Danny pulled the box from his pocket with the expression of a small boy producing a copy of Playboy. Michael and Opal pressed forward to get a better look as he flipped it open.
“Is it real?” Opal asked. “Where’s the poison?”
“It’s underneath the stone,” Danny said. “I don’t want to open it.”
“You’ll have to get rid of it,” Opal said firmly.
“How?” Danny asked. “You can’t just drop a ring full of cyanide into the trash. The stuff smells of almonds and looks like salt. First kid who comes along might eat it.”
“And actually,” Michael said thoughtfully, “it might come in handy.”
Opal stared at him, appalled. “You’re not saying we should poison Cobra? What’s the matter with you boys?”
“I don’t think we should poison Cobra,” Michael told her gently. “I’m as shocked as you are. But this is the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, and we don’t know where we’re going to meet up with Cobra. It could be somewhere dangerous, and a poison ring might be useful. As a protection.”
This was a side of Michael Opal had never seen before. “Protection?” she echoed angrily. “So we shouldn’t poison Cobra, but it’s all right if we poison somebody else?”
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t even think that. But having a secret store of poison could prove useful. In extreme circumstances. Just in case. My father is a doctor and he—”
Opal’s anger ratcheted up a notch. “Actually we do know where we can meet up with Cobra—St. Basil’s Cathedral. I had a note from Mr. Stratford; I was just about to tell you.” She glared at Michael. “I suppose you think we should poison a few Russians while they’re praying in church?”
“Actually,” Danny said, “Michael might have a point. I mean, I’m not going to poison Cobra, no matter what. Or anybody else, ever. But if we did get into a tight spot, being tortured or something, poison might get us out of it.” He glanced at Michael for support. “The Nazis used cyanide to kill themselves when they were captured after the war. Mr. Carradine even mentioned that.”
“Kill ourselves?” Opal gasped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Danny seemed to be living in a James Bond movie.
Fuchsia said suddenly, “Why don’t we just flush the poison down the loo? You won’t get kids eating it then.” She looked at Danny. “You can keep the ring as a souvenir.”
After a long moment, Danny said, “But suppose Michael’s right about us being caught and tortured? If we don’t have any—”
“Just shut up, Danny,” Fuchsia interrupted. “You should never have taken the ring in the first place, and I’m really cross that you did.” She turned very deliberately to Opal. “When are we supposed to meet with Cobra?”
“April fifteenth at eleven a.m.”
“That’s tomorrow morning, isn’t it?” said Fuchsia.
Chapter 24
Opal, Red Square, Moscow, 1962
Red Square was gigantic. Some late snow had melted, leaving pools of slush around the edges of the cobble inlay. There were people about, but the place dwarfed them completely, giving the impression that the square itself was virtually empty. There was no traffic at all. Opal assumed motor vehicles were banned, but couldn’t be sure. They had seen almost no cars on any of the streets—moving or parked—during the twenty-five minutes it had taken them to walk here. She wondered briefly if London had been as quiet as this in 1962.
“That must be the Kremlin,” Michael said. He was holding a pocket guide and staring at the high red wall on the western side of the square.
Opal said nothing. She was still annoyed with him about his attitude to Danny’s poison ring and still annoyed that Danny, despite his protestations, had taken it in the first place, even though the poison was now safely flushed into the Moscow sewers. But Michael was probably right: the complex of buildings beyond the wall almost certainly made up the Kremlin. She’d read somewhere that it had been the fortress of the Russian czars at one time. Now it housed Russia’s Communist rulers.
Opal’s gaze slid northward, attracted by the movement of a single uniformed soldier marching slowly, almost mournfully, beside a red and black step-pyramid structure set close to the wall. “Lenin’s tomb,” Michael told her quietly. She gave him a quick glance and a small smile. Now was not the time to draw out their quarrel. They were all on the same mission and only minutes away from meeting Cobra. This was a time to pull together. “That must be St. Basil’s,” she said.
