'Hello?' Priabin said into the receiver. 'Priabin. What news?' He listened for a while, and then said: 'How quickly are you checking out the whereabouts of these people?' Irritation crossed his face. 'I don't care — the information's in that machine's guts somewhere, and I want it!' He slammed the telephone down, and saw Tortyev smiling at him.
'What's the matter — less than miraculous, is it, that machine?' he said.
Priabin ignored him, thought for a moment, and then said: 'We couldn't do it any faster — a lot slower, in fact.' He looked across at the body and said: 'Get that out of here, you two — now.' Holokov looked at Tortyev, and the policeman nodded. The two detectives hoisted the body to its dragging feet, and took it through the door.
The break seemed to calm both men. When they were alone, Tortyev said: 'What are they checking out?'
'They've got a list of less than a dozen top aeronautics experts in America and Europe, young enough and fit enough to be our man. But they're checking current whereabouts of all of them, and it's taking time… too much time,' he added quietly, his voice strained. 'They've linked into the First Directorate's computer, whose banks have constant monitor-records, as you know, on thousands of useful or important public and scientific figures in the West. The answers are coming…'
'But they might be too late.'
'Too true.'
Priabin left his desk and began to pace the room, his hand cupping his chin, or pulling at his lower lip. It was minutes before he spoke again. Then he said: 'I can't speed up the process. We'll either get the information in time, or we won't. In which case, I prefer not to think about it. But, what else can I do — what else can I ask that bloody machine to do at the same time as it's processing these people?' He was standing before Tortyev, a look of appeal on his face.
Tortyev was silent for a moment, then he said: 'Anything to do with aircraft. Check everyone and everything, Dmitri.'
'How?'
'Check on every file of every person we know to be connected with the American or European aerospace programmes, or who ever has been connected…' Tortyev's face seemed to illuminate from within. 'They sent a young, fit man — with brains. Why not an astronaut? One of our own cosmonauts would know what to look for, know how to analyse information received from someone like this Baranovich, wouldn't he?'
Priabin was silent for a moment. 'It seems unlikely, doesn't it?' he said, wanting to be convinced.
'Well — is it, though? Think of it. You're looking for a man in his thirties, fit, intelligent, elusive… you thought he was an agent, at first. He has to possess some of the qualities of a commando, and of a scientist. The NASA astronauts are the mostly highly-trained people in the world. Why not?'
Priabin seemed still reluctant. 'Mm. I wonder?'
'You don't have too much time in which to wonder, Dmitri,' Tortyev reminded him.
'I know! Let me think… I wonder how many files there are relating to astronauts and to air force pilots, and the like?'
'Hundreds — perhaps thousands. Why?'
'In that case, because our service collects anything and everything and, like the careful housewife, never throws anything away, we have to have an order of preference. We'll have to look at the computer-index.'
'Very well,' said Tortyev, seemingly glad of action. 'I'll help you.'
'Thanks.'
'Besides which — this place is beginning to smell of Jews — and death,' Tortyev added.
'Very well, then — I'll ring for a car.'
'Don't bother — at this time in the morning, it'll be quicker to walk.'
It was four-forty when the two men left the room together.
Gant had moved a chair into the shower-cubicle and arranged a fold of the shower-curtain to shield him from the spray. The cubicle was full of steam.
He was in no doubt that Pavel was dead by now, or in some local KGB 1 cellar, having his name and mission beaten out of him. It troubled Gant to know for certain that Pavel would take a lot of punishment before he would tell, if he ever told. Again, he was forced to feel responsible.
More than Pavel, however, who might well have died neatly and quickly in a gunfight of some kind, he was troubled by Baranovich and the others. He had never encountered dumb, accepting courage such as that before, and it puzzled him.
Gant had removed his uniform, and was sitting in the cubicle in his shorts. The GRU uniform, now an encumbrance, had gone into the same locker as Voskov. He had had to hold the body with one hand, to stop it toppling outwards, while he flung the creased bundle that had been Captain Chekhov into the corner of the locker. He had not looked into Voskov's face and thankfully he had locked the body out of sight once more. Then he had turned on the shower. The steam, though it made his breathing unpleasant, kept him warm. He sat astride the chair, his arms folded across the back, chin resting on his arms, letting the constant stream of the hot water lull him, closing his eyes. He could not sleep, and knew he must not, but he tried to reduce the activity of his thoughts by the semblance of sleep.
At first he didn't hear the voice from the room beyond, from the rest-room. The second call alerted him and he sprang to his feet, unconsciously being careful not to scrape the chair on the floor of the shower.
'Yes?' he called.
'Security check, Colonel — important.'
It had to be the KGB — it had to be Kontarsky's last fling, his final attempt to trace the agent he must suspect was already inside Bilyarsk.
'What do you want?'
'Your identification.'
Gant panicked. He had left Voskov's papers in his pockets, bundling the body quickly and thankfully into the locker. Now they wanted to see his papers — if they didn't see them, then they would want to see him…
He wondered how he might bluff his way out. The nervous reaction had jolted him awake, and his pulse was hammering in his head, and he found it hard to catch his breath. Though he only half-suspected it, this latest, unexpected jolt was drawing vastly on his reserves of control. Clearly, above the levels of the blood's panic, he thought that Voskov would be a pampered individual, one likely to take unkindly to such an intrusion.
Loudly, irritatedly, he called out: 'I am having a shower, whoever you are. What do you mean by disturbing me with your stupid questions?' To him, his voice sounded, in the steam-filled curtained hole, to be weak, high-pitched, unconvincing. He heard a cough, deferential, abashed, from the man in the rest-room. He peered through the steam and the shower-curtain. There was a shadow, against the light from the door into the bathroom. It was two or three steps across the space of tiles between himself and that shadow.
'Sorry, Colonel, but…'
'This is your idea, of course — soldier? It is not Colonel Kontarsky's direct order that the rest-room should be searched, and myself questioned?' He felt his voice gaining power, arrogance. He could play the part of Voskov — it was a part close to his own professional arrogance, expressing his own contempt.
'I — orders, sir?' he heard, and knew that the man was lying.
Gant hesitated, until he thought the moment was almost past and he was too late, then he barked: 'Get out, before you find yourself reported!'
He waited. No doubt the man could see his shadow, as the shower-curtain wafted against his skin, drawn in by the heat. He wondered whether the man would dare cross that space of cold tiles, just to be sure. He had left the gun, Chekhov's regulation Makarov automatic, in the pocket of Voskov's bathrobe, hanging behind the bathroom door. He cursed himself for that lapse, and wondered, at the same moment whether he could kill the man with his hands before a shot was fired.
The moment passed. Again, Gant had the sense of something massive, a whole world in orbit, turning over, leaving him spent, tired, drained.