And the Russian had discovered Brown's weakness at the very first pass. ‘You'll notice,' he told the British agent conversationally, ‘that while you are securely trussed, a far better job than you did on me, I have not in fact bound you to the chair.' Then ‘he had opened tall louvre doors leading out onto a shallow rear balcony. ‘I assume you've been out here to admire the view?'
Brown had gone pale in a moment.
‘Oh?' Dolgikh was onto him in a flash. ‘Something about heights, my friend?' He had dragged Brown's chair out onto the balcony, then swung it sharply round so that Brown was thrown against the wall. Six inches of brick and mortar and a crumbling plaster finish saved him from space and gravity. And his face told the whole story.
Dolgikh had left him there, hurried through the flat and checked out his suspicion. Sure enough, he found every window and balcony door shuttered, closing off not only the light but the height. Especially the height! Mr Brown suffered from vertigo.
And after that it had been a different game entirely.
The Russian had dragged Brown back inside and positioned him in his chair six feet from the balcony. Then he'd taken a kitchen knife and started to loosen the masonry of the wall, in plain view of the helpless agent. As he'd worked, so he'd explained what he was about.
‘Now we're going to start again and I will ask you certain questions. If you answer correctly — which is to say truthfully and without obstruction — then you stay right where you are. Better still, you stay alive. But every time you fail to answer or tell a lie I shall move you a little closer to the balcony and loosen more of the mortar. Naturally, I'll become frustrated if you don't play the game my way. Indeed, I shall probably lose my temper. In which case I may be tempted to throw you against the wall again. Except that the next time I do that, the wall will be so much weaker.
And so the game had begun.
That had been about 7.00 P.M. and now it was 9.00 P.M.; the face of the balcony wall, which had become the focus of Brown's entire being, was now thoroughly defaced and many of the bricks were visibly loose. Worse, Brown's chair now stood with its front legs on the balcony itself, no more than three feet from the wall. Beyond that wall the city's silhouette and the mountains behind it were sprinkled with twinkling lights.
Dolgikh stood up from his handiwork, scuffed at the rubble with his feet, sadly shook his head. ‘Well, Mr Minder, you have done quite well — but not quite well enough. Now, as I suspected might be the case, I am tired and a little frustrated. You have told me many things, some important and others unimportant, but you have not yet told me what I most want to know. My patience is at an end.'
He moved to stand behind Brown, and pushed the chair gratingly forward, right up to the wall. Brown's chin came level with the top, which faced him only eighteen inches away. ‘Do you want to live, Mr Minder?' Dolgikh's voice was soft and deadly.
In fact the Russian fully intended to kill Brown, if only to pay him back for yesterday. From Brown's point of view, Dolgikh had no need to kill him; it would be a pointless exercise and could only queer it for Dolgikh with British Intelligence, who would doubtless place him on their ‘long overdue' list. But from the Russian's viewpoint… he was already on several lists. And in any case, murder was something he enjoyed. Brown couldn't he absolutely sure of Dolgikh's intentions, however, and where there's life there's always hope.
The trussed agent looked across the top of the wall at Genoa's myriad lights. ‘London will know who did it if you — ‘ he started to say, then gave a small shriek as Dolgikh jerked the chair violently. Brown opened his eyes, drew breath raggedly, sat gulping, trembling, close to fainting. There was really only one thing in the world that he feared, and here it was right in front of him. The reason he'd become useless to the SAS. He could feel the emptiness underneath him as if he were already falling.
‘Well,' said the Russian, sighing, ‘I can't say it was a Pleasure knowing you — but I'm sure it will be a great pleasure not knowing you! And so —‘
‘Wait!' Brown gasped. ‘Promise me you'll take me back inside if I tell you.'
Dolgikh shrugged. ‘I shall only kill you if you make me. Not answering will be more suicide than murder.'
Brown licked his lips. Hell, it was his life! Kyle and the others had their head start. He'd done enough. ‘Romania, Bucharest!' he blurted. ‘They took a plane last night, to get into Bucharest around midnight.'
Dolgikh stepped beside him, cocked his head on one side and looked down at his sweating, upturned face. ‘You know that I only have to telephone the airport and check?'
‘Of course,' Brown sobbed. His tears were open and unashamed. His nerve had gone entirely. ‘Now get me inside.'
The Russian smiled. ‘I shall be delighted.' He stepped out of Brown's view. The agent felt him sawing with his knife at the ropes where they bound his wrists behind him. The ropes parted, and Brown groaned as he brought his arms round in front of him. Stiff with cramp, he could hardly move them. Dolgikh cut his feet free and collected up the short lengths of rope. Brown made an effort, started to rise unsteadily to his feet —
— And without warning the Russian put both hands on his back and used all his strength to push him forward. Brown cried out, sprawled forward, went crashing over and through the wall into space. Fancy brickwork, fragments of plaster and mortar fell with him.
Dolgikh hawked and spat after him, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. From far below there came a single heavy thud and the crashing of fallen masonry.
Moments later the Russian put on Brown's lightweight overcoat, left the flat and wiped the doorknob behind him. He took the lift to the ground floor and left the building, walking unhurriedly. Fifty yards down the road he stopped a taxi and asked to be taken to the airport.
On the way he wound down the window, tossed out a few short lengths of rope. The driver, busy with the traffic, didn't see him.
By 11.00 that night, Theo Dolgikh had been in touch with his immediate superior in Moscow and was already on his way to Bucharest. If Dolgikh hadn't been incapacitated for the past twenty-four hours — if he'd had the chance to contact his controller earlier — he would have discovered where Kyle, Krakovitch and the others had gone without killing Mr Brown for that information. Not that it mattered greatly, for he knew he would have killed him anyway.
Moreover, he could have learned something of what the espers were doing there in Romania, that in fact they were searching for… something in the ground? Dolgikh's controller hadn't wanted to be more specific than that. Treasure, maybe? Dolgikh couldn't imagine, and he wasn't really interested. He put the question out of his mind. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't good for Russia, and that was enough for him.
Now, crammed in the tiny seat of the passenger aircraft as it sped across the northern Adriatic, he tilted himself backwards a little and relaxed, allowing his mind to drift with the hum of the engines.
Romania. The region around lonesti. Something in the ground. It was all very strange.
Strangest of all, Dolgikh's ‘controller' was one of them
— one of these damned psychic spies, whom Andropov so heartily detested! The KGB man closed his eyes and chuckled. What would Krakovitch's reaction be, he wondered, when he eventually discovered that the traitor in his precious E-Branch was his own Second in Command, a man called Ivan Gerenko?