“Right, Comrade,” he said briskly. “Now get busy on the lady, then see to my feet. And hurry. I mean to be clear of here before your friends get moving. You’ll be coming with us incidentally.”
Ten minutes after that, both Shaw and Virginia were completely untied. Easing the cramps in his arms and legs, Shaw went across to the door. From his pocket, he took a bunch of ordinary-looking keys, twisted the top of each to the right, and from the shanks pulled out a set of delicately-made skeleton keys. The first one fitted; the lock of the door slid hackbut the door remained firmly shut. Shaw cursed, and went on fiddling vainly.
After a time, he said, “It’s no good. It’s got at least one more lock, something specially fitted, like a Chubb, that can only be worked from outside.”
He reassembled the keys and put the bunch back in his pocket, then moved over to the window and pulled the curtains aside. Opening the window, he leaned out. It was dark, with the lights of Moscow winking below him… a long, long way below him. Away in the distance he could see the glowing ruby stars on five of the Kremlin’s towers — Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Borovitskaya, Troitskaya, and Vodovzvodnaya — sending their lit-up messages of Red Communism into the Moscow night. The wall of the flats seemed to reach down into nothing, disappearing into the blankness. As he turned around, he saw Virginia watching his face. He saw that she’d guessed what he had in mind.
She said quietly, “I told you. We’re sixty storeys up. It’s one hell of a long drop. I don’t have a very good head for heights and I’ve never done any mountainclimbing. You’d better forget it. It’s impossible anyway.”
He shook his head somberly. “Sorry, Virginia. It’s not impossible and it’s the only way. I could blow the door locks with the gun, perhaps, but that way we’d stir up a hornet’s nest. It’s got to be the window and it’s not so bad as it sounds. There’s a ledge running level with the sill along to a fire escape, about a dozen yards to the left. That’s no distance to worry about.”
There was a small sound from the Russian girl. He’d spoken in English but she had evidently guessed what he had in mind. Her face had gone green and her eyes were staring, and then, very suddenly and quietly, she folded right up on the floor.
Twenty-one
They picked Tanya up and laid her on a sofa and it was only a matter of minutes before she recovered. But little color came back into her cheeks and she started sobbing.
Shaw gave her two stinging slaps, one on either cheek. “Come on,” he said roughly, “cut it out!”
Virginia, looking startled, said, “Steve, she’s all in. Give her a chance!”
He turned to her, face set. “Leave this to me. I’ve got to find out what I can before we leave and it seems to me there’s one good way to do that. We have to play on her nerves — you follow?” He slid his hands under Tanya’s body and lifted her off the sofa. Propelling her over to the window, he pushed her head through the join of the curtains and held her there, looking straight down through the open window, over the sill into the blackness of the long drop. Forcing her body farther outward, he said, “Take a good look, Comrade Tanya, because that’s where you’re going if you don’t open up and answer one or two questions — truthfully. Understand?”
She was trembling uncontrollably and still sobbing her heart out. “I do not know anything… I can tell you nothing at all!”
“Take another look,” he said inexorably, not relaxing his hard grip. “If you don’t talk you’re going down with us and then you’ll do your talking to the KGB. If you slip it’ll be just too bad — even the KGB won’t be interested in the mess on the concrete.” He jerked her backward suddenly, away from the window, swinging her round till her face was close to his own. “Now — start before I get really impatient.”
“There is nothing!” In the electric light, her face was a ghastly color, dead like parchment. “The men… they did not talk to me of important matters, and when they talked among themselves it was in English, and I do not understand your tongue.”
Shaw tightened his grip on the girl’s shoulder until she cried out with the pain. “I don’t believe you,” he snapped. “It’ll have to be the wall.” He looked beyond her. “Give me a hand, Virginia.”
Suddenly, Tanya went limp in his arms, her face crumpling right up now. In a strangled voice, full of tears, she said, “I have told you the truth, I know nothing, Cane, nothing! I cannot face the climb down. I wish this to be over… if you must kill me, I plead with you, let it be quickly, with the gun, I cannot face the climb.”
Shaw met Virginia’s eyes; he held Tanya up and half carried her back to the sofa. He said, gently now, “All right, Tanya. I’m not going to kill you. I believe you — now.” Speaking in English again, he said to Virginia, “We’ll have to leave her, of course, but I don’t like it. She’s got caught up in something that’s way beyond her — none of her own making. And those hoodlums’ll do her in for certain when they find her.”
“Well, so what in hell else do we do?” Virginia demanded. She was looking almost as sick as Tanya now. “I don’t mind telling you, if you’re looking for suggestions, I’d just as soon stay here till Wicks and Fawcett turn up and then fight her battles for her!”
Shaw smiled, but bleakly. “I’ve thought along similar lines myself, and not for her sake or even yours, but it’s not on. I’ve already said they could be away a long while… whatever it is they’ve come to Moscow to do, they could be planning to do it while we’re locked in this flat. We’re probably supposed to be some kind of bargaining counter for use when the job’s over — and in the meantime we’re safely out of the way. No, we’ve got to get out and it’ll have to be just the two of us. I’ll ring the janitor of the block anonymously and tip him off to let the girl out and away. She doesn’t know my real name and I’m convinced she doesn’t know anything that’ll give our show away to the KGB or anyone else — and she doesn’t know our future movements. She’s no security risk, poor girl!” He gave Virginia a shrewd look. “Ready?”
“I–I guess so.” Her lips were tight and bloodless, but she seemed to have screwed herself up to what was ahead and Shaw beheved she’d do it.
He said, “Good girl,” and put an arm round her shoulder and held her close for a moment. He could feel the rapid heart-beats against his chest. He said, “We’re going to make it, I promise you. That ledge — it’s three to four inches wide and that’s enough. It’s a foot-hold, and we should be able to get a grip of sorts with our fingers around the edges of the concrete blocks. I’ll go first and you keep one hand round my waist. Remember not to look up or down… keep the front of your body as flat as you can against the wall and try to think of something pleasant. Like getting back to the States when all this is over. All right?”
“It’s got to be all right, hasn’t it?” she answered brittlely. “Let’s get moving before I pass out like your Russian girlfriend.”
He pressed her arm and stared down at Tanya. He told her what he proposed to do. He said, “Don’t worry, it’s going to work out. I’ll let the KGB know you got into this through no fault of your own.”
Her startled eyes followed him anxiously. She asked in a low voice, “The gun…?”
Shaw glanced at Virginia, and saw reflected in her eyes his own thoughts as to why Tanya wanted the automatic. He said quietly, “I’m taking that. You won’t be needing it.”
He slipped the small weapon into his pocket, nodded at Virginia, then crossed the room to the light switch and flicked it off. Then he pulled the curtains right back and threw the window wide open. He took a deep breath, braced himself, and scrambled up quickly on to the sill. There was a light but blustery cold wind that plucked at his clothing, and the sound of traffic passing some seven hundred feet below him came up spasmodically. He felt around for a foothold on the narrow ledge, spreading his arms out sideways at the same time and reaching for such grip as he could find on the concrete. He got the fingertips of his right hand round the edge of one of the big blocks and then very gingerly moved out from the sill and along the ledge itself.