It was almost 2.30 a.m. when Lom found the Administration Block. Parallel Sector security patrols had slowed him up.
The building was dark and locked. He took a small torch and the roll of lock-picking tools from his bag, let himself in and locked the door behind him. Made his way up the stairs and started from the top. Fifteen minutes later he was in Khyrbysk’s office. He extinguished the torch, drew the curtains and switched the desk lamp on.
He should have at least three hours before someone found the driver in the cab of his truck. Unless Mikkala raised the alarm, but he didn’t think she would.
He felt bad about Mikkala.
There was a row of steel cabinets along the wall of Khyrbysk’s office. Locked, but the locks were flimsy. No obstacle at all. He went through them methodically one by one, taking the most promising files across to the desk to read.
Piece by piece the story came together. Some of it he knew, but the rest… There were plans within plans. The ambition. Some of it was flat-out insane. He thought about trying to take photographs of the documents, but the light was poor and he had the wrong kind of lenses. He’d seen too many blurred and badly exposed copies of documents. He started pulling out pages and stuffing them into his bag. Whole files if need be. It wasn’t ideal–Khyrbysk would know he’d been burgled–but it couldn’t be helped.
By 4.30 a.m. he had the whole picture. It was lethal. All that Kistler needed to work with, and more. Except that nothing tied it for certain to Rizhin, and he was running out of time.
There was a green steel safe behind the door. He hadn’t touched it yet because of the combination lock. He didn’t know how to open those. But everyone wrote their combination somewhere.
Lom went through the drawers of Khyrbysk’s desk. Nothing. Checked the blotter but it was no help. Looked inside the covers of the books on his shelves. There was nothing that looked remotely like a combination to a safe.
Think. Think.
He went out into the corridor. There was a card on the door of the next office, tucked into a holder by the handle: ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR.
Secretaries always knew the combinations to their boss’s safe. Lom went into the room. There was an appointments diary next to the telephone. He flicked through the pages rapidly. On the inside back cover was a sequence of numbers. Four groups of four. In pencil.
Why would pencil be more secure than pen?
So you could erase it later.
He took the diary back into Khyrbysk’s office and tried the numbers, but they didn’t work. The safe didn’t open.
Shit.
Then he tried them backwards.
The tumblers fell into place and he heard the lock click open.
On the bottom shelf of the safe was a small stack of brown folders. Not official files. Titles printed carefully in manuscript. Black ink.
Private Correspondence.
Conference–Byelaya Posnya.
There was no time to look inside: grey light was beginning to show behind the curtains in the window. Lom pushed the folders into his overloaded bag and switched off the desk lamp.
When he came out of the Administration Block there was a dull band of light across the eastern sky. Dawn came late and dark to Vitigorsk under the livid permanent cloud. In the plush quiet of Khyrbysk’s office Lom had forgotten how the air stank. His bag was bulging. The sleeve and lapels of his coat were stained with his own dried blood. He looked a mess.
There was another truck loading bay a few blocks away. He’d noticed it in the night. He hustled, half-walking, half-running. The alert could come any moment now. He had to get clear of the checkpoints and on the road.
The gate of Bay Nineteen was open. An early driver unlocking his containerless cab. Lom circled round behind it.
The driver was lean, compact, energetic; long nose, flashing white teeth, thick black moustache; glossy black curls under a shiny leather cap. The kind of fellow that carried a knife. Bright black eyes narrowed viciously when he saw Lom’s gun.
‘Keep your hands out of your pockets,’ said Lom. ‘I’ll be in the back of the cab. All I want is a ride out, no trouble for you at all. But I’ll be watching you. I’ll have the gun at your head. You say anything at the checkpoint, you make any move, any sign at all, and there’ll be shooting. Lots of it. And you’ll be caught in the crossfire, I’ll make sure of that. You’ll be first. I’ll splatter your brains on the windscreen.’
The driver spat and stared at him. Said nothing. Didn’t move.
‘And I’ve got five hundred roubles in my pocket,’ said Lom. ‘It’s yours when we’re fifty miles from here.’
‘Show me.’
Lom reached into his inside pocket with his left hand. Showed him the thick sheaf of Kistler’s money.
‘Pay now,’ the driver said.
‘Fuck you,’ said Lom. ‘We’re not negotiating. It’ll be like I say. Nothing different. Move. Quickly.’
The driver spat again and nodded. Stood back to let Lom climb aboard.
‘You first,’ said Lom
The driver swung up and slid across behind the wheel. Lom followed and squeezed into the sleeping compartment. Crouched down behind the driver’s seat.
The engine roared into life.
6
Investigator Gennadi Bezuhov of the Parallel Sector, Vitigorsk Division, arrested Engineer-Technician 1st Class Mikkala Avril at three the next afternoon, less than ten hours after the discovery of the intrusion into Director Khyrbysk’s office. Bezuhov presented her with his evidence: the statement of assaulted truck driver Zem Hakkashvili; the accusation of assaulted chemist Sergei Varin; the reports of communications operatives Zoya Markova and Yenna Khalvosiana, who overheard a male voice in Avril’s room in the small hours of the night; the damp towel under her desk, stained with blood and engine oil. Suspect descriptions provided by witnesses Hakkashvili and Vrenn were undoubtedly of the same person.
The interrogation was brief. Suspect Avril, in a condition of marked emotional distress, immediately made a full confession and provided a detailed account of her encounter with the terrorist spy, whom she knew as ‘Vissarion’. She admitted discussing with him restricted information concerning the work of Project Continual Sunrise. She had provided guidance and assistance in breaking into the Director’s office and stealing Most Secret papers.
Engineer-Technician Avril’s attitude under interrogation demonstrated poor social adjustment, psychological disturbance and instability, personality disorder, pathologically exaggerated feelings of personal importance, severe criticism of senior personnel and opposition to the purposes of her work and deep-seated internal deviation from the norms, aims and principles of the Vlast. Investigator Bezuhov permitted himself to observe that the subject had been promoted to her current rank without passing though normal processes of assessment, and had been allowed to work unsupervised on tasks for which she lacked the necessary intellectual capacities and technical credentials.
Bezuhov’s superiors–Major Fritjhov Gholl, commander, Parallel Sector, Vitigorsk, and Director Yakov Khyrbysk himself–saw the broader perspective. They were acutely aware that Mikkala Avril was a Hero of the New Vlast, recruited and promoted on the instruction of Osip Rizhin himself, and she was in possession of information which must not be permitted to escape the confines of the project. Also they were not blind to the fact that the supervision of Mikkala Avril at Vitigorsk was not above criticism.