Run for Home

by Dan Latus

  ‘Go? Go where, for God’s sake!’

  Frostbite was a real danger. His face felt cracked. His ears and fingers were numb.

  ‘Harry!’ She pulled at his arm.

  ‘We’ll have to break in,’ he shouted.

  ‘No! We can’t. We must go somewhere else. Come!’

  He took his finger off the button and reluctantly turned around. Lenka was already moving away. Even more reluctantly, he followed her.

  They ploughed across what once must have been a wide road, but was now a wasteland. They made their way up a narrow lane, heading into the bitterly icy wind and the driving snow, going he had no idea where. He just followed Lenka, who was forging on, head down. He hoped to God she knew what she was doing – and where she was going.

  They came to a rock wall at the end of the lane. He stared at it despairingly. They were out of the wind here, but they needed more than that small comfort.

  Lenka foraged with a bare hand in a recess in the wall for a few moments. Then she moved sideways and worked at something else. When she took hold with both hands and began to pull, he joined her. It was, he realized with growing interest, some kind of door. Once started, it moved fairly easily, opening to expose a dark interior.

  Lenka stepped inside and a moment later, a low-intensity light came on. She had found a switch. Now she pulled him in after her. He turned to help her close the door, which was heavy and appeared to be made of thick steel plate. It shut with a loud clunk. The noise of the blizzard ceased instantly.

  Harry stood still for a moment, catching his breath. Then he straightened up.

  ‘Is this place what I assume it is?’ he asked, wiping away snow-melt from his face.

  ‘Probably.’

  Lenka turned to a panel on the wall and began pressing switches. A generator started up. More lights came on. He could see then that they were in a long passage, with doors on both sides at regular intervals.

  ‘A nuclear shelter?’ he said wonderingly.

  ‘Yes. One my department keeps for its own use.’

  He shook his head, gazing around and marvelling at the scale of the work that had been accomplished here. But he knew the facility wasn’t exceptional. Such places were all over Prague, or had been during the Cold War years, enough to provide shelter in an emergency for hundreds of thousands of people. Not the entire population of the city, perhaps, but a very large part of it.

  ‘That’s better!’ Lenka turned and gave him a crooked smile. ‘Not five-star, exactly, but. …’

  ‘But out of the wind and the snow. That’s more than enough.’

  She grinned. ‘Come on. Let’s get sorted out.’

  She led the way into one of the rooms off the main corridor. The accommodation was pretty basic, but just what refugees like them needed. Bare concrete floors perhaps, but bunk beds and stacks of quilts and blankets. Shelves holding canned food and containers of water. Waste receptacles and cooking stoves, and a couple of portaloos.

  Everything they needed, he thought, looking round with amazement. It was wonderful. Perfect.

  ‘It even feels warm,’ he said, surprised. ‘Or is it just me? I would have expected a place like this to be cold and damp.’

  ‘No. It is dry here. And caves have a constant temperature that in winter is higher than the temperature outdoors. Also, these shelters have pressure control systems to keep out poison gas and fumes. Normally they’re switched off, but we keep this one going. Don’t ask me why!’

  He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m just so pleased you knew this place existed.’

  ‘Oh, we all know that – where to go in an emergency.’

  He opened his coat and began to peel it off. ‘I’m warming up already.’

  ‘My feet aren’t,’ Lenka complained. ‘Nor my hands.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  She held out her hands. He studied them and gently pressed them to stir the blood circulation.

  ‘They’re just cold,’ he said. ‘It’s not frostbite. What about your feet?’

  ‘Just cold, too,’ she said dismissively. ‘We weren’t out long enough to have serious problems. Now, are you hungry?’

  He shook his head. ‘Something to drink, though? Water, perhaps.’

  ‘Hot coffee?’

  ‘Now you’re talking!’

  Lenka began fiddling with a small camping stove. He sat on a bottom bunk bed and took off his shoes. His feet were wet and cold. He dried them with a towel and massaged them. Then he stuffed his shoes with paper he found amongst the kitchen supplies.

  ‘We should do the same with yours,’ he advised when Lenka looked to see what he was doing. ‘They’ll dry faster.’

  Lenka chuckled. ‘My shoes need radiators in them!’

  But she slipped her shoes off and handed them over. He dealt with them, then he took the steaming mug of coffee she handed him, and made way for her to join him on the bunk bed.

  ‘What are you thinking now?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘About tomorrow.’ He sipped the coffee. ‘I’m wondering how it will go. There are no handover arrangements specified in the letter. Just the instruction to meet outside the church.’

  ‘What does that tell you?’

  ‘It’s not good.’ He grimaced. ‘Either they are total amateurs or else a handover isn’t really intended.’

  ‘They will try to kill you,’ Lenka said bleakly, ‘like the others.’

  He nodded. He was under no illusions. ‘Lisa, too, probably.’

  Lenka said nothing to that. There was nothing easy that could be said.

  He glanced at his watch. 2.30 now. Plenty of time to look for a solution. Time to get some sleep, even.

  ‘It’s no good asking for support,’ Lenka said thoughtfully. ‘If they see you are not alone, or if they suspect a trap, they will not appear. It must be us alone, I think. Just you and I.’

