by Adam Hall
The Zil was shaping to overtake, its dark mass filling the mirror. Its horns were still blaring and its headlights blinding and I had to use my left hand as a shield against the window glass while I kept on slowing and watched the shadow of my own car on the road ahead of me: if the Zil pulled to the left or right I’d see the angle change. When it stopped hooting I could hear the sirens again, their howl loudening as they neared the area. I hit the tit.
I’ve still got the Zil behind me and I’m blocking it. We’re approaching Razina ulica. Several sirens going, they’ve been getting nearer.
The Zil began using its horns again and I saw the angle of the Pobeda’s shadow change, shifting to the left as the limousine started pulling out to the right lane in another attempt to get past. I pulled out too, blocking him again and bringing the speed down to less than forty kph. We were past the bus now but there were two taxis and a truck ahead of us on the far side of Razina ulica, the major street that ran at right angles across our path. At this point I was moving into a situation that looked strictly shut-ended: if I kept on across Razina the Zil would turn left and head directly for the Kremlin; but if I turned left on to Razina it would keep straighten and use the left turn at Kujbyseva and reach the Kremlin that way.
Whichever I did, the Zil could peel off and get dear.
Morosov was an experienced driver and would know every minor turning if I tried to cut him off. The Zil could go through every light and the instant its image was seen by the guards at Spassky Gate they would change the signals to green and let him through. So I would have to stop him in the next thirty seconds and I’d have to do it without making him crash because there was enough explosive on board to wreck half the block.
Location Solanka and Razina intersection. I’m going to try stopping the Zil.
Its massive shape was right behind me with its horns strident and its lights dazzling as I made three rapid feints to the left, right and left as we reached the intersection. Morosov reacted instantly, swerving to the right, left and right to overtake, and as he swung to the right for the last time I gunned up and went for him, nosing across his front end and forcing him to slow and then throttling into a rear-wheel slide and coming back across him and feeling the Pobeda tilt suddenly as the weight of the limousine made oblique contact. The horns had stopped now because he was having to use both hands on the wheel, and I heard the sirens again.
There was sand on the surface here but the snow had packed into ice underneath it and for a moment I lost the Pobeda as it reacted to the impact and swung full circle and hit the kerb and came off again still swinging; but I was still on the right side of the limousine and got enough traction back to nose across its path and this time Morosov braked too hard and started sliding, the black polished bodywork veering across my windscreen as it corrected and slid again with its huge momentum taking it in a series of swings that sent it glancing against the Pobeda three times before it lost the surface and swung full circle, its speed gone and its rear wheels spinning as Morosov tried to find traction and failed.
The Pobeda was down to crawling speed and I hit the door open and got out and began running, pitching down once on the gritty ice before I got to the Zil and wrenched at the driver’s door. The sirens were coming in and a dazzle of light flooded the street as the heavy door swung open and Morosov brought a revolver into the aim and began firing too late and too high: the explosions hammered against my eardrums as I used my right hand in a rising fork strike and got the gun clear and hooked him off balance on to the roadway. He tried to get up and I chopped twice and dropped him and climbed into the Zil. The engine was still running and I slammed the door and found the throttle and teased the rear wheels into motion as a black patrol car came in from Solanka with its siren going.
The Zil was on the move but the surface was tricky and I had to keep tapping the throttle to use the power of the huge engine to take me in a series of swings before I could straighten up and give it the gun. I’d rammed the radio into the pocket of my coat when I’d abandoned the Pobeda but there wasn’t time to use it as the limousine got up speed and I swung left at the first intersection and brought the power on and settled down. The minor grew bright but I’d got a hundred-yard lead and swung left again to work my way back to the ring road and away from the Kremlin.
Time check: 6.07.
I began thinking about Schrenk. He couldn’t be far away.
I tugged the radio out of my pocket and hit the button.
A-Able to C-Charlie… Location approaching Solanka fork road from south. I am now on board the Zil. Has anyone seen Schrenk? Has anyone seen Schrenk?
The lights were still in the mirror but there was no siren Calling A-Able. You have three of us in your immediate area. Anyone identifying Schrenk report immediately.
I watched the mirror. The car behind me wasn’t trying to close up. It was probably D-Donald or E-Edward but it could be Schrenk.
Who is behind me? Who is behind me?
Schrenk had planned to radio-detonate the charge and the only way he could do that was to join the Zil on its way in to the Kremlin and then peel off and circle the area and wait for the Zil to come back through Spassky Gate. But Schrenk was a man to cover his risks and he would have done that.
D-Donald calling… I’m following the Zil.
I acknowledged and turned right and headed for the boulevard ring. Sirens were loudening from the left and a flood of light came into the limousine as I crossed the intersection.
Schrenk would have covered his risks and made sure the Zil would blow, even if something stopped him doing it by radio beam. I knew that. I knew him well The ruts of the snow were sending the big front wheels too far to the nearside and I brought them out and felt the rear end go and had to throttle up and break the ruts to get any bite from the treads; my speed was a rising sixty kph and there were two vehicles ahead of me in the nearside lane. A patrol car came in from the left and its lights filled the interior again; its siren was wailing and I throttled up to clear it as the driver tried to cross my bows near the Solanka fork road.
There was no time to think but I’d have to. Schrenk would have covered his risks and the only way to be quite sure the Zil would blow would be to time the charge. And he would have timed it for five or ten minutes after six o’clock, when the Soviet chief of state would be on board.
Time check: 6.08.
The sweat broke out on me and I had the urge to slide the limousine into the kerb and get out and run for my life but I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t certain of the facts and if I abandoned the Zil and it didn’t blow, it would remain an appalling danger on the open streets of the city.
