Quiller Meridian q-17

by Adam Hall

  They didn't react, wouldn't be hurried. If I finally got them with me, one of them would look at his watch. It hadn't happened yet.

  'Are you in love with this woman?' Gromov asked me.

  'No.'

  'She's remarkably attractive.'

  'Yes. I wish I had time in my life to fall in love with every attractive woman I meet'

  I'd been listening for her voice in the building: she couldn't be far from here because she'd be in a cell too and this was the detention area. All other things being equal, a woman's voice carries more clearly than a man's. I'd heard nothing.

  Gromov looked at the Colonel. 'Is this man your prisoner or mine?'

  'He's mine at this point but I'm willing to hand him over. I don't want him.'

  Wasting time.

  'Yes,' I told Belyak, 'you do.'

  He watched me with his black polished stones.

  'Explain.'

  'The agent is a former militia officer, major's rank. He was sacked for persistent drunkenness and killing three men on the firing range by culpable negligence. Since then he's been taking on clandestine operations, one of which has so far included the death of Zymyanin on board the Rossiya and the bombing of the train and the shooting of General Velichko here in Novosibirsk. If you don't pull him in as soon as you can, your head's going to be on the block and the people of Russia are going to lose a great deal of faith in their militia, whose job it is to protect the peace. The people of Russia are in a touchy mood these days.'

  Another vehicle pulled up in the forecourt of the building and I felt the thread in my hand grow taut as the door banged open and boots clattered along the passage. I'm here to demand the release of my sister, Tanya Amelia Rusakova, and to make a foil confession in the death of General Gennadi Velichko.

  I waited.

  'Why have you decided to betray this agent?' Colonel Belyak asked.

  'I've been considering it ever since he bombed the train. He took innocent lives. It's not my way. He needs stopping now, or God knows what he'll do.'

  Boots tramping. I'm no good at waiting, doing nothing.

  The gallant Captain Rusakov.

  'All right,' Gromov said. 'Tell us where we can pick up this man.'

  'I'll have to take you to him.'

  'Why?'

  'He's violent. If you put him in a trap he'll try to shoot his way out.'

  Boots tramping, passing the door, not stopping.

  'Others have tried that too,' the Colonel said.

  'Look,' I told him, 'you can go in there with as many men as you like but you'll end up with a messy operation and get half of them killed unnecessarily. Or you can take me with you and I'll talk to him first and set him up for you and there'll be no bloodshed; I can promise an elegant, copybook operation, which I would think is more your style.'

  I waited again, watching the Colonel and the Chief Investigator in turn, seeing first one and then the other start looking at his watch, seeing it again and again in my mind, but only there.

  A cell door slammed shut along the passage and the boots sounded again.

  Belyak opened his mouth but Gromov was first — 'What is your connection with this agent?'

  'We were collaborators.'

  'In what?'

  'The same clandestine operation.'

  'Its purpose?'

  'To sabotage the Podpolia.'

  That got a reaction, as I'd known it would. The hardline communist underground was known to exist and the Russian and Commonwealth police, militia and MPS were known to be smoking out its leaders, but some of its leaders were firmly ensconced in the Russian and Commonwealth police, militia and MPS, which made things difficult. I'd glanced from Gromov to Belyak when I'd said what I had, but couldn't catch anything: they were both trained to remain deadpan whatever was in their minds.

  Gromov or Belyak could well be a member of the Podpolia, unknown to the other, but it didn't make any difference: each of them had a job to do and he'd get a great deal of kudos within his department if he could pull in the man who had bombed the Rossiya, whether he was in the underground or against it. The charge against him would be one of mass murder.

  'You believe, then,' Gromov said,' that General Velichko was in -

  'Yes.'

  'And you would furnish me with a full accounting of both your own actions and your collaborator's, once he is taken?'

  'A full accounting, in the expectation of leniency for myself.'

  The Colonel looked across at Gromov again.' We should confer,' he said.

