to flee. Where the hell was he? How far away was the National? If the police caught him now, who knew how long he’d be detained. James tried to force his body onward, but his legs sent only shooting pains in response. Even at this hour of the morning the street was busy with queues and commuters. James barged his way through, knocking aside anyone in his path, calling apologies until he realized his foreign words and English accent were arousing too much interest – and anger. He cut through a quieter alleyway, too narrow for the black car to come down, and then ran as fast as he could, dog-legging through the grimy streets and passages.
Lungs tight, breaths scrubbing at his throat, James eventually stopped running, leaned against a wall and stared about wildly. He couldn’t make head or tail of the street names or signs in the Cyrillic alphabet, didn’t know where he was or which way to go.
Then his frantic gaze fell and fixed on a dark, bearded figure watching him from the window of a burgundy saloon: Andrei Karachan. The car door swung open and Karachan got out, stalking swiftly through the crowds towards him.
James swore, turned and forced himself to run again. Up ahead he could hear the iron song of a tram. The red-and-yellow cars came into view, hauling themselves along between cobbles and cables . . . Surely this was his best chance for escape? The tram trundled over a junction into another street, accelerating onto the straight with a thickening whine, and James sprinted after it, this fresh focus lending him strength and purpose.
No use. The tram was moving too fast, pulling away.
A young man in a cap rode a three-wheeled delivery bicycle out of a side street, right into James’s path. For a moment James feared an attack and skidded to a stop, panting wildly. Then he realized that the bike carried a large wooden trunk full of Izvestiya newspapers. The youth stopped now to unload a bundle of the morning edition to a store on James’s left.
There was no time to debate: as the delivery man marched into the store, James swung himself into the saddle and grabbed the handlebars, forcing his aching, trembling legs to pedal. By God, it was a stiff ride! How much did Russian newspapers weigh?
The young man emerged to find his bike pulling out into the traffic. He shouted after James. Glancing back, James saw Karachan still running after him.
I’ve just stolen a delivery bike in broad daylight in one of the world’s biggest police states! James shook his head, sending the thoughts to hell: all that mattered right now was escape. He pedalled faster, stood up in the saddle to put more force into each thrust, swerving unsteadily past a motor car that was slowing to park at the kerb. As he turned the corner, James saw the tram up ahead slowing to pick up passengers, and made like an arrow for the stand. A snake of people waited at a turnstile for the tram to pull up alongside, ready to board. James gritted his teeth – clothes wet with sweat, cuts and scrapes stinging and chafing – and kept on pedalling.
The tram’s doors hissed open and men and women began to shuffle inside. James coasted the final stretch along the asphalt, tugged on the brakes and leaped from the bicycle. He grabbed several copies of Izvestiya and worked his way along the queue, shoving them into people’s hands. A few gave him kopecks in return, and by the time he’d bestowed his free newspapers on those people at the front, he was well placed to push in, pour the kopecks into the tram driver’s collection plate, then stagger down the aisle to collapse into a wooden seat, gasping for breath, his heart striking his ribs like a percussion drill.
The last man boarded, but for a long moment the tram remained still. Maybe the driver knows I stole the bicycle, James thought fearfully. Or she knows Karachan and she’s waiting for him. The tram won’t move until they come to get me. I’ve got to get off, got to keep running—
Finally, with a jolt and a hum, the tram car started moving again. James licked his dry lips and muttered a prayer of thanks. He was still alive, still at large, and still had his father’s old backpack and the clues it contained; the chance to help finish whatever his father had started.
He looked at the wall above the window for information on the tram route, hoping to recognize a name like Gorky or Red Square, but of course to his eyes the words were just a jumble of unfamiliar characters. Where was Elmhirst now? Was he even alive? The guides from Intourist would come to know what had happen
ed: the violence, James’s disappearance . . . How soon would word reach the authorities, the secret police?
And I can’t even go to the British Embassy for help, James realized, his heart thumping. Not if the Reds have a man there too.
The old tram rattled and scraped along as if seething at its own inefficiency and, as the adrenalin ebbed, James had an inkling of how it felt. But brooding was useless. With nothing more constructive to do, James decided to sort through his set of clues again, and opened up the backpack.
