She asked, “That was Igor, Peter?”
He nodded and said briefly, “Yes. I’m sorry, Triska. It was him or me.”
“It doesn’t matter. He was nothing to me, that Igor. And he had killed…” She stopped suddenly and looked at him hard, then she went on steadily, “Peter, there is something I must tell you now. I think perhaps it no longer matters. It is this. Professor Godov was my grandfather.”
He stared at her. “Your grandfather?”
She nodded. “My paternal grandfather, Peter. Somalin was my mother’s name. My parents were… not married, you understand? My father let my mother down badly — he disappeared across the frontier before I was born, but… grandfather made amends for him, for his son. Grandfather did not want the relationship to be known, not because of what his son had done, but because he was afraid the blood relationship to a man with his record in the Party would be bad for me if it was known to everybody. Yet we were very close, Peter… so very close.”
Shaw nodded. He felt that this explained quite a lot — for instance, why the two of them shared so many views despite the great difference in their ages, why Godov had been so keen for Shaw to contact the girl — he might even have wanted her to be taken out of the country? He said, “Triska, I’m terribly sorry. I feel it’s so much my fault — all this.”
She shook her head firmly. “Do not think like that. He is better off now, and he wanted so much to help, I know that. He was an old man, to be living in a world of which he so much disapproved, and now, if he has gone where he always believed he would go, he will know how much he has helped. We will not talk about it anymore now, Peter.”
“Just as you like, my dear.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “In any case, we’ve got to move now, and fast.”
“Where to?”
He said grimly, “North! Up the Kola Peninsula. I’m assuming you’ll come with us — out of Russia, I mean? Because that’s where we’re heading, Triska.”
“Yes,” she said at once. “Of course I will come. There is nothing to keep me here now, but how do you—”
“Good girl!” He glanced across at Carew. “Now, this is what I’m going to do — I got the idea when Carew here mentioned the British ships.” He saw the sudden flicker, the wariness in the scientist’s eyes. “Those ships are due to go alongside the outer mole in Moltsk dockyard at 2 p.m. tomorrow. Let’s give them a maximum speed of, say, twenty knots… it certainly won’t be more, because they’ve got an old heavy cruiser with them, a pre-war job used as a training-ship, and she’s heavy on oil fuel at high speeds. Right…” He frowned in concentration, calculating quickly in his head. “They’ll be… somewhere off Vadso now, I’d say. And that ought to give us plenty of time.”
“Time for what, Peter?”
He said, “Time to go to sea and board one of them!”
“But how?” She wrinkled her brows, astonished.
“Listen, Triska,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll head up north from here and take the coast road till we’re well beyond the military area — a long way beyond. Somewhere up the coast we’re bound to hit a fishing-village, or some kind of community anyway, on one of the fiords. It’ll be pretty primitive to say the least of it and it shouldn’t be too difficult to grab a boat—”
“But there will be a chase now, surely — they will know Carew has disappeared?”
He said grimly, “I expect so, Triska, and that’s all the more reason to get on the move — fast! We can’t do any good here now, that’s certain, and they may have rumbled me by now. So — we pinch a boat and go to sea — I’ll head out across the route our ships’ll be taking, and we’ll make contact with them at sea and go aboard. The farther north we can get, the sooner we’ll reach them.”
“Suppose you miss them? There’s a chance of that?”
“My dear, there certainly is a chance of that — but it’s not going to happen to us. I know that route — I was at sea myself, and I did an Archangel run during the war. You’ll be in good hands.” He remembered Latymer had advised him against trying to board the ships, but that had been when the fleet was going to Leningrad. It was more in the world down there. He added, “It’s the only thing to do, Triska. My radio’s had it and I’ve got to get word through to London and tell them what’s going to happen. I can do that direct from any of the ships—”
“What for?” Carew broke in. “What’s the point of that?”
Shaw said harshly, “Plenty of point, Carew! It’s no good looking scared. You’re going to face that trip and like it.”
“But really… all London can do is to send in a force to destroy the tower, and you must realize that if a bomb goes down there, there’s at least a chance it’ll set off an explosion at once, never mind the correct procedure for detonating nuclear material—”
“Oh, yes? That’s exactly what I had in mind myself earlier, I admit — but like you, I was forgetting that lead-and-concrete door, the one that seals off the fissure. I’ve been down there, remember? I’ve seen it, Carew! Bombs won’t penetrate that, but they’ll do away with the firing circuits from the control-room—”
“Yes, but the door won’t be shut till the last moment!” Carew was clearly terrified of that sea trip. “Nothing will be sealed off until we’re ready to fire.”
“Why’s that?”
“Several reasons. For one thing, the stowing will be going on throughout the night and tomorrow morning, and it follows that the final procedures and the completing of the circuit can’t be done till the job’s finished. That doesn’t in fact give us very long before your ships are due alongside. Because of the need for secrecy, it’s had to be a very tight schedule. Also—”
“Save it!” Shaw snapped. “Don’t you see that if you’re right and the tower goes up with the door open it’ll be Moltsk and not England that’ll get the benefit of it?”
“Moscow. Comrade General Berida. And hurry.” Colonel Rogovin, grey-faced with worry and with his hand shaking badly, put the receiver back and sat in silence, his fearful thoughts nagging at him. It was all too clear — now — that the man Alison had fooled him, that he should never have given him that pass. But how to convince Major-General Berida that he had acted in good faith? To suppress information would be worse than foolish; it would mean death…
Rogovin broke out into a sweat as the telephone shrilled at him. He reached out slowly, reluctantly now, and took up the receiver again. He said, “Comrade General Berida? Rogovin, Comrade General, from Moltsk.”
The instrument snapped at him in a small explosion of irritation. “Well, Rogovin?”
“Comrade General, I–I have to report a disappearance.”
“Go on. Who has disappeared, Rogovin?”
He could scarcely get the words out; they stuck in his throat and choked him. His voice hoarse, he said them at last. “Comrade Doctor Carew.” His face grew greyer, sicker, as he listened to the furious, amazed noises at the other end of the line. It was a tirade — and naturally he had expected no less. He said obsequiously, “Yes, Comrade General… yes… yes. It has all been done, everything, I assure you. Yes. Patrols, Comrade General, on all the roads leading out of Moltsk. Even the foreshore is being watched. The ferry terminal is under heavy security guard… yes… yes, Comrade General. We are doing everything in our power…”
The telephone barked at him. “Everything is not enough, you must do more. Now give me all the details of his disappearance. Leave nothing out that has any possible bearing, Rogovin.”
“Yes, Comrade General.” Rogovin made a full statement and included the information that Dr Carew had last been seen in company with one Peter Martin Alison, whose passport Rogovin had at this moment in his office. He explained the circumstances fully; he had no option. He insisted, shaking in his shoes as he did so, that he had no reason whatever to doubt Alison and that he still did not doubt him. Berida, however, went on making extremely threatening noises at him and finally told him that he, Rogovin, was being held personally responsible for the safe interception of Dr Carew. And then there was a crash in Rogovin’s ear and the line went dead. Rogovin put the instrument down and sat back, wiping his forehead. Then he jammed a finger on to his bell-push and kept it there.