"Is that right?"
"Caught several of the godfathers in a flat, right here in the middle of town. Killed four or five of them. It was on the news next day. Surprised you haven't heard about it."
"No…" I shook my head.
"We've been pretty busy don't have much time for watching TV."
"Maybe the Russians are getting better at Mafia-hunting, what? Maybe they don't need you fellows so much after all. Or maybe you've taught them something already? I took several deep breaths, forcing myself not to utter a sound until the door had closed behind him. Then I just whispered, "Jeeesus Christ! Let's get moving."
Unless you were colour-blind there was no way of muddling the components, because Apple's three pieces were all marked with a light green circle, Orange's with orange. We backed the black Volga as close as we could to the cellar door and carried the three green-marked cases out, four men on each of the heavy ones. Once again they pushed the car right down on its springs.
Toad removed the Rat from its lair and clipped it on his belt.
As soon as we'd secured the up-and-over door of the cellar, we drove off I'd felt as if my exchanges with the Charge lasted for ever, but still we had fifty minutes to kill; so, rather than hang about in the area, we followed our plan and drove up to the terrace in front of the univerity, on the edge of the Sparrow Hills. Sasha had taken us there during our first visit, and I remembered it as a favourite view-point, popular with tourists and sightseers, where strangers hanging around wouldn't attract attention.
If you ever want to get your adrenalin going, try driving through Moscow at night with a nuclear bomb in the boot of a rickety, underpowered car. Every traffic light spelt possible disaster, every vehicle that overtook seemed certain to be full of Mafia gunmen bent on a hijack.
"What we do not want," I said grimly, 'is to be stopped by the fucking GAl with this lot on board."
"Nah," said Pavarotti.
"They don't seem to operate much in the centre more out on the highways."
Luck favoured us. With me map-reading we managed to avoid the cops and find the way, and soon came out on to the huge, level esplanade, where one can park and walk forward to look out over the city. Whinger, following at a distance, pulled up some fifty yards to our right, and a couple got out of each car to take in the sights.
The prospect was spectacular, I had to admit. Behind us, the monstrous skyscraper of the main university building towered into the sky, topped by a slender spire that gleamed golden in its spotlights. On either side of it the lower towers sprouted pinnacles, and hundreds of lighted windows made the campus look like a city on its own.
In front of us, immediately over the wall was a steep drop, with a couple of rickety-looking ski-jumps not yet in use poised over it. Below them, the centre of Moscow was laid out in a million more lights. It reminded me of the view from the top of Block B except that here the illumination was far more varied and concentrated. Close in the foreground was a large stadium; farther out, the floodlit buildings of the Kremlin glowed magnificently. We could also see the White House. I remembered Sasha telling us of how it had been rebuilt after the coup: apparently the workers had stayed in the nearby Kiev Hotel, and their demand for whores was so phenomenal that busloads of extra women had had to be imported from out of town.
I glanced around. There were a few other people up here, but nobody close to us. Away to our right I could see Whinger and Rick, also looking over the wall, but correctly keeping their distance.
"I feel that hepped up, I reckon if Ijumped off here I'd fly," I told Pavarotti quietly.
"Don't try it, mate. You might just keep going, never come down."
We admired the view for a few more minutes, then returned to the car and hung around some more. As usual at such moments, our watches seemed to have gone on strike.
But at last it was 9:45, time to head down.
"Moving off now," I told Whinger over the radio.
"Roger. I'll let you get clear."
Mal turned the car and started to back-track our route but we were hardly under way before Whinger came through again with, "Watch yourselves. I think you've got a tail."
Mal said, "Shit," studied his mirror and said, "Is it that buff Lada?"
"Roger. It pulled out when you did."
"I'll watch it for a minute."
"Roger."
Turning in the passenger seat to face Mal, I saw the car they were talking about. Now what? Our options were severely limited by our lack of speed and the great weight we were carrying. Shooting red lights was no good: hundreds of drivers did that anyway; the Lada would simply follow us through any crossing. And in any case we didn't want to risk a brush with the GAl. We certainly couldn't outrun a pursuer. Nor could we afford to tangle with one. We all had Sigsauer 9mm pistols, and if things turned nasty we could use them but only as a very last resort. A collision might shunt the nuclear components clean out of the car, taking the boot lid or rear door with them, and damage the devices beyond repair… "How many on board?" I asked.
"Three," came Whinger's voice.
Mal said, "I'm going to head away from our target area.
"Roger."
Before we started down through the bends of the hillside, he took a left, heading south. Then another left. The Lada followed.
When a light turned red way ahead, he changed down to decelerate without using the brakes. The Lada slowed as well, keeping its distance.
"Definite tail," I told Whinger.
"Can you sort them for us?"
"I'll try.
"Do they realise we're a pair?"
"Don't think so. I'm driving on sidelights and keeping well back."
Whinger was and is a hell of a guy behind the wheel. He'd done a stint as instructor in special driving techniques at Llangwern, the training area in Wales, and what he didn't know about J-turns, ramming and breaking up illegal VCPs wasn't worth knowing. The trouble was that in England or Northern Ireland he'd probably have been driving one of the Regiment's souped-up intercept cars, which have extra power, armour, strengthened suspension and belly plates, and can whack anything else off the road with one flick of the rear end. Whereas here he had a lumbering, lightweight Volga with little power and no protection. I knew what he was thinking: that although it would be no trouble to knock our tail into the gutter, the last thing he wanted was to end up immobilising his own vehicle.
Somehow we'd got on to a big boulevard which my wrist compass told me was heading south-west, out of town. At a crossroads I got a glimpse of a sign and deciphered it as Leninskii Prospekt.
The Lada was still behind us.
Shit! I was thinking. We should never have come up into this area. I've dropped a bollock here. We should just have made a loop and risked going into the churchyard early.
Then I remembered a friend of mine Andy, a Tornado pilot saying that a key element in training to fly fast jets was that pilots must have the ability to dump bad decisions behind them.
In the air, especially at low level, events happen so fast that the pilot has to take dozens of decisions every minute, and the essential skill is to dump whatever's just happened, so that your mind's free to look ahead.
OK, I told myself. Forget that one. Now what?
"Take that right," I told Mal suddenly.
He hauled the wheel round. Our tyres squealed under the load. Sixty yards behind us the Lada copied our every move, turning through the crossing just as the lights changed.
"Whinger's got through as well," Mal said tersely.
"Must have shot the red."
"I've a mind to stop suddenly and sort the bastards ourselves," I said, reaching down to draw my Sig. At the back of my mind I knew that the very idea of opening up on unidentified strangers in the middle of the city was outrageous. In London I'd never have dreamt of it. But here in Moscow the level of lawlessness was so high that any form of self-defence seemed in order.