‘I suppose I can go out the window?’ the redhead said, and went over to look. ‘Or, well that’s quite a drop. I suppose I can just kick the door down.’
‘You could easily kick the door down.’
‘Why did you lock us in?’ he asked.
‘I thought it would be more fun,’ I said, ‘the other way around.’
‘What’s the other way around?’
‘Me. Chasing you.’
‘
That’s
more like it,’ he said, smiling broadly at the absurdity of the situation. ‘That’s the spirit that beat the Nazis! You’re an old man. Unarmed. Walking three paces exhausts you. I’m a young, fit, KGB operative with a gun. I’ve killed dozens of people healthier than you. But
you’re
the one chasing
me!
That is indeed the way to think of it. That’s a better way to go.’ He tucked his pistol back into his holster and beckoned. ‘Come on then! Come get me!’
‘When you say,’ I said, reaching over for the bedside cabinet, ‘that I am unarmed . . .’
I pulled out the Geiger counter.
Immediately he drew his gun again and held it two-handed, pointed straight at my head. ‘Put that down,’ he said.
‘It’s not a gun,’ I said. ‘It’s a Geiger counter.’
There was a pause. ‘Geiger-M̈ller tube,’ said the redhead; but he kept the gun trained on me.
‘Here’s a funny thing,’ I told him. ‘The American President? His name is
Reagan
. You know what that means, in English? A literal translation into Russian would be
President Laser Pistol
. Isn’t that funny?’
I pointed the tube at my own chest.
‘Stop!’ he barked. ‘Is
that
a laser pistol? You said Geiger counter. Is it a laser pistol, though?’
‘Tch! And where would I get hold of a laser pistol?’
‘You and I both know where,’ he retorted quickly. ‘Who knows what weaponry
they
might dispose of, when it’s no longer useful to them?’
This barely wrongfooted me. It might have given me pause, if I hadn’t been so tired. I pushed on. ‘Well if it’s a laser pistol,’ I said, settling the end of its plastic muzzle over the exact centre of my chest, ‘and I pull this trigger, then I’ll do your job for you. On the other hand, if it’s a Geiger counter, all that will happen is that you’ll discover how radioactive I am.’
I could see the fox-like process of calculation flicker in his eyes. He was starting to work out what I had done. He glanced over to the door. Then he took a step towards me, and then stopped. ‘You’ve locked me in,’ he said, in a low voice.
‘It’s not a question of me escaping from you,’ I told him.
‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘Bluffing is what you are doing.’
‘Shall we see? Shall I press the button?’
‘Bluffing,’ he said.
‘You know how one of these works?’
‘Go on,’ he instructed.
I pushed the test button, and the counter crackled and trilled to life. For long seconds he stood there, listening to the malign static interference sizzle and sizzle. Eventually he spoke. ‘You’ve been here more than a week.’
I turned the machine off.
‘If you’re
that
radioactive,’ he said, backing against the window. ‘You’d have died long ago.’
‘Are you concerned about
my
health?’ I asked. ‘Or your own?’
He swallowed. ‘Is it
them
?’ he said.
‘It’d be better for my purpose if you came over here,’ I told him. ‘Get a fuller dose. Put a pillow over my mouth, and lean over me. Get a proper coating.’
‘Did
they
make you immune, somehow, to radiation? Is that why you’re still alive?’
‘Never mind that. Are
you
immune to radioactivity, comrade? That’s the question.’ I was gathering my strength after my exertion; such strength as I had. ‘Because if you are, then feel free to stay here as long as you like. But if not—’ I breathed in, and out. ‘If not, then I’d advise you to get out as soon as possible. Really, there’s no time to lose. Every second increases your cancer risk.’
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You’re white hot. Christ you’re a fucking
bomb
.’ He pulled the window open and peered out. Presumably he thought:
too far to jump
, because he turned back to face me, and this was the first moment since his arrival in my room that I felt hope flicker in my brain. There was a panic in his eyes.
‘That hairdo,’ I said. ‘You towel it dry after showering? That’ll start falling out now, of course. Bright side: you won’t have to bother about it anymore. No more tiresome
washing
or
drying
your hair. You can skip that whole portion of the morning routine. Think of the time you’ll save.’
He raised his pistol at me, and then lowered it. ‘Give me the key,’ he said.
