He asked, “What do you make of it, Triska?”
She seemed to start a little at his use, his unexpected use, of her first name; it had slipped out almost unconsciously. He felt her arm brush against his, then a sudden pressure as she took a bend a little too fast and leaned against him. She said, “I don’t know. I can’t help you very much, though I should like to, with theories on those matters. But if you want just to talk things out, to clarify your thoughts perhaps, then I shall listen. Will that help?”
He said wearily, “I hope so, Triska. I’ve talked to myself all day… not aloud, I hope!.. and I’ve got nowhere at all. I can’t see the wood for the trees at the moment. Let’s assume someone is going to blow up all that lot, all those nuclear devices in this storehouse. Where does that get them — except probably to blow Moltsk and district off the map!”
“It is an insoluble mystery, Peter.”
He laughed brittlely. “That’s all very well. I’ve got to solve it.” He paused. “Look, Triska, I dare say you’ve picked up odd scraps of information from your cousin. Can you think of any way by which I can get into that tower? Could I tag myself on to some kind of working-party, for instance, perhaps arrange for some genuine worker to disappear and then take his place… that is, assuming there are civilian workers employed on the project, digging out the tunnel and so on? I did see some civilians in those lorries.”
She said, “Yes, there are, both men and women, Igor has told me—”
“Well, d’you happen to know where they assemble — I suppose they’re taken to the military area from Moltsk?”
“No.” She shook her head. “They do not come into the town at all. They live in the barracks, some of them, the ones you saw would have come from there, and others live inside the military zone. They do not leave their quarters at all, ever — except to work!”
He groaned. “I suppose I might have worked that out for myself, really. The security’s bound to be very stringent, of course. I suppose the troops are confined to the camp and the barracks, too?”
“Yes, except for the officers.”
“That’s no go, then. I can hardly pose as anything so exalted as a Red Army officer and expect to get away with it.” He stared savagely out of the window. A little later Triska stopped the car on some high ground behind the town and they looked down on the cluster of lights below them. Away to the north Shaw could make out the loom of the floodlights around the tower.
He felt Triska moving against his shoulder and then she said in a low voice, “It is terrible, Peter. I would like to see your Air Force come and blow this place up. How can people have such schemes?”
He reached out his hand to her. “I know… but don’t worry. I don’t give up easily. I’ll find a way out.”
“I don’t think you are going to, Peter. I think there is so little time left now.”
He heard the break in her voice and a moment later the tears came, racking sobs which shook her body in her helpless fear and anger. His arm went round her, went round her shoulders comfortingly and held her close to him. For a moment she seemed to yield, then she withdrew with a smothered exclamation and gave a small, shaky laugh. She said, “No, Peter, no.”
After a couple of drinks they had dinner and a bottle of wine, sitting in a dimly lit room hung with fishing-nets and looking out over the cold waters of a small harbour. There was only one other couple in the place; lovers, by the look of them. Shaw wondered what future there could be for them or anyone else when, soon enough now if something didn’t fall into place in his mind, more and more of the world would be a police state and more and more forced labour would be demanded of the Russian people who would be sent abroad to colonize anew the war-shattered British Isles.
Under the extremists’ expansionist policy the end-result would be more slavery for those at the bottom. It had always been that way, even in the British Empire. Ironically, the Englishman’s working conditions had worsened, he had become himself a near-slave labourer, with the early days of the industrial revolution and the empire-building, had improved again only when the Empire had begun to fade away. Now, short of a miracle, it was to be the Russian’s turn…
Shaw and Triska didn’t talk much during dinner but afterwards when they drove back into Moltsk they seemed to be very close and he had a feeling of being suddenly very much alone when she left him, discreetly, some distance short of her flat and he walked on down to the Nikolai Hotel.
He went to bed and he had been asleep for some five hours when there was a knock at the door. As he woke the light flicked on and the door crashed inward and three men in MVD uniforms walked in with guns in their hands.
Fourteen
Shaw hadn’t time to go for his own gun and it wouldn’t have helped much if he had. A Webley .38 against three Kalashnikovs just wasn’t on. The leader of the MVD party, a long-faced, grey man with a slit of a mouth and gleaming dentures which were so large that they gave him the appearance of a dangerous horse, snapped, “You are the man Alison?”
Shaw said calmly, “Yes. What of it?”
“You will come with us, please.”
“Like hell I will.” Shaw stared back at him. “What’s all this about?”
The N.C.O.’s teeth came to with a snap. “I am sorry. It is orders that all aliens report immediately to headquarters.”
Shaw smiled without humour and relaxed a little. His first natural thought had been that they had caught up with him, that the abandoned van had been found in Petroslav or that Gorsak or Gelda had after all been taken alive and forced to talk. But now it didn’t seem that way; he didn’t suppose the MVD often said they were sorry about this sort of visitation, for one thing, and no doubt he ought to be feeling grateful they hadn’t simply dragged him out of bed. However, he knew he had to put on an act, so he said, “I’m not getting out of bed at this time of night unless you give me a better reason than that.”
“You will get your reason at headquarters, Mr Alison.”
“That’s all very well—”
The N.C.O.’s gun jerked. “Come quickly. Dress yourself, or we will do it for you. There are other aliens in Moltsk and we have no time to waste on you.”
Shaw studied the man’s granite face. He didn’t know what he would be letting himself in for, but he obviously had no choice. Those blank, dead faces were the faces of men who kill at a moment’s notice if you put a foot wrong… kill, without altering their expressions by so much as a flicker.
He shrugged and got out of bed.
Slowly, deliberately slowly, he got dressed, pulling on a coat and trousers over his pyjamas. While he was lacing his shoes the N.C.O., rocking impatiently on his heels, said, “Your passport. It also is wanted. You will give it to me, please.”
“All right, all right.” Shaw stared at him with raised eyebrows and put his hand in the breast-pocket of his jacket. “Here it is.”
“Good.” The man took it. “Now you are ready.”
“Well, if you say so, laddie, I suppose I must be.” The men formed up round him and he was urged towards the door. As he was taken downstairs and across the foyer to the steps, he saw small groups of Red Army officers chattering excitedly together and looking as if they too had just got out of bed; but a silence fell as the procession shouldered its way through, and they saw the uniforms of the MVD After that they just moved aside and stared at Shaw as he was led away.