Authors: Craig Thomas
The red-and-white striped tent was twenty yards from the embassy gates. The six men were not workmen. The roadworks were a fake.
Gant swallowed bile and backed away from the shelter of the tree. He had passed a telephone box. In shadow, he hurried back towards it, entering and slamming its door behind him. Immediately, his tension and fear clouded the glass. He fumbled for coins - there were coins in the pockets of the jeans - and dialled the number of the embassy. It sprang out of his memory without effort, a signal of his necessity. He withdrew his finger from the dial and waited. The telephone clicked, then the noise became a loud, continuous tone. He joggled the rest and dialled once more. The same loud, unceasing noise sounded in his ears.
The lines to the embassy had been cut off at the switchboard. There was no way to reach them.
He clenched his fist and banged it gently but intensely against the small mirror above the coinbox. He swallowed, and shook his head. Illusions of safety dissipated. Then, furiously, he dialled another number, and waited, holding his breath.
The ringing tone -
They'd left the lines to the British Embassy - he would be able to talk to them, he
would -
'Come on, come on…'
The operator on the embassy switchboard - a night-duty man - answered. Asked his name, his business… there seemed a note of expectant caution. Gant felt relief fill him, the words hurried into incoherence even before he began speaking -
Then he heard the clicks, three of them.
He stood there, mouth open, not daring to speak. The man on the switchboard insisted, his voice more demanding and, at the same time, more suspicious. Gant heard the man breathing as he waited for a reply. He understood the clicks, and wondered whether the switchboard operator had heard them - must have heard them…
The line was tapped. They'd left it open, hoping he would call. A tracer was probably at work now, seeking him.
'Caller?' Gant did not reply. He stared at the mouthpiece. Distantly, he heard the operator say: 'I'm sorry, caller…'
Then the connection was broken. The operator had circumvented the tracer both of them knew had been put on the call. Gant continued to stare at the receiver, then slammed it onto the rest, heaving open the door of the box almost blindly.
He looked down the wide boulevard. Red-and-white striped tent, six men, one parked car. He would never make it. He knew he did not dare to make the attempt.
He felt the wetness in his eyes and rubbed angrily at them. He jammed his hands in his pockets, hunching his body until its shivering stilled. Then he turned his back on the American Embassy.
Gant did not see the shadowy figure slip from beneath one of the trees on the opposite side of the Tchaikovsky Street and hurry after him.
The noise of her anguish had woken Maxim. The eleven-year-old had come into the kitchen, startled and half-awake, rubbing his eyes, his mouth already working with anticipated fears for his mother. Instantly, as quickly as sniffing back her tears and dragging the sleeve of her dressing-gown across her eyes, she had transformed herself once more into the figure he expected and needed. Even his immediate enquiries had been halfhearted. Being allowed to sit with her, drinking fruit juice, had been in itself a comfort, a reassertion of normality. He had gone back to bed satisfied.
Once she was alone in the kitchen, Anna buried her terror in activity. She called her Case Officer at the embassy, and he confirmed her sentence. The image of punishment had occurred to her with bitter humour. When the line suddenly went dead, the humour vanished and she felt chilled and isolated. She had put down the telephone, forcing herself not to consider the implications, not to consider her own danger. Instead, she began to build her fabric of deception. It would have to be an old aunt in Kazan - she didn't even have a telephone, though she lived in comfort, so Dmitri couldn't check on her story, nor could the ministry or her superiors . . .
She ticked off the benefits on her fingers.
Then, Maxim -
Her father, naturally; the boy's grandfather. The father who had assiduously promoted her career and had protected her from censure and suspicion after her husband's suicide. Her father, who had once risen to the position of first secretary of the party organisation of the Moscow Oblast region, and had thus been a member of the Party Central Committee. His retirement to
a dacha
outside Moscow had been honourable, luxurious. He still had the weight, the contacts and friendships to protect Maxim if something went wrong.
She swallowed. Maxim would enjoy a few days in the woods outside the city. The old man had taken up wildlife photography as a hobby. He had even bought Maxim a small Japanese camera for his birthday.
