One of these shadows, a uniformed officer of the MVD, approached the car as Treece pulled up, and put his head in through the driving window.
In Russian, he said, “All is well, Comrade General.”
Treece gave a brisk nod and said gruffly, “Thank you, Colonel Kopotkin. Tell your men to get in the back, and you get in the front with me.”
The Russian saluted and called an order, softly. Two MVD troopers, also uniformed, climbed into the back of the car. As Kopotkin got in the front, Treece engaged his gears and moved ahead again for the dam, still going along slowly. He glanced sideways at the Russian and said, “Now a little recapping, Colonel. All this is to be conducted with the utmost discretion — I can’t emphasize that too strongly. Nothing of what is happening is to be known outside the control-room until I’ve done what I have to do, and even after that I must not come into this — at least, not as an actual prime mover, if you follow. Remember, it’s the essence of the whole plan that both the wrecking of the industrial site and the death of Kosyenko must be clearly and unequivocally attributed in the public mind to the moderate faction in the Government. They must be the guilty men. You do understand this, Colonel?”
“This I understand fully,” Kopotkin answered in a stiff tone.
Treece said, “Good.” Then he narrowed his eyes as a long line of headlights came into view ahead. “And there, if I’m not mistaken, Colonel, is Comrade General Kosyenko and his retinue.”
“Yes,” Kopotkin agreed, “it is they.”
Treece stopped the car.
He waited until the whole motorcade, the vehicles’ headlights dying as they came into the brilliantly-lit and well guarded approach to the dam, had pulled in to the massive concrete area fronting the main entrance. Then he drove in astern of them. As he and the MVD men got out of the car, Kosyenko was already being greeted deferentially by the Controller of the dam — an engineer ranking as a major-general of the Red Army — together with a military band and a guard of honor. Flash-bulbs starred the scene as photographers went into action; the pressmen got busy with their notebooks. Kosyenko, though still good-humored and Churchilfian, was clearly anxious to cut the ceremonial side and begin his tour of inspection, and in fact it was not long before he was moving off, in company with the Controller, at the head of the procession.
Treece and the MVD men remained at the tail as the procession headed first of all for the dam’s main control-room. Passing under the impassive scrutiny of the Red Army troops on guard on the door, the officials and the pressmen filed into the compartment. In there they all felt a curious pressure on their eardrums, and a sense of constriction, brought about, perhaps, by the continuous low throbbing of machinery and the hum of dynamos. Here Kosyenko was taken over by the Chief Engineer, who explained the working of the complicated equipment and the significance of the bank on bank of dials and levers and buttons and warning fights.
In due course, Kosyenko, nodding and smiling, departed, together with the Chief Engineer and some of the latter’s staff. The Chief Engineer would now show Kosyenko the remainder of the Chalok Dam’s technicalities.
All the party followed — except Treece and the three MVD men. Treece caught the eye of the duty engineer and the man gave a barely perceptible nod. The moment all the pressmen were clear of the control-room Treece came away from the piece of equipment he was ostensibly examining and snapped, “Right, Colonel Kopotkin. This is it.”
As he spoke, he brought out a revolver and backed towards the door of the control-room. The duty engineer and two of the technicians did the same. There was an outbreak of excited chatter from the rest of the technicians, chatter which was quickly silenced by Kopotkin, who, with his two troopers, ordered the men at gun-point into a corner of the compartment.
Kopotkin said, “You will all do exactly as you are told, or I shall be forced to order my men to shoot.” He paused, making a theatrically dramatic gesture. “There is suspicion that someone intends to sabotage the dam, and you are being held for questioning.”
Raising his voice above the ensuing hubbub, Treece said, “Don’t forget the troops guarding the door, Colonel.”
“I do not forget. I shall see that they are disarmed and removed. You need not fear, Comrade General.” He snapped an order to the troopers and their prisoners. The control-room staff, stunned and terrified now were marched away; and Treece listened with satisfaction to the commands as the Red Army soldiers outside were relieved of their arms and also marched away.
Ten minutes later, Colonel Kopotkin and one of the MVD troopers returned to the compartment. Kopotkin reported, “All is carried out as ordered. The men are all locked in a storeroom, Comrade General, and I have left one of my troopers on guard.”
Treece nodded briskly. “Good! I shall start opening up shortly, but we’ll wait until Kosyenko’s clear of the power-rooms — just in case someone tumbles on to what’s going on and cuts off the juice. Once Kosyenko’s gone on his way, our man’ll have a clear field. After that, Colonel Kopotkin, we take advantage of the panic and place the charges.” He looked sharply at the Russian. “There won’t be any slips there?”
Kopotkin shook his head. “But certainly not, Comrade General! Our man is very dependable, a devoted extremist like ourselves… I have told you that. He has the charges ready in the main dynamo room. They will be set for thirty minutes, which will give us ample time to get clear.” He lit a cigarette and leaned back against one of the banks of dials. His voice was nonchalant, almost flat, as he went on, “After that thirty minutes the Chalok Dam will to all intents and purposes cease to exist — and the prisoners, the men who might otherwise talk, will cease to exist with it. They will be buried under millions of tons of debris and water. All this you know, Comrade General — and you need have no fear of mistakes.”
Treece grunted and walked over to a set of levers.
It was just as Treece had reached out to those levers that an orange light had come up to indicate that one of the spillway doors had opened. While the duty engineer was explaining to Treece the significance of that light, it went out and then flicked on once again. That was when Treece had ordered the two technicians to go down in the lift and investigate.
Thirty-one
Shaw ran forward.
Kneeling by the two technicians, he examined them quickly. One was stone cold dead, the other seemed to have taken only a glancing blow on the side of the head — there was a good deal of blood but already he appeared to be recovering. Shaw waited while the man struggled to the surface of consciousness and then spoke to him in Russian.
He asked, “Who did you expect to find here?”
The man looked up at him from the concrete floor, his face twisted with pain. He seemed reluctant to answer until Shaw jerked the Kalashnikova, and then said in a surly voice, “I have nothing to say to you. I do not know who you are.”
“But you were after someone, weren’t you? I’d like to know what your orders were.”
“I had no special orders, other than to see why the door had opened.”
“Very well. Now, suppose I told you I was an agent of the KGB?”
The man’s body jerked and the eyes looked suddenly scared at the mention of the security police; then as suddenly he relaxed. “I would not believe you,” he said simply. “I would not believe you without proof.”
“All right, we’ll leave the point for now.” Shaw spoke over his shoulder to Virginia, in English. “This doesn’t make much difference now anyway,” he said. “The crowd up top won’t know what’s happened to their strong-arm boys.” He tinned back to the Russian, gesturing ahead to the telephone on the wall by the lift. “Get up and use that phone. Call the control-room and tell ’em it’s all clear down here… The door from the spillway was opened by one of the comrades who’d got caught out in the valley. And don’t add any words of wisdom of your own, because the moment you do you’re a dead duck. You understand, Grazhdanin?”