Almost at once, his sore fingers closed on the pottery shards that had once made up St Basil’s Cathedral. James felt a pang of regret; his father’s final gift to him, never given, had now been pulverized in his jump from the car. After long years preserved in the Swiss ice, it had finally met a violent death on home soil.
James pulled out as many pieces of the shattered cathedral as he could find: the blue-and-white swirl of an onion dome . . . a minaret laced with gold . . . And the largest, tallest tower still intact. It was hollow, James saw.
A thin edge of paper, like a little white tongue, stuck out from the hole at its base.
Something’s been hidden inside.
James’s heart no longer pounded; as he fumbled with the slip of paper it felt disconnected from the rest of his body. The tram’s whine lowered as it approached its next stop, but to James, unrolling the tiny scroll his father had secreted inside the souvenir, electricity was everywhere.
Holding his breath, James read the neatly printed words:
ul. Bolshaya Ordynka, 67, Moskva
An address, he realized, here in Moscow. Father had not just been bringing home a souvenir, but a vital piece of information. Only the intended recipient would expect to find it hidden there. No wonder the accompanying note in the envelope had urged James to show the statuette to his uncle . . .
‘Of course!’ James almost groaned aloud as part of the cryptic letter became blindingly clear to him at last. Get more out of the French memory for a start – the ‘souvenir’, of course! The word was French and meant remember. He couldn’t believe that, in the rush of leaving, his father would then forget to hand the little cathedral to James. Perhaps he feared he was being watched, and didn’t want to risk putting his son in danger. He must have planned to send the keepsake clue at the same time as the letter that was never posted . . .
James shook his head, looked out of the window. Well, I’ve got it now, Father, he thought. Three years late. I’ve got a start at last: 67, Bolshaya Ordynka Street.
12
The Girl on the Landing
MOSCOW WAS SUCH a vast city: it took twenty minutes just to go two blocks on foot, and even the secondary streets were eight to ten lanes wide. James didn’t know where the tram was headed or how he would find his way to his destination. He didn’t speak the language and had no roubles for a taxi – only the wad of US dollars. And, as Elmhirst had pointed out, he couldn’t even change them at a bank without breaking the law.
Perhaps I could hire a taxicab and then run away when it’s time to pay the fare? he thought. But he didn’t want to draw any further attention to himself and, after his last exit from a motor car, his whole body felt like it was being held together with pins and string. James thought guiltily of the newspaper delivery man, and hoped he’d been safely reunited with his bicycle. Then an idea struck him: he’d seen an English language newspaper here, the Moscow Times. If there were enough English-speaking people in the city to warrant their own paper, there must surely also be a market for maps of the city in English – and larger newsagents ought to stock them.
James stared out of the tram window, keeping his eyes open for a likely-looking stop. They passed along a street lined on one side with fine old classical buildings, while the other side was rubble, boarded off by barriers . . . He saw workmen with cranes, derricks and joists mounting a large red star on top of a high, austere tower . . . saw motor cars and trolleybuses alongside the trams and horse-drawn carriages. The new and the old in Moscow seemed in constant competition, with the downtrodden people navigating uncertain lines between the two under a blanket of fear, caught in endless queues, waiting wearily for their turn. These were like scenes from a jerky newsreel, remote and foreign, and yet here he was, in the midst of it all, thousands of miles from all he knew. The danger, the strangeness of his surroundings made life feel so vivid and immediate.
When the tram reached the junction of two imposing avenues, most of those on board stood up, ready to alight. James reasoned that to be so popular, the stop must be in a busy area, and therefore likely to have what he needed. He got off the tram and crossed through the turnstile onto a busy avenue; he looked around, trying to get his bearings. The chimes of an old clock tower filled the air with rich, ringing precision, and James looked up sharply to check its face: nine in the morning, and yet he felt as if he’d already been up for weeks—
At the base of the tower a sudden, furtive movement drew his eye: someone ducking behind the crumbling stonework.
The image of Karachan, with his wild hair and staring eyes, was imprinted on James’s imagination, and he felt a slow tremor through his guts. ‘Karachan can’t have followed me,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Unless he got on the tram without my seeing, concealed himself among the rush-hour throng . . .’
Surely it was ridiculous?