  'I agree.'

  Then Belyak looked at his watch.

  'I'm glad to see, Colonel,' I told him,' that you're aware of the passage of time. It's critical, as I've warned you.'

  Gromov opened the door of the cell and the Colonel followed him out and the door banged shut again, the look-through panel vibrating in its runners. The militia sergeant had come to attention when his colonel had gone out; now he was standing at ease. He'd been sorry, I knew, to hear I was ready to give a full accounting of my actions; he would have preferred orders to tear it out of me, word by word as the blood came running. I thought of talking to him, asking how the sweet peas were coming along, but he wouldn't have answered me: I was a dog brought in here from the streets, and he didn't talk to dogs. It would have been pleasant to stand up and stretch my legs, and have him order me to sit down again, and refuse, and give him the excuse to drive his fist into my diaphragm, so that I could parry the blow to the left and open him up and go in with some fast centre-knuckle jabs to paralyse the major nerves and finish up with a back-fist to stun the pineal gland and take him gently onto the floor. It would have relieved the tension in me and I could have used that, but of course it wouldn't have done any good because when they came back, the Colonel and the Chief Investigator, they'd have thought I'd been losing my temper, and wouldn't have trusted me anymore.

  They'd been gone three minutes. I was sitting with my legs crossed and my left hand on my right thigh with the fingers spread out so that I could look down at my watch and check the time without moving. Three minutes was too long. One minute was too long, because we had two deadlines running: at any time at all, Captain Rusakov's patience could break and he could come storming into the building, or his sister could talk under interrogation and give the lie to everything I'd been telling these people, and in either case my fragile thread would finally snap, finito.

  Four minutes, and the sweat came springing, itching on the scalp.

  'You do much quilting, Sarge?'

  'Keep your mouth shut.'

  'Yes, Sarge.'

  Five. Five minutes.

  There was only one real chance of pulling this thing off and I started running it through my mind, over and over, to keep the nerves under control: they were crying out for action and in the quiet confines of this bloody cell there was the itch in me to provoke this sergeant and melt him down and that was dangerous.

  The only chance of pulling this thing off lay in the fact that I'd given Colonel Belyak and Chief Investigator Gromov an offer they'd find difficult to refuse. They'd nothing to lose.

  Six minutes. I could smell the sergeant. Feet, most of it, filthy socks, typical of the breed, they're not the ultra-sensitive among us, these paid professional body-busters, I've known some, I tell you I've known some and I've left stains on their kitchen chairs and all I'm looking for is any excuse to plug this bastard's nervous system into some really high-voltage centre-knuckle techniques and — For Christ's sake watch it or you 'll blow the whole thing.

  Perfectly right.

  Seven minutes.

  They'd nothing to lose. They could let Tanya Rusakova walk out of this building and through those rusting iron gates and across the square and they could get her back in five minutes, deploy patrols and cover the environment: they'd be quite sure of that, wrong but sure, unworried. And they could escort me to the place where I would direct them and surround it with half a regiment of armed militia before they let me in there,
nothing to lose, they could pull me out again and slam me back into the patrol car or shoot me down if I resisted, whatever they chose to do, nothing to lose.

  If they agreed to the deal at all, that would be their reason.

  Eight minutes, and the sweat reached my chin and I brushed it off and the sergeant caught the movement and I saw him tense, the scarred leather-skinned hands lifting a fraction and the fingers forming claws ready to grab me and send me spinning backwards on the chair, you try that, you stinking bastard and I 'll — steady, for the sake of God, you'll blow Meridian.

  I want her out of here, that's all. She's had enough.

  Nine. Nine minutes.

  Are you in love with this woman?

  No.

  She's remarkably attractive.

  Yes indeed, that is indeed so, you look into those green and shimmering eyes and watch the soft and subtle play of that perfect 1 % mouth as she speaks and you're moved, you can't help it, moved as a man, as a male of her species, this is the way it is with Tanya Rusakova.

