One of Andropov's bodyguards from the outer office dragged something that looked like a rucksack into the room, then left as Andropov's wave dismissed them. Gant stared at Andropov, who was smiling. Then he looked into Vladimirov's face. The general's mouth was working, is if he were chewing at something indigestible and cold. Finally, Gant looked back towards the pack. Priabin bent to pick it up. His smile was almost radiant. He brought it to the desk and dropped.it at Gant's feet.
'Your parachute, I imagine?' Andropov remarked.
'No-!'
'There are not too many of these lying casually unused in the snow of Finnish Lapland. In fact, I should be surprised if there were any others. A pity. I believed your story — except that I knew about this, of course.'
Gant leaned on the desk. 'That's not my 'chute, man! The airplane blew up just after I ejected. I buried my 'chute near the landing point. Where did you find this?'
'Exactly where you had buried it. Not far, in fact, from the village where you borrowed those clothes — which smell of Lapp, I must observe. Dung, grease and sweat…'
'It's not my 'chute!' Gant shouted.
'It is, Gant,' Vladimirov snapped. 'You landed that aircraft somewhere — where was it? Where is it?'
'No-'
Andropov pressed the buzzer on his intercom. Immediately, two of his personal bodyguards, torsos large and muscled beneath their suits, stepped into the room. Gant watched them, tensing himself, counting the last futile seconds. Now he knew why he had been counting. It was a record of the time before this began, before the pain.
His fists clenched. Priabin's hand was at his holster. The two large men moved swiftly, lightly towards him, almost as if they floated over the carpet. They were close — he tensed -
Stomach, jaw, back, head, legs, side…
As he fell, they punched then kicked. Perhaps a dozen blows were struck before he lay stretched on the floor, each a separate, new, agonising pain. It was an assault. Frighteningly fast, terrifyingly damaging. He felt paralysed, unable to move, hardly able to breathe and groan.
Then he was dragged to his feet. His breath disappeared again. He was doubled over in their grasp. Their holds on his forearms and elbows were separate, distinct, new pains. Head hanging, He looked up at Andropov's smiling face. A white handkerchief was held over his mouth and nose, as if they intended suffocating him. But it was loose. It was simply to prevent blood falling on the carpet, the desk.
'He does know, Vladimirov?' he heard the Chairman of the KGB ask quietly.
Vladimirov seemed disappointed that the beating had stopped. 'Oh, yes, he knows,' he replied. 'He knows precisely. He's the only one who does.'
'Very well — this must be done quickly — ' Gant felt his stomach heave, his body struggle inside the chain-mail of the spreading, burning pain. Andropov pressed his intercom, and snapped, 'Tell the Unit to prepare for an important arrival.' Then he looked at Gant. There was distaste, probably at the blood staining the white handkerchief. He nodded dismissively. 'Take him to the Unit. Tell them to prepare him for interrogation — within the hour!'
Gant was swung around, dragged towards the door. As he passed the young colonel, Priabin was smiling a sad, wise, confident smile. You'll tell, the smile and the eyes announced. Bad luck, but you'll tell…
'Kenneth, it's impossible! Forty-eight hours is a strict, complete, total impossibility. Please take my word for it.' Pyott shook his head sadly.
'But, if we leave tonight…?' Aubrey persisted.
Again, Pyott shook his head. 'I'm afraid no. We could be in position by tomorrow. But, the Sikorsky would not be there and half our supplies would not be there. That would leave us less than twenty-four hours to lift the airframe and get it over the border!'
'Giles, don't be stubborn — '
'You are the one who is being stubborn, Kenneth, for Heaven's sake — ! I lose all patience with you. The discussion is closed. It cannot be done in the time available. We must decline the Finnish offer.'
'It's there-intact. The prize is still there — '
'Unfortunately,' Pyott replied with freezing irony, 'we have been scratched from the race.'
'Damn you, Giles!' Aubrey breathed, looking around at Curtin and then Buckholz for support. The argument had been in progress for almost an hour. The had skirted the plot table, paced beside it, leaned upon it, as if it were the dock, the judge's seat, the gallery of a court. And ended where they had begun, the Americans siding with Pyott and Aubrey more and more exasperated.
'I'm sorry you feel like that, Kenneth, but — damn your insufferable self-esteem, your pride. That's what is at the root of the matter — your success or failure…' Aubrey's face was white with rage, with admission. Pyott dropped his gaze and murmured an apology.
Buckholz looked at his watch. Curtin coughed, shuffled his feet, glancing at the plot table where symbols and counters, even torn slips of paper with folded bases to make them stand like cardboard soldiers, indicated their state of readiness. Outside, on the tarmac, the Hercules transport stood awaiting them. It was being loaded with supplies flown in from specialist RAF and army units. Aubrey had been up to see it once; he was gloating when he descended again to the soured atmosphere of the Ops. Room.
Buckholz and Curtin waited. Pyott glanced at the plot table. Nothing more than a box of child's toys, stirring memories but of no use to the adult.
Aubrey hurried to the telephone the moment it began to ring. He snatched up the receiver.
'Yes?' he demanded breathlessly. 'Peter — what is it? What — you're certain of it… followed the car, saw it drive in… no, there can't be any doubt-yes, Peter, thank you.' He put down the receiver with great and pointless deliberation. There was, he knew, nothing to consider or think about — nothing to delay his agreement with Pyott that the operation was impossible… more impossible now than stealing the aircraft had ever been. He studied each of them in turn.
'Well?' Pyott demanded.
'Well? Well?' Aubrey snapped. 'Gant has been transferred to the KGB Unit out on the Mira Prospekt — ' He waited for their reaction. He could see that they sensed his depression, but the name meant little or nothing to them. 'It is a unit operated for the KGB by the Serbsky Institute. They are going to interrogate Gant under drugs, gentlemen — I'm afraid we do not have forty-eight hours, after all… we probably do not have twenty-four, perhaps not even twelve…' He sighed, then added: 'Gant will not be able to help himself. He will tell them everything.'
PART TWO
THE AGENT
'This is most strange,
That she whom even now was your best object
… should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle
So many folds of favour.
Sure her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it; or your fore-vouched affection
Fall into taint.'
SIX:
Echoes In A Tunnel
The dream required the presence of his father. His father had to be made to walk along the Mira Prospekt and be seen from the vantage point of a passing black car. If he could make his father walk in a northerly direction, if he could slow down the moving car to a kerbside crawl, if, if if…