Attempting nonchalance, James sauntered towards a busy covered arcade in the street opposite. His mind was racing: of course, Karachan could have seen him jump onto the tram and then followed him in the saloon.
James shivered. I can’t take the chance I’ve been followed, he thought. I’ve got to sharpen up. Sharpen up, for God’s sake!
A pungent odour from a shop beside him caught in his throat, and on impulse he ducked inside. Most of the shelves were empty, but some were stacked with unattractive soaps in big medicinal bars. The people inside stared suspiciously, but James made a great play of clutching his stomach, groaning as if he were about to be sick. The horrified assistant tried to push him back out, but James twisted free and staggered across to a door at the back of the room, miming the urgency of his situation. Rather than risk any other outcome, the assistant grabbed him and propelled him through the door into a back room full of grime and cobwebs. A toilet with no lid stood behind a creaking door, and James blundered inside, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it. The angry assistant banged on the door, but James was already clambering onto the toilet to force open the narrow window above. He scrambled through it, wincing at the pressure on his bruised, battered body, and emerged into a quiet alleyway. A storm of flies flew up from the piles of abandoned rubbish.
‘Spa-see-ba.’ James muttered the phonetics of the Russian ‘thank you’ and allowed himself the smallest of self-satisfied smiles as he hurried on his way. There was no sign now that he was being pursued, no one in sight at all. James planned to keep it that way.
He ran to the end of the alley and onto the next street, hoping to hide himself in the growing crowd.
By lunchtime, the thrill that came with a challenge met was carrying James forward.
He had a map in his pocket. The newsagent’s eyes had all but exploded at the sight of James’s thin roll of US dollars; the returns of a black-market deal seemed to outweigh the fear of getting caught for it. Saying, ‘Fair price,’ over and over, he pushed five gold rouble notes into James’s hands while trying to take as many of the dollars as possible. James had an idea he was being wholeheartedly cheated and was glad he’d kept a number of the dollar notes back. He demanded the map of Moscow for free, and the newsagent’s willingness to accept this term confirmed his suspicions.
Still, what the hell. Right now the map was worth more than any money. James sat down in a dowdy restaurant on Prechistenskiya Pereulok and ordered today’s special (which he suspected would be yesterday’s ‘ordinary’ heated up): to start with, a shchi – a kind of thick cabbage soup served with rye bread – followed by leathery veal cutlets with frie
d potatoes and sour gherkins, and finally a slice of torte made with apricots, walnuts and meringue. Although he didn’t feel hungry, he forced himself to eat: he didn’t know when he might get food again, and knew he needed the energy.
The map was daunting in its detail. James noticed the numbers and letters that referenced each square on the grid, and remembered the letters and numbers on his father’s coded memo. Could that be it – grid references on a map? But if so, which map? Perhaps there had been a map inside the backpack, a map long since lost, left behind in the chalet in Chamonix, overlooked . . .
Well, maybe he’d pick up more clues at his destination, which was about two miles away: ulitsa Bolshaya Ordynka was a long street that ran for well over a mile through the Zamoskvorechye quarter of Moscow, from the Moskvoretsky Bridge down to Serpukhovskaya. He tried to say the strange, exotic words aloud without stumbling. He thought of Elmhirst stalking around the major cities of the world, taking their customs and culture in his stride, executing his duty on His Majesty’s Secret Service – and felt somehow like an apprentice, finding his dark little niche in a world that was growing smaller and more dangerous each day.
Draining his glass of tap water, butterflies fluttering in his stomach around the sunken wreck of the heavy torte, James set off for the mysterious address, keeping to the backstreets where possible, wondering if his quest could finally be nearing its conclusion. He kept glancing about for signs that he was being followed, feeling conspicuous in his scuffed and dirty clothes with the map in his hand. He found an old checked cap lying in the gutter of Lopukhunskiy Street and put it on, hunched his shoulders as he walked and changed his gait to make himself blend in better. He crossed the river, wider and bluer than the Thames he’d gazed out over just days ago, its shores choked with construction materials as the shabby wooden bridge, no longer strong enough, was reshod with cast iron. Had his father walked across this bridge, heart heavy with whatever business he’d become caught up in? Could James now really pick up where Bond Senior had left off and solve the puzzle?