Firefox

'Then — they'll know I'm on my way?'

'Not necessarily. They will merely be watching us.'

'If they stop us?' Gant persisted. 'It'll all be blown to hell, before I can leave Moscow!'

'No! If we are stopped, there are other arrangements.' Pavel seemed to be battling with some doubt in himself.

'What other arrangements?' Gant said scornfully. 'I've got to get six hundred miles today, man! How do I do it — fly?; Gant laughed, a high-pitched sound. Pavel looked at him in contempt.

'I am ordered to — die, if necessary, to ensure that you get away free,' Pavel said softly. 'It is not what I would consider a willing or worthwhile sacrifice… However, if we get out of here safely, then we shall not be stopped again until we reach the circular motorway, where another vehicle will be waiting, in the event of trouble, to collect you. If there is no trouble, then you continue with me. Understood?'

Gant was silent for a time, then said: 'Yes.'

'Good. Now, go and shave, in the next room — clean yourself up, a little, yes?' Gant nodded, and crossed the room. Just as he was about to close the door behind him, he heard Pavel say: 'Gant — can you fly that plane — really fly it?'

Gant poked his head back round the door. Pavel was staring into the bottom of his mug, hands clasped round it, elbows on the bare wooden table. His big frame seemed somehow shrunken in the blue overalls.

'Yes,' Gant said. 'I can fly it. I'm the best there is.'

Pavel looked up into Gant's eyes, stared at him for a long moment in silence, then nodded, and said: 'Good. I would not want to die to deliver faulty goods to Bilyarsk.'

He returned his gaze to the coffee mug, and Gant closed the door behind him. He switched on the weak, naked bulb, ran the water until it was lukewarm, and inspected himself in the speckled mirror. Pavel had cut his hair the previous night, and then he had washed it. It was short now, flat on his head, without hair oil. He looked younger, perhaps a little like he had done as a teenager in Clarkville — except for the ridiculous moustache that survived from his personae as Orton and then as Grant. He soaped his face with a stubby brush and tugged at the bristles of the moustache until it had become hairs floating in the grey shaving water. Then he began, methodically, to shave the rest of his face.

When he returned to the office, Pavel was obviously ready to leave. The old man had returned, and vanished again, presumably to keep watch.

'They are here,' Pavel said softly. Gant sensed a new tension about the man, his ordinariness showing through.

'How many?' Gant asked, keeping his voice steady with an effort.

'Three — in one car. The old man has seen them before. They are part of the team appointed to the security of the Bilyarsk project. They follow Mr. Lansing about Moscow, and Dherkov, the courier who comes from Bilyarsk. The old man thinks they are only watching — if they had come to make arrests, there would be more of them.'

Gant nodded when the Russian had finished. Then, his expression turned to one of surprise when Pavel drew an automatic from his overall pocket.

'What — ?'

'You can use this?'

Gant took the gun, and turned it over in his hand. It was a type he had not met before, a Makarov, but it seemed close enough to the Walther P-38 that he had used more than once, if only on the range. He nodded.

'Good. Don't — unless it's absolutely necessary!'

'Yes.'

'Are you ready?'

'Yes.'

'Then let us be gone from here. It is a little before six — soon it will be light, and we have six hundred miles to go.' He opened the door, and followed Gant through.

Once they were in the big cab of the truck, whose nose pointed at the double-doors of the warehouse, Pavel started the engine and flickered the headlights. Gant spotted the old nightwatchman by the doors, then they began to swing open; Pavel eased the truck into gear and they rolled forward towards the widening gap of grey light. He caught a glimpse of the old man's face, smiling grimly, and then they were out into the side street, with Pavel heaving on the wheel of the truck to straighten it. Gant caught a glimpse of a black saloon further down the street, in the opposite direction to the one they had taken, and then they were turning into the Kirov Street, sodium-lit, grey, and deserted.

Behind them, the KGB car was quiet. No one had panicked, started the engine. Instead, one of the three men, the oldest and largest, had picked up the car telephone, and was in direct contact with KGB Colonel Mihail Kontarsky within seconds.

'They have just left — two of them, in the sanitary ware delivery truck. What do you wish us to do, Colonel?'

There was a pause, then: 'I will check with Priabin at the Mira Prospekt. For the moment, you may follow them — but do not close up!'

'Yes, Colonel.' He nodded to the driver, who fired the engine. The car pulled out from the kerb, past the now-closed doors of the warehouse, and stopped at the junction with the Kirov Street. The truck was a distant black lump on the road, heading north-east towards the Sadovaya, the inner ring road around the city.

'Close up,' the man in charge said to the driver. 'But not too close. Just enough not to lose him on the Sadovaya.'

'Right!' The driver pressed his foot on the accelerator, and the saloon shot forward, narrowing the distance between itself and the truck. By the time they were a hundred metres in the rear, the truck was slowing at the junction of the Kirov Street and the Sadovaya. The saloon idled into the kerb, waiting until the truck pulled out into the heavier traffic of the ring road. The indicator showed that the driver, the man Upenskoy, intended to turn right, to the south-east.

The truck pulled out, then the man in the passenger seat said: 'Colonel — Colonel, they're on the Sadovaya now, heading south-east. We're pulling out — now.' The car skittered across the road, and was hooted at by an oncoming lorry, straightened, and the truck was more than five hundred metres away. 'Close up again,' the man said, and the driver nodded. He skipped the saloon out into the outside lane, and accelerated. Kontarsky's voice came over the radio receiver.

'Priabin has just requested you to pick up the man Upenskoy — he has the other two, Glazunov and Riassin. Who is that in the truck with him, Borkh?'

'I do not know, Colonel — it should be—'

'Exactly! It should be Glazunov, should it not, if Upenskoy is making a real delivery somewhere… should it not?'

'Yes, Colonel. The truck has turned onto Karl Marx Street now, Colonel — it looks as if they're heading out of the city, all right.'

'Where is Upenskoy scheduled to deliver?'

'I don't know, Colonel — we can find out.'

'He will have to report to the travel control on the motorway, Borkh, we can find out then. You follow them until they reach the checkpoint, then we shall decide what to do. Priabin is bringing in Glazunov and Riassin — perhaps they will be able to tell us?'

The men in the car heard Kontarsky's laughter, and then the click of the receiver. Borkh replaced the telephone, and studied the truck, now only a hundred metres ahead of them on Bakouninskaia Street, headed like an arrow north-east out of the city, towards the Gorky road.

'Our Colonel seems to be in a merry mood this morning,' the driver observed. 'Then, he hasn't spent the night in a freezing car!'

'Disrespect, Hya?' Borkh said with a smile.

'Who — me? No chance! Hello, our friend is taking a left turn,' he added. The car was crossing the Yaouza, the tributary of the Moskva, flowing south at that point to join the river at the Oustinski Bridge. The truck ahead of them had turned left directly after the bridge over the sluggish tributary. The car followed, keeping its required distance. 'Think he's spotted us?'