Snow Falcon kaaph-2

by Craig Thomas

  Slides. Back of the man entering the cinema, grainy with snow, head bowed, hat held on head. Back of the man coming out of the cinema. Other people. 'Back!'

  'What?'

  'Back! The shot of him going in — then this shot again.'

  'Sir.'

  Vorontsyev watched, felt the tension close on his bowels, then ungrip again as he sensed an error. The two young officers had hardly risen from their langour, except that the girl whispered the time to Ilya. 'No — ' Vorontsyev whispered. 'No.'

  'Shall I go on, sir?'

  'Yes. How close were you when he went into the cinema?'

  'A bit back. Not many customers at that time.'

  'And he went into the toilet?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'You're sure? On the way in?'

  Alevtina consulted her notes. 'On the way out…'

  'You said on the way in!' 'I — no, only on the way out.'

  'Quickly, go back to the Moskva — to the shot of him leaving the hotel, getting in the taxi. Quickly!'

  Ilya fumbled with the cartridge; stuttering clicks, then the smoother sound as images flashed on the screen in quick succession.

  Back of the man entering the taxi. It was inconclusive, Vorontsyev recognised, as if he had hoped for something clearer. Yet he sensed how it might have been done.

  'What is it, sir?' Alevtina asked, craning forward in her chair, staring at the flecked expanse of overcoat. Snow, the flurried curtain.

  'Where were you when he came out of the toilet — the hotel toilet?' Vorontsyev snapped.

  'Recess in the foyer.'

  'At the bar,' added Ilya.

  'Where did he put on his coat?' Vorontsyev enunciated the words slowly, carefully. They sensed the importance of their answer. They screwed up their faces helpfully.

  'In — the bar,' Ilya said finally.

  The girl added eagerly, 'He was wearing it as he crossed the foyer.'

  'And you were behind him all the time, from the moment he left the toilet until he got into the taxi?'

  'Yes.' Her voice held an apprehension of failure, but puzzlement was more evident.

  'Then that's it!'

  'What is?'

  'What's the next slide?' Vorontsyev calmed himself, afraid of his leap of insight, the certainty of suspicion. 'Before this one, I mean.'

  'Entering the hotel — there.' The cartridge clicked like the bolt of a rifle, Vorontsyev thought, his imagination gleaming with effort.

  'Back again… back again… back again. See it?' The two slides were swiftly interposed — back of the man, entertaining in a comic juxtaposition. In and out of the revolving doors of the foyer of the Moskva Hotel. A television trick, Alevtina reminded herself, stifling a smile.

  'What — sir?'

  Vorontsyev, an impatient parent, yet happy in his own secure knowledge, crossed to the wall, and his finger jabbed, mottled monochrome, at the back of the dark overcoat.

  'See the tilt of the shoulders here?' The hand wiggled impatiently, and another back appeared, leaving the foyer. 'Now here… If you enlarged the hand…' He squinted at the hand holding the dark hat down on the head — the snowflakes were huge, like irritating butterflies on a specimen slide, obscuring some scientific data. 'If you enlarge the hand. I've no doubt you will find a different one — fatter, shorter fingers, or shorter nails.'

  He turned to them, grinned, and dramatically crossed to the window and let up the blind. Strong morning light now, not so grey.

  'It's not the same man. The man you sat behind in the cinema was not the Colonel-General! You spent two hours following the wrong man.' In the pleasure of confirmation, Vorontsyev was uncondemning. 'So — why and where did the General go?'

  'How did they switch back, sir?'

  'The cinema toilet. I'll bet you were given a good look at the face, coming out of the cinema…' Alevtina's face betrayed a childish sense of being made to appear stupid by an adult. 'Of course. Now, go back to the man in the Museum of the Revolution — the one with the dark coat and hat, about the General's age. And place your bets, my children — place your bets!'

  Folley rumbled a new film into the camera, the cold stiffening, thickening his fingers in the few seconds since he had removed his mittens. Already he had six rolls of film — infra-red the first two, then a change when dawn came — in his pockets, but he seemed possessed now to record everything he could. He was overwhelmed by the evidence, and by a disbelief that made him collect every scrap of it he could; perhaps he already heard Waterford's mocking tones, or those of the superior, affected queer, Davenhill.

