Gant nodded, and attempted to relax. He was moving, but it appeared too much like drifting to comfort him. He did not know where he was going, and he had no idea how far he could trust his companions — except that he had Aubrey's assurance. But Gant could not relax. A man had been murdered in the centre of Moscow, and they were making their getaway on public transport. The whole thing had a faint atmosphere of the ridiculous about it — and, Gant acknowledged, anonymity. Aubrey again.
Aubrey had told him nothing about the manner of his disappearance from Moscow, nor of the manner of his transportation to Bilyarsk. He was luggage, freight, until they reached the factory and the hangar. And that was how, he admitted, he had tried to regard the whole operation — yet, the shock to his system, to his reserves of calm and indifference, administered by the death on the embankment, made it increasingly difficult to remain freight, or luggage. He was scared.
When the train stopped briefly in the Kourskaia Station, he managed not to look out of the window, except in the most bored manner, and he managed not to inspect the passengers boarding the train. When he looked back at Pavel, however, as the doors sighed shut and the train surged forward, the big Russian was looking back down the platform. Gant followed the direction of his gaze. At the gateway to the moving-staircase passengers, who had just descended from the tram, were being questioned by two men in overcoats and hats.
Gant, fear dry in his throat, waited for Pavel to turn his gaze back into the carriage. When he did so, and saw Gant staring at him, he merely nodded, once. Gant understood him. KGB. They were covering their bets. Even if they had not yet begun the massive operation of boarding every metro train, they were already sealing up the bolt-holes. They knew how good an escape route the metro was — they had a map of the system and a timetable, just as Aubrey had done when he planned the escape route. And the murder had been done conveniently near the Pavolets Station.
Swiftly, almost as a distraction, he studied the papers Pavel had given him. When he had finished, he put them away, and his eyes were drawn hypnotically to the window again.
The dark tunnel rushed past the window, and Gant felt the knot of tension harden in his stomach, and tasted the bile at the back of his throat. He stared, helplessly, at the door connecting his carriage with the one ahead, waiting for it to open, to admit an over-coated figure whose manner would betray his authority, whose eyes would scorch across his features.
The train slowed, the darkness beyond the grimy windows becoming the harsh lighting of the Komsomolskaia Station. Involuntarily, he looked at Pavel. The big man had got casually to his feet, and was hanging idly onto a handrail near the sliding doors. Gant got up unsteadily — he knew that his face must be pale and sweating — and stood squarely at the second set of doors in the carriage.
As the train stopped and the doors slid open, he realised that he knew nothing of what the papers in his pocket contained. In sudden panic, he had forgotten. He stepped shakily down onto the platform, was pushed from behind by another passenger and the movement was a grateful trigger. Grant… like his own name. He remembered. His eyes sought the exit flight. Yes, there were two KGB men there.
Pavel pushed close to him, as if as a reassuring presence. A small crowd of people seemed to have left the train at that station, and he and the big man were at its heart. It moved slowly, as if with communal wariness, towards the exit. The station's opulence glanced across his awareness. Even here there were no hoardings, no advertisements of women in underclothes or huge bottles of Scotch or cinema posters — only frescoes of the great and praiseworthy victories of the Russian people since 1917, in the bold, awkward, cartoon style of Soviet realism.
He sensed Pavel fade back into the crowd again, but did not turn his head. The crocodile drifted towards the waiting men at the foot of the exit stairs. They were inspecting papers, and he reached into his pocket for Michael Grant's documents. He pulled them from his pocket and re-inspected them as swiftly as he could. Michael Grant — passport, entry visa, hotel reservation, Intourist information brochure.
The KGB man's face loomed in front of him, a white, high-boned, thin face, with a large, aquiline nose, and sharp, powerful eyes. He was inspecting Gant's papers thoroughly, and glancing from photograph to face, and back again. Then he looked at the documents issued to Michael Grant since his arrival in Moscow, three days before. Gant wondered whether such a man had booked into the Warsaw Hotel on that day — and he knew it wouldn't have been overlooked. Michael Grant would be a bona-fide tourist, whose papers had been-borrowed and duplicated.
'You do not appear to be in the best of health, Mr. -Grant?' the KGB man said in English. He was smiling, and seemed without suspicion.
'No.' Gant faltered. 'I — a little tummy trouble. The food, you know…' He smiled weakly.
'In your photograph you are wearing glasses, Mr. Grant?'
Gant patted his pockets, and continued to smile, a smile that was wan, and remarkably stupid. 'In my pocket…'
'The food at the Warsaw — it is not good?'
'Yes, fine — just a little too rich for me.'
'Ah. Thank you, Mr. Grant.'
The man had taken the number of the passport, and the numbers of the documents that he had handed back. Gant had walked a dozen steps before he realised that he had bluffed his way through, that his feet had automatically stepped onto the ascending flight of stairs, and he was being moved up and out of sight of the two KGB officers. His stomach felt watery, and he belched, He wanted to be sick with relief. He forced himself not to turn round to look for Pavel and the other man, to stifle the growing panic of the thought that they might have been picked up, and he was now alone…
He stepped off the staircase, and moved over to study a large map of the Moscow metro system. He did not dare to turn his attention from the map, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of the topcoat, his shoulders slightly bowed, as he fought against the tide of nausea. He told himself, over and over, that this tension was the same as flying, the sudden, violent twists of time which moved from calm and boredom, to terror, were things that he had experienced many times before. But it did not seem to work, the sedative of familiarity. Perhaps, in the huge, ornate foyer of the metro station, with its gigantic statuary, marbles and bronzes, and the mosaic floor and frescoed walls — perhaps he was unable to transpose himself to the cockpit, and calm his growing panic. All he knew that moment was that he was alone, stranded — they would have picked up Pavel, and the other man. What could he do?
A hand fell on his shoulder, and he jumped away as if stung by some electric charge within him. He turned round, and Pavel saw the damp, frightened face, and doubt flickered in his eyes.
'Thank God,' Gant breathed.
'You look terrible,' Pavel said, without humour. 'Mr. Grant — I watched your performance… it was not very convincing.'
'Jesus! I was shit-scared, man!' Gant burst out.
Pavel looked at him, towering over him. Gant seemed smaller, slighter, less impressive than even his disguise would normally have made him. Pavel, remembering what Edgecliffe, the SIS Head of Station in Moscow, had said of the American, agreed. This man was a risk, Edgecliffe had said — if he causes serious trouble on the journey, get rid of him — don't risk the whole network, just for him. And Gant looked as if he might be big trouble.
'Go and make yourself sick,' Pavel said, with distaste in his voice. 'Go, and hide yourself in the toilets. There will be more KGB men on the way. We shall leave the station after they feel they are sufficiently reinforced — when they are confident that, if we reach the main entrance, then we must have been searched at least three or four times. Go!' He spat out the last word and Gant, after staring at him for a long moment, turned his back and walked away. Pavel watched him go, shook his head, and then set himself to watch, from the cover of his newspaper, the arrivals at the Komsomolskaia Metro Station.