I would have to blow it myself.
Calling D-Donald … D-Donald … The Zil could explode by timer at any minute. Keep your distance.
My scalp was shrinking and my palms were wet on the wheel I’d have to blow it myself and that meant crashing it and I was trying to remember where I’d passed the construction site on the way from the ring road.
D-Donald acknowledging.
C-Charlie calling all stations. Keep your distance from the Zil.
I’d passed the big construction site not far from the boulevard ring, after turning on to Obucha ulica and heading west. I made for there now.
The night was full of sirens wailing as other police patrols began focusing on the area. I saw two cars going fast across the inner boulevard ring and a third in a controlled slide coming from the south and turning in my direction. It was past me before the driver recognized the image of the Zil behind my headlights and the note of the siren died away behind me.
Two cars now in my mirror: D-Donald and a smaller Moskvich, possibly Schrenk. He would have been looking out for the Zil and once he’d seen it he’d track it by cutting through some of the minor streets and my scalp contracted again because he’d come out of Lubyanka half crazed and if he realized I’d taken over this thing from Morosov he might use his radio beam to detonate in a final access of r
age.
I crossed the outer boulevard ring at dose on seventy kph and saw a group of cranes poking into the night sky over to the north. I was going too fast for the intersection but the surface had sand on it and I brought the speed down and swung left at the next side road and straightened up with lights moving into the mirror again and the sirens loudening. The patrols hadn’t got an accurate fix on me yet but it’d be a matter of minutes now before they found me and closed in.
Red lights and I ran them and cut it close and had to lock over to avoid a patrol car storming through on the green but the front wheels of the limousine went into a skid and the offside wing clouted the patrol car and sent it spinning full circle across the intersection with its headlights sweeping the buildings and flashing once across my eyes before I got the Zil straight and saw the construction site coming up through the haze of snow.
Lights came into the mirror again and stayed there, closing on me. I tilted the glass to cut the dazzle.
Who is behind me? Who is behind me?
It wasn’t a police car: the sirens were still some way off.
Who is behind me?
The light continued to flood the interior of me Zil.
All stations, Grader’s voice came. Who is following the Zil?
There was no answer.
Then it could only be Schrenk.
He had picked up the Zil near his planned rendezvous point and lost it and come up on it again and now he was sitting there. Either he was aware that I’d taken over the wheel or he was wondering why Morosov had gone off course away from the Kremlin. I think if he’d thought Morosov was still at the wheel he would have started using his horns by now, signalling the Zil to stop. ‘He wasn’t doing that He wasn’t even flashing his lights.
A-Able calling … ‘I think Schrenk is behind me now. I’m at Obucha going north from the outer boulevard ring and trying to reach the construction site. I’m going to crash the Zil in an attempt to detonate the charge. Keep your distance. Keep your distance.
The lights were still behind me.
Calling C-Charlie … There’s a car on the tail of the Zil and it must be Schrenk. Watch out for him.
I couldn’t increase speed on this surface and the building site was too close now for me to use the side streets in the hope of shaking him off. He was sitting there watching the big shape of the Zil, his gnome’s head on one side and his thin body twisted against the seat, his eyes narrowed in the backwash of the headlight What was in his mind?
Old times…
Sitting there watching me take the dream out of his hands, the grandiose dream of making a statement in the name of the oppressed and in the name of the man they’d taken inside Lubyanka and half destroyed. This is what you have done to me. Now I’ll show you what I can do to you.
He was watching me now with one hand on the wheel and the other on the radio detonator. Old times . 4-. Old times …
What else could he be thinking? There was nothing left for him to do now but turn his rage on me. And nothing I could do to stop him.
Time check: 6.10.
If Schrenk had timed the charge he wouldn’t have left it later than 6.10 because the American Embassy was a ten-minute run from the Kremlin so this was zero and he didn’t even have to squeeze his transmitter: all he had to do was wait. When the Zil blew, he would go too: he was well within range and he knew that. But this would be the way he’d choose.
Nothing I could do.
The black cranes grew against the snow haze and the headlights swept across the rubble this side of the excavation crater as I put the Zil at the truck ramp and gunned up again with the wooden safety rail dead ahead. I waited until the speed rose as the rear wheels got a grip on the rough terrain and then I hit the shift into neutral and pushed the door wide open and dropped and rolled and sensed the weight of the huge car sliding past me towards the crater as I went on rolling with a blaze of .pain burning in the left shoulder and the snow flying up before I hit rubble and crashed to a stop and got up and began running.
I heard the Zil going through the rail and breaking it up as it reached the crater’s edge and tilted over, and for an instant I swung round and saw its headlights filling the hollow as the dark figure of a man began moving across the wasteland from the car that had come in alongside.
Perhaps he thought he could get to the Zil and disarm it in time, because he’d worked hard on this and he didn’t want to see it all come to nothing; or perhaps, like a small boy who couldn’t keep away from fire, he’d come here to watch the tiger. I don’t know, nor will I ever know. He was still moving towards the crater at a hobbling run when the night broke into thunder and in the blinding shock of light I saw him silhouetted for a moment against the fiery curtain of snow, his small shape flung upwards by the blast like a scarecrow in the wind.
I turned and threw myself down and felt the shuddering of the ground under me as the air roared past in a heated wave, tearing at my coat and bringing a hail of debris whining through the night. The steel shrapnel was now moving outwards from the crater, crackling across the facade of the buildings opposite and smashing windows.
Then headlights swung in from the street and a car neared me, its wheels bouncing across the rubble. I got on to my feet and a door came open, and I heard Bracken calling to me to get in.
The End