‘As for that,’ I said. ‘Your options are: to get me to vomit it up. Or perhaps cut me open for it. You have a knife?’
‘Give me the fucking—’ He aimed the gun at me again. Then he reholstered it.
‘Just cut me open and rummage around. Of course, it’ll significantly increase your dose. But if you stay here too long then—’ I started coughing at this moment, on account of all the talking I was doing and the dryness of my throat. But it succeeded in increasing the panic in the redhead’s face. I took a sip from the glass of water beside my bed.
The redhead bolted suddenly for the door, and heaved with all his strength on the handle. ‘Give me the key or I’ll blow your alien brains onto the
wall
!’ he shouted.
‘My
alien
brains?’ I said. ‘I have to assume you’re going to shoot me whatever happens.’ I was fingering the Geiger counter in my lap. ‘So your threat is hardly an incentive.’
He began kicking at the door. He was wearing comfortable leather loafers. ‘Army boots would be more useful for that, comrade,’ I told him.
He kicked, and kicked again. ‘Bastard!’ he grunted. ‘Bastard!’
‘You do not seem to be making much of a dent.’
He spun round and, once more, drew his pistol on me. ‘I’ll at least finish you off,’ he told me.
‘All right, all right,’ I said, calmly. ‘Hold on a moment. I’ll
give
you the key! I’ll cough it back up! I’ll even wipe it on the bedclothes, to remove as much of my highly radioactive saliva as I can manage.’
It did not suit his face for his eyes to be as wide open as they were. He looked disconcerting. He levelled the pistol at my head, and then with a moan of frustration he span and fired into the door once, twice, and then a third time. The noise of the pistol was very great, and it struck my inner ear like a crashing blow, leaving me with a high, pure singsong note. There was the stench of burnt powder. I shook my head ponderously, and the whine vanished from my ear.
The redhead aimed another kick at the punctured door, and kicked right through it. Now he was compelled to hop on one foot, for the other had become snagged through the woodwork. He almost fell backwards, and then he pulled the foot free, and did a little staggery dance. He swore.
‘The door opens inward, comrade,’ I said.
The wood around the handle was splintered and frayed. He pulled his right arm into the sleeve jacket, and using the fabric as a makeshift glove to protect his skin from splinters, he took hold and hauled the door towards him. It gave way with a noise of snapping wood, and once again he almost fell backwards. But at least his exit was clear now.
In the open doorway he turned around to face me. ‘They should keep you in a fucking lead-lined room!’ he said. He aimed the pistol at my chest.
I did not experience any spike or fear, or excitement. My heart kept beating smoothly.
‘Hey!’
This was my doctor’s voice. I heard running footsteps in the corridor outside. The redhead turned and waved his pistol at them. ‘KGB business,’ he barked. ‘KGB business.’
‘Murdering my patients in their beds is
nobody’s
business,’ cried the doctor. Ah! But she was fearless, my wonderful Dr Bello. I learned afterwards that she was not alone; the banging and thumping had roused half a dozen hospital staff, and they had all come scurrying down to see what the fuss was about. I daresay the red-headed man contemplated gunning them all down; but it was not a likely calculation.
‘Get out!’ snapped Dr Bello. She had reached the door, now, and was looking with horror at the mess of splintered wood. ‘Damaging hospital property? Breaking down doors? Threatening hospital patients with a gun? I’ll call the Militia, KGB or no. I’ll speak to your superiors! I’ll take it all the way to the top. I know people.’
The redhead growled, and looked at me, and then he growled again. ‘You want,’ he said, speaking in a low tone, ‘to put him in a fucking lead-lined
room
.’ And he stalked away.
And then they all came hurrying into my room, and fussing about me, and reconnecting my drip. Dr Bello took the Geiger counter from my lap. ‘Doctor,’ I told her. ‘You have saved my life.’
‘It is a doctor’s business,’ she said, in a plain voice, ‘to save the life of her patient.’
After that there was a great deal of fuss. The Militia came to see me again, and a guard was placed on my room. I was visited by a senior KGB officer. He was very old, and in uniform - a vast, stiff concoction of cloth and braid, upon which a great many medals clustered like bees upon a beehive. His face was prodigiously weathered by age, and lined with a series of deep creases in the vertical and the horizontal, giving him the appearance, almost, of crumbling brickwork.
