‘Upstairs, or in one of the ‘
Vorontsyev fired twice, almost resting the gun on Lock’s shoulder.
Kasyan’s slight figure ducked back into the doorway from which it had emerged. Lock whirled round on the empty corridor.
A smell of dust and explosives mixed with their tension.
‘Panshin!’ Lock bellowed. ‘I’m here for you, man! I want yew!’
He looked at them. ‘Dmitri, watch the corridor while we check upstairs. You, Major, stay with him. Come on, kid.’ Lubin hurried behind Lock up the flight of narrow stairs to the apartments and changing rooms above the club. Lock thrust out his hand at the head of the stairs, pushing it into Lubin’s chest to halt him. Then he glanced slowly, carefully around the corner, along the landing. Blank doors of veneered board, the smell of cigar smoke and expensive, over-employed aftershave.
He grinned, turning to Lubin.
‘Don’t get in my way. Keep behind me. OK?’
Lubin nodded.
How many of them were there? He knew, with a sick, enveloping disappointment, that Turgenev had moved the scientists.
That would have taken the majority of the GRU men away, too.
But Panshin and Turgenev would have guessed that he and Vorontsyev would come here, so how many had they left as a protection force? The ground floor was silent. Whatever Kasyan was planning, it wasn’t immediate. But there weren’t enough people with him to take any risks … how many does that leave up here, with the man with the aftershave and the cigar?
‘What does Panshin look like?’
‘What?’ Lubin was surprised. ‘Short, round, grey hair. Lots of rings, bracelets’
‘OK, let’s find him.’
The place was turning like a coin between Turgenev’s fingers; a safe house was becoming a trap. If they hadn’t left more than a handful of soldiers, then Turgenev wanted him and his team inside before anything happened. He kicked at one flimsy door and it flew open. He flinched back, but had not been in any firing line. The room was dark, smelt of food and cigarettes. He reached beside the door and switched on the light. A table, four half-empty plates, cutlery, glasses, an ashtray. His disappointment was as heavy as a stone in his stomach.
Then he quickly kicked at another door.
‘Panshin, get out here!’ he roared.
‘Watch — I’ was all Lubin had time to cry out.
Lock dropped to one knee, gun stiff-armed before him, the trigger squeezed three times as the magazine of the Kalashnikov was sprayed along the walls and ceiling of the corridor and the soldier staggered backwards under the impact of his shots. Then the finger slackened on the trigger as the man fell. The corridor was filled with smoke and plaster dust. Lock looked round towards Lubin.
The young man was sitting against the wall, inspecting his fingers as he took them from his temple, a kind of bleak wonder in his eyes. His hand was shaking violently. Then he saw Lock and grinned shakily, even held up his hand. Flesh wound.
Lock nodded. Heavy, hurrying footsteps on the stairs. Lubin whirled round, gun ready, as Dmitri lumbered into sight, blurting:
‘All right — Christ!’ Plaster dust settled in a fine down on his wet shoulders. Vorontsyev paused at the head of the stairs, doubled up as he fought for breath. ‘Where’s Panshin?’
Lock indicated the door from which the soldier had emerged, waggling his gun at it. Then he lunged forward towards the open door and the* upturned boots of the dead soldier. He crouched beside the doorway. In the pool of light offered by a standard lamp and a desk light, Panshin sat like an effigy, a caricature of a gangland boss. His plump, beringed hands were clearly in view on the leather top of the desk. His eyes watched Lock watching him without expression. There was no fear. Lock realised, getting to his feet.
He kicked the door wide, but Kasyan was not directly behind it, instead to one side. Lock fired the Makarov as he held it close against his side. His stomach felt the heat of the barrel, the two shots. Kasyan collapsed against the far wall of the study and slid gently into a sitting position, his features retaining their surprise, even their cleverness for a moment. There was a second door to the room. Kasyan must have used a flight of stairs that linked the study to the ground floor. Panshin’s hands had barely moved on the desk before Lock turned to him.
Slowly, Panshin’s round face, which seemed designed to express no range of emotions beyond confidence and a cunning superiority, slid into the discovery of fear. His eyes flickered beyond Lock as the others filled the doorway, then came back to the American; the stranger, the threat. Lock crossed the room to the desk, rounded it and stood beside Panshin.
He leaned his face towards the Russian.
‘I hear you’re the main man, Panshin,’ he announced. ‘You’re into heroin and people-smuggling, the real big time.’ The Makarov was out of sight at Lock’s side. ‘Cut me a deal,’ he added mockingly.
A clock that ticked in unison with his breathing had begun in Lock’s head. Panshin was unnerved, but not in disarray, even though his eyes strayed to the slight, dead form of Kasyan sitting like a dosser against the wall. Reserves of confidence, yes; untouchability, too. The familiar presence of Vorontsyev and the others diminished the threat of Lock, for they had always been containable, dismissible. And the GRU were looking after him now and there weren’t enough dead bodies visible to Panshin to make him really afraid.
‘You’re American,’ Panshin managed in innocence, as he glanced at the small carriage clock on his desk.
Lock swept the clock to the floor. Panshin flinched.
‘Let’s take him, Lock,’ Vorontsyev suggested, not moving from the doorway.
‘Too much excess baggage)’ Lock snapped back. ‘Well, fal man? What’s the deal? Where have they taken your guests?’
‘I don’t think I know what you’re-‘ Panshin began. Then Lock struck him across the temple with the barrel of the gun.
He heard Lubin’s indrawn, shocked breath.
He dragged Panshin upright in his chair, perching himself on the edge of the desk, the gun pressed against the man’s cheek.
Blood seeped from the expensive grey coiffure, down one rounded jowl to the white collar of the silk shirt.
‘OK, here’s my deal, Panshin. I don’t give shit about you.
You’re just something I have to go through to get to Turgenev.
I want to know where he’s stashed the guys he dumped on you.
Five, six nuclear physicists, technicians, whatever. Where were they taken — and when does he plan to send them on their way?’
‘I — don’t know …’
‘You can do better than that. A whole lot better.’
‘I don’t know—!’
Their shadows against the wall loomed together over the desk.
Lock’s body blocked Panshin’s view of the others. He heard the whispered instructions as Vorontsyev sent Lubin and Dmitri downstairs. Lock knew he was becoming the room’s only reality for Panshin, he saw it in the man’s eyes. They flicked again to Kasyan, whom Lock allowed him to see, then to Lock’s shoulder, which blocked the reassurance that the sight of an injured and exhausted Vorontsyev would have given.
Panshin shrugged. It was a costly effort.
‘I don’t know what happens next. The GRU came here and took away some people I was asked to — to look after for a day or so. I asked no questions.’
‘Someone as cautious as you, Panshin? You’d have needed to know the whole game-plan. That skin of yours is too well filled not to have been looked after over the years.’ He smiled. ‘Once more, here’s the deal. Where and when? Your gain is you get to survive.’