She was now staring at a structure that looked as if it had sprung up out of a fairy tale. Even at this distance, it presented itself as an almost overwhelming array of swirling colors and red-brick towers. She counted six onion-shaped domes, but suspected there were more hidden to the rear of the building. The domed towers clustered around an enormous central spire. Michael flicked a page of his guide. “Yes, it is.”
“Come on, gang!” Opal yelled. “That’s where Cobra’s waiting for us!” All four of them began to move across the vast square toward the cathedral.
There were far more people about as they approached the building, although it didn’t seem to be functioning as an open church. Whole portions of the façade—including what seemed to be the main entrance—were crisscrossed by scaffolding. Teams of workmen were swarming over them like bees.
“I think they’re reroofing,” Danny said. He squinted upward. “Copper sheeting, by the look of it.”
“No sign of Cobra,” Michael said hesitantly, peering through the scaffolding into what he could see of the gloomy entrance.
Opal glanced at her wrist, then remembered Mr. Stratford had confiscated their watches as what he called ‘anachronistic artifacts’—items that had obviously no right to exist in 1962. “I think we’re a little early,” she said anyway.
“Might be another entrance,” Danny said. “Why don’t you keep an eye on this one, and I’ll scout around and see if there are any others. I’ll come back and get you if I spot him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Fuchsia offered.
“I think maybe we should stick . . . together. . . .” Opal let the sentence trail: the two of them had already moved off and were walking briskly around the side of the cathedral. And in truth they were probably right: there were bound to be other entrances to the building and while this looked like the main one, the scaffolding made it difficult to tell for sure. Best to cover all options. Cobra might not wait too long if they failed to make contact in time, and their mission was far too important to allow for stupid mistakes.
“It’s eleven o’clock. He should be here now,” Michael said.
“How do you know the time?”
Michael slid back his sleeve to show a cheap windup wristwatch of obvious Soviet manufacture.
“Where did you get that?” Opal asked curiously.
“I borrowed it from Harold last night. I thought we would need to be able to tell the time.” He caught her expression and added, “Harold Henderson from the embassy. The man who brought us from the airport.”
Opal scanned the cathedral entrance again, but apart from the workmen, there seemed to be no one about. She began to feel faintly uneasy.
“What happens if he doesn’t turn up?” Michael asked, putting her own fears into words.
“I don’t know,” Opal said. “I suppose we try to get in touch with Mr. Stratford and see if he can set up another meeting.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Michael told her. “I’m not sure I like this country. The less time we have to spend in it, the better.”
A workman in paint-splattered overalls stepped off the scaffolding, carrying a bucket. He stood for a moment by the entrance as if catching his breath from the climb. Opal’s eyes slid over him, then snapped back suddenly. “That’s him!” she hissed to Michael.
Michael looked confused. “Where?”
“By the entrance—just where he agreed. That workman with the bucket. It’s Cobra. I’m sure of it.”
“Did y
ou bring the photograph?” Michael whispered. He began to dig in his pocket for his own copy.
Opal slipped the photo from her pocket and glanced at it discreetly. Michael looked at his just as cautiously, then stared back at the workman. “You’re right. What do we do now?” He slipped his picture back into his pocket.
“We make contact as arranged—what do you think we do?”
Michael was frowning. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”
“No,” Opal told him urgently. “They could be another fifteen minutes. They might even decide to stay at some other entrance. We can’t tell how long Cobra is going to wait—he’s undercover here, don’t forget, and Mr. Stratford won’t have told him who we are, so he must be nervous. We have to make contact now. The others can catch up. Besides, we don’t need them. How many people does it take to tell him what will happen to his germ warfare samples? Come on!”
Cobra glanced suspiciously in their direction as they approached, and set the bucket down. A small clump of sightseers, all speaking Russian, got between them. Opal pushed through to discover Cobra had moved away from the scaffolding and was standing in shadow between the two small entrance pillars. Michael was separated from her now but would catch up. The important thing was to reach Cobra as quickly as possible.
