"He's—American."
"Of course. You've established nothing more?"
"I know who my prisoner is, if that's what you mean," Priabin replied. "I know all about him."
Serov turned on him, his eyes dark and angry. He was perhaps two or three inches shorter than Priabin, but broader. His face was set in hard, angular lines and blunt planes. His expression warned. Priabin sensed his own weariness, and a new caution at the back of his mind. Rodin,
Lightning
—this man knew everything about
Lightning
and must not so much as suspect that Priabin knew. His thoughts rushed in his head like vertigo. He kept his face expressionless, except for the slightest indication of self-satisfaction, as Serov snapped;
"Then who is he, Priabin—who is he?"
Serov turned away to look at the prisoner, and Priabin said softly: "His name's Mitchell Gant—formerly Major Gant, United
States
Air Force. Doesn't the name ring a bell, Serov? Not one small bell?"
Serov turned, stung by the insolence of Priabin's voice, his face sharp with anger, his removed glove raised as if to slap at the
speaker.
Then
shock caused his mouth to open soundlessly. Priabin smiled.
"You know him, then?"
"That one?" He whirled around once more. "Him? Hes that American?"
"He is, Serov—oh, yes, he is. They sent him for Kedrov, obviously. They need Kedrov before the treaty is signed."
Serov turned to face Priabin. "How long have you known about him?" he demanded. His voice accused like his eyes.
"It was"—careful!—"accidental," Priabin explained. The heat and tension in the cabin of the houseboat affected him. He sensed Serov's disbelief. "We were looking for drugs. That's how we stumbled across Kedrov."
"Just like that? An American spy you just stumbled across? How much do they know?"
"I'm—not sure. Enough, certainly, to send Gant to collect him."
Serov considered his next words for some moments, then said: "We must get them back. We must know everything the Americans know. You—you're to be congratulated, Priabin—and you, Lieutenant. Both of you. Yes—congratulated. You've saved—the secrecy. The Americans evidently have nothing, otherwise they wouldn't want this bundle of rubbish in the corner. Yes." He turned to Gant and his guard. "Get him outside. Shoot to wound if he doesn't go quietly—quickly, man. You—take this spy with the American. Get moving."
Priabin studied Gant's face. Complete failure was clearly branded on it. All .anger and fear had died. Priabin attempted to feel satisfaction that Gant, though living, was a prisoner with only a brief and violent future before him. The satisfaction would not come.
Rodin. Valery Rodin.
Lightning.
That was what he had to
do
now. He had to accompany Serov, make his report, try to leave as quickly as possible. This complicated matters. Damn Serov's stumbling across Gant now. He had to make that Moscow flight in the morning. His head whirled with anxieties. Serov was dangerous, though distracted for the moment by his two prisoners. The
weight,
the enormity of
Lightning
, lurched against Priabin's frame as physically as an assault. He had to be calm, and careful, and get to
Rodin
as soon as he could.
He followed Serov and Katya out of the cabin, ducking his head as he went through the doors. The wind hurled itself at him. The dogs accompanied the prisoners, growling and yapping.
Tail
-less
Dobermans.
Gant and Kedrov were surrounded by armed GRU troops as they were ushered along the rotting jetty. A MiL-8 transport helicopter stood on the ice fifty yards away. Gant had lost, Kedrov had lost.
He had to win. Had to.
Could not, not now—
Priabin gagged, feeling his throat hot with nausea. He pressed his gloved hand over his mouth, tried to swallow; felt his stomach surge again and again with shock, and growing, virulent fear for himself. The lock picks dangled from his other hand, ignored. He tasted sickness, and saliva, then swallowed and tried to calm his body, his sense of his own danger.
When there had been no answer to the bell, to his knocking, he had anticipated something bad, but not this.
Rodin's skin was cold, white-blue. The empty pill bottle lay be-trayingly beside the rumpled bed. Priabin did not believe its statement—it was too obvious. So they knew.
He backed away from the bed, withdrew unsteadily from the bedroom, flicking off the lights and turning in one movement, ready to fly the scene. The living room was gray with the morning's first slow, leaking light. The furniture assumed vague contours, a half life. He went to the window from which he had watched Rodin. Scanned the block of flats, the curtained windows, the stained concrete; a light here and there, most of the flats still in darkness. It was six in the morning. Two hours before the Moscow flight left. He had come to collect Rodin and found him dead.
No bruising, but the throat was slightly raw. He knew what had been done and by whom. Serov, Serov, who had seemed willing to credit the KGB with the capture of Gant and Kedrov, seemed careless to detain him, even ordered him home for a well-earned sleep ... a bluff heartiness . . . false, just an act. Katya he'd kept behind like a schoolgirl while she wrote out her report on Kedrov. Himself he'd allowed—
—to come and witness what had been done. Rodin killed easily, quickly, faked to look like suicide.
He was alone with the secret of
Lightning.
Gant was insignificant, Anna's memory was not apparent anywhere in the cavern of his thoughts. It was only himself, his life—or death—he admitted slowly. He was his only concern. Serov held him in his hand, he already knew everything.
Then get out. Get that flight to Moscow. Get out—now.
Proof?
They would have to listen.
Five after six. Call the airport, check that the flight isn't delayed, then get out. Trap. The thought loomed. Serov's people could already be outside, already on the stairs. He looked out of the window. No, nothing yet. Call the airport.
He picked up the receiver with a gloved hand. After touching Rodin's cold face, his stiff jaw, his neck where there was no pulse, he had replaced his gloves . . . then the gagging nausea had risen to his throat, minutes after he had entered the apartment.
