“But he must have met with his contacts,” I said.
“He told you, no one of a suspicious nature,” Sidorov said. “This line of questioning must cease. We have a responsibility to protect our countrymen on duty in Great Britain. Our meeting with contacts to insure the continued safety of Soviet citizens is not part of this investigation.”
“OK, I get it,” I said. “So someone was tipping off a London gang, and you’re sure it wasn’t Egorov.”
“No. As Comrade Vatutin said, we never saw him meet with anyone suspicious. The manner in which he was killed, and the map you found, both suggest he was involved. He was a careful man, so we would not expect to find evidence easily. It was his death that showed he was. And, remember, the hijackings stopped after his death.”
“Right,” I said. I wished Sidorov would leave so I could give Topper’s message to Vatutin and watch his reaction. Time and place. Time and place for what? It sounded like another hijacking, but I wasn’t sure. “Who took over that responsibility, after Egorov was killed?”
“I did,” Sidorov said. Strange, I thought. Did Vatutin have access to the same information? Was he rifling through the boss’s files, or did Sidorov delegate the details to him?
“Any valuable shipments coming up?” I asked. I kept my eyes on Vatutin, who betrayed nothing, shaking his head. I thought I saw Sidorov’s eyes widen for a split second, but by the time I gave him my attention, his face was a mask.
“No, just the normal supplies, or have I forgotten something, Rak?”
“No, not at all,” Vatutin said.
“OK, I can’t think of anything else. Thank you for your time.”
“You haven’t noted anything,” Sidorov said, tapping his finger on the blank paper.
“Yes, I have,” I said, tapping the side of my head. Big Mike opened the door, and we all got up. I asked Sidorov if he would bring in the next officer, and got between him and Vatutin as we exited the room. As soon as he was a few paces ahead, I took Vatutin by the arm and pulled him close.
“Topper wants to know time and place,” I whispered. He pushed me away with the kind of look you’d give a pervert. He hustled down the corridor, toward the safety of his comrades.
“What the hell did you say to him, Billy?”
“Just gave him a message, Big Mike. Do me a favor and follow him. Let me know whom he talks to.” Big Mike went after him, his long strides closing the gap in no time.
A few minutes later, Sidorov brought in a Red Army major, an engineer in charge of working with the Eighth Air Force on preparing runways. He knew a little about tractors, less about English, and nothing about Egorov. There was a marked difference in Sidorov with this fellow, and the next. None of the urbane chatter about telling the truth, or admissions of letting infractions slide. It was all business, his stern voice translating my questions into Russian. I had no idea if the engineer was telling the truth, but I was sure he was too scared to lie. Same for the next few. After a colonel broke into a sweat that beaded up on his lip and dripped onto his tunic, I gave up.
“They’re all frightened,” I said to Sidorov, once we were alone.
“You must understand, Billy,” he said, leaning back to light a cigarette. “To get a posting to Great Britain is no simple matter. It is an honor. It shows that the motherland trusts you to sample the delights of London, knowing you will return to her bosom. They are afraid that they will be recalled simply because they are associated with questionable activities.”
“If London in wartime, with the bombs and rationing, is delightful, I’d hate to spend a month in Moscow.”
“In the winter, I would agree. But in the spring, Moscow is beautiful. However, not every Russian is from Moscow. Many of these men are from the country, and their homes may still have dirt floors. Not the ones who came here through Party connections, but the ones who really earned it.”
“I thought the Communist Party ran everything in Russia.”
“Oh, it does. But people are people, and will manipulate the system. Egorov was one such man. He was posted here because his father is on the Central Committee. No other reason.”
“How about you? What did you do to get your posting? Didn’t you say you were brought up in an orphanage?”
“The state was my parent,” Sidorov said, smiling. His lips moved, but his teeth were clenched. “How much more influence could you ask for? Now, it is getting late. We have three men attending a meeting of the local rugby club, and a social gathering at the Lord Nelson Inn. Captain Vatutin and I must make the rounds.”
“We’re staying at the Lord Nelson,” I said, not mentioning Kaz. “Maybe I’ll join you for a drink later.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Sidorov said as he left.
I sat alone, thinking about what a strange guy he was. Mysterious. Likable. Hard. Maybe cruel. He was keeping something back, but that was his job. But was it a state secret or a Sidorov secret? Or were they one and the same? I closed my eyes and tried to bring his face into focus, to recall his reaction when I’d asked about a valuable shipment. It was only in my peripheral vision, but I had seen the whites of his eyes grow large for a second. He knew something he wasn’t telling, something that had caught him by surprise. It had wiped that smile off his face for a moment, the smile that wasn’t a smile, any more than the clenched teeth of a skull wore a friendly grin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Get back to London,” I said to Big Mike as we walked out of the tunnels and into the fading late afternoon light. “Ask Harding to find out if there’s anything special being delivered to the Soviet Embassy. Not food or booze, something more valuable. Press Cosgrove on it if you can. I think he knows what’s up.”
“Why don’t I call Sam? They got secure telephones here.”
“No. If there’s anything to this, no one’s going to talk about it on the phone. Sidorov’s eyes lit up when I asked about something valuable coming through. He denied it, but he reacted to something. Put that together with Egorov being murdered, Osip Nikolaevich Blotski almost making it to the workers’ paradise, and I’ll bet there’s something on its way to that embassy worth killing for.”
“OK. I’ll call you as soon as I get anything,” Big Mike said.
“Don’t call the castle. Leave a vague message for me at the inn and then get back down here. We’ve got MI5 and MI6 mixed up in all this, and they’re both probably listening in on the Russians, as well as each other.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Probably drink too much vodka.”
“Damn!” Big Mike said, taking a corner hard enough to almost give me a tumble. He didn’t like missing a fun evening, but I thought I was doing him a favor. He let me off in front of the Lord Nelson, threading his way around the rubble that had spilled out into the street. Crews of workmen were raising clouds of dust cleaning and stacking bricks, while others piled charred timbers and shattered furniture onto a flatbed truck. Some were putting away their tools and cleaning up at the end of their shifts. Only one fellow was idle, leaning against a doorway that had lost its door. He wore a gray raincoat and a muffler wrapped around his neck, not exactly the duds for cleaning collapsed brickwork. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it in my direction, then pushed off without a look back. Scotland Yard? MI5? Local oddball? I thought about following him, but if it was either of the first two, he’d lose me in no time, and if it was the third, there was no percentage. Instead, I tramped up the three flights of narrow stairs, hoping the Germans across the channel wouldn’t shell the town while we were up here.
I found Kaz in his room, sitting by the window, staring at the destroyed building across the street. Newspapers were strewn on the bed and all across the floor. The Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express. A bottle of vodka was at his elbow, one quarter empty, and no glass in sight. I didn’t think the war was over, so I knew it wasn’t a celebration.