  But that isn't why I came, why I want her out of this bloody place.

  She's innocent, you said, and she's had enough.

  Well yes, but the main thing is that if they keep her locked up here long enough that gallant brother of hers is going to bare his breast for the bullet and I'll lose the only key I've got left for Meridian.

  So you'd have come here, then, for anyone? A man? You'd have risked all this for anyone?

  Keep your bloody questions to yourself.

  Touchy, aren't we?

  Shuddup.

  Ten. Ten minutes.

  Voices outside the cell. No louder, no nearer, just voices.

  I could hear the sergeant's breathing, smell his breath, the taint of tobacco on his breath. He was standing with his arms hanging like an ape's and his feet astride, something on his boot, on his left boot, something he'd spilled, he'd been slopping soup around or this was perhaps vomit, another man's, a man in a stained kitchen chair, or it was something else, you couldn't hope to tell what sordid business had soiled this uniformed whoreson's boot.

  You stink, you know that, you stink like a pig -

  Steady, lad, steady.

  Yes I know. I know.

  'That's a nice cologne you use, Sarge, is it violets or — '

  'Shut your fucking mouth.'

  'Sorry, Sarge.'

  Then the voices outside stopped and the door opened and they came in, Colonel Belyak and Chief Investigator Gromov, and looked down at me.

  Chapter 16: DOG-PACK

  We were set out like men on a chessboard in front of Militia Headquarters, our shadows slanting across the wet concrete from the big wrought-iron lamps over the gates, Gromov and two aides standing beside one of the patrol jeeps, Belyak positioned near a prisoner transport van drawn up at the front of the building. Its engine had been running but now it had been switched off, and it was quiet here in the forecourt, with only the drumming of a snow-plough in the far distance. It was very cold.

  An icicle dropped from the eaves, flashing in the light and then hitting the ground with the music of breaking glass. A voice sounded over the radio of one of the patrol cars standing outside the railings, and a militiaman answered, and the night was quiet again. But there was the sweet-and-sour smell of carbon monoxide on the air: there was an engine running somewhere, perhaps on the other side of the building. That was to be expected.

  Chief Investigator Gromov rolled his shoulders inside his greatcoat again, as I'd seen him do before. I suppose the coat was a bad fit, or he was just trying to keep warm. He would have been awake for most of last night, supervising the city wide manhunt for Viktor Shokin, and would be tired now.

  The three-quarter moon clung to the heights of the southern sky, bone-white and mottled, its light casting prismatic colours across the snow-covered roofs. A horned owl was calling from the bare trees of the park, with the note of a bamboo flute.

  She came out of the building, Tanya Rusakova, walking alone, not looking around her yet, taking care with the steps, her boots grating on the sand that had been thrown down over the hard-packed snow. Then she reached the bottom and walked a little way into the courtyard, looking around her now, confused, her face drawn and her eyes wary; then she saw me and came on again, and I took a few steps to meet her. This was what I had asked for, that she should have no escort out of the building and that I should be the only one to speak to her.

  Her eyes had surprise in them now; the last time she'd seen me was in the safe-house, and she couldn't understand why I was still apparently a free man, surrounded by uniforms but at a distance.

  'Why are they letting me go?' Her breath clouded on the lamplit air.

  I asked her quietly, 'What did you tell them?'

  She tensed, remembering the past hours, I suppose. 'Nothing about you, or my brother.'

  She's very obstinate, her brother had said. Perhaps it was that.

  'Walk through those gates,' I told her,' and into the park. A man will meet you there and look after you. He'll tell you his name is Georgi. Do everything he says. The militia will try to bring you back, so be careful this time.'

  I stood drowning for a moment in the shimmering green as she went on watching me, still confused. 'You are not coming too?'