He was sweating inside his overcoat. The central heating had come on, the flat was warming up. The curtains in the bedroom were open, people would see Rodin lying there and disapprove. Eventually, someone would report his not having moved for hours or days. Draw the curtains across—no, leave everything just as it was, you were never here.
"The Moscow flight," he blurted as soon as the woman at the check-in desk identified herself. Aeroflot. "Is it scheduled to leave at the usual—?"
"No flights will be leaving today."
"Listen," he snapped, knowing the circumstance even before it was explained. "This is Colonel Priabin, KGB. I have a seat reserved on the Moscow flight. What time does it leave?"
"I—I'm sorry, comrade Colonel. All flights have been canceled."
"What?" He looked at his watch. Six-fifteen. Dawn sliding across the carpet like a slow gray tide lapping near his boots. The room constrained him. Already? Already? It shouldn't happen yet.
"The usual emergency, sir. Just been brought forward twenty-four hours. Routine, comrade Colonel. I'm sorry if you—"
"I have the most urgent meeting in Moscow today!" he bellowed.
Frosty tone, then. "I'm sorry, comrade Colonel. We have our orders here."
"Yes, yes. Let me speak to someone in authority, he began to say in his mind, but the order slipped away. It was pointless. "I understand," he said. "Code Green has been initiated a day early. I understand. Thank you." He put down the receiver thoughtfully, his hand moving in a slower, simpler world than his thoughts.
He had to get out. Code Green, the usual security
measures
surrounding any launch at Baikonur. The whole of the complex
be
came isolated from the rest of the country; no flights in or out, no
trains,
no radio or telephone contact. But this was twenty-four hours early- This was Serov.
Effectively,
he was already bottled up inside the Baikonur complex, cut off from Moscow. There was no other reason than
lightning
for imposing normal launch security a whole day early;
there
could be no other reason. He tried to think, to consider rationally, but the effort of it made him more fearful. His body seemed to fill
with
it; mercury mounting in a thermometer.
He found himself at the bedroom door. His hand flicked on the lights. Soft pink warmth from the bedside lamp shades, Rodin's face still and aristocratic in profile, his limbs easy on the rumpled bed. There was no proof—that had been eradicated.
. . . remember. It was difficult. He concentrated on the corpse. Remember what? Kedrov and Gant were a huge, blank wall between himself and the recent past. What was there, on the other side, when he had talked to—to this here, on the bed, when it had still lived? What?
. . . proof, proof, proof. . .
The tape! He had been wired for sound, it was all on tape! Mikhail had the tape, he had intended taking it to Moscow, they could identify Rodin's voice, surely? It was some kind of proof, it would force them to begin to act.
Mikhail. Priabin glanced at his watch. He'd be at home now, keeping his head down as ordered. Tape—
—flight canceled. No trains, no radio, no telephone. Roads— perhaps the roads. He had only to get as far as the nearest KGB office outside the complex, in—in Aral'sk, two hours, a little more, by car. Six-eighteen, hurry.
The fear would not go away, not even diminish amid the exhibition of imminent action. He left the bedroom door ajar as he had found it, switching off the lights. Rodin's body retreated into shadow, but the corpse was not so distant now, not so removed—he W the boy's voice on tape, he still had
Lightning.
He hurried into the hallway, carefully opening the front door. The corridor outside
w
*s empty.
He took the stairs quickly, but not in panic. He did not wish to be remembered, timed, and logged by the janitor, who might be
w
orking for Serov.
Outside, the leaking daylight was bleak, and a wind flew into his *ce. Hurry.
* * *
Gennadi Serov regretted leaving Kedrov and the American, even for this journey, this call. They had become the center of the game; the essence of success. Proof that the Americans had no proof, that the whole business was still secure, intact. And Kedrov, with his hanging, victims face, pleased Serov and tempted him. He would gut Kedrov the technician, the spy, like a fish; fillet him with drugs or violence—the method did not matter, only the execution of the thing.
He stepped out of his staff car. The wind tugged a few isolated clouds across the lightening sky. The block of flats appeared shabby, crouched at the side of the highway. Behind him, the road narrowed across the flat country toward the distant gantries and launch towers and radio masts scribbled on the horizon. Smoke hung over Tyuratam to the southeast, other factory complexes smeared the sky with fumes as separate and identifiable as fingerprints left on glass. He studied the flats. A car started up and pulled away from the garages at the rear. It headed west along the highway, its exhaust signaling in the chilly morning air. It passed the low restaurant, the shops, the other blocks of flats.
One of the members of Priabin's surveillance team, who had watched the little bitch Rodin, lived in this block. Serov rubbed his hands together, as if in anticipation of a welcome. He walked rapidly away from the car, motioning his driver and his team in the
second
car to remain where they were. He waved the walkie-talkie at them to signify his confidence. He pushed open the glass doors of the block, entered its carpeted lobby. Thin nylon carpet, but
carpet.
Security people, some technicians, factory managers lived there. They qualified for lobby carpet, for two bedrooms each in some cases, and for proximity to a
beriozhka
shop, where they could buy "luxuries," and a restaurant. And cars—quite a number of them parked in front of the flats, more in the garages behind. There was also a janitor, who indicated Serov's presence by tactfully
ignoring
it, having identified the uniform and the rank.
The elevator door opened. Graffiti on the walls like a challeng
e
to him, harmless though it was. Some driveling, misspelled pi'
0
' testation of love, another of sex; some comment on a soccer team,
00
the army. He ascended to the third floor.
A woman in the corridor, coming out of the door he
wanted,
saying good-bye to her friend. A drab, frightened, worn woman, & if recently bereaved, two children with lost faces, the small boy still
eating a
slice of toast. Jam on his cheek.
He
let the woman and her
children
pass, studied the door the woman opened, read the name of the occupants—Zhikin—smiled.