Maxim would enjoy -
She was sobbing. The camera had become inextricably linked in her mind with the Dynamo First-Class football boots that had been Dmitri's present. The two presents, their images so clear in her rnind, pained her.
She sniffed loudly after a time, and shook her head as if to clear it of memory and association. Blonde hair flicked over her brow. She tugged it away from her forehead.
If it worked - if, if, if,
if
- she might be away for only a couple of days, perhaps three at the most. If she helped the American successfully, did what they wanted her to do, then she would be back with presents and an explanation that her aunt was a little better and she could stay away no longer…
If
-
If not, she would have preserved her son from the shipwreck. Her father had protected her; now he could do the same for her son, his grandson. His task would be simple. Narrow and bigoted though his political and social ideas were - a surviving splinter of the Stalinist period who cut and bruised at every encounter with her newer, more liberal ideas - he had always been a kindly, though authoritative father; and an indulgent, fond grandparent. Maxim liked him, they would get on.
'No…' she whispered slowly, intensely. It was as if she were already giving her son away. Not if she could help it - not if she could win.
Dmitri's knowledge, her eventual safety from the KGB, her continued function as a Category-A Source for the CIA -
She would face those problems afterwards.
The telephone rang. She glared at it as if it had been a hated voice, then snatched the receiver from the wall.
'Yes - ?' It might be Dmitri, but the second of silence before she heard Edgecliffe's voice told her it was not.
'
Burgoyne
? Listen carefully. The American is still loose in the city. He hasn't been arrested or spotted by the police. We had someone in contact with him, but he shook them off-we presume he thought the mark was KGB. We think he's tried our embassy and the American embassy. He realises by now that he can't find a bolt-hole in either place…'
'And?' Anna snapped, determined that Edgecliffe should hear nothing but competence, resource - however much that played the Englishman's game,
'The papers are, ready - we'll have them delivered before morning. We shall require you to take the American to Leningrad, by train. You and he must manage the station as best you can.'
'Leningrad?'
'You'll be met. I'll tell you how and where-when we have it finalised. He'll be taken into Finland - What you do will be up to you. Your exit can be arranged - '
'No!'
'I should consider it carefully, if I were you,' Edgecliffe warned. 'We're offering you a way out.'
'A passport to nowhere,' she sneered.
'As you wish. Think about it. We will want you to board the Leningrad train this afternoon… there'll be clothes for the American, delivered with his papers. Some sort of disguise. Your job will be to get him to Leningrad.'
'Your job is to find him first.'
Edgecliffe chuckled, an almost pleasant sound. 'I realise that. Be ready to leave
your
apartment the moment I call on you to do so. Once we locate him, he's in your hands. You'll make contact - it's too risky for us to try.'
'And if you don't find him today?'
'Then it may be too late - he's running out of time. However, you'll stand by until you hear otherwise. Have you made your arrangements?'
'Don't worry - they'll be made.'
'Then expect the papers and another call.' He hesitated, then added: 'Goodluck.'
Anna replaced the receiver without replying. She watched as the shadow of the cord stilled against the tiled wall. It formed a tightly-coiled noose below the telephone.
She hoped, fervently hoped to the point of prayer, that Dmitri would catch the American. He had the short remainder of the night, the morning, noon, the afternoon.
Please, please…
Priabin stood in front of the large-scale map, rubbing his chin with his left hand. Moscow's main line stations were represented by coloured pins. His right arm was folded across his chest as he pondered his responsibility; the seven principal stations for long-distance routes, and one of the four airports around the city, Cheremetievo in his case. His whole department had been seconded, and he occupied Kontarsky's old office in Moscow Centre, co-ordinating the surveillance. Dmitri Priabin was grateful for the static nature of his participation. At least his men were not walking the streets, combing the parks and open spaces, searching the apartment block's, the empty houses, the building sites and the shops. Nor were they manning roadblocks in the freezing night.
And yet - and this was the splinter in his satisfaction since he had left Anna - it might be his people who let Gant slip. If he got out of the city, it might well be by train. And Gant could bring him down just as effectively as he had ruined Kontarsky.
Surely they had to find Gant soon? It was impossible for the man to roam the city undetected. He was alone, without friends or contacts. The SIS and CIA were bottled up in their apartments, embassies, compounds, safe houses. There was no one to help him, hide him, provide him with papers, protect him. The man was utterly, entirely alone.
