But the army would be looking for him now, not just the KGB. It was awful just thinking about it.
He groaned aloud in desperation. He looked at his watch, then at the clock on the tiled mantelpiece. Eleven o'clock, Sunday evening. The small screen of the television set stared back at him, as blank as his own gaze. Eleven o'clock.
He'd gone to the club after sending the final signal to the Americans, his mood almost euphoric despite the car tailing him. Orlov's shop, he'd called innocently… God, he would have to go back there, or call Oriov now, to send another message. God, the look the captain had given him when he emerged from the cubicle and tried to sneak away!
Kedrov rubbed his cheeks as if scouring them. Why had he had to hear? His hands flitted from his cheeks to his ears — unwise monkey. The captain had realized he'd been overheard, almost at once. He had all but moved, almost shouted after him. He had hurried away and out of the club — but they knew.
He whirled his body in an ache of fear around the center of the room, spinning as if to create some spell of invisibility. God, Christ, Hell, God — he had to get out now!
They may not have reported him because they were the ones who'd been insecure, but they'd surely come looking once they found out who he was, where he lived. Christ, it was awful.
Lightning, he'd called it. Not Linchpin, the code name for the launching of the battle station. Lightning. It was so awful they would have to kill him to silence him. He shouldn't know what he knew.
Lightning.
He stared at the large, bulkily filled haversack on the dining table. As soon as he'd gotten back, he had feverishly filled it with cans, provisions, spare clothing, aware all the time of the men outside. Especially the one at the back stamping hr feet with cold, breathing out clouds of smoky breath, rubbing his gloved hands as he watched the garages. Filip saw him every time he went into the flat's tiny kitchen.
He'd packed the haversack, ready for flight. And immediately postponed any attempt at escape. He walked stiffly, jerkily toward the dining table and gripped the shoulder straps of the canvas haversack. Then dropped them as if they were charged with a current.
He couldn't risk going to the shop again. He must call Orlov, not on the bugged telephone in the hall, but from a phone booth, and tell him to send the message: Hurry, come at once, I am in danger, I have the most — most terrible — important news, I know about Lightning.
Orlov could send the signal, then close down the transmitter; disassemble it, hide the bits. If only he could get out of the flat.
The signal was easy. The rendezvous — he'd decided that long ago, with the Americans. The salt marshes, a pinprick-size island. They had maps, satellite pictures of the exact location. He had confirmed the pickup point in his last signal. All he had to say was Hurry, please.
If only he could move.
He gripped the shoulder straps of the haversack and did not release them. Hefted the sack, felt the flat's chill and the darkness outside and the three KGB watchers… and the captain who had been loose-tongued and was the most dangerous threat of all to his safety, rescue — survival. Hurried, opened the door, checked the empty, cabbage-smelling corridor, closed his door behind him with no sense of finality, only with haste. The lock clicked loudly.
He hurried along the corridor, up the uncarpeted concrete stairs behind the fire door toward the roof. Unlocked the roof door with fumbling hands, opened it, walked through—
— face embraced, arms held—
He struggled blindly, gasping but not crying out, flailing his arms—
— the clothesline collapsed, the shirts stiff with frost, the troupers, the underwear and the sheets, draped along the dirty, ice-pooled, gravel-covered roof. He doubled over, choking back his coughs, sick with fear and relief. Staring at a shirt lying like a spread-eagled upper torso at his feet, arms akimbo in surrender. He heaved, but nothing came. Slowly he stood upright.
He picked up the haversack, listened but heard nothing, no alarm, and went to the roof's edge. Four stories down, the garages. Out of the question. He would have to abandon the car and the rolls of film — most of all, the rolls of film in the paint cans. He wouldn't tell the Americans, definitely not.
He crept along the edge of the roof, aware of the man below, at the corner, in shadow. Aware of the car parked at the front. Aware of the drainpipe. Overhang, gutters, drains, pipes. Explored long before with the bravado of imagination rather than the desperation of necessity. Drainpipe at the side of the building farthest from the streetlamps.
He felt weak. Looked back at the fallen washing. The shirt now looked like a murdered man. He gasped at the image. Fumbled his arms into the haversack's straps, balanced its sudden, new heaviness, then cocked his right leg over the edge of the roof. The concrete alleyway below swam darkly, as if he were suffering from vertigo rather than fear. His hands gripped. He straddled the edge of the roof. Then climbed over, hands icily cold but holding on tightly, feet scrabbling for the ledge and the point of emergence of the drainpipe. The gutter was a channel in the gravelly roof, the drain directly opposite his eyes. His feet found the drainpipe, the tiny ledge, the first clamp. He rested, sweat coldly blinding him for a moment. Then hunched downward into a squatting position, holding on to the thick metal drainpipe. One foot, then the other. Second clamp. He'd even practiced, for God's sake.
Kedrov lowered himself gingerly, fearfully down the drainpipe. His hands were lumps unfeelingly placed at the ends of his aching arms, his feet were numb, so that they hardly sensed the concrete until he had hunched almost into a sitting position in the alleyway. Then he realized and leaned his forehead against the pipe, clinging to it still to prevent himself falling and lying — like the shirt.
He got up slowly, weakly, and pressed into the shadows.
Nothing. Silence. A car passing — jump, then relief — and a television blaring in a ground-floor room. Across the alleyway a block of offices rose six stories. Throwing deep shadow. A ground floor comprising a bookshop, a grocer's, a liquor store. The liquor shop was still open. Just.
Walk now. Quickly.
He stepped out stiffly, as if marching like a bloody soldier. Lessened his stride, tried to appear to be walking easily, without terror's robotism. Held the haversack at his side, almost casually. Turned into the lights, poor as they were they were still bright, and hurried to the door of the liquor shop. Turned for one glance only, then walked past the door and the spilled light that tumbled over him, into further shadow. Passing two people, beginning to hurry once in darkness again, listening, listening with all his body, all his senses, but hearing nothing.
They had assumed, even if they'd seen him, that he'd already been inspected and passed by the watcher near the garage. Anyway, he hadn't emerged from the front doors of the block of flats, so to them he wasn't a resident. Sweat enveloped him, drying now j cold. He bent forward into his hurrying gait. On his own n< alone. Just the call to Orlov, the cry for help.
Come at once, please — please come at once.
They had to, they must come, before the army realized he 1 disappeared and began hunting for him in earnest. Because Lightning, most of all because of Lightning. The film did not mat now; they had to know what he had discovered. They must co quickly.