Necroscope

'Stop it!' Borowitz screamed, clutching at his shattered shoulder.

'But -'

'Blow it to hell!' the General raged.

The marksman in the tower slid his night-sight binocu lars into a groove in the butt of the Kalashnikov, slapped home a mixed clip of tracers and explosive bullets. Kneeling, he picked up the vehicle again in the crosshairs of the night-sights, aimed at the cab and bonnet. The ambulance was slowing down as it approached one of the archways through the perimeter wall, but the marksman knew it would never get there. Jamming his weapon between his shoulder and the parapet wall, he squeezed the trigger and kept it squeezed. The hosepipe of fire reached out from the tower, fell short of the vehicle by a few yards, then jumped the gap and struck the target.

The front end of the ambulance burst into white fire, exploded and hurled blazing petrol in all directions. Blown off the track, turned on its side, the vehicle ploughed to a halt in torn-up turf. Someone in white crawled away from it on hands and knees as it burned; someone else, wearing an open, flapping shirt and carrying a dark overcoat, cowered back from the flames and limped in the direction of the covered exit.

Unable to see out of the courtyard from where he stood supported by the security men, Borowitz eagerly shouted up to the tower, 'Did you stop it?'

'Yes, sir. Two men at least are alive. One is ambulance crew, and I think the other is - '

'I know who the other is,' Borowitz screamed. 'He's a traitor! To me, to the branch, to Russia. Cut him down!'

The marksman gulped, aimed, fired. Tracers and bul lets reached out, chewed up the earth at Ustinov's heels, caught up with him and blew him apart in blazing phos phorus and exploding steel.

It was the first time the man in the tower had killed.

Now he put down his gun, leaned shakily against the balcony wall and called down, 'It's done, sir.' In the lull, his voice seemed very small.

'Very well,' Borowitz shouted back. 'Now stay where you are for the moment and keep your eyes open.' He groaned and clutched at his shoulder again where blood seeped through the material of his overcoat.

One of the security men said, 'Sir, you're hurt.'

'Of course I'm hurt, fool! It can wait a little while. But for now I want everyone called in. I want to speak to them. And for the moment none of this is to be reported outside these walls. How many bloody KGB men do we have here?'

'Two, sir,' the same security man told him. 'One in there -'

'He's dead,' growled Borowitz, uncaring.

'Then only one, sir. Out there, in the woods. The rest of us are branch operatives.'

'Good! But... does the one in the woods have a radio?'

'No, sir.'

'Even better. Very well, bring him in and lock him up for now - on my authority.'

'Right, sir.'

'And don't let anyone worry,' Borowitz continued. 'All of this is on my shoulders - which are very broad, as you well know. I'm not trying to hide anything, but I want to break it in my own time. This could be our chance to get the KGB off our backs once and for all. Right, let's see some action around here! You - ' he turned to the helicopter pilot. 'Get yourself airborne. I need a doctor -the branch doctor. Bring him in at once.'

'Yes, Comrade General. At once.' The pilot ran for his machine, the security men for their car where it was parked outside the courtyard. Borowitz watched them go, leaned on Dragosani's arm and said:

'Boris, are you good for anything else?'

'I'm still in one piece, if that's what you mean,' the other answered. 'I just had time to shelter in the anteroom before the grenade exploded.'

Borowitz grinned wolfishly despite the terrible burning in his shoulder. 'Good!' he said. Then get back in there and see if you can find a fire extinguisher. Anything still burning, stop it. After that you can join me in the lecture room.' He shook off the naked man's arm, swayed for a moment then stood rock steady. 'Well, what are you waiting for?'

As Dragosani ducked back through the ruined door into the corridor, where the smoke had almost completely disappeared now, Borowitz called after him: 'And Com rade, find yourself some clothes to wear, or a blanket at least. Your work is over for tonight. It hardly seems right that Boris Dragosani, Necromancer to the Kremlin - one day, anyway - should be running about in his birthday- suit, now does it?'

A week later at a special hearing held in camera, Gregor Borowitz defended the action he had taken at the con verted Chateau Bronnitsy on the night in question. The hearing was to serve a double purpose. One: Borowitz must be seen to have been called to order over 'a serious malfunction of the "experimental branch" under his con trol'. Two: he must now be allowed the opportunity to present his case for complete independence from the rest of the USSR's secret services, particularly the KGB. In short, he would use the hearing as a platform in his bid for complete autonomy.

The five-strong panel of judges - more properly ques tioners, or investigators - was composed of Georg Krisich of the Party Central Committee, Oliver Bellekhoyza and Karl Djannov, junior cabinet ministers, Yuri Andropov, head of the Komissia Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, the KGB, and one other who was not only 'an independent observer' but in fact Leonid Brezhnev's personal representative. Since the Party Leader would in any case have the last say, his 'nameless' but all-important cipher was the man Borowitz must most impress. He was also, by -virtue of his 'anonymity', the one who had least to say...

The hearing had taken place in a large room on the second floor of a building on Kurtsuzov Prospekt, which made it easy for Andropov and Brezhnev's man to be there since they both had offices in that block. No one had been especially difficult. There is an accepted element of risk in all experimental projects; though, as Andropov quietly pointed out, one would hope that as well as being 'accepted', the risk might also on occasion be 'anticipated', at which Borowitz had smiled and nodded his head in deference while promising himself that one day the bastard would pay for that cold, sneering insinuation of inefficiency, not to mention his smug and entirely inappropriate air of sly superiority.

During the hearing it had come out (exactly as Borowitz had reported it) how one of his junior executives, Andrei Ustinov, had broken down under the stresses and strains of his work and gone berserk. He had killed KGB Operative Hadj Gartezkov, had tried to destroy the Chateau with explosives, had even wounded Borowitz himself before being stopped. Unfortunately, in the process of 'stopping' him, two others had also lost their lives and a third man had been injured, though mercifully none of these had been citizens of any great importance. The state would do what it could for their families.

After the 'malfunction' and until all the facts in the case could be properly substantiated, it had been unfortunately necessary to detain a second member of Andropov's KGB at the Chateau. This had been unavoidable; with the single exception of a helicopter pilot flying his machine, Borowitz had allowed no one to leave until all was sorted out. Even the pilot would have been kept back had the presence of a doctor not been urgently required. As for the agent's detention in a celclass="underline" that had been for his own safety. Until it could be shown that the KGB itself was not Ustinov's main target - indeed, until it was discovered that no 'target' as such existed, but that a man had quite simply gone mad and committed mayhem - Borowitz had considered it his duty to keep the agent safe. After all, one dead KGB man was surely one too many; a sentiment Andropov must feel obliged to endorse.