Earlier their route out of Bucharest had taken them through Buzau, Focsani and Bacau along the banks of the Siretul, and so into Moldavia. In Roman they'd crossed the river, then continued up through Botosani where they'd paused to eat, and so into and through Siret. Now, on the northern extreme of the town, the border crossing-point blocked their way, with Chernovtsy and the Prut some twenty miles to the north. By now Krakovitch had planned on being through Chernovtsy and into Kolomyya under the old mountains the old Carpathians for the night, but.
‘But!' he raged now in the paraffin lamplight glare of the border post. ‘But, but, but!' He slammed his fist down on the counter-top which kept staff a little apart from travellers; he spoke, or shouted, in Russian so explosive that Quint and Gulharov winced and gritted their teeth where they sat in the car outside the wooden chalet-styled building. The border post sat centrally between the incoming and outgoing lanes, with barrier arms extending on both sides. Uniformed guards manned sentry boxes, a Romanian for incoming traffic, a Russian for outgoing. The senior officer was, of course, Russian. And right now he was under pressure from Felix Krakovitch.
‘Four hours!' Krakovitch raved. ‘Four bloody hours sitting here at the end of the world, waiting for you to make up your mind! I've told you who I am and proved it. Are my documents in order?'
The round-faced, overweight Russian official shrugged helplessly. ‘Of course, comrade, but —'
‘No, no, no!' Krakovitch shouted. ‘No more buts, just yes or no. And Comrade Gulharov's documents, are they in order?'
The Russian customs man bobbed uncomfortably this way and that, shrugged again. ‘Yes.'
Krakovitch leaned over the counter, shoved his face close to that of the other. ‘And do you believe that I have the ear of the Party Leader himself? Are you sure that you're aware that if your bloody telephone was working, by now I'd be speaking to Brezhnev himself in Moscow, -and that next week you'd be manning a crossing-point into Manchuria?'
‘If you say so, Comrade Krakovitch,' the other sighed. He struggled for words, a way to begin a sentence with something other than ‘but'. ‘Alas, I am also aware that the other gentleman in your car is not a Soviet citizen,
and that his documents are not in order! If I were to let you through without the proper authorisation, next week I could well be a lumberjack in Omsk! I don't have the build for it, Comrade.'
‘What sort of a bloody control point is this, anyway?' Krakovitch was in full flood. ‘No telephone, no electric light? I suppose we must thank God you have toilets! Now listen to me —‘
‘— I have listened, Comrade,' at least the officer's guts weren't all sagging inside his belly, ‘to threats and vitriolic raving, for at least three-and-a-half hours, but —‘
‘BUT?' Krakovitch couldn't believe it; this couldn't be happening to him. He shook his fist at the other. ‘Idiot! I've counted eleven cars and twenty-seven lorries through here towards Kolomyya since our arrival. Your man out there didn't even check the papers of half of them!'
‘Because we know them. They travel through here regularly. Many of them live in or close to Kolomyya. I have explained this a hundred times.
‘Think on this!' Krakovitch snapped. ‘Tomorrow you could be explaining it to the KGB!'
‘More threats.' The other gave another shrug. ‘One stops worrying.'
‘Total inefficiency!' Krakovitch snarled. ‘Three hours ago you said that the telephones would be working in a few minutes. Likewise two hours ago, and one hour ago —and the time now is fast approaching one in the morning!'
‘I know the time, Comrade. There is a fault in the electricity supply. It is being dealt with. What more can I say?' He sat down on a padded chair behind the counter.
Krakovitch almost leaped over the counter to get at him. ‘Don't you dare sit down! Not while I am on my feet!'
The other wiped his forehead, stood up again, prepared himself for another tirade . .
Outside in the car, Sergei Gulharov had restlessly turned this way and that, peering first out of one window, then another. Carl Quint sensed problems, trouble, danger ahead. In fact he'd been on edge since seeing Kyle off at the airport in Bucharest. But worrying about it would get him nowhere, and anyway he felt too banged-about to pursue it. If anything, not being allowed to drive being obliged to simply sit there, with the drab countryside slipping endlessly by outside — had made him more weary yet. Now he felt that he could sleep for a week, and it might as well be here as anywhere.
Gulharov's attention had now fastened on something outside the car. He grew still, thoughtful. Quint looked at him: "silent Sergei', as he and Kyle had privately named him. It wasn't his fault he spoke no English; in fact he did speak it, but very little, and with many errors. Now he answered Quint's glance, nodded his short-cropped head, and pointed through the open window of the car at something. ‘Look,' he softly said. Quint looked.
Silhouetted against a low, distant haze of blue light —the lights of Kolomyya, Quint supposed — black cables snaked between poles over the border check point, with one section of cable descending into the building itself. The power supply. Now Gulharov turned and pointed off to the west, where the cable ran back in the direction of Suet. A hundred yards away, the loop of cable between two of the poles dipped right down under the night horizon. It had been grounded.
‘Excusing,' said Gulharov. He eased himself out of the car, walked back along the central reservation, and disappeared into darkness. Quint considered going after him, but decided against it. He felt very vulnerable, and outside the car would feel even more so. At least the car's interior was familiar to him. He tuned himself again to Krakovitch's raving, coming loud and clear through the night from the border post. Quint couldn't understand what was being said, but someone was getting a hard time . .
‘An end to all foolishness!' Krakovitch shouted. ‘Now I will tell you what I am going to do. I shall drive back into Siret to the police station and phone Moscow from there.'
‘Good,' said the fat official. ‘And providing that Moscow can send the correct documentation for the Englishman, down the telephone wire, then I shall let you through!'
‘Dolt!' Krakovitch sneered. ‘You, of course, shall come with me to Siret, where you'll receive your instructions direct from the Kremlin!'
How dearly the other would have loved to tell him that he had already received his instructions from Moscow, but... he'd been warned against that. Instead he slowly shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, Comrade, I cannot leave my post. Dereliction of duty is a very serious matter. Nothing you or anyone else could say could force me from my place of duty.'
Krakovitch saw from the official's red face that he'd pushed him too far. Now he would probably be more stubborn than ever, even to the point of deliberate obstruction.
That was a thought which made Krakovitch frown. For what if all of this trouble had been ‘deliberate obstruction' right from the start? Was that possible? ‘Then the solution is simple,' he said. ‘I assume that Siret does have a twenty-four hour police station — with telephones that work?'
His opponent chewed his lip. ‘Of course,' he finally answered.
‘Then I shall simply telephone ahead to Kolomyya and have a unit of the nearest military force here within the hour. How will it feel, Comrade, to be a Russian, commanded by some Russian army officer to stand aside, while I and my friends are escorted through your stupid little checkpoint? And to know that tomorrow all hell is