‘I have absolutely no idea how this whole thing is going to play out, but I want you to take the train north to Leningrad, find a Viktoriya Kayakova or a Mikhail Revnik at RUI. They are business associates… and friends. I want you to tell them that I am alive and kicking but I need some support. Ask them to despatch two squads from Roslavi to the Leningrad Freight yard in Moscow and wait. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, General.’
Apart from this aircrew, Yuri reflected with some irony that the only soldiers he could rely on at this moment were mercenaries, albeit Russian. He might not have a plan, but he knew from experience that opportunity was useless without the means.
‘And one more thing,’ it came to him, ‘give them the name of Colonel Ilya Terentev. He lives on Degtyarny. He’s an old friend – KGB – but I trust him with my life. If they need help he’d be a good place to start.’
Yuri looked at his watch; it was only nine in the morning.
‘You can be there inside three hours by train.’ The soldiers could be in Moscow around midnight if Anatoly were successful.
They waved Anatoly goodbye around the corner from the station and continued towards the embankment. Yuri pulled up for a second time and stared into a curtain of snow.
‘We’ll have to take the bridge to get closer,’ Derevenko suggested.
Military vehicles poured across the iron bridge from every direction, tanks on trailers, artillery and troop carriers. Yuri found himself sandwiched between a public bus and a column of jeeps before turning onto a side road that skirted round the airport to the eastside.
There must be somewhere that gave them an elevation and a view of the airfield.
Derevenko pointed at a derelict-looking barn.
Co-opting their new charge, the four of them applied shoulders to the rotten barn door and splintered the lock from the wood. Yuri brushed the snow off his jacket and breathed in the stale smell of oily machinery and bat droppings. Derevenko shone a torch up at the empty hayloft four metres above them and then back down on the ground, searching for a ladder.
‘There’s nothing else for it,’ said Yuri, after drawing a blank.
Yuri put one foot on their open palms, grabbed the edge, and hoisted himself up into the hayloft. He stood up and dusted hay and dried droppings off the front of his parka while his eyes adjusted to the light.
‘Yev… bounce that torchlight off the ceiling, I can’t see a thing.’
Yuri tested the decking with one foot gently applying weight, wondering if it would take his eighty-odd kilos. The wood groaned in protest before disintegrating with a loud crunch, sending a shower of rotten timber below.
‘Are you all right up there?’ Derevenko whispered loudly.
‘I’ll tell you in a second.’
Yuri wriggled his foot free.
‘Dry rot,’ he informed them, as though he were an expert on the subject.
Centimetre by centimetre, Yuri edged his way forward, gradually applying weight, testing to see if the floor would support him. When finally he grasped the sill of the hayloft window and looked out to the road and the airfield beyond, he was shocked by what he saw. Parked on the west side of the airbase, twelve Ilyushin-76s and eight Antonov-22s were being readied for take-off. Everywhere cargo trucks hauled artillery, tanks and ammunition into their vast underbellies. On the far side of the airfield, small loaders ferried H-20 nuclear missiles towards five TU-75 strategic bombers.
Yuri retraced his steps and lowered himself over the hayloft. Two pairs of hands reached up and helped him to the ground.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Derevenko.
‘World War Three… I don’t know, but we’d better get out of here quick.’
Yuri gave the heavy wooden door a shove and stepped out into the cold.
The thump-thump of a MTV rotor was the last thing he remembered.
Chapter 54
LENINGRAD
‘What do you mean we can’t ship anything?’ Konstantin complained to Vdovin.
‘We’ve a general mobilisation under way; every available aircraft is commandeered for the airlift.’
Konstantin wondered what these clowns were up to. He had given his tacit support to a coup, not the invasion of Western Europe, if that’s what they were planning. Were they completely crazy?
‘Volkov is determined that the Communist government doesn’t fall in East Germany. He’s convinced the Emergency Committee to mobilise… as a precautionary measure.’
These things had a habit of taking on a life of their own, Konstantin thought. If the Americans suspected a blitzkrieg, they wouldn’t sit still and wait.
‘Can’t you calm them down? You’re a district general. You have influence, surely.’
Vdovin shook his head. ‘Volkov is chief of staff now. He has the ear of the committee. And what’s more I support him. Ever since our new general secretary wheedled his way to power, the Soviet Union has been the object of disintegrating forces. You’ve seen it yourself. It’s falling apart. Well not anymore…’
‘And how long before you have people on the streets?’
‘The general secretary, I’ve no doubt, will be persuaded to resign. It will all be legal.’
‘Legal?’ Konstantin sneered.
‘We are patriots, not traitors. Best you keep your head down, if you want my advice; it’ll be over in a few days.’
Yes, they’d all be dead, thought Konstantin. They had all taken leave of their senses.
‘I have to be going.’ Vdovin got up and without further comment left the room.
Konstantin looked up at the wall clock: ten fifteen. He shouted for Bazhukov.
‘We’re grounded for now,’ Konstantin informed him. ‘Nothing in or out.’
‘Customers are not going to be happy about that, boss.’
‘You can tell them to write to the Emergency Committee with their letters of complaint… What’s the latest on Morskaya?’
‘Our men are posted outside. Doctors and nurses come and go. Revnik is still in a coma.’
Coup or no coup, he couldn’t let Misha or his old flame survive now. They would only come back to bite him.
‘And Viktoriya?’
‘She’s staying put with him.’
So there was no change. Konstantin knew there was no way they could storm the place; he’d looked at it himself. The gate was steel and concrete, and once in the internal courtyard they would be sitting ducks. He’d lose half his men. It had to be by stealth, not force.
‘That friend of Adriana’s, the cokehead, what’s-her-name, where is she now?’
‘Cezanne, she is upstairs.’
‘Go get her.’
Konstantin stood up, walked round to the other side of the desk and leaned back on it. He tried to recall what Adriana’s friend looked like: medium height, blonde, slightly wavy shoulder-length hair – no great looker but a great body. The men liked her and she liked coke – an ideal combination as far as he was concerned.
Cezanne walked into the room. Her fingers twitched nervously at the lapel of her silk dressing gown. She was different to how he remembered. Her hair was now an ash-blonde and slightly shorter than before.
‘Come over here.’
‘If this is anything to do with Adriana, I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since she was released from the police station. Nobody has.’
And nobody will, thought Konstantin. She was helping prop up the foundations of a restoration project on Oktabrsky.
‘Take off your make-up.’