  He closed the back of the camera, raised it to his eye, focused, checked the exposure, and pressed the stud. The camera began to photograph, silently and automatically, a group of soldiers erecting a camouflage net, beneath which rested, somnolently evil, three T-72 tanks, the gun of each seeming to point straight at him.

  He had been there for three hours, and he knew he should have left long before. Whatever luck there was had to be disappearing rapidly. Twice already, patrols had almost stumbled upon him as he skirted the fringes of the camp beneath the forest roof, pointing his camera like a gawping eye wherever he could — a child in a huge military exhibition.

  All the time, he felt an irrepressible urgency to continue taking photographs — snap, snap, snap, move on, snap, snap, move on — lie wondered whether he was acting out some caricatured parade-ground behaviour in order to avoid considering the reality of what he photographed.

  Snap, snap, snap — tanks, two guards lighting cigarettes, erection of an HQ hut; snap, snap, snap, move on — a man peeing behind a tree, lifting lie skirts of his winter overcoat, head with its fur hat bent in solemn inspection, motor rifle transports; change lens to telephoto; snap, snap, snap — smoky distance brought nearer, the ranks of T-72s stretching away, giving a sense of the size of the area they occupied; he sensed he was even beginning to compose the shots.

  Voices. He stumbled backwards, ducking behind a tree, straining to catch their direction, number. Three, four? Coming closer, moving from the left, calling so they were spread slightly apart, having to raise their voice. He felt nothing, nothing more than alertness to every tiny noise of movement, below the clear voices. He dropped the camera into a deep pocket of his combat clothing, the long lens hard against his thigh, and brought the rifle slowly round to a pos ition where he could fire it through the canvas sleeve. He flexed the cold index finger.

  Four of them. Sweep patrol, round the perimeter. One of a number of teams, perhaps as many as six. Coming with the dangerous morning. Twenty yards — he caught a flash of whiter whiteness, less smoky than the vague distances of snow-heavy trees. A guard, rifle held slackly but ready for use, wending through the tight-standing pines.

  Another, away to his right. They would pass just beyond him, if he slipped round the tree, just a little..

  Footprints. Deep holes in the thick snow. His footprints, coming to the tree, from the direction towards which they were moving. He couldn't hide them. He eased the rifle level with his waist, reached for the barrel with his left hand.

  Something in one of the photographs — quickly, quickly, he urged his cold brain. A stream of urine, smoking in the freezing air…

  He turned his back to the approaching men, fumbling hi his overtrousers, bending his head, visualising the picture he had taken. He tried to urinate, concentrating, wanting to giggle with nerves and the urge to verisimilitude. The feeble stream splashed against the tree, washing the snow down the trunk.

  'Don't let it hang out for too long, son,' the nearest man called. 'You might need it again!' Someone else laughed. He laughed too, and the sound was ridiculously thin and pretended to his ears.

  'Thanks for the advice,' he called back in Russian, and stood there, all awareness now hi his back, the great stretch of white between his shoulders — target.

  Then he let himself look round. He had long finished urinating, and he was freezing cold, the iciness spreading through his loins, his
thighs. The nearest man who had passed ten feet from him, was moving away again, into the trees. He heard him laughing, calling out some obscenity — not back hi his direction, but to one of the others. A laugh like an animal's bark returned from someone hidden further in the trees.

  Folley adjusted the rifle, slipped on the mittens, looked around him carefully. He had to go now, get out quickly before the next sweep-unit came upon him, following the last one round the perimeter in an anti-clockwise direction. He moved away from the tree, treading carefully, placing his feet in the deep snow as if he might have to move quickly, would need extra purchase, at any moment.

  There was one thing left to do — check the village, Rontaluumi. He wanted photographic evidence that it was empty.

  Away from the camp, near the road they had turned off to hide in the forest, he buckled on his skis. As he bent to do so, the reaction hit him, and it was a long time before he could even stand upright on limbs suddenly watery and without strength.

