He crawled into the space beneath the battered mesh covering and tried to haul Kuryakin into the open air. There was a bruise on the unconscious Russian's temple, but otherwise he seemed to be undamaged. He was handcuffed to the militiaman on each side of him, however, and the wiry little Corsican was unable to drag all three of them out together. He felt in the pockets of the soldiers and then examined those of the dead sergeant in the cab. There were no keys to be found.
With a grimace of exasperation, he loped off through the trees to the place where he had hidden the Dodge. Five minutes later he was back by the crashed truck with a surgeon's saw in his hand.
Once his gruesome task was completed, he pulled Kuryakin clear and carried him—alone now but with an empty handcuff dangling from each wrist—back to his own vehicle. Dumping him in the back, he covered him with a pile of old sacks. The gas from the grenade would keep him quiet for at least another hour.
There was one more thing to do. Bartoluzzi did not know how much, if anything, the Russian had said to his guards. But he could not afford to take chances. It was possible that he had spilled the whole story in an attempt to establish his real identity. And even if they hadn't believed him, a fragment of the truth might stick.
The Corsican slid a clip of ammunition into an automatic pistol and went back to the scene of the crash.
Six more shots sent the birds wheeling.
Shortly afterward he was on a side road heading south into the forest with the briefcase full of money, which he had recovered from the Wartburg's cab, on the seat beside him.
Chapter 16
A Murder Is Planned
ILLYA KURYAKIN blinked his way awake. It took some time for his mind to clear, and the blurred images revolving slowly in front of his eyes meant nothing to him at first.
Then, portion by portion, the jigsaw assembled itself—the long wait in the Prague attic... the succession of decrepit vehicles in which he had been ferried half across Europe… the tramp through the snow and the crossing of frontiers... Bartoluzzi's face when the tell-tale streaks of dye told him that Illya wasn't Kurim Cernic... the journey with the soldiers and the sudden realization that the face of the truck driver whose ancient vehicle was passing them was the face of the Corsican...
And the recognition of the innocent-looking plastic grenade full of nerve gas the Corsican had tossed so neatly into the back of the riot truck as he passed.
Kuryakin jerked fully awake. Bartoluzzi was standing in front of him making circular movements with his hands before the Russian's eyes. "So," he said softly, "monsieur Impostor has recovered his senses. So much the better. Bartoluzzi will be able to find out the truth that much more quickly—and then he will be able to deal with the man who has dared to thwart his plans!"
His lips curled back from his teeth, and his eyes flashed venomously as he spat out the last words.
Kuryakin involuntarily flinched back from the fury in his voice. Or at least he tried to. But he found out as soon as he moved that he was far more of a prisoner than he had been in the truck. He was sitting in a stoutly built rustic oak chair. His wrists were wired to the arms, his knees and ankles were wired to the front legs, and there was a wide luggage strap passing across his chest and behind the chair back, which was buckled so tightly that he found it difficult to breathe freely.
Speaking of the truck... his eyes went once more to his own wrists. In front of the electric cord binding each to the arm of the chair, the metal hoop of a handcuff still encircled the flesh. But the companion cuff attached to each by a short length of chain was now empty; the guards were gone.
Yet the steel bracelets that had attached them to Illya remained closed and locked—and there were rust-colored stains splashed across the bright metal and over each of the sleeves of his jacket.
The Russian's eyes widened. "My God!" he cried involuntarily. "Those guards! How did you get the cuffs off them without unlocking them? You didn't...?"
"How do you think I got them off?" the little man snarled. "You think maybe I went for a locksmith or something?"
"You took off their... you... while they were unconscious... But that's monstrous! That's just what happened to the warder in Denmark. How could you do such a thing?"
"It won't make much difference to them now."
"You mean you killed them? You murdered unconscious men in cold blood?"
"It was the only way I could stop the bleeding," the Corsican said with a coarse laugh. "You might almost say I killed them in hot blood!"
"And you can joke about it? You're… you're nothing but barbarous."
"We shall see just how barbarous Bartoluzzi can be in a minute," the little man said. "I suppose it's useless asking you who you really are, why you have come snooping into my private affairs, or who sent you?"
"Quite useless."
"As I thought. I can tell a professional when I see one. It would save me a great deal of time—and you a great deal of pain—if you could do the same. For I mean to get that information, and I don't care how I do It. Also I am in a hurry, so that my methods must necessarily be somewhat— er—crude."
"And supposing I was to give you this information—what happens to me then?"
"I shall kill you," Bartoluzzi said simply. "You must pay the price of the knowledge you have gained by your spying. You know too much for the safety of my organization."
"If you are going to kill me anyway, why should I talk then?"
"To save yourself great suffering before you die."
"I have nothing to tell you."
"Very well. We shall see." Bartoluzzi sighed heavily and went out.
Left alone, Illya looked desperately around the room. It was a strange place. There were another chair like the one to which he was bound, a huge refectory table slanted across one corner, a roll-top desk littered with paper—and that was all. The rest of the dusty boards, from the hooded cheminée to the gothic embrasure on the far side of the room, were bare. Through the mullioned window, he could see the façade of another wing of the building—a turreted, spired, and battlemented expanse of hewn stone that looked like a castle in a fairy story.
Except that, unlike the fairytale mountains that humped themselves up above flower-strewn fields in story books, the peaks and spurs and bluffs beyond this stronghold were composed of towering heaps of scrap iron that raised rusty fingers at the winter sky. And the horizon all around was formed by the forbidding skyline of the forest.
The Russian looked closer at hand. The tying of his bonds had been an expert job—he could neither reach them with his fingers nor detect the least sign of resilience when he flexed his muscles against them. And there was nothing nearby that could be of any help. At one end of the table, the empty briefcase lay beside two piles of money—one that he had given to Bartoluzzi when he got out of the furniture van, the other that he had been keeping until he got to Zurich... and that had been sent back to the Czech authorities by the German police.
At the other end of the table the remains of a delicatessen-type meal lay in cartons and squares of greaseproof paper. But there was nothing, not a knife or a fork or any thing that could be used as a tool, within sight.
Footsteps echoed in a flagged passageway somewhere out side the door. The Corsican was coming back.