He looked startled as she stepped into the entrance. “I’m Opal Harrington,” she said softly. “Mr. Stratford contacted—” She remembered and changed it to, “Kitay-gorod.” He looked at her blankly, and she wondered if she was pronouncing the Russian correctly. She suddenly wished she’d checked with somebody. It was the name of a railway station or something, Mr. Stratford had said in his note. She could have asked someone at random in the street, discovered quickly enough whether they understood her. But too late now. “Kitay-gorod,” she repeated.
Michael caught up and stood behind her. “Kitay-gorod,” he said, in what sounded to her a much more convincing accent.
“Kto ty, chert voz’mi?”
Opal glanced behind her. None of the sightseers was in earshot, but she dropped her voice to a whisper, just in case. “We don’t speak Russian. But it’s okay to use English—we’re the ones you’re waiting for. From Mr. Stratford. I know he probably told you there were four of us, but the others have gone to look for you in case you were waiting at a different entrance.”
“Do you want to go somewhere less public?” Michael put in anxiously.
Cobra was glaring at them furiously. “Chto vy hotite, tovarishchi?” he called out loudly. Then hissed, “Keep away from me!”
“What’s the matter?” Michael asked in a bewildered voice.
Something was wrong. Cobra was actually looking frightened. Or maybe just excited. “Michael—” Opal began.
There were running footsteps behind them. “Prebyvanie gde vy nahodites’!” a rough voice called. “Stȏ ili budu strelyat’!”
She spun round. Three thick-set men in wide-brimmed hats and identical gray raincoats were shouldering their way through the sightseers, who were scattering fearfully as birds.
“Run!” Michael gasped, and caught her by the arm.
But it was too late to run, too late to do anything. The men were upon them. Two of them seized Michael; the third grabbed Opal. She tried to jerk free, kicked out, and caught him soundly on the ankle. The man grunted, but did not release his grasp.
“Let go of us at once!” Opal shouted, no longer concerned who might hear. “We’re from the American embassy!”
One of the men holding Michael actually laughed. “Priznaniya uzhe!” he called delightedly to his companions.
Then they were manhandling her away from the cathedral, across a stretch of cobbles that was now suddenly empty of people, and into the rear seat of a black Volga sedan. From the corner of her eye, she saw Cobra slide away into the shadows beneath the scaffolding. As one of the men climbed into the seat beside her, an errant thought occurred: cars seemed to be allowed in Red Square after all.
Chapter 25
Danny and Fuchsia, Red Square, 1962
She appeared to have forgiven him for the business about the poison, for she’d taken his hand now so that they walked together like . . . friends? Boyfriend and girlfriend? He still couldn’t decide how he felt about Fuchsia. In many ways she was as nutty as a fruitcake. But then, so was he. And he’d never met a girl before who made him smile so much, made him feel so comfortable. She managed to take everything in her stride.
Like right now, for example. Danny was still having trouble adjusting to the sheer fantasy of his situation. What had happened to him felt like science fiction rolled up in a superhero comic. He’d joined a top secret project, learned to leave his body, traveled in time, and was on a mission—literally—to save the world. (No pressure there, then.) Fuchsia, who was displaying even wilder talents, was with him, but did she seem worried, did she seem concerned? She was walking on Red Square in Soviet Moscow during a terrifying era that had ended before she was born, and all she could say was . . .
“I’d love to see the inside of St. Vasily’s,” Fuchsia said. “That’s what the Russians call St. Basil’s, you know.”
“How do you know that?”
“I probably read it somewhere. Either that or some-body told me. I’ve always retained odd bits of information. What do you think?”
“What do I think about what?” Danny asked.
“Going inside. I think we’re allowed. At least the doors are open. I’ll bet it’s gorgeous inside.”
They had passed two doors into the cathedral since they left Opal and Michael. Both had indeed seemed open, and Cobra was standing at neither. “It probably is,” he told her, “but I think we should concentrate on what we’re here for—finding Cobra.”