His forefinger touched each of the coloured pins in turn, as if for luck. His hand described a circle around the inner city - Leningrad Station, Riga Station, Savolovsky Station, Belorussia, Kiev, Pavolets, Kurskaia.
And the principal airport to Leningrad and Scandinavia at Cheremetievo, north-east of the city -
He looked at his watch. Time to make another tour of the stations and drive out to the airport - yes, he would do that. It was suddenly urgent, necessary to remind his men of the stakes, the risks.
The intercom sounded on his desk.
'Yes?' he asked, depressing the switch.
'General Vladimirov wishes to see you, Comrade Colonel,' the secretary informed him. The girl had a heavy cold, and her mood had not been lightened by having to work this extra duty.
'Where?'
'He's here, Comrade Colonel.'
'Very well - send the general in at once!'
Priabin took up a position in front of Kontarsky's -
his
- desk, almost posed, exuding confidence. He had sensed something overbearing about the general when he had been aboard the First Secretary's Tupoley. Priabin wanted to make a good impression; he did not wish to appear an interloper in that office - some sort of caretaker. His secretary opened the door, nose buried in her handkerchief, much to Vladimirov's evident distaste, and ushered the general in. She slammed the door immediately.
Priabin held out his hand. Vladimirov took it briefly. Priabin studied the older man's eyes. Bloodshot, but intense with purpose. He evidently had not slept for even a small part of the night. Priabin understood that Vladimirov's pride had been insulted and diminished by what the American had done. Only hours before he had been confined and on the point of revealing the truth, yet now he was at large again. To Vladimirov, his ill-luck must have seemed like a continuing taunt.
'General - I'm honoured. What can I do to help you? Please sit down - ' Priabin indicated a chair near the desk. Vladimirov shook his head.
'Tell me your arrangements, your dispositions - all of them,' he ordered sharply, without preamble of any kind. 'Quickly, Colonel - I haven't time to waste!'
The Deputy Chairman had briefed Priabin sufficiently for the authority exuded by Vladimirov not to come as a surprise. However, he was abashed by the peremptory, almost violent expression of it. Vladimirov had been placed in command of the hunt for the American - an unusual step since he was not KGB or even GRU - but that position was a KGB safeguard. Only Vladimirov would fall if the American eluded them - no one in the KGB would suffer. Priabin almost felt sorry for the older man, even as he bridled at his tone.
Swiftly, he explained the disposition of forces, using the map on its easel. Vladimirov stood near him. There was a faint smell of whisky and cachous on his breath. He nodded violently, his rage and impatience barely concealed. When Priabin had finished his outline, Vladimirov studied him with the same piercing glance he had bestowed on the map and its pins.
'So,' he remarked at last, 'you will simply wait until he makes himself known to one of your men and then arrest him?' The sarcasm was evident and stinging. Vladimirov raised an eyebrow in further emphasis. Priabin felt his face redden and grow hot.
'These - are normal, tried and tested security procedures, Comrade General,' he said with heavy slowness.
'It was normal security that allowed the American to escape from the hospital.'
'I-'
'I have toured three departments in this building of yours so far,' Vladimirov pursued, 'and in each of them I have heard variations on the same refrain.
Routine - normal
-
usual
. . . even from Deputy Chairmen and Directors of Departments and their principal Deputy Directors and Assistant Deputy Directors - ' His arms were in the air, expressing exasperated hopelessness. 'People who should know better,
much
better, tell me the same things you do! Do you think it is enough, Colonel? Do you think you are doing all you can to apprehend the most important escapee in the whole of the Soviet Union?' Priabin glanced towards the door, whether for signs of help or out of embarrassment he could not be certain. The general raged on. 'This organisation of yours has too much experience with
prisoners
and not enough with escapers.' His lips parted in a thin, mirthless, arrogant smile. 'You're not up to the job, perhaps?' His left eyebrow lifted ironically once more. The expression did nothing to alleviate the heavy anger of the eyes. He turned back to the map. 'Well?' he asked. 'You've nothing to say? Nothing at all? Not an idea in your head, mm?'