'Dammit!' Ozeroff glanced in the direction of the overhead loudspeakers, then at the departure board. 'Important, you say?'
'Sir.'
'Very well, give it to me.' He motioned towards the briefcase in the chauffeur's grasp.
'Not here, sir—' the young man said respectfully.
'Very well — where?' He looked about him. 'Hell, the toilets, then. Follow me.'
Galakhov picked up, despite the movements of many passengers, the movement of the two contacts — the 'dustmen', as he had called them, much to their annoyance. Ozeroff, the whole operation, was in his hands at this moment, and he enjoyed that. He scuttled behind the striding Ozeroff, only a few years his senior but stiff with military service and self-importance. His appointment to the security staff surrounding Khamovkhin had been made because of his fanatical loyalty to the regime, and to the KGB, for whom he worked, despite his titular appointment to Military Intelligence. Galakhov watched his bearing carefully, on two levels — to imitate, and to overcome.
Easy to kill, even without the gun that had already been removed from the cubicle by the dark man.
Ozeroff swung open the door of the washroom, letting it swing back towards the ignored Galakhov. Galakhov stopped it gently, and pushed it open as if protecting the sensitivity of his hands. Then Ozeroff was facing him, ignoring the two men washing — one of them using an electric razor, its buzz like a warning — his hand held out for an envelope that Galakhov fished for inside the briefcase. One of the men moved to the roller towel, and began to rub at his face — an Arab, puffing with cold, humming as if nervous, as if picking up some hidden tension. The shaver, check shirt and well-tailored jeans, who might have been American, or European, ignored everything except his reflection in the mirror. Galakhov backed a little towards the door of one of the cubicles. None of them appeared to be occupied — yes, one near the Arab was closed. He motioned with the envelope, and Ozeroff, conscious only of delay, and of possible changes of plan, took the envelope and passed inside, beginning to close the door. Galakhov saw the Arab about to turn, saw the shaver pause to inspect the side of his jaw, rub at it — and pushed into the cubicle with Ozeroff.
The GRU officer leaned back against the cistern, even as his eyebrows raised in surprise. Galakhov put his finger to his lips, and proffered a notebook and pencil and mouthed the words: 'Your reply, sir.' Ozeroff nodded, and tried to move away from physical contact with the chