by Rik Stone
“No!” the quiet man protested.
But then Pavel shoved his rifle high into his gut. The protest ended, but he still stood defiant. Afanasiy intervened. “We’ll do it,” he said and began undressing.
Jez wasn’t happy. “We can’t leave them alive.”
“Remember your training,” Pavel answered. “Don’t let personal feelings stand in the way. It’s twenty below out here. By the time these two get back to the city, if they can find their way without glasses, all they’ll be good for is a hot bath. The people in the city are hard. Without identification, do you think they will believe these little mites could be Smersh?”
Jez felt no happier on hearing Pavel, but seeing the men get down to their undergarments he couldn’t but laugh: vest and underpants, an exact match. “What’s this? Your momma dressed you both the same before you came out?” he asked as he collected up the outer garments and threw them into the back of the car.
The prisoners stood knees together and hands protecting their crotches from the cold. Jez sat in the driver’s seat and turned the car back towards the city. Pavel had remained with his rifle trained on the prisoners. “Come on, get in!” Jez yelled. “We can still catch that train to Moscow.”
The car got round the first corner and Pavel said, “Crazy! They can still get back to the city and have the train stopped down the line.”
Jez smiled. “Yes, I know. That’s why we’re going to Leningrad. My only worry is leaving them alive.”
Chapter 13
The Akasya Hotel, Marmaris, Turkey
“If Adam hadn’t set us up with Batur, Anna wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. I need to speak with him again,” Yuri told Hassan.
And he answered, saying, “Seeing as you think it necessary to involve us, tell Adam I’m taking the Russian prisoner to the seed barn and that I’ll wait for him there.”
Yuri was surprised to hear him make the decision and wondered if he was a little more than a bodyguard: another thing he’d have to look into when the time came.
They went through the hotel and as Anna was still wobbly, they took the lift up to Adam’s penthouse apartment. Adam looked shocked on opening the door.
“God, what have they done to you?” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder, stroking it over to the center of her back and ushering her in and through the passageway. Yuri wanted to squirm. Passing the stairway, they went into a huge lounge. Adam led Anna to a sofa that overlooked the balcony, the hotel gardens, and on to the sea.
Turning his attention to Yuri, he said, “You’re dragging me into this against my will, but here I am, so tell me what happened.”
A feeling of manipulation hit Yuri. It seemed almost staged the way Adam was reluctantly coming onboard. But he had contacts and would be useful. “Give Adam a rundown of events, Anna.”
She looked exhausted after finishing her account and immediately excused herself to the bathroom. An hour later, she re-emerged with a towel wrapped turban-style around her hair and her figure had been shrouded by an oversized smock. Her features were tight, her skin pale, but she breezed in trying to appear normal. “I found the caftan in the bathroom. I hope you don’t mind …”
“Not at all,” Adam said. “How are you now you’ve freshened up, Anna?” His words purred from his throat.
“I’m good,” she replied. “And thank you for your hospitality.” Taking the towel from her head, she turned to Yuri. “We have business to sort out.”
“No, you can’t go out like that. Wait, I have a set of clothes somewhere that will be a better fit.” He grinned. “And before you go rushing off we must have a word with the Russian prisoner,” Adam said, “er, whatever his name is.”
“Anton,” Yuri replied.
“Ah right, Anton. Before you carry on with anything else, we must speak to Anton.”
*
Adam held the door open for Anna, climbed into the driving seat, and said, “I’d usually use one of the drivers, but I think after Batur’s betrayal it would be prudent to keep the loop as tight as possible.”
No one spoke. Yuri appeared deep in thought, brow furrowed.
On arrival at the barn, the car pulled up in an unnecessary cloud of dust and they went inside. Anna already knew Mehmet was a good agent, but was impressed by his ability to blend into the background. She had almost forgotten he was with them; a definite plus should you need unexpected backup. The Russian, Anton, had been tied to a chair that stood in the middle of the many car bays.
“My, he’s a big boy,” Adam chuckled.
