‘It’s a good guess, Alexei. It’s his plane they’ll be using, and only his muscle will get it airborne in this blizzard, weather window or no weather window. He’Jl need the runway cleared, the plane de-iced, the pilots briefed … I think he’ll be there, if only to make sure we aren’t!’
‘OK, OK — it doesn’t matter anyway, does it? We don’t have any alternative. I’ll get in — in a moment.’ He smiled. His ribs ached slightly less now that his breathing was level, unexcited.
The escape had been quite straightforward, given the circum
308 stances. The big BMW had got them out of the trap of the alley in a rush and they’d skirted the one car that had attempted to block the exit before it could get into position. The pursuit had been organised, but slow to react. Arrogance, overconfidence.
They’d slipped into the canyons of the town’s poorest quarter and into the storm before they could be effectively tailed.
Now, they had to bluff their way through the roadblocks and drive into what amounted to a trap already set. Dmitri’s theory concerning TurgeneV was probably rubbish, but it comforted, even inspired him, so let that be. For himself…? One passenger intercepted while boarding would be enough, one nuclear physicist to wave like a flag. The security people would swamp this place, the UN would have apoplexy, Yeltsin would destroy Turgenev to maintain his own credibility and clean hands towards the West … they needed just one, or the evidence of one.
‘Dmitri, if all else … doesn’t work out, buy a camera and some film in the airport shop, will you?’ He looked intently at Gorov, who understood and nodded.
‘We’ll get something out of this, Alexei — something.’
‘Of course. Right, then — let’s get moving. Lubin, you say you can hotwire this heap — you can drive it, too. And, Lubin, you did well, back there.’
‘Sir!’
God, the enthusiasm of youth. All he had ever wished was to be saved from the fervour, as if he had menopausally passed the age where he could be impregnated with a cause, a sense of right. Now, it was just as Lensky the pathologist had predicted for him — he had become a middle-aged idealist… But he was mortal, vulnerable, and knew as much only too well. His arm, dulled by painkillers, confirmed that much! He was sensible about life, knew that it ended quickly enough without taking risks. Now, he was doing just that. He shrugged.
‘What’s wrong, Alexei?’
‘Someone just walked over my grave,’ he replied sombrely.
‘Let’s get on with it,’ he added brusquely. ‘You two help me in
— I can’t do it for myself.’
It was a black Cadillac, hardly even a half-stretch limo. So unexpectedly American that it amused him, despite his hunger and exhaustion. It was sitting on the snowy drive of a large dacha which appeared totally out of place. It was surrounded by high-rise blocks of flats encroaching on the poorly lit outskirts of the old town. A narrow street of six-storey blocks was the umbilical that connected this wooden house with its older, shabbier country cousins, which trailed out towards the tundra like uncertain spectators of vastness.
‘Whose car is it?’ he asked.
They crouched in the shelter of a builder’s skip, one of as many as a dozen scattered like dice in the space between the blocks of flats which rose like dark draped curtains behind the storm. The few lights showing at five-thirty in the morning were like rents in their material rather than signs of habitation.
Marfa whispered hoarsely: ‘He used to consider himself a gangster, a biznizman — in the early days. Two telephones in the house and a pink bathroom suite and he was the tsarevich.’ She snorted. ‘He was bought or frightened out of business, but they let him keep the car and gave him the money to build this place.
He was a pimp, about Teplov’s level, but in those days the girls were still on the streets. He used to have a coupJe of ramshackle caravans parked around here which served as the accommodation.’
She sniffed. ‘He wasn’t a talented crook.’
‘Not like Pete Turgenev, the prince of tides, uh?’ She looked blankly at him. ‘Not as smart as Turgenev,’ he explained.
‘No, not that smart.’
‘OK, I can get that car to start — it looks just about good enough for a gas company executive. We’ll take it. No deposit, nothing to pay for six months, right?’ Again, she seemed nonplussed.
‘Forget it. Let’s get the car. Does he have a dog, this guy?’
‘I don’t think so. Just an old woman to look after him. His wife died of AIDS — she was his first girl. Nothing but the usual transmissible diseases for years, then—’
‘Don’t tell me, the Americans arrived and brought their diseases with them!’ Lock snapped. ‘Let’s get the car.’
As they came out from behind the skip, the wind ripped at them, growling with renewed threat. There seemed not the slightest chance that there would be a break in the weather.
Which suited, anyway. He wanted the airport closed in all day.
He leaned against the force of the wind, stepping high through the snow like a child exaggerating the difficult new art of walking.
Maria huddled beside him, using him as shelter without any suggestion of contact or companionship.
The drive sloped slightly. The Cadillac, mapped like a cow by its colour and the blowing snow, stood in front of closed garage doors. Lock sidled furtively beside the driver’s door and removed a short length of lead pipe from his overcoat pocket. The things you can pick up off the sidewalk … He fitted it over the old fashioned door handle and jerked it violently downwards. The lock broke and he tugged the door open.
The car alarm bellowed at him
‘Carefully now,’ Dmitri warned. The GRU vehicle’s headlights blared through the snow, picking them out moving along the airport road at a snail’s pace. ‘Just pull over and wait.’
The road had been cleared the previous evening and would be cleared again, he presumed, at first light. At six in the morning, it was clogged with the night’s fall and drifts, a tumbled landscape in miniature. Beside him, he could hear Lubin breathing hoarsely, quickly.
‘Calm down, lad, calm down.’ Then, almost mischievously, and to release his own tension, he added: ‘And get ready to run if they don’t like the look of us.’ He was chillingly aware of Vorontsyev in the boot.
The UAZ jeep drew alongside them, its canvas hood white under the weight of snow, its wipers flicking like drowning arms.
A face inspected them with minimal curiosity from behind a streaked driver’s window. It was, for a moment, apparent that the jeep would pass on down the road towards Novyy Urengoy.
Then it stopped and Dmitri heard its brake being dragged on.
His heart thudded in his chest.
‘We’re maintenance men at the airport — really security, right?’ he reminded Lubin.
‘Yes, yes!’ the young man replied with quick nerves.
Dmitri wound down the window of the old car. A decayed Mercedes now only fit for the scrapheap; which meant the Turks and Pakistanis in Novyy Urengoy. He hoped it hadn’t yet been reported stolen. On the other hand, Police HQ wouldn’t give a toss if the caller had an Asian accent.
‘Yes?’ he asked the frost-featured soldier who leaned down to the half-open window. There was no deference in his voice.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Security. We’re checking for — criminals,’ he concluded, as if remembering an item of rote learning that meant nothing.
‘Criminals, eh? Our business, too, as a matter of fact. Out at the airport.’ He flipped open his wallet, displaying a piece of plastic to which was attached his photograph. Something he’d had for years, a temporary posting out to the airport in the early days of heroin smuggling, when the most daring they had been was to disguise themselves as maintenance people. ‘OK?’ he asked. ‘We’ll be late clocking on if we hang about here.’