  Eventually, he was able to move oft; gradually, pushing deeper with the ski sticks, he gathered strength and speed on the long skis, and headed for the village.

  Alexei Vorontsyev felt tired, but satisfied. Replete, he considered, as if after a heavy meal and good liquor. The day's work had proved eminently satisfactory. Blow-ups of the slides proved that Colonel-General Ossipov had gone missing for more than two hours, without trace, and that a man he had met in the Museum of the Revolution had substituted for him. Vorontsyev still retained in his mind gigantic images of two hands, both curled to clutch the brim of a dark hat, pinned side by side on the wall of his office. As a photographic expert had confirmed for him — the hands were not the same. And the wrong hand belonged to the man in the museum.

  Vorontsyev had informed Deputy Kapustin, who had commended his work. Other units of the SID, also assigned to the matter, had not proved so successful, checking back over their files. But, with his lead, they would recheck, and Kapustin was certain something of real significance would emerge.

  Vorontsyev put the car into gear, and pulled away from the traffic lights before turning into Kalenin Street, where he had shared an apartment with his wife. One side of the wide street still contained the old houses, many of them turned into government offices. However, new luxury blocks of apartments had been built, unadorned slabs and facades of grey concrete, without aesthetic value yet possessing a degree of social elevation that attached to a few new developments in Moscow.

  It was only as he tugged on the handbrake, as if the noise of ratchets awakened him, that he realised he had returned from old habit to a place where he no longer lived. There was a sharp, nauseous taste in his mouth. He had moved out months before, when the strain of living with Natalia's infidelities, all the time becoming more and more blatant, had proved too much for him. Because in the end she had not even bothered to lie. He closed the door of the car again, his mood evaporated.

  His work appeared unsubstantial now, and the voice of the Deputy in his memory was tinny and unreal. All that he saw was the hard, assured face, carefully made-up, of his wife, smiling at him. And the crown of dark, groomed hair he had once possessed with the rest of her. He opened the door again, and got out into the noise of traffic travelling out of the centre of Moscow, towards the north-western suburbs; he had parked the car, unthinking, where he always parked it, opposite the foyer door to the apartment block.

  He leaned against the car for a time, and lit a cigarette. He did not bother with his overcoat, despite the cold wind, and his hands shook as he cupped them round the flame of the lighter. When he drew in the first smoke, he leaned back and looked up towards the lighted windows. Fourth floor, fifth along — yes, she was there.

  The mood of the day crept back into him — the power he had exercised in setting in motion the investigations he had ordered was too impregnated in his personality, like a scent in his clothing or his skin, to be got rid of by the betrayal of memory. He could still see the hands pinned to the wall, betraying the substitution of Ossipov by someone as yet unknown — but who had been photographed, and who would be found. The power of achieving secret knowledge of Ossipov made him bold now. He had a desire to confront his wife — and anyone else who might be there.

  It was as if he were drinking from a flask, standing there in the cold, and his head had begun to spin, and he had deadened the defeated ego — recovered himself. When he finished the cigarette, he walked towards the foyer door.

  There was a porter he did not recognise, a new man. To him he showed the blue ID card, which obviated explanation. The man was likely to be an informer to one of the departments inside the 2nd Chief Directorate, anyway. The man, impressed, seemed to shrink back into the uniform he wore, saluted, and disappeared back behind the glass partition that separated him from the residents. Vorontsyev crossed to the lift.

  He rode to the fourth floor, stepped out, and walked slowly down the carpeted corridor. His principal fear at that moment was being seen by a neighbour who knew him and his circumstances.

  He stood in front of the door, despising his weakness, and the involuntary wiping of his hands on his coat. Then he took out his key, which he had not returned to her, and inserted it in the latch. She had not bothered to have the lock changed.

  His teeth gritted, and he pushed open the door, into the tiny hall. At the door of the lounge, which overlooked Kalenin Street, he could hear her voice inside — the laughter so like' music — but false, as opera falsifies words into beautiful sounds. She made her laughter attractive, enjoyable — but nothing more than a sound.