Big or not, Anna thought, Anton looked more lumbering than tough. On first glance it was a touch ridiculous the way his whole face quivered. Like a frightened child, his eyes were wide and darting about.
Adam took a knife from his jacket and flicked a blade from the handle. “Anton,” he began, “we have some talking to do. And as you’ll find out, this is how I do it best.” Mercilessly, he pressed the point of the blade into Anton’s cheek, causing a trickle of blood to seep from the impression it made.
“Stop it, Mannesh,” Anna ordered, pulling his arm away and pushing her small frame between the men. “I appreciate the part you played in my rescue, but we are capable of interrogating our own prisoners.”
Yuri straightened. Adam was clearly affronted, but he suddenly deflated, stepped back, and gave her an oily smile. “Of course, my dear,” he said. “This is your show. Please, forgive me.”
She gave him an accepting nod, but sensed a hostility that put her on a back foot. There was something about Adam she couldn’t quite fathom. He seemed to read her mind and tugged on Hassan’s sleeve.
“Come, my friend, we’ll wait in the conference lounge.”
Anna watched the two men walk to the steps and then turned her attention to the captive. Her breasts throbbed, the pressure of her bra and blouse rubbing painfully against her nipples. She hunched her back and drew her shoulders forward in an effort to get relief. It didn’t work. Anton, she thought, were you the one who tightened the steel rings? She suppressed a rush of anger.
“Anton,” she said, softly. “You must realize I have a job to do. If you answer my questions truthfully you come back to Russia with us. Refuse and I’ll be forced to hand you over to those two.” She nodded towards the stairs where Adam and Hassan had gone. She then dabbed at a spot of blood on Anton’s face with a handkerchief and his timid reaction had her thinking there was something not quite right about him. “Let’s begin with you. What is your part in this deal? How did you get mixed up in it?”
“I used to work as a doorman at a few of the clubs around Moscow, because I’m big, not because I’m a bully. Borislav came to one of them and offered me a job as a bodyguard. That was nearly a year ago now. I liked it. He gave me lots of money.”
“You knew of the drug trade and the Semtex shipment. I know. I heard you talking with Borislav,” Anna told him. “And you had been happy to be party to kidnap and torture.”
He nodded, his head lowered, and he cried. “I don’t really know what Semtex is, but you are right; I knew about that and the drugs. I have no excuse. Borislav told me what to do and I was eager to please him.”
He blubbed and mucous ran over his lips and down his chin. In training she was taught to fold, whimper, and snivel. In fact, do anything to mislead an enemy, do anything to get out of an undesirable situation. But if Anton was pretending, he was the best she’d seen. She looked skyward, shook her head. Yuri shrugged, probably thinking the same thing.
Anna decided there was something missing with Anton, that he might be a bit backward. She would try treating him as a child. She rubbed his shoulder soothingly and said, “I think I understand, Anton. Tell me about Borislav.”
He responded to her touch like a cat arching its back when stroked.
“He’s a military man. The army I think. But I don’t know what he does or anything. Every couple of months we come here and he oversees the business and then we go home. He’s not very big, so it’s my
job to make sure no one bothers him.”
“Where is his home?”
“I don’t know. I know the way back to Moscow by myself, so we separate when we get to Rostov.”
For a moment Anna felt duped and exhaled in exasperation. “But he’s gone back without you now.”
“No, he just went to meet the truck. We usually go together, but I had to watch over you.”
She’d forgotten that. Now his words helped her remember what Borislav had said when he left Anton in charge. “Okay, that means he’ll be on his way to the coast at Icmeler?”
“Yes, he’ll be there by now. And he’ll be wondering where I am.”
He surely would and he would also be wondering where she was.
*
Hassan and Adam watched from the top step of the mezzanine floor.
“Looks like the Russians have finished their interrogation,” Adam grunted. “And they’ve handled fat boy as if he were a little puppy dog. The only bloodspots I can see are those I made.”
