Kirov flattened himself against the wall in the angle of the door and gripped the iron bar he had used to jemmy the window. The door opened slowly. Then a voice shouted out and the hand released its grasp on the handle and the door swung lazily. Footsteps sounded across the bare concrete. Kirov breathed out and chanced a glance through the doorway. He saw the clerk disappearing in the direction of the two drivers. Kirov slipped after him and took shelter behind a stacked pallet.
The light in the store was poor. The three men were grouped dimly by one of the bins; the taller of the drivers was resting his arms on a small trolley; the other held a large box cradled against his chest; the clerk was gesticulating and trying to take notes at the same time. They talked for a few moments then the clerk helped the second driver to load four of the boxes onto the trolley. They walked back down the aisle trundling the loaded trolley and passed Kirov’s position crouched in the shadows. The drivers took their load outside and the clerk retired to the office that Kirov had just vacated.
Slowly Kirov emerged from his hiding place. He felt the cramp in his legs, the tension of his muscles, the sweat of his palms making slippery the rough surface of the iron bar. The physical discomfort went with a sense of mental clarity that was almost elation. Kirov knew enough to distrust his body’s unreliable chemistry. He moved cautiously down the aisle to the bin from which the boxes had been taken. He slit the lid on the next box in the stack, removed some of the loose packing and exposed a row of smaller cartons each labelled in Russian and Bulgarian. The labels stated that the drugs inside had been produced by Bulpharma. Kirov repacked the box and closed the lid.
‘Stay where you are!’ The taller of the drivers was by the door. His hand held a service automatic pointed at Kirov. He had stepped into a patch of light from a pale fluorescent strip and was clearly visible though his appearance meant nothing; a thousand drivers could look the same, in oil-stained clothes, rough-handed, with knuckles like nuts. He looked more or less comfortable with the gun, which meant that he would probably use it. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’ He approached guardedly down the aisle. Kirov let his hand slide from the box to grip one of the metal stanchions forming the bin.
‘I was checking something.’
‘Don’t give me that crap.’ The driver’s eyes shifted as he tried to identify what had been disturbed. ‘You’ve been messing with our stuff. What’s your game?’ He was closer now but too cagey to come within striking distance. Behind him the store clerk and the other driver appeared in the doorway.
‘Careful with that gun!’ shouted the clerk. The driver hesitated with the distraction. Kirov yanked on the stanchion and from the higher level of the bin a cascade of boxes and cans tumbled into the aisle. The gun fired and a bullet buried itself into a box.
‘Jesus!’ yelled the driver. A can hit the hard floor, bounced, the lid sprang and he was doused in fluid.
‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot in here!’ chorused the store man. Kirov’s antagonist pressed the trigger again.
The muzzle flashed and for an instant the man was transfixed in mute horror. And then he was gone. In his place there was a wall of flame, a light so bright that Kirov was dazzled and staggered backwards, dragging more boxes from the bin. From within the flame a core of fire the shape of a man stumbled forward and careened from the sides of the aisle then collapsed at Kirov’s feet. With a roar the fire spread backwards across the spill of liquid and leapt upwards across the face of the bins on each side of the aisle until it formed an arch under the roof trusses. The first cans began to explode.
Kirov threw himself to the ground with that first blast. He crawled away from the wave of heat to the shelter of the end of the aisle, his lungs heaving with smoke and the superheated air. Behind him the bins and their contents buckled and crashed, feeding the source of the fire. Belatedly a sprinkler system came into operation and added steam to the mix of smoke and gases escaping from the fire.
He sat for seconds only but the flames were spreading with incredible rapidity. Despite their brightness he could see nowhere except into the fire itself. Elsewhere the smoke billowed down from the roof and blacked out his vision. He crawled along the floor where the fumes were least, and in the darkness, intermittently lit by flashes as another bin or pallet caught fire, he searched desperately for the window by which he had entered. He found it — but the second driver was there.
The man was on his feet, blinded, doubled over and staggering between piles of boxes, but as Kirov approached him he glimpsed him through eyes that were blackened and angry with tears and gave a roar of anguish. He came flailing at Kirov with the force of insanity. Kirov blocked the first blow but the impetus threw him onto his back. His assailant recoiled then swung a steel-shod boot at Kirov’s head. Kirov rolled away but felt a jarring pain as the toe-cap glanced against his shoulder. He tried to get to his feet but his injured arm gave way and he collapsed. The fire meantime was still sucking oxygen out of the air; his lungs were pumping fiercely and even then he could feel only an exploding breathlessness and a growing dizziness. He braced himself for the next blow. His body was tense, awaiting the breaking of bone. Now! But there was no blow. His eyes peered through his own tears and he saw the body of the other man, made unconscious by the smoke, spread-eagled on the floor with the flames licking at his clothes.
His next conscious sensation was of his face lying on the cool tarmac. He was outside, lying at the foot of the window. The air was alive with yells and sirens, the roar of flames and detonations, and a great crash as a section of the roof gave way. He did not know how long he lay there. Perhaps it was seconds only, but he was detached from a sense of time. At one point feet came hammering past and someone reached down and turned him over, but seeing the blank eyes gave him up for dead. The air was cool. He wanted to embrace it. The chaos of noise had become music — Mozart — he could hear it.
Slowly he got to his feet. He ignored the fire, which was happening in another world. Everywhere there were people, but he didn’t belong to them and they paid him no attention. He focused on the corner of the fence where he had provided for his escape, and walked fixedly in that direction, brushing aside the watchers, stepping over the coiled hoses and avoiding the fire-fighting equipment. He reached the fence and found the packing case he had positioned to climb it, and painfully he scaled the wire and dropped to the other side. All the while he hummed the theme of a clarinet concerto. It told him he was alive and sane.
He found himself sitting on a bench. He was by the river, in one of the parks along the Kura Embankment. The rain had stopped, clear starlit patches broke the clouds. He stood and flexed his limbs, and it seemed a miracle that they worked. He examined his clothes; they were torn and stained with mud and smoke. The back of his hands were burned red; he touched his face and winced with pain.
A search of the park turned up a small pool. Kirov knelt beside it and saw his reflection, dim and haunted, in the still water. He dipped his hands into the water, held it cupped in his palms and slowly anointed his face with its sharp coldness. He stayed like this a few minutes in a position of prayer, then got to his feet and began to walk.
He walked without a sense of time or place. Mentally he told himself that it was shock: shock from the fire, shock from his injury, shock from giving and receiving violence. He had no business being on his feet. He said as much and stifled a laugh, but not so well as to avoid the stare of a pedestrian who regarded him as if he were a creature from hell, and maybe that was how he looked; he could smell the smoke clinging to his clothes. He came across a public telephone, almost stumbled into it. In his pocket he found some coins, and for a long moment he held them in his palm where they seemed bright and improbable. Then he made his calls.