He followed a road running parallel to the river and flanked by apartment houses. In the gaps he glimpsed the steep hills of the old town and once, as the rainclouds shifted, the Metekhi chapel up on its height. The light was almost gone by now and the people were streaming with the rain into the buildings. Cross streets ran at right angles to the main route. They held factories and more apartment blocks, the occasional dimly lit shop, the occasional queue and rattling tramcar. At a junction a traffic cop stood bored in his covered booth and noted car numbers as if it were a hobby. Kirov took a right and followed a winding road up an incline with factories on both sides.
The placard said Pharmprodsoyuz Number One. The plant was isolated by a high wire fence and stood across a tarmacked yard. There was a single entrance with a cabin, a military guard and a pivoted barrier backed by gates, which for now were open. The place appeared to be laid out in two complexes of steel-frame structures with cladding over a brick base to single-storey height. The main complex opened directly onto the yard with an office entrance and a canopied loading bay. The smaller section was in its own compound, fenced and guarded, blank-walled with its face turned away from the road so that the entrances were invisible. As Kirov walked along the main fence a series of fixed spotlights on the fence to the inner compound was turned on and he saw a dog patrol come round the corner of the building and pad across its face.
He walked the length of the site where it bordered the road. At the corner a narrow muddy lane divided it from the adjacent plot which was occupied by a run-down engineering works. The lane was in darkness and cluttered with scrap and oil drums. At the far end it terminated in a patch of scrub and bushes growing wild against the plant fence. Kirov scaled one of the bushes and dropped from it over the fence and into the yard.
Wooden pallets and empty crates had been stacked in this corner of the yard. They gave cover to survey the terrain. The yard was empty of people; only the guard-post was occupied and the guard was sheltering from the rain and visible by the light of his cab. Kirov came out of cover and moved one of the packing cases closer against the fence as a precaution for an easy exit. He ignored the shriek as it scraped across the tarmac. He told himself that no one was around to hear, and nobody was. He tested his weight on the crate, and, satisfied, crossed from the shadows of this deserted corner towards the building.
The near side was offices. By now most of the staff had gone home and they were empty and unlit but for the cleaners who could be seen flitting by the windows. The storage and production areas were dark walls into which a couple of doors were let. Cracks of light shone around the edges of the doors and a low hum of operating machinery was vaguely audible. This part of the compound also held an electricity substation, a generator house and a locked store. Two trucks were parked alongside the store.
From the shelter of the trucks Kirov got a good view of the second smaller complex. The fence was higher and the insulation pots clamped to the posts indicated that it was electrified. The building had an independent power supply and, sticking out above the roofline, an oversized heating and ventilation unit. A structure stood behind the main part. The shingle on the door described it as the emergency medical and decontamination centre. It was lit and manned.
Although this second compound intrigued him, Kirov decided against any immediate attempt to enter it. Apart from the electric fence, the place was floodlit and he counted two armed dog patrols and two stationary guard-posts with good fields of vision over the yard. He turned to matters nearer to hand, the trucks and the store. Examination of the trucks gave only their origins: a transport enterprise from Batumi on the Black Sea coast and another here in Tbilisi. The doors were easily forced but the cabs yielded only log books, a goods manifest for a shipment from Batumi without much detail, some fuel coupons and small effects belonging to the drivers. A check of the store confirmed that it was padlocked and the windows barred but apparently not alarmed. Kirov found it curious that the store was not open for business when the plant was operating.
He returned to the corner of the yard where the junk had been piled and rooted in the scrap that was littered among the crates. The search was interrupted by the sound of voices, and two men came out of the main building and ran through the rain across the yard towards the store. Kirov stood motionless in the shadows while the pair busied themselves with the trucks, intent on their work for a few minutes; then they were finished and ran back to the main building without giving attention to his direction. He resumed his search and found what he needed, a flat iron bar, rusted but not so bad as to be unusable.
On the far side of the store, away from the main building, a single window overlooked the fence. The security bars were let into the brickwork. The builders had skimped on mortar and it was patchy and crumbly to touch. Kirov used the piece of iron to chisel into the joint at the first course of bricks beneath the window. After five minutes work he had exposed the base of the bars and removed them. He took off his coat to cover the pane and gave it a sharp tap, enough to crack the glass without shattering it, then forced the shards apart and pulled them out of the frame. He climbed through the gap.
The interior was in blackness. Cardboard cartons were stacked against the wall below the window. Kirov clambered over them and felt his feet touch the concrete floor. He decided to chance his torch and shone the beam down the length of the aisle, which led to a door fifty metres away between rows of pallets piled with various sizes of drums and more of the boxes. By the door was a storekeeper’s office, a bank of light switches and a junction box. A stacker truck was parked to one side and wired to charge its batteries. Kirov crossed to the next aisle and shone the torch again. More rows of boxes stacked on metal racks, each hung with a bin number and a stock-control sheet. Another aisle and more of the same plus a sluice, mops and cleaning agents. There were five aisles.
He tried the storekeeper’s office. Two desks, a filing cabinet, a manual typewriter and a dozen box files holding goods-received notes. He leafed through the latter and found nothing of interest except an omission: there was nothing to show any deliveries from Batumi — which could have meant no more than that the truck in the yard was a one-off. He searched the desks and the filing cabinet for the main stock record and drew a blank; then looked for a safe but found none. He was still searching the office when the light came on.
The source of the light was the main store. The external door was open and the two men he had identified as truck drivers had come in and were standing with their backs to the office window. A third man in a khaki overall and carrying a clipboard joined them. The three went into a huddle, the man in khaki tapping the clipboard and gesturing at the aisles. The drivers followed his directions and disappeared behind a row of bins. The store clerk stood for a moment writing notes, then turned and approached the office. His hand rested on the door handle.