Vorontsyev switched off the mobile phone, then stared at it as if he had received news of a bereavement, puzzled and shocked rather than endangered. Marfa seemed more alarmed than himself at the raised, urgent tone of Dmitri’s voice.
‘What is it — what’s wrong?’ she asked, moving closer to the bed, glancing back more than once towards the door. ‘Dmitri sounded as if he was in trouble.’
‘He was,’ he said, pushing back the bedclothes. His legs looked pale and weak as he stared at them. The hospital robe that tied at the back was rucked to his thighs. ‘We have to get out of here — check the corridor.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, nowV he snapped at her uncomprehending expression.
She looked bovine, simple. ‘For God’s sake, check the corridor, then get me my clothes!’
She scowled at him, then crossed to the door. Looking out, she saw nothing, not even the duty nurse or another patient.
Was that suspicious? She turned back into the room, to find Vorontsyev struggling to twist the shiftJike robe around so that he could untie the knots. His plastered arm flailed as if he were beset by bees or dogs. He appeared so comical she burst into laughter. His reddening face glowered at her.
‘Get me my bloody clothes!’
‘What’s wrong?’ she yelled back at him.
‘They want to finish it tonight, by the look of it!’ he ranted, sweat breaking out on his forehead, the fingers of his left hand merely tightening the knots in the ties of the robe. ‘For God’s sake I’
‘Don’t waste time dressing,’ she said levelly, calming a surge of fear that was as sudden as nausea. ‘Just get your boots and a coat on ‘
‘I’m bloody dressing nowV he bellowed.
It seemed like a domestic quarrel that had ascended to some insane boiling point, like some of her parents’ rows.
‘Then let me,’ she said, pushing him towards the bed. Then she dragged his clothes from the wardrobe. ‘Sit down — sir.’
His gun was in his hand, as if to ward her off, but aimed at the door. She bent down and put on his socks. Then she reached for the knots of the robe and he sat staring stupidly at her. It was risible rather than erotic and she bent her head to avoid his noticing her smirking expression. She was aware of the door behind her and of the skin itching on her back in anticipation of someone entering. She undid the knots with quick, nervous fingers, then said:
‘Take it off — sir.’ Her voice was as clogged as if she were undressing him in sexual foreplay, but the fear was becoming uppermost now. Dmitri’s voice had been panicky, over the edge.
‘Is — is Dmitri in immediate danger?’
‘Quiet — I’m listening for noises in the corridor!’ he snapped in a hoarse whisper. ‘Yes,’ he added. ‘I’m certain.’
He shuffled his loins into the jockey shorts she held out like a mother dressing an infant. He seemed unaware of her, but before she could experience pique, what he had said jolted her and she felt very cold.
‘Trousers,’ she said hurriedly.
He stood up and climbed into them as she held them. Then the shirt, then she zipped the trousers, buckled the belt. Off to school… He thrust his feet into his boots and she laced them, her fingers cold and anxious.
‘Come on!’ he snapped.
‘I’m hurrying as fast as I’
‘Sorry.’
She helped him into his overcoat, and held out his fur hat after she had buttoned the coat loosely across his padded, immobile arm. He shook his head.
‘Painkillers — that drawer/ he said, pointing with the pistol.
Then he moved to the door and opened it softly.
Vorontsyev looked out. Empty. Good. He waved the pistol in his left hand, to bring Marfa to the door behind him. ‘We’ll use the big lift, the one they use for moving people about on stretchers … come on.’
He went through the door and Marfa followed him, watching beyond his shoulder, expecting at any instant the arrival of armed men, and aware of his broken arm and the stifled grunts of pain as she had dressed him. His condition made her fearful for her own safety rather than his, even though the sensation shamed her. He was loo vulnerable, too weak and injured to be of help.
She tried to outface the thought of death, squash the memories of her experiences on the rig — the attack, the semiconsciousness, the smells of rubbish, the maw of the garbage truck towards which she had slid helplessly … He turned, and his expression made her realise she had stopped and was leaning limply against the corridor wall. He hurried back to her, shuffling like a hunchbacked grotesque, something from a movie.
‘Come on!’ he said urgently. ‘It’s all right, we’ll make it!’
Vorontsyev realised that the calm with which she had dressed him had been all she possessed to help her confront the situation.
Her ordeal at the rig had been too recent. He threw his left arm around her shoulders, to drag her into an embrace of encouragement and to move her towards the lifts. They really had to hurry
TWELVE
Modest Offices
The two men hurried behind him along the corridor, as if they were in pursuit or taking him on a journey he had no wish to make. His panic mounted as he reached the door of Vorontsyev’s room. His hand refused to reach for the handle. Then one of Bakunin’s men, the one in the leather topcoat, elbowed him aside and jerked open the door, throwing it wide onto -
bedclothes pulled back, signs of urgency. A glass of water had spilt onto the carpet. David Schneider felt a great relief overwhelm him, then a sense of danger as the two GRU men glared at each other, the bed, then him.
‘Where are they? You were responsible for keeping them under surveillance!’ one of them bellowed at him. His companion in the leather coat moved towards Schneider, the Makarov pistol gripped like a small club in his fist.
‘Who warned them, Yank? Who?’
‘Not me! They were your orders, you two were told to take care of him — he was here only minutes ago!’ he blurted it all out, the words like flailing hands attempting to counter an assault.
‘The lift!’ one of them snapped. ‘They can’t have got far, the cop’s injured — come on!’ They passed Schneider, the one in the leather coat growling;
‘We won’t find them in this storm, if they’re already outside.’
‘Get some back-up!’ the other shouted back at him as they stood before the lift doors. ‘It’s being used, look!’
‘Stairs — I’- Schneider heard, and then they were running along the corridor to the staircase.
He slumped against the wall, wiping the back of his hand across his wet, loose lips. God —
‘Where’s your car?’ Vorontsyev’s breath whistled between pursed lips that registered the pain in his arm and ribs.
‘The car park — not far from the main doors.’
‘OK.’
‘Where then?’
‘Teplov’s knocking shop. I told Dmitri the church, but he’ll know what I meant. Teplov will be discreet.’ He tried to grin, but his lips were as wet as his forehead. Groaning in a short-breathed manner, he cried: ‘These bloody ribs!’
She moved involuntarily towards him but he merely glared her away. The lift door opened. Icy cold drowned the compartment, snatching away their breath. Vorontsyev shivered uncontrollably.
‘Come on,’ she urged, and he leaned the least of his weight against her, no more than a gesture.
The underground delivery and emergency area stretched away around them like a cavern of concrete. The blizzard hurled itself down the ramp and through the echoing stanchions. He stumbled ahead of Marfa, doubled up as if against the full force of the wind rather than to nurse his arm and ribs, and she followed like a servant. The security man in his booth, its windows fugged and cosy, seemed oblivious of them as they climbed the icy ramp -