Hassan laughed. He could tell Adam was pissed off at not being allowed to torture the captive. It wasn’t a sex thing, him cutting people with his knife, but it wasn’t far from it. “I’ll see if they want me to drive them back to the hotel so they can pick up their boat.”
“Okay, I suppose they’ll take the big boy with them.” He shook his head negatively and stormed off towards the conference room.
Hassan went downstairs. “Are you ready to get back?” he asked Yuri.
Yuri looked at Anna, and she nodded. “Yes, no need to hang around any longer.” She turned to Hassan. “We’ll be taking the prisoner with us.”
“Of course,” he snickered.
He dropped them at the hotel and returned to the barn. It hadn’t been much of an interrogation, he thought on the drive back, but they seemed to get what they wanted from the big man. He pulled up on the sandy road outside the barn and thought of the career he had shared with Adam to date. Life had begun in the backstreets of Istanbul for them, on the European side of the Bosporus. They both grew up fatherless in Sirkeci, neither of them knowing or caring who the men might be. Hassan’s mother once blurted out that he and Adam shared the same father and he had gone straight to Adam and told him about it.
“I think it will work better if no one in the neighborhood finds out about this,” Adam had said. “We are a team, but remain stronger as individuals.”
The path to success hadn’t been a clear run. Crime lord Beyrek Ozel had been a stronger business rival and they were forced to move their nefarious trades to Ankara … but now, now Ozel was dead. After his death became public, they made a move against the Istanbul mob and won to become the main criminal activity both there and in the capital. And now the Adriatic coast was the target, which was why Adam was getting involved with the Russians.
Hassan took the iron steps two at a time and made his way to the conference room. He went to the drinks cabinet and pulled a bottle of Raki. “You?” he asked Adam.
“Not now,” Adam said, rubbed a finger under his fez to scratch, and moved his large frame from a wooden chair at the conference table. He flopped onto the sumptuous sofa against the back wall and continued, “I’ve been wondering how many of our people to bring over from Ankara.”
Hassan swilled his drink around the bottom of the glass before slugging it back in one. He made no attempt to answer the question; Adam always insisted on making those decisions himself. Hassan breathed out heavily, slammed the empty glass on the table and poured another.
Adam said, “Maybe I will have that drink.”
Hassan got a glass, filled a third of it with Raki, and handed it to his brother before sitting in the chair Adam had just vacated.
Adam sipped his drink and said, “Let’s make a list of those we need and get them here … and some women. We can have our meeting and enjoy ourselves at the same time.”
Hassan swallowed his Raki in a gulp and poured a third. He grinned. “And we have plenty of time for that. We’ll let the Russians clean out the rat’s nest in Icmeler and then we’ll clean them out.”
*
Anna thought of Jez and her heart grew heavy. She needed to speak with General Petrichova, find out if he knew anything about what had happened. Her only hope was that her husband had somehow slipped the net. She also had to talk with the general about Borislav and Sergeant Kudret; somehow they had known they were under threat. Thoughts wandered, until Hassan pulled up in front of the hotel. He let them out and drove off.
Walking around the hotel and going through the gardens, they got down to the jetty and boarded Great White.
“Lock Anton in the aft cabin,” Anna told Yuri.
They cast off and motored out into deeper water, but it wasn’t far enough.
“Radio reception is rubbish here because of the cliffs,” Yuri said. “We’ll go further out.” He put the engines through their paces for ten minutes then he and Mehmet dropped anchors fore and aft. Yuri took Anna below to the navigation table and began tuning the radio. “That’s better, we have a reasonable reception.”
The link man at the Yenikapi Embassy annex in Istanbul eventually patched Yuri through to Moscow, and General Petrichova. He passed the headset to Anna and went up top. After speaking with the general, she joined Yuri and Mehmet on the flybridge, with a smile on her face.
“Does that smile mean Jez and Pavel are safe?” Yuri said.
“Yes, I told you they had left the Gulag to go on maneuver … It looks like they were still out when the attack took place.” Her brightness dimmed. “But for the others it couldn’t have been worse.”