  'No. Remember what I said, Tanya, and be careful.' I turned and walked a little way towards the building and then turned again and watched her going through the big iron gates. She looked back once, her face pale in the wash of the two big lamps, then walked on again across the churned snow of the roadway and into the trees of the park.

  Somewhere on the other side of the building I could hear a vehicle of some sort moving off through the gears; it was probably the one that had been sending the smell of carbon monoxide across the courtyard.

  'Colonel Belyak. Get that vehicle stopped.'

  He swung a look at me but did nothing.

  'Stop that patrol car or the deal is off, you understand?'

  He left the black stones of his eyes on me for a little while and then made a quick gesture to the driver of the prisoner transport van, and we heard the squelch of his transmitter. Belyak turned, pacing away with his head down, hands behind him, pacing back. In the distance I heard the patrol car halt and the sound of its engine die away. I didn't believe Belyak could have ordered something so crude; we'd made a deal purportedly among gentlemen, the only kind that would work. Perhaps some minion had thought of trying it on, and Belyak had done nothing to stop him, seeing it as a test for me, to find out how much confidence I had, how I'd respond to the challenge.

  'Colonel Belyak. Did you give the orders for that?'

  He stopped pacing and looked up at me from under his big round cap, said nothing for a moment and then, 'Let's get on. We're wasting time.'

  I looked at my watch. 'Ten minutes, remember? That was all I asked for and you agreed.'

  He moved away from me impatiently, crunching across the snow to talk to Chief Investigator Gromov. No one else moved and there was no more sound of engines or anything else, no sound of a shot.

  One of the uniformed militiamen was stamping his feet, over by the black iron railings. He was nursing an assault rifle: they all were, slung low and at the ready. A dozen of them were positioned outside the gates, all of them facing the courtyard, facing the prisoner, Viktor Shokin.

  The night was quiet still except for the snow-plough in the distance. Six minutes had passed and there was still no sound of a shot. That was what I was waiting for, hoping against.

  Seven minutes and the radio in one of the patrol vehicles opened up and I went across there straightaway to listen through the driver's open window.

  49 to base, this is 49.

  Come in.

  I'm stuck on the ice at St Petersburg ulica and Boronov Prospekt.

  Base told him they were sending help and the call was shut down. It hadn't been anything to do with this driver here; the radio was on open network. I'd checked the call as a routine, an
d it was all I could do. If Colonel Belyak or Chief Investigator Gromov had set up a multi-vehicle tracking operation on the little park to keep Tanya Rusakova monitored, there'd be no signals on the air: they would have ordered radio silence.

  Nine minutes and another big icicle came away from the eaves of the building, lancing through the lamplight and splintering against the bottom step. It had touched the nerves a little because if the sound of a shot came from across the park it would be a signal that the support man couldn't get Tanya as far as the first car, couldn't get her clear, and if that happened there'd be no further options. If these people weren't prepared to let the woman prisoner go free in exchange for what I could do for them I couldn't force the issue.

  I heard the horned owl call again from the trees, the ushastaya sova, its notes soft and echoeless; the snow-plough had stopped working over there in the distance, and the winter silence grew vast across the city.

  There had been no shot.

  Colonel Belyak turned to face me.

  'Ten minutes — are you satisfied?'

  'Stop,' I told the militiaman at the wheel.

  The safe-house was two blocks from here, eastwards towards the river.

  Belyak spoke to the driver from beside me on the rear seat.

  'Give the signal for deployment.'

  The man opened up his radio.

  I'd counted seven unmarked patrol cars on the way here from Militia Headquarters, some of them tailing us and the others keeping abreast along streets running parallel to our route. I hadn't given directions when we'd started out: this too had been finally agreed. Belyak had raised objections at first but I'd waited for him to sweat it out because the situation was quite clear: if I'd given him the location of the safe-house he could have left Tanya in her cell and put me back into mine and sent in a platoon and evacuated the building and taken it by storm.

  'It's the concrete block of apartments straight ahead of us,' I told him, 'two blocks down.'