I moved and got the door open without making enough noise to travel down to him, got it shut again, inching it, my weight against the panel to stop the latch clicking, the air cold now against the face, the crescent of the moon clear below a cloud-bank and spreading light across the snow-covered roof, usable, dangerous light according to how things went.
The snow crisp under my feet as I checked out the environment: four squat chimneys stinking of soot, a cluster of metal ventilators, one with a cowl turning, some kind of wire antenna stretching halfway across the roof, the surface of the roof itself hidden by the snow, uncharted, perhaps treacherous if I went too near the parapets – this was nine floors up, call it a hundred feet from the ground for a building of this period with twelve-foot ceilings, not that it would make a dramatic difference if I fell nine floors or only six, five, la meme chose a la fin, I'm not a bloody cat.
I didn't think the man on the staircase would come as far as the roof, or at least not yet. Vishinksy had last seen me in the ballroom on the second floor, would expect me to be there when he went back because I hadn't shown any signs of leaving, had made a point of it. He'd have the lower floors searched first and it'd take him a little time to find the manager and give him the score.
So I had an immediately available but indeterminate time zone to work in before the man on the staircase thought of checking the roof, let's say ten minutes, and that was all I'd want. The thing to avoid was being seen at any distance from that door when – if – the guard pushed it open because if I wasn't within reach of him he'd simply level the thing and start pumping.
Light was flushing the building across the street from the entrance of the hotel and when I got to the parapet and looked down I could see the two dark figures I'd seen before from the window of the vacant suite. The snow crunched under my feet as I crossed to the side of the hotel and looked down into the street and saw a single guard covering whatever doorway he'd found. Bouncing on his heels to keep the blood circulating, the muscles in tone, an athlete, one of the chorus line of Cougarettes.
Straighten up from the parapet and watch the door over there, the door to the staircase, don't assume too much, assumptions are dangerous, he can open it at any given time. Keep to cover, then, crossing the roof to the side street on the opposite face of the building, two men there, hands pushed into the pockets of their padded track suits, their breath white in the lamplight. Three sides of the building covered, then, so let us hope for more luck on the fourth.
Hands on the frozen parapet, a shadowed alleyway below, hardly even that, a four-foot gap between the buildings with not even room for a garbage bin down there, no door, or there'd be a guard to cover it, no direct light from a window or anywhere else.
But there was a drainpipe.
Watch the door to the staircase.
A drainpipe, and this was what I'd been looking for. Not this one specifically, because sooner or later one of the guards would start patrolling the alleyway below; but there would be – should be – a pipe like this one running down from the roof of the next building.
What sort of red sector?
Croder, his voice coming out of the scrambler in Ferris' hotel room: he'd have got through by now, with only light traffic on the satellite into Moscow.
He didn't say.
Did he ask for support?
No, sir. He said he didn't want any.
No surprise in this for the Chief of Signals: he knows my views on support, especially at night when you need to identify people in a tricky field, and at once.
This was ten minutes ago?
Thirteen.
Silence on the line while Croder thought, while Ferris waited for him to say all right, if he breaks out of this I want you to abort the mission and send him home, is that understood?
Oh for Christ's sake, give me a bloody chance.
Watch, yes, the door. And think, reflect, my good friend, upon the situation, think again of clearing that four-foot gap between the buildings in these conditions: frozen snow with only pale moonlight to work with, the shadows deceptive, the distance too great for any kind of confidence, the muscles sluggish because of the cold, the chances of success dauntingly thin, so look, yes, before you leap.
The problem was that I hadn't got any choice.
You shouldn't have -
Oh piss off.
Vishinsky wouldn't do half the job. He would seal off this hotel – had already sealed it off – with every man he could muster, and they would be many when he called others in, as many as it would take to make absolutely certain that this single quarry would be flushed out, caught and cornered, spinning like a fox in the ring of clamouring hounds. I had, after all, offended him, had displeased the Cougar.
Watch the door.
Ice cracked in the silence as the mass of the building shifted by a degree, moved by its tectonic forces. Over the minutes, echoes came sharply from the walls of the buildings around it as the guests began leaving the party and getting into their cars and slamming the doors.
Certainties, then, consider the certainties. Vishinsky would never give up, would have me found and seized, and then would have me shot. This was certain. I couldn't stay here on the roof forever, even if no one came to search it. This too was certain. But if I could make that leap across the gap between the buildings without going down, without killing myself, I could use the drainpipe on the wall of the next building, and perhaps get to the ground, get to the ground and away. This at least was not certain, nor was death in the attempt.
Therefore make the attempt.
Voices from below, voices and laughter as one by one the revellers took their leave, the steam from their breath laced generously with vodka. Light flooded the walls of the buildings as the pinions bit into the starter-bands and the cars moved off with their chains clinking across the snow, leaving me in the gathering silence with a sense of departure crucially more personal, and before too long: we have presentiments, my good friend, do we not, when we feel the party may be over now, and have no wish to go.
I crossed the roof towards the parapet, my shoes crackling on the snow as Ipassed close to the staircase door in the instantwhen it was pushed open and the guard looked out at me and swung up his gun.
9: FINITO
He smelled of sweat, athlete's foot, and chewing-gum.
I would have liked to know his name. That's always important when death has to be dealt.
We were lying side by side on the brittle snow; his legs were drawn up. He was trying to find some kind of purchase for his splendid new Nikes, some way of kicking out and giving himself leverage. His breath rose in small clouds, and mine with it, as if we were brothers, which of course we were: all men are brothers.