  He pushed open the lounge door. There was a man in the room. Her head turned to him as he was taking in the KGB Border Guard uniform, the distinctive shoulder flashes. It was, he thought, vulgarly like his wife that she would want her uniformed lovers to wear their uniforms. The man appeared disconcerted. But not his wife. She was merely angry.

  She said, 'Alexei — what the hell are you doing here?' Then she puffed dramatically at her cigarette, blowing the smoke audibly in his direction. He stood at the door. The KGB officer appeared distressed now — something officer-like and stupid had entered his face, Vorontsyev noticed, disliking the man. Natalia said, 'Alexei — allow me to introduce Captain Yevgeni Vrubel, on leave from border duties. Yevgeni, this is my husband, Alexei.' Natalia, Vorontsyev noticed in the moment before the name struck him fully, seemed suddenly amused by the confrontation.

  The brief daylight was giving out again, and yet Folley remained in the empty village of Rontaluumi. In some inexplicable way, he had wasted the few hours of daylight, acting as if he was unable to deal with the tanks that had crossed the border during darkness, with the camp he had photographed, preferring the smaller mystery. What had been done with the villagers?

  He had searched every house, every store and shed. Nothing, not so much as a cat or dog, no sign of life anywhere. It was as if some plague had swept through there, and the bodies had been afterwards removed. Empty rooms, empty chicken-runs — fodder untasted, tins still in the cupboards and on shelves. As the hours passed he became desperate to find some clue, as loneliness more suffocating than that of his journey overcame him.

  Finally, he settled himself in a battered armchair in the living-room of the largest wooden, single-storey house. He kept his white winter combat dress on, and cradled the gun on his lap. He was tense and worn with waiting and searching. He had sufficient evidence — yet he wanted more, an answer to this empty village, and its pressing silence.

  The whole idea of invasion had become ridiculous — forced to the back of his mind by the emptiness the village emitted like a gas. The implications of what he had seen were buried — he refused to consider any of them.

  Empty.

  This room — he had the sense of invading other lives, but no sense of the lives that had been lived there — and himself; he could catch sight of himself in a smoky mirror over the huge fireplace. Out of place; rudely forced upon this place, squatter or looter. He had touched no
thing, acutely aware of his intrusion. What had happened to the people of Rontaluumi? There wasn't a single sign of violence.

  Then he must have dozed — a false light sleep.

  He woke to the sound of voices outside, the calling of orders; a tone of voice that reached down into him, pulling him awake. He was out of the chair in a moment, the taste of sleep still sticky in his mouth. He dribbled, wiped it away, blinking his eyes, straining to hear…

  As he moved to the door, the door opened. He had forced the back door, next to the log store, but the man outside was using a heavy key to turn the lock.

  The heavy door swung open.

  A figure, in winter combat dress, hood thrown back to reveal the Russian fur cap on the dark hair. A face twisting with surprise, and the hand moving to the holster.

  Folley shot the Red Army officer twice, the rifle still at his hip, the sudden noise of the gun bellowing in the low-ceilinged room, echoing back. The doorway was empty, wiped clean of the man's form as it fell into the snow outside.

  For a single moment his body was frozen, the aftermath of unpremeditated violence. A boot stuck across the doorway, belonging to the dead man — the echoes of the two shots from the rifle dying away. Then he gathered up his pack, slung it over one shoulder, adjusting it on his back as he forced himself through the narrow door to the kitchen; he collected the skis from their propped position against the back door, and opened it silently.

  Behind him there was a cry, orders barked in distant voices like the call of foxes. He stepped out into the darkening evening, alert for movement.

  Beyond the initial rise, the ground sloped away from the back of the house, towards a narrow frozen river, and dense firs already looming and dark as the light faded rapidly. He clambered up the slope, then stopped to buckle on the heavy, long skis, then pushed off. Behind him, as the wind of his passage began to louden, he heard a shout, then the explosion of a gun. Something whined past his head, then again — a sharp, unreal cracking noise, as if he had crossed thin ice. Then he was shielded by the rise.