Mordechai waved and headed off.
Lev rolled the bike through the office into a back room where auto parts were stored, and latched the door. He took a wrench from a pocket in the leg of his coveralls, loosened the nut beneath the bicycle’s seat, and started twisting and pulling upward to remove it.
Mordechai was crossing Novaya Drevnya when he saw two black Volgas and a police van come out of the darkness at high-speed and converge on the service station. One of the Volgas veered in his direction. Mordechai started to run, cutting between two apartment buildings toward a footpath that paralleled the river.
The Volga screeched to a stop. Three KGB men got out. Two went after Mordechai. The third ran to the station, joining four uniformed policemen who piled out of the van. They began rounding up the attendants, using truncheons to subdue those who protested.
Gorodin and another KGB agent got out of the second Volga, and strode quickly toward the office.
In the storeroom, Lev had just removed the bicycle seat. The end of a plastic bag — that had been twisted and wrapped with clear tape, causing it to resemble the wick of a huge candle — was sticking up out of the tubular frame. Lev grasped it, and pulled slowly upward.
The plastic bag contained drawings of the tanker VLCC Kira—the ones that delineated the modifications in the bow area. They had been duplicated on 2.5 mil tracing mylar, tightly rolled, wrapped in protective plastic, and slipped down into the section of tubular frame beneath the seat. They’d been there for years.
Lev was pulling the long, thin cylinder of drawings from the frame when Gorodin tried the knob, then kicked open the door to the storeroom. Lev bolted for another door that led to the work bays.
Gorodin lunged and got a handful of his coveralls. He spun Lev around, and backhanded him a shot that sent him reeling toward the KGB agent who was standing in the doorway. The agent sidestepped, drove a fist into Lev’s midsection, doubling him over, then put a foot into his rump and booted him out the door.
Gorodin crossed to the bike, pulled the roll of Kira drawings from the frame, and smiled.
It was exactly 5:14 A.M. when the Zhiguli turned into Novaya Drevnya and approached Service Station Number 3. Andrew saw the attendants being herded into the police van by the uniformed officers. He fought the impulse to hit the brakes and make a screeching U-turn and, instead, drove past the service station inconspicuously.
The doors of the crowded Metro car were just closing as Mordechai slipped between them. Despite his appearance, decades of bike riding had kept him fit. He had sprinted along the river, through a grove of trees, and down a staircase to the Metro station on Vyborgskaya, losing his KGB pursuers in the morning rush hour crowds. But he had no doubt he’d be arrested before the day was out. He knew he’d never be allowed to leave Russia now, and would soon be suffering the frigid inhumanities of the Gulag. He decided there was one thing he had to do before the KGB tracked him down.
Andrew hadn’t seen Mordechai, and didn’t know he’d almost been captured — how the drawings would get to the service station wasn’t something they’d discussed. Andrew’s first thought was to warn Mordechai the KGB was onto him. He headed for his flat in the Zhiguli.
About five minutes later, Gorodin and two of the KGB agents left Service Station Number 3 for the same destination — a frustrating drive through Leningrad’s interwoven maze of streets and canals where traffic is funneled across countless bridges, and is often snarled. It took Andrew an hour in the Zhiguli to make the same trip that took Mordechai fifteen minutes on the Metro.
Andrew parked right in front of the waterfront building and went in the main entrance. There was no need to climb fire escapes, and enter through windows now; the KGB knew everything. There was nothing to hide. Andrew dashed up the stairs, ran down the corridor to Mordechai’s flat, and rapped on the door.
“Mordechai? Mordechai, you in there?”
He tried the knob. The door opened, and he entered the darkened flat, not closing it.
Light spilled into the sleeping alcove through the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar.
“Mordechai?”
Andrew crossed the room and pushed through the door.
“Hey, Morde—” he bit off the sentence and looked away repulsed. Mordechai was slumped in the bathtub. His left arm hung over the side, hand resting on the floor, fingers splayed lifelessly in a massive pool of blood. Andrew backed away and closed the door. He was swallowing hard to keep from retching when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor toward the flat. The KGB hadn’t wasted a minute, he thought. He started for the window on the far side of the room.
A shadow darted into the flat from the corridor.
Andrew realized he’d never make the window, and ducked behind the half open door.
A large man in a raincoat entered.
Andrew moved swiftly in the darkness, grasped the back of his neck, and spun him hard, face first, into the wall behind the door. The man bounced off the plaster. Andrew grasped his throat, and was about to bash a fist into his face when the lights came on.
Andrew flinched and pulled the punch, startled to discover he was face-to-face with McKendrick.
“Ed!” Andrew exclaimed.
“Drew!” McKendrick growled, tugging on Andrew’s hand that was still clutching his throat.
“Are you all right?” Andrew asked, removing it and backing off a step.
McKendrick nodded, rubbing his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew went on. “I thought you were the KGB. I just had a—” Andrew let it trail off, suddenly struck by the fact that the lights had come on. He swung a curious glance to the fixture overhead, then to the switch next to the door behind him. His head snapped around, and he gasped, recoiling in shock at what he saw in the doorway.
“Hello, son,” Theodor Churcher said with a weary smile. His left arm had been amputated below the elbow, and the sleeve of his coat hung limply and flat against his side. He looked gaunt and tired; but his eyes still sparkled, and he was very much alive.
Andrew was traumatized. In the last hour, his emotions had been battered and wrenched beyond words. He stared at his father, feeling ecstatic that he was alive and angered at the agony he’d been through unnecessarily. He had no thought of embracing him.
“God,” Andrew finally rasped in a whisper. “What happened to you? How’d you get here?”
“Getting here was the easiest part,” Churcher replied. “We flew into Helsinki, and trained in this morning. The rest is a little more complicated.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Andrew said sharply, working to control the anger and hurt that had been building since Raina had confirmed his father’s collaboration with the Soviets.
“What’s that mean?” Churcher challenged.
“It means I know what you did,” Andrew replied evenly. “And I want to know why?”
Churcher’s face reddened at the remark.
“Hold on,” McKendrick said, reaching out to calm him and prevent the confrontation from escalating. Then, shifting his look to Andrew, he asked, “Didn’t you just come at me thinking I was KGB?”
“That’s right,” Andrew replied, realizing he’d been so stunned by his father’s appearance he’d lost his edge. “We’ll have to talk someplace else,” he concluded in a commanding tone to signify he intended to pursue the matter. He led the way as they hurried from the flat, got into the Zhiguli, and drove off.
Moments later, Gorodin and the KGB agents arrived. Gorodin stared at Mordechai’s body in the bathtub, and smiled. He had the Kira drawings, their source was dead, and SLOW BURN had been preserved. He went to KGB headquarters and called Deschin. When informed he wasn’t available, Gorodin left a top secret message for immediate dispatch, then headed for the airport.