‘Comrade,’ he said, in a voice like rust. He did not tell me his name.
‘Comrade.’ I nodded.
‘You fought in the Great Patriotic War,’ he said.
‘As did you,’ I replied, nodding towards his medals. ‘And now, you are in the KGB?’
He smiled, and leaned a little towards me. ‘Confidentially, now,’ he croaked. ‘As one old soldier to another.’
‘As one old soldier to another.’
‘People think the KGB is a unity,’ he said to me. ‘But it is not so.’
‘No?’
‘No. There are different . . . sects, shall we say. Different tribes. Shall we say different tribes?’
‘We can say tribes.’
He leaned back again. ‘My subordinate will take a statement,’ he said, shifting his weight in the chair, and groaning slightly, either with the effort of moving himself or else with the world-weariness of having to go through these formalities. Then he said, ‘Colonel Frenkel is presently under investigation.’
‘He’s a colonel? I had no idea he was so elevated.’
‘Between you and me,’ said the senior KGB officer, ‘and in confidence as one old soldier to another, he is not - universally liked.’
‘You astonish me,’ I said.
‘I have seen the report on your war service, and I have seen the report on Colonel Frenkel’s war service, and frankly yours is more glorious.’
‘Yet he is a colonel in the KGB, and I am an out-of-work translator in a hospital bed in Kiev.’
‘You were never going to get on in the world, once you’d decided to work as a translator,’ croaked the senior KGB officer. ‘Who can trust translators? Living in two languages? How can speaking like an American not corrupt the soul a little?’
‘There may well be something in that,’ I conceded.
‘As one old soldier to another,’ said the fellow again, wearily. ‘Colonel Frenkel had been put in charge of a section, tasked with a certain highly secret long-term mission, by Chernenko himself. It is sometimes the case that, with the death of a general secretary, the missions inaugurated by that general secretary possess enough inertial velocity to . . .’ But he seemed to lose his thread. He peered at the bright window, and then he yawned.
Everyone, it occurred to me, seemed very tired. I, of course, felt tired myself.
‘Did this project have to do with UFOs?’ I asked.
‘It is secret business,’ said the senior KGB officer. ‘But as one old soldier to another? Chernenko certainly believed in aliens from space, like a credulous boy. This is, in fact, a matter of public record. Other general secretaries have shared this belief. A great quantity of military, and KGB, resource has been wasted chasing UFOs around the Soviet Union. Wasted.’
‘You do not believe in UFOs?’
‘Of course not. And neither do you. I require that you give a statement to that effect. Write this: James Coyne, the American, was murdered by people - do not say government agents, say counter-revolutionaries - in a crude attempt to make it appear he had been kidnapped by space aliens. Say that.’
‘And we are certain,’ I said mildly, ‘that he was?’
‘Of course he was,’ said the senior KGB officer. When he became irate, his voice rose from a croak to the sound of a metal file rasping on metal. ‘Hum hum! You told the Moscow Militia so! He was hauled up by a rope around his ankle, like a deer in a snare!’
‘The Militia never found the rope.’
‘What does that matter? You don’t think it truly was
aliens
?’
I searched my mind. It had, before the explosion, been a cluttered and rather oppressive mind to live inside; but now it was clear and brightly lit: long elegant hallways and wide shining windows and order. I must concede it was an improvement. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I do not.’
‘There we are then! It’s nonsense. Poisonous and decadent nonsense, imported mostly from the USA, with films such as
Warring Stars
and
Intimate Embraces of Three Different Kinds
, and other such pornography.’
‘I have not seen these films.’
‘Quite right. They are banned. Nevertheless dedicated groups of counter-revolutionaries stage illicit screenings.’
‘Comrade,’ I said. ‘If I may? As one
old man
to another. This talk of counter-revolutionaries and so on - it is old-fashioned, you know. The Soviet Union is undergoing a process of reform and restructuring.’
He grunted at that. ‘Make a statement: say that persons unknown murdered the American. State categorically that there are no such things as space aliens, and that no UFO hovered over Moscow that night. Do not mention the events in the nuclear reactor. That is still a secret matter. But it is important we issue assurances to the Soviet people that they are not being
menaced
by
UFO
s.’