  He nodded. She was right.

  ‘They can drive in, can’t they?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. From near the metro station. Through the big archway, the main entrance.’

  On top of the hill, he thought, on top of the hill they were at the bottom of right now. That’s where the church was. And the medieval battlements.

  He knew that Vyšehrad was, or had been in earlier times, a fortified hill, as well as a sacred site. It had been occupied for a thousand years or more, and sometimes preferred by the kings of Bohemia to Hradčany and the more modern castle complex that had become the centre of government. Folklore even had it that Vyšehrad was the original Slav settlement in these lands.

  Generations of fortifications had been built, destroyed, and rebuilt over the centuries. The massive walls now dated mostly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Baroque era, as did the church and the cemetery on top of the hill. So too, did the labyrinth of tunnels that had once serviced the great guns and allowed defenders to move about more easily and safely.

  ‘Is this part of the ancient tunnel system?’ he asked, glancing up at the vaulted ceiling.

  Lenka shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘Who can tell?’

  ‘Does it connect with other tunnels?’

  ‘Not that I know of. But I don’t think so. This shelter is supposed to be sealed and self-contained.’

  He nodded. That sounded about right. A self-contained complex in the heart of an ancient fortified hill. They should be safe enough here for the night.

  ‘I’m going to have to turn up for the meeting tomorrow,’ he said slowly, thinking it through. ‘Otherwise they won’t bring Lisa.’

  ‘They may not bring her anyway, Harry.’

  He knew that. But he had no alternative. None at all. He didn’t even know who the ‘they’ were who were holding his daughter. Everything remained guesswork.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The blizzard passed on overnight, although they didn’t know that until they opened the shelter door the next morning and found the sun shining out of a vivid blue sky. It was very
cold still, but the snow had stopped. Ploughs were busy on the street below and traffic was beginning to move again.

  ‘I’d better see if I can rescue my car,’ Lenka said.

  Harry nodded. ‘I want to recce the hill. Let’s meet back at the Barbican at twelve.’

  Vyšehrad was a big hill covering a wide area, but there was only one way into it by road. He made his way up the wooded hillside to that entrance, a big, arched, stone gateway through the historic wall. He walked through the archway and on past several rather grand ancient buildings. One was in use as some sort of school for handicapped youngsters.

  He kept going, past the historic cemetery where so many famous Czech artists and writers were buried, and on to the wide-open space around the church of St Peter and St Paul. A well-tended lawn in summer, now it was an arctic scene deep in snow.

  He spent a few minutes trudging with difficulty round the ramparts on the perimeter of the hill top, a stone walkway that gave spectacular views over the Vltava and much of the city.

  Frequently, he glanced back at the entrance to the church, where he was supposed to meet Lisa’s abductors. If he stood there waiting, no one would be able to approach him unseen. On the other hand, a very ordinary sort of shot would be able to pick him off from any number of vantage points around the walls. It wouldn’t take a sniper to do it.

  He grimaced and looked around. The chances were, there would be no witnesses either. There wouldn’t be many visitors up here on a day like this, especially in the fading light of late afternoon, with quite possibly more snow on the way and the temperature way below freezing. He would be as exposed, and as safe, as a target in a shooting gallery.

  A glance up at the lowering sky strengthened his expectation of more snow soon. Whether or not it would be a return of blizzard conditions, clouds were moving in already. He shivered. New snow didn’t feel far away at all.

  He studied the open area in front of the church for a few more minutes, seeing nothing to change his mind or to reduce his forebodings. They – whoever ‘they’ were – were unlikely to be interested in any sort of exchange. Not really. They simply wanted him dead. Lisa would be collateral damage, a bait that had drawn him into the open when they couldn’t catch him by other means. Leaving her alive afterwards would be seen as a pointless risk.

  There wasn’t much more he could do here, either now or in – he glanced at his watch – six hours’ time. He turned to retrace his footsteps, back to the main entrance to Vyšehrad.

  One good thing he had discovered was that there was no reason for the meeting not to go ahead as scheduled. The road up the hill to the entrance was negotiable, despite the snow. Already, a delivery van had made it to the school for handicapped children. It stood there now, steaming in the ferocious cold.

  He made his way down the hill and met Lenka at the hotel. She had managed to rescue her car without too much difficulty. There had even been time for her to buy them both some winter boots and woolly socks. In the hotel coffee lounge, with no one near, Harry surreptitiously changed his footwear.

  ‘Perfect!’ he announced with a grateful smile. ‘Another couple of days and my feet might be warm and dry again.’

  ‘You English!’ Lenka said scornfully. ‘You have no idea how to survive a Czech winter.’

  ‘What do you mean! I just wasn’t ready for it. It’s scarcely even November.’

  Lenka was unimpressed. ‘In this country,’ she said solemnly, ‘one must be prepared – for anything.’

  He grinned and sipped his coffee.

  ‘You haven’t changed much,’ he said. ‘You always were a good teacher. Especially in the early days, when I knew nothing about this country.’

