‘- still, that’s it,’ he encouraged, as if he could actually see her sitting in her car outside on K Street. ‘No, there’s no order to fire … all you have to do is to slide down slowly, slowly in the seal, or bend down as if looking for something, and gel out of the car…’ Why she hadn’t seen them arrive, Dmitri had no idea. He was sweating profusely, on her behalf rather than his own. ‘OK — no, begin when I tell you … What?’ He held Vorontsyev’s phone close to his lips. He hoped that Marfa was holding her phone below the sightline offered by the windscreen as she had been instructed to do. She seemed consumed by guilt that she had noticed nothing through the rushing blizzard.
‘OK. All you have to do is to get away from the car. No, I don’t know in which direction they have you in sight, I’d guess from the front, in this weather, to see you at all. Just remember they can’t see anything properly, nightscopes or not, through the snow. OK — yes, in your own time, but slowly …’
Lubin was still dabbing at his temple. The blood had already dried to a crust. Perhaps it was a nervous reaction because Marfa was in danger. Dmitri nodded to Vorontsyev.
‘Is that what they’ll do, Lock — really? Why not storm the place, call on us to surrender?’
‘Listen, Vorontsyev, what would you do? Not as a cop, not even as GRU — but as a gangster? Have fun setting the place on fire and shooting the rats as they come out … wouldn’t you?’
Vorontsyev nodded with great reluctance. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Good!’
‘And afterwards?’
‘We don’t have any choice, you know that. The airport.’
‘And how do we get there?’ Vorontsyev stormed. ‘We can do roadblocks in this country like no one else on earth! You don’t think someone like Bakunin has forgotten all those old habits, do you? I’m pretty easily identified, in case you hadn’t noticed!’
‘OK, OK — I can get through on my fake passport. Gas company executive. You — you go in the trunk of a car or the back of a truck, well hidden. Look, just get there, OK?’ he ended in exasperation, waving his arms as if against a sudden swarm of midges.
‘Separate exits?’ Lock nodded. ‘K Street is-?’ Vorontsyev glanced at Dmitri, who held up the mobile phone, shrugging pessimistically. God, she had to be all right ‘They’re all around us, if they have any organisation,’ Lock pronounced. ‘But we’re dots in a blinding snowstorm. They’re the best odds we can get, Alexei.’
The trilling of a phone.
‘Yes?’ Dmitri’s voice.
‘Is she — ?‘Vorontsyev began, but Dmitri waved him to silence.
He listened intently, then began nodding like a Russian doll; the layers and enclosures of the doll were exposed one by one, so that the final impression was of a furious, small figure rocking violently to and fro. Marfa was all right.
‘OK — OK. She says sorry. She can’t see anyone, apart from one truck on the street. They must be in the buildings.’
Lock crossed to Dmitri and snatched the phone, in the same moment gesturing to Lubin to begin dousing the furniture with the petrol he had found stored in the basement, next to the racks of house wine.
‘Listen to me, Marfa,’ he said overbearingly. ‘It’s up to you to help us out of here — don’t argue, just listen! OK, that’s better … Now, describe the cover out there, the streetlighting, everything!’
‘Wait!’ Vorontsyev ordered, turning to where Panshin was sitting hunched on one of the club chairs, his temple still bleeding and covered by his stained silk handkerchief. ‘There’s Panshin’s BMW outside. Got the keys, Val?’ Lock’s flippant exhilaration was infectious.
‘Not all of us,’ Lock warned. ‘We need to split up. We’re too easily spotted together. Marfa — hold on.’ He studied Panshin thoughtfully. Then he said: ‘Lubin, go look out the rear. Carefully.
If they’re not around, then OK, you and Dmitri can get the Major out in the BMW. Move it.’
Lubin put down the petrol can and scuttled away and along the corridor to the rear door. Lock seemed puzzled for a moment, then he began studying Vorontsyev and Dmitri, examining them it. as carefully as a doctor reluctantly confirming a pessimistic diagnosis.
‘We’re it. Lock, the whole army,’ Vorontsyev murmured.
‘I know it. Marfa ‘
‘Yes?’
‘Any movement?’
‘N-no,’ the girl replied with urgent uncertainty. A girl scout, he thought disparagingly.
‘OK, hold on there — I’ll get back to you.’ The girl seemed unresponsive to the joke; perhaps she didn’t understand it.
‘Yes,’ she replied gloomily.
Lubin reappeared, his face excited as a child’s.
‘I can’t see anyone out there — no fresh footprints, tyre tracks ‘
‘They have to be out there somewhere’
‘Lock, we’re wasting time!’ Dmitri barked, joining them.
‘Either we move now or we don’t move!’
‘OK. The Major can’t move quickly, anyway. Take him in the BMW.’
‘Call Marfa in.’
‘I’ll take care of Marfa!’ Lock replied.
‘You mean, she’s part of the distraction. I won’t have her put in more danger—’
‘Vorontsyev, she’s all the way into this thing! She’s no passenger.
I’ll take care oi her!’
Vorontsyev nodded reluctantly. Lubin appeared about to protest, then Lock snapped at him:
‘Torch the place!’
‘What about him?’ Dmitri asked, nodding at Panshin. Then he understood. ‘You can’t,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘He’ll just blunder out of one door or the other and they’ll ‘
‘- be distracted,’ Lock completed. ‘Let’s hope so.’ He turned to Lubin. ‘Go ahead, do it!’
Flame spurted at once from the place where Lubin had thrown the bundle of paper napkins he had lit. Panshin’s face was filled with firelit horror.
‘Get moving!’ Lock growled to Vorontsyev. ‘Forget him!’
He urged them towards the rear door. Dmitri had snatched Panshin’s keys from his hand. The fat club owner seemed uncertain, but Lock knew he would follow him to the front door.
The flames roared up towards the club’s low ceiling. The smoke was already thick, choking. Panshin’s features crawled with terror, and with concern at the fate of his club.
Vorontsyev nodded at Lock and disappeared along the corridor towards the rear door, Dmitri beside him like an overcoated nurse. There was no time to consider their chances — nor his own. He began moving swiftly towards the club’s street entrance, ha If-attentive for the noise of shooting, or a car engine from the rear. He heard Panshin labouring alter him, heavy footed, dazed.
Lock crouched against the tinted glass, dark enough at night to conceal him even from nightscopes. He visualised the street as best he could. The storm flung its weight of snow across the blurred light of the streetlamps and neon that dimly summoned to shops and clubs and bars he could no longer see across the street.
Time to go. Panshin? He watched the man as he might have done an insect … Something stopped him from thrusting Panshin through the door. The corridor was lit by the fire, and the smoke wrapped itself more thickly about them. Nevertheless, the moment of utter detachment in which he could have used Panshin as a shield had passed and he couldn’t recover it.
‘You’re on your own, pal!’ he snapped and pushed the door wide. ‘Live long, uh?’
Then Lock was through the door, slipping on the drift of snow heaped in the porch and on the steps — skidded, was deafened by the wind, then lurched against the smoked-glass windows of the club, his hand smearing the snow. The glass shattered near his hand, fell inwards from the impact of the first shot. They could see nothing more than moving blurs, shadows — but hadn’t missed by more than inches. He scuttled to the corner of the alleyway, and heard the roar of a car engine, saw the muzzle flashes of two guns, high up as if suspended in the storm. Window vantages overlooking the club car park. The BMW’s brakelights wobbled on and off as if in uncertainty, but they were retreating into the storm’s murk, heading away from K Street. A last violent glare of the brakes, then it was gone.