The soldier indicated that he wished to see the ID once more.
A corporal’s stripes on his greatcoat. His word would be enough for any officer in the jeep or nearby. Come on, come on —
Dmitri gestured as if to close the wallet again, and the corporal nodded. The snow was melting between his collar and his cap as he bent to the window and he resented his discomfort.
‘OK,’ he grumbled. ‘I wonder you buggers didn’t stay in bed on a day like this!’
‘Double shift — lots of overtime,’ Dmitri replied, sensing Lubin’s tension mount after a momentary sense of relief.
‘Thanks, mate. Good luck.’
Lubin drew slowly, very slowly, away from the UAZ. It diminished in the mirror, swallowed by the storm as the corporal was still engaged in climbing back into the rear of the vehicle.
His breathing clouded the windscreen, despite the puffing of the heater, and Dmitri leaned across to wipe it clear. Snow rushed into the headlights as if the blizzard had gathered new strength.
‘We’re through, boy — we’re through!’ He raised his voice and turned in his seat. ‘We’re OK, Alexei — on our way!’
The last block of flats had disappeared into the snowstorm like a drifting liner, the few scattered dachas looked like boxes abandoned in the snow. And immediately there was the roadblock; two long-necked lights on parked dollies, the red and white pole, even the glow from some kind of trailer vehicle that served for accommodation. It was disconcerting, appearing as if it had been in place for some considerable time and had well-rehearsed routines. Marfa was catlike in her display of nerves in the driving seat.
He put his hand on her shoulder and her whole frame flinched at the contact. ‘Take it easy,’ he murmured, excluding all emotion from his voice.
They’d had the old Cadillac off the snowbound drive and down onto the street before a light had come on in the old biznizman’s dacha. No other lights, no flicking of curtains; people chose not to know. He’d gotten the bonnet open and found the alarm circuit. Ripped it out, silencing the noise. The door of the wooden bungalow was cautiously, fearfully opening as Marfa accelerated away. Yet somehow the noise, the hurry, had unsettled her more than the action on K Street, when she might have been killed so easily. Perhaps she’d just run out of resistance?
Lock didn’t know—
didn’t have time to care right now, he reminded himself.
A door in the side of the trailer vehicle, army drab showing where the snow had melted on its flanks, opened and light spilt out, gleaming through the snow. The girl shivered and Lock made as if to grip her shoulder once more, then resisted the impulse. His own nerves might be betrayed through his fingers.
Two guards, both armed with folded-butt assault rifles. Reluctant in the snow, but obedient. A corporal and a private by the flashes on their greatcoats.
Lock had damaged the door where he had broken in, denting it purposely to give the appearance of an impact by another car.
Marfa, masquerading as his Russian driver, wound down the window as the corporal leaned close to it.
‘Papers? What are you doing out here, this time of the morning?’
The private yawned, but his eyes never moved from the girl the car, the shadowy passenger behind her. ‘Well?’
Marfa said: ‘I’m just the driver — taking someone out to the airport. Gas company business.’ She managed the sentences as if they were in a foreign language, awkwardly but with a stiff, correct fluency. They might just believe her.
‘Who’s your passenger?’
He’d told her the name on the last of the passports. Paul Evans. She was hesitating, as if searching her memory for something long forgotten. Quickly, he wound down the window. He hadn’t wanted to antagonise them, but ‘What’s the hold-up, fella?’ he asked, his accent broadly Texan, his tone impatient. ‘Let’s get going, uh?’ he added to Marfa, making shooing gestures the two soldiers would clearly see. ‘Jesus, these guys in uniform.’ It was added quietly but the contempt would carry, even if they didn’t speak English.
The corporal snapped in Russian at Marfa.
‘How can you stand driving this prat around?’
‘What’s he saying, honey?’ Lock enquired.
The corporal smirked, catching the tone that indicated a lack of Russian. Then he spat into the snow beside the car and said:
‘OK, Yankee!’ His accent was thick but the English was decipherable.
‘You gel out now — quick!’
‘I’m not stepping out in a snowstorm for some jumped-up asshole in a uniform!’ Lock replied in assumed outrage. ‘You want to see my papers, fine! Anything else, forget it!’
The corporal’s rifle nudged above the door sill. It was held casually at his hip. The barrel gleamed wet in the diffused glow of the overhead lights. He had successfully distracted them away from Marfa. The corporal’s face was eagerly angry. He wanted to take this Yankee inside the hut, humiliate him.
There hadn’t been anything else he could do. Which was no comfort: ‘Out!’ the corporal ordered, and the rifle waggled, a baton waved merely to attract attention. ‘Mr American — out.’ He stepped back, expecting instant obedience.
Lock snorted loudly and clambered out into the storm. There was an officer in the doorway of the trailer now, watching the small drama.
‘What is it, fella — your haemorrhoids giving you problems?
You got a nasty temper on you — ‘ Lock’s breath was driven from his body as the rifle’s muzzle was jabbed into his stomach. He raised his hands. ‘What’s gotten into you people?’ he demanded.
‘Listen, fella, I’m an executive with’
‘Inside!’
He was shunted towards the steps of the trailer. He glimpsed Marfa’s worried features and his left hand gestured her to silence. Then his foot slipped on the steps and the corpora] helped unbalance him by a prod in the back with the rifle. The officer had already retreated to his foldaway desk halfway down the cramped, harshly lit interior. Fuggy, heady with warmth.
He’d seen two other armed GRU soldiers outside and there was a sergeant at a smaller desk. He and the officer watched him with the anticipation lechers might have extended to a young woman. Lock clamped his nerves, held them still.
‘You’re the head honcho, right?’ he drawled angrily. ‘You got the say-so — so what is this? Some kind of stick-up? A frame? I got business to attend to out at ‘
‘Sit down!’ The officer indicated a hard chair placed before the desk. With obvious but abashed reluctance. Lock sat. ‘Good.’
‘Look, Captain, what gives? There ain’t usually roadblocks on the edge of town ‘
‘No.’
‘Then, what’s the problem?’
‘We are looking for an American.’ The captain’s manner was theatrically pleasant, his English expressed in a slight American twang.
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Perhaps I get you?’ The officer smiled, offered a cigarette which Lock declined, then lit one for himself. Marlboro.
The? Look, Captain, here’s my US passport. That ought to be good enough.’ He handed the passport over. ‘See. Paul Evans ‘
‘And who is he?’
The.’
‘And who are you?’
‘What?’ He forced the anger as if from a small waterhole of confidence, one rapidly evaporating. ‘Oh, yeah. I’m the guy in charge of shipments, materiel…? Equipment coming in. For SibQuest, the oil-gas company.’ He managed to grin. ‘We’re small but we’re sure growing!’ SibQuest had Americans and Canadians as well as Europeans working for them, even though they were a Qatari company with Australian partners. As yet, they weren’t important in the Siberian gasfields.