Yuri’s face grimaced. “But how could that have happened?”
Anna sighed. “Michel’s aide was a mole. He had known of the Gulag, but not where it was, so he persuaded him to accept a new candidate, a woman. She betrayed the position to General Irishka.”
Mehmet interjected, “What about us and the operation in Icmeler?”
“The plan has changed,” she told him. “He wants us to let the Semtex shipment go through. You and me are to follow Borislav, see where the trail leads. Yuri, he wants you to take Anton to the embassy annex in Yenikapi and then return to Icmeler and wait for us there. I’ll drive to Istanbul with Mehmet. Borislav knows me, so once there Mehmet will follow him on the ground. I’ll stay one step ahead until we reach Soviet soil and then I’ll take over.”
Mehmet looked puzzled. “But I don’t have a visa for the Soviet Union. I’ll be arrested.”
“No, you’ll just be sent back. Don’t worry; I’ll be taking care of that.”
“What will happen to Anton?” Mehmet asked.
“I think Michel will go easy on him. Anton isn’t in charge of his faculties. From Michel’s response, my guess is he will be doing a bit of regular army service. Anton did say he always does as he’s told. Seems the perfect solution.”
Chapter 14
Vorkuta, Northern Russia
Jez parked the car in the street near the railway station and made his way to the entrance, but felt woozy as he walked. Maybe hunger, maybe tiredness, or maybe he was just feeling terminally weary. Pavel had gone ahead and was waiting in the ticket office. Inside, Jez nodded and Pavel used Sergeant Afanasiy’s ID to identify himself when buying tickets to Moscow. Luckily, the ticket officer only glanced at the credentials. As they left the hall, Jez felt his mood pick up on seeing Pavel bump into anything and everything, because he was wearing a pair of the Smersh men’s pebble glasses. He laughed.
“Yes, funny,” Pavel said, “but I had to have something about me that looked like Afanasiy’s photograph.”
Jez veered the conversation. He could see Pavel was getting wound up. “I think the idea of letting the Moscow train go and taking the Leningrad train later has turned sour.”
Pavel considered. “Yes, waiting around town for two days could be dangerous. Although, we could watch for its approach from out of town and slip back here without being seen.”
“No, you al
lowed the Smersh men to live, so the whole area will be on red alert. The Moscow train is in the station and has a full head of steam. We wait, make sure it pulls away unhindered and then go to the colliery; we still have options there.”
They took the same road out of town that they’d just driven in on and about halfway across the waste ground they saw their Smersh friends. Jez looked at Pavel and grinned. “The little men haven’t got far,” he said.
“They’ve turned blue,” Pavel laughed.
With arms wrapped firmly around shoulders, Afanasiy and friend stared down at their feet and stumbled along looking miserable. Jez tucked himself into a gap in the wall of snow next to Pavel and let the men pass without being seen. “In this cold, that ear has got to be hurting,” Jez said when Afanasiy turned the corner out of sight.
They followed a set of railway tracks, stepping it out on the sleepers. At the colliery, a coal train with maybe thirty loaded wagons stood with the engine up front and building a head of steam. They waited and watched. Safety valves blew and a whistle sang out.
“Come on. I don’t know its destination, but that is the way we go,” Jez said, as they hurried to the limits of the security fencing. “The last carriage is a guards wagon; if we can get on that, we’ll be away.”
“A guards wagon usually means a guard,” Pavel said.
“Don’t worry, you have ID.”
The steam engine puffed under load and for a minute looked like it might not move. But then, slowly, wheels turned in unison, steel screeched as metal tires ground on steel tracks, and wagons moved off at different speeds, pushing and bumping at the neighbor ahead. The train was on its way. The guards wagon came alongside and Jez pulled Pavel’s sleeve before lunging towards the three steps hanging from the back.
Easily making headway towards the ladder, Jez was relieved, until a soldier made an appearance. The young regular took a moment to take in what was going on and then snuggled the stock of his rifle into his shoulder and shouted, “Halt or I shoot!”