Two of his companions began grabbing people’s arms and pulling them to their feet. Most of the people were groggy from sleep and confused. The fourth man glanced around and then walked over to the front table, where he started looking around carefully.
Steve pushed himself up and helped pull Jane and Judy to their feet. At least the three of them were already awake. He led them over to the wall where the others were being herded, so they could get lost in the crowd.
The agent holding the gun kept it on the crowd. The man who had begun inspecting the front table slowly worked his way through storage cabinets down the wall toward the rest room, pulling out whatever he found and letting it fall. The last two men began kicking apart the bedding and personal items on the floor.
Since they had asked no questions, Steve could not tell right away what they were looking for. He watched as the two agents in the middle of the floor shook everything apart, throwing belongings in all directions. The people huddled around them watched in terror, without protesting.
“Does this happen often?” Steve whispered to Judy, lowering his head to stay out of sight.
“As often as they want,” said Judy. “But they’re looking for something specific, I think.”
Jane nodded. “Something too big for people to hide on their bodies. That’s why they aren’t searching anybody.”
No one else spoke as the three men systematically tore apart all of the personal belongings and threw the items in the storage cabinets onto the floor. The man searching the far wall also inspected the rest room. Finally, after they had finished, they turned and faced the crowd.
“Two secret radio transmitters have been detected functioning in this neighborhood,” said the man with the gun. “Who knows something about them?”
Steve froze with tension. His call to Hunter, when Hunter had still been nearby outside, had been picked up by Soviet receivers, along with Hunter’s response. For the authorities to have estimated the location of the two sources, at least two receivers had to have overheard them, and probably more. Since the man had used the word “neighborhood,” they had not been able to focus specifically on this building. Obviously, however, they had come very close.
Steve chastised himself for being careless. In all of their previous missions, radio had been unknown and, therefore, completely secret. Their only worry had been to avoid having Hunter call them on their lapel pins while they were in the hearing of local people.
He had completely forgotten that their messages could be intercepted by local authorities. Since Hunter had not warned him of this at the time, even Hunter might have taken the possibility lightly. Now they had caused this disruption and potential danger to everyone in the warehouse.
The crowd remained silent, some eyeing the four NKVD agents with fear and others turning their faces away. In turn, the four men stared at individuals in the crowd, frowning with suspicion. No one spoke for a long moment.
Steve frantically tried to remember the content of his conversation with Hunter. He remembered that Judy’s first name had been mentioned and also the names of Wayne Nystrom and Ishihara. He had addressed Hunter by name and used his own first name-and they had spoken in English. That alone would mark them as foreigners. Also, the brief exchange had raised the possibility of sneaking out to meet, which certainly would have sounded suspicious. Beyond that, however, he could not recall the exact wording of the discussion.
The agent with the gun walked up to the crowd and spoke in a low voice to someone in the crowd. Steve could not see him. He could not make out the words, either, but the tone was menacing, aimed at intimidation.
Steve decided that radio meant something much more important here than it did in his own time. Though his knowledge of history did not come close to that of Hunter or Judy, and was not as good as even Jane’s, he supposed that radio was the only broadcast tool available in this time. It would be especially useful for intelligence agents. These NKVD agents were probably looking for spies, though they had no idea that a transmitter and receiver could be small enough to hide in a lapel pin.
The agent with the gun shoved the person he had been talking to out of the way and studied the crowd, looking for someone else to question.
15
Wayne concentrated so hard on driving the car without running up on the sidewalk that he had no time to be scared. He turned corners when Ishihara suggested he do so, and could slow down enough not to make the tires squeal. However, Ishihara still had to tell him when to shift gears and to help him move the gearshift while he depressed the clutch. If Ishihara did not tell him to turn, Wayne simply drove straight down the dark streets.
“I am surprised,” said Ishihara. “I have continued to monitor NKVD radio traffic. No alert has gone out for the NKVD to search for this car.”
“No alert has gone out? Why not?”
“I can only conclude that agents Konev and Raskov have not yet reported that we stole their car.”
“Really? They’ve had plenty of time.”
“I would have thought so.”
Wayne grinned. “Of course, their radio is in this car. I guess they’d have to look for a phone.”
“Yes,” said Ishihara. “This means we are free to keep this car for now. We are in no danger of a specific search by the NKVD at large until they report its theft.”
“Well, that’s good. At least the heater works.” Wayne thought a moment. “But why haven’t those two agents reported that we took their car?”
“I do not know. Perhaps they have had difficulty locating a telephone.”
“Don’t they have a lot of authority, though? They could just commandeer a phone, couldn’t they?”
“Maybe at this hour, they have literally not found one available.”
“Can’t they just pound on someone’s door to get a phone if they really want to? The way they knocked on those doors to the public housing in the middle of the night?”
“I believe you are correct, to the limit of my knowledge,” said Ishihara.
“So why haven’t they reported in?”
“I do not know,” said Ishihara. “We could turn on the receiver in this car for you to hear, if you understood Russian.”
“I wish I did.” The mystery made Wayne uncomfortable, even though it seemed to be to their advantage at the moment. “Well, where are we going?”
“We must find you shelter for the night,” said Ishihara. “It has been a long night so far. We cannot risk your sleeping in this vehicle, for fear the report will be made and the search will begin.”
“Is there anything we can do about finding MC 4? While we still have this car?”
“My only suggestion is that we search through crowds, especially where a First Law imperative might draw MC 4 to take action.”
“I guess that won’t apply in the middle of the night when the city’s asleep.”
“I estimate you are correct.”
“Okay.” Wayne shrugged. “So, what should we do to find shelter, then?”
“A couple of blocks from where we took the car, I saw another large building that may house displaced citizens. My hearing told me that many people were sleeping inside. I shall direct you back there and we shall go to the door.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
Wayne drove according to Ishihara’s directions. They slowly made their way back to the neighborhood where they had begun. As Wayne recognized one of the blocks, he started looking for pedestrians.
“What if they’re still here? Hunter and those agents? We don’t want them to see us again.”
“I have been looking for any sign of them. I have not seen any. The warehouse from which we took the car is still out of sight.”
“How close to it are we going to get?”
“No closer than this. Turn left in the alley just ahead of us and stop the car at the right curb.”
“All right.”
Wayne turned left and braked nearly to a stop. The car jerked to a sudden halt and the engine died. He shrugged at Ishihara. “Sorry.”