“Yes, all right,” Fuchsia said. Which was another thing he liked about her: she didn’t need to get her own way.
They came close to circling the entire church before Fuchsia suggested, “Let’s go back the same way in case he’s appeared at any of the entrances we passed.”
“Yes, okay,” Danny said a little absently. From where they were standing now, he thought, he should be able to see Opal and Michael again, but he couldn’t. He caught Fuchsia’s arm. “Actually, let’s not. I think it might be best to join the others.” He moved forward without waiting for an answer and on that instant spotted Michael, who was walking purposefully toward the cathedral.
Events moved quickly after that. Danny and Fuchsia emerged into the main part of the square. Danny saw that Opal had made contact with Cobra: the agent was standing by the entrance of the church. Despite his disguise as a workman, Danny recognized him at once from the photo Mr. Stratford had sent. Opal was saying something to Cobra, but Danny was too far away to make out the words. Michael pushed through some strolling Russians and joined them. There was a brief conversation as a large black sedan pulled up. For some reason, Danny felt the beginnings of a chill in the pit of his stomach.
Three men in raincoats tumbled out of the car, with trouble written all over them. Danny drew in a sharp breath. Weird how, whatever country you were in, whatever year you were in, heavies always looked the same. Had to be their Neanderthal ancestry or something. One of the men shouted something in Russian, and all three began to run toward St. Basil’s. No, strike that, began to run toward Opal, Michael, and Cobra. Danny almost shouted a warning, but stopped himself in time. It was too late to do his friends any good, and long experience had taught him never to draw attention to himself if he could possibly avoid it. Then the man grabbed Michael, who was closest, then Opal, who fought violently—Danny had to admire her—but it did no good: she and Michael were dragged to the waiting car. Cobra watched openmouthed for a moment, stepped into the shadow of the scaffolding, then turned and walked briskly away.
“Danny—” Fuchsia gasped.
Danny pulled her back a step into the shade of the building. “Keep quiet,” he hissed. No way they could help Opal or Michael now. Their only hope was to stay out of sight, stay o
ut of trouble, clock what was happening, and maybe be in a position to do something later. He tightened his grip on Fuchsia’s arm in case she had different ideas.
The Russian civilians who’d been wandering near the church had all taken off, Danny noticed, probably as quick at spotting trouble as he was. The men manhandled Opal and Michael into the backseat of the waiting car, climbed in themselves, and slammed the door. The car’s windows were as black as its paintwork. The vehicle drove away quickly across the empty square.
“What just happened?” Fuchsia whispered.
But Danny was less concerned with what had just happened than with what might be about to. He’d caught sight of a man in a hat standing directly underneath the scaffolding a short distance from the entrance on the side opposite to where Cobra had disappeared. He’d taken no part in the scuffle around Opal and Michael, but now he was looking directly at Danny and Fuchsia. Danny jerked her arm. “Let’s get out of here!”
Maybe he should have moved casually, as if ambling innocently away, but all his instincts were screaming at him that if they didn’t move fast, they’d be in at least as much trouble as Opal and Michael. Danny took off at top speed, dashing back around the cathedral, half dragging Fuchsia with him. Behind them, the man in the hat emerged from beneath the scaffolding and began to run too. He was smaller than the three who’d seized Opal and Michael and showed a disturbing turn of speed. Danny and Fuchsia raced across Red Square. Danny glanced behind him as their pursuer’s hat fell off, but the man never hesitated. In fact he seemed to be gaining on them. Danny had a fleeting impression of a slim mustache and rimless glasses, before he turned back to redouble his efforts. “This way!” he called to Fuchsia, who’d slipped loose from his grip.
Fuchsia caught up with him, running fast and easily, as they turned onto one of the roads leading into Red Square, then turned again onto a side street. Despite his earlier show of speed, their pursuer was slowing now, and they quickly lost him in a maze of residential side streets. After a while they came to a cautious halt, listening.
The Doomsday Box Page 10