Shaw stared back at the Russian. “What,” he enquired politely, “are you doing out in the wilds, Colonel Andreyev?”
Andreyev’s heavy Mongoloid face scowled at him. “Following you, as well you know, since apart from anything else you must have seen the car that was behind the one you were in.”
Shaw smiled coldly. “True — I did! Which also surprises me, since I’d have fancied you’d have been well on your way to the Chalok River by now. Or were you involved in that spot of bother a few minutes back?”
“There was shooting, yes.” Andreyev’s voice was tight with rage. “My car was ambushed, and I—”
“Well, you can put that revolver away, anyhow, Colonel. I’m not aiming to shoot you up if I can avoid it, I promise you that. Moreover, I’ll prove it.” Shaw lowered the Kalashnikova. “I’m co-operating with the KGB, remember? I’m just as anxious to settle this thing as you are, and quickly — but on the other hand, if you’re going to be awkward, well, I’ll be awkward too.” He nodded down at Wicks’s body. “D’you happen to know who this man was, Colonel?”
Andreyev hesitated, then shrugged and put away his gun. He came forward and squatted by the body, examining the face critically. “I am not able to speak with any certainty,” he said after a while, “but I believe, and would undoubtedly assume in the circumstances, that he is the second of the pair who disappeared after causing the coach to crash, back in the Pripet marsh… by name, Wicks.”
Shaw nodded, his face grim. “It’s Wicks all right! But what are the circumstances you mentioned, and why do you say the second of the pair. Colonel Andreyev?”
The Russian gave a cold, self-satisfied smile. “Because the other I have already shot. He too is dead. I recognized him as the man Fawcett from his passport photograph — Wicks I did not recognize so readily, but…” He shrugged. “Fawcett was the one who ambushed me — you understand? He hit me, as you can see, but I was able to fire back, and I killed him — though not before he had put my car out of action.” His mouth twisted. “However, all is not lost, Cane. These men had their own car, which I have since discovered well hidden off the roadway. We shall now drive where you suggested I might have gone, my friend — to the Chalok Dam — and see what we shall find.”
“Ah — us, but not you! I very much regret to say,” Shaw murmured, with a gleam in his eye as he brought up the Kalashnikova again and caressed it meaningly, “That you won’t be going to the dam or anywhere else. Not just yet, anyway. Somehow I’d rather you didn’t see what I think we’re going to see. No offence meant, and you won’t come to any harm — and neither, if I can make it in time, will Comrade General Kosyenko. And since I’ll be coming back this way, I’ll pick you up and give you all the news. If I happen to find any where I’m going, I’ll even bring you some Turkish delight. Now — no arguments, Colonel, or I may have to use this thing.” He jerked the heavy weapon and said harshly, “Walk ahead of me, Comrade Colonel, and show me just where that car is — and let’s have that revolver of yours, if you don’t mind.”
Three minutes later, they were away, with Andreyev seething impotently behind them. Shaw had taken the precaution of completing the work of the gunmen-in-ambush by smashing up the Russian patrol car’s two-way radio.
Andreyev was now very efficiently isolated, and likely to remain so on that unused stretch of road.
Twenty-nine
Virginia implored, “Explanations, please! I can’t bear this.”
Shaw was driving at breakneck speed, taking appalling risks on the wet surface. It was obviously a foul road at the best of times, but today it was shockingly dangerous. Speed, however, was vital; they had to reach the dam before Treece could go into action, and Shaw believed they could do it — Treece had in fact little more than fifteen minutes start.
Peering ahead, his face set hard, he said, “I was a trifle worried about Treece earlier, but it didn’t click finally till he ran for his car and left us in ambush — and was allowed a clear passage himself. He meant Wicks and Fawcett to get us, Virginia, there’s no doubt about that. They were in with him all along.”
“But — Treece of all people!” She still sounded shattered and utterly bewildered. “It just doesn’t make any kind of sense.”
He said, “Almost everything makes some sort of sense once the chips are finally down, Virginia. This’ll be no exception — but we’ll have to wait a bit for the explanations.”
“Too bad, but I guess you’re dead right on that point.” She frowned. “Steve, what exactly do you expect to find, at the dam?”
“I don’t know, Virginia. We have to play this by ear. I can only make guesses, but I doubt if they’ll be all that far out just the same.”
“Tell me.” She was thrown against him as the car took a bend; she could feel the hard muscle, and the tenseness of his body.
He said, “All right, I will. In the first place I think we’ll find Conroy’s — Treece’s — boys in control at the dam. He’ll have organized that — that’s why he came on the flight, of course, to be in at the kill, and he wasn’t with us all the time at the hotel, remember.”
“But what’s his ultimate objective, Steve?”
Shaw shrugged. “I don’t know, we’ll find that out from Treece himself perhaps — if we get there in time.” He was still driving fast and taking risks, though the day was darkening already with the filthy weather. He leaned forward and cleared the condensation from the windscreen, using his handkerchief. He went on, “Treece hadn’t always been in Intelligence — I think I told you, he was a war-time subaltern in the Royal Engineers — hence my earlier remark about his having been a Sapper. It fits. After the war he signed on for a regular commission. After that he transferred to Intelligence — either by his own design with something like this in mind as a long-term project, and again don’t ask me why, or just plain lucky posting. Whichever way it was, it led to the FO and gave him his chance… his chance to kill Kosyenko when the time was right and at the same time mess up Russia’s atomic industry.”
“But why? “
He said impatiently, “Virginia, I’ve said I don’t know — yet. Conroy — we’ll call him that for now — is supposed to have been a Communist so at first sight it doesn’t make any kind of sense at all, I agree, unless his extremist views incline him to help China get on top — and that could be it. As for killing Kosyenko, I always did feel that was almost incidental, or again, the fact that Treece was basically an engineer could have meant he himself had been on dam construction before the war…” He paused. “Well, we do know Conroy was, so if Treece is Conroy, that’s it. So there could have been a personal-enmity angle to it as well. And,” he ended, “that’s about as far as theory takes me just at the moment.”
She said musingly, “There’s one flaw that leaps to mind. If what you say is right, how come Treece sent you on a mission to crack his own cover and hunt him down?”
“Don’t ask me!” He gave a tight grin. “Let’s leave it for now. I’ve got enough on my plate, trying to hold this blasted vehicle on the track!”
It was darkening fast now, but the dam was clearly visible below them in the middle distance, huge and black-looking, straddling the wide, rocky, canyon-like gap in the hills. From the high part of the track the imprisoned waters of the Chalok River could be seen beyond the dam… a sheet of silver gold visible as a string of floodlights along the parapet over the canyon were switched on. Already the reservoir was, Shaw judged, pretty nearly full to capacity, huge as it was — and no wonder, the way that torrential rain was keeping up, and had done for so long now.