  She smiled. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it? Those days after the Velvet Revolution, when your people came to help us, and we helped you. They were so … so exciting! There’s no other word for it. The Red Army and the Communists gone, we had our country back.’

  He nodded and smiled back at her. Yes, indeed, he reflected. Fun and exciting. Even more so as he got to know Lenka’s colleague, Marika.

  ‘Great days,’ he said with a nostalgic sigh. ‘Great times.’

  For a few quiet moments, just a few, it was good to remember them.

  They stayed in the hotel to eat a quick lunch and make their plans for the afternoon. Lenka listened carefully to what he had in mind and made one or two suggestions herself. Then she departed to collect a couple of essential items, leaving him to get through the next couple of hours as best he could.

  He ordered another coffee and turned to the newspapers in the hotel lounge. Whatever their nationality and language, they all led on gas supply problems. The arctic weather that had been forecast to reach across Europe, and that had now arrived in Prague, had made the story inevitable. People everywhere were struggling to stay warm and to keep things moving.

  Russian gas was having trouble getting through again, he read, one reason being the recurrence of the argument between Russia and Ukraine over transit prices. Ukraine was declining to pay the world price for Russian gas. So Russia was warning once again that gas supplies to Ukraine would be cut, and Ukraine was responding that it would take the gas it needed from the pipeline traversing its territory. It was not a new story. Not a new situation either. Until other conduits for Russian gas exports were open, it was a story that would not go away.

  He shook his head wearily. The last time this problem had erupted, people had died in Romania, Slovakia and elsewhere. It was no fun being downline from a main source of energy when cold weather was coming and the big boys who controlled the supply were arguing with each other.

  He put aside the Czech news-sheets and turned to a couple of the English-language American papers. He skimmed through the leaders without much interest. Then he spotted a story on the inside of the Christian Science Monitor that made him sit up straight. He read it through quickly, and paused for thought. Then he went back and read it again, more carefully this time, all the while making links and connections.

  The country at the tail end of the pipeline from Russia was, of course, the UK. The European country with the smallest storage facilities for gas was also the UK. The country with the smallest reserves. …

  The UK had five-days’ supply of gas in store. The coldest weather for a long time was forecast. Conclusion: the UK was very vulnerable. In fact, it was teetering on the edge of disaster. There was a very real danger that the lights would go out soon in hospitals as well as homes, in factories as well as the City of London.

  He laid the paper aside and wondered if this was the answer he had been seeking. Was this what the UK wanted very badly from Russia: an assured gas supply?

  Was this what the intense discussions in Prague, involving even the Secret Service, were about right now? Was it possible that this was the explanation at last of why Unit 89 had been wiped off the board? The quid pro quo?

  You want more gas? Well, we can certainly give you that. But first, you must eliminate your Russian counter-espionage team in Central Europe. OK?

  He could imagine the answer wouldn’t have been very long in coming, and that it would have been reluctant acquiescence. Too much was at stake for it to have been otherwise. It wouldn’t be the only concession, of course; the unit wasn’t that important. But it could be part of a package the Russians were demanding in return for boosting their gas exports to the UK.

  The more he thought about it, the more he believed this might well be the key he had been seeking to recent events. Cally had even tried to flag it up for him by circling the headline in his paper about Siberian gas. Unit 89? What were half a dozen lives when weighed against the numbers that would die, and the chaos that would follow, if the UK’s energy supply system was found wanting in the teeth of a blizzard?

  It all made sense, and it was almost a relief to have stumbled upon the probable explanation for the terrible things that had been happening.

  Lenka returned mid-afternoon. They left together then, to drive up t
he hill to the meeting venue. They parked the car just outside the main entrance to Vyšehrad and made their way on foot through the archway.

  ‘What do you think?’ Harry asked after a quick survey of the area immediately beyond the entrance.

  Lenka looked round and shrugged. ‘We will see.’

  ‘Happy to take part?’

  ‘Of course.’ She gave him a stern look. ‘You didn’t think any differently, did you?’

  He shook his head and gave her a hug.

  The plan was simple, the preparations needed few. From his position, he could scarcely detect the stinger beneath its dusting of snow. He was sure no driver of an oncoming vehicle would see anything there at all.

  Lenka had positioned her car near the entrance to the archway, and was prepared to simulate a stalled vehicle. Any approaching vehicle would have to wait for her to manoeuvre her car out of the way, and that would give him time to remove the stinger if the vehicle was not the one they were anticipating. At this time of day, in these conditions, he didn’t really expect that to be necessary.

  So he would confront them here, before they had even got into the Vyšehrad citadel. It was a better option than the one he had been given.

  It was an anxious wait. He tried not to think about Lisa. This was all about her but he couldn’t afford to dwell on thoughts of her. He wanted no distractions, nothing to mar his judgement and cloud his perceptions. He needed to be cool and able to act decisively when the time came; survival for them both was at stake.

  Twenty minutes later, he heard Lenka working the starter motor hard. It meant they were here. She would have beeped the horn if it hadn’t been them.

  The Skoda’s engine fired and caught eventually. It revved hard as she clumsily manoeuvred the car out of the way.

  Any second now! He pulled the Glock pistol clear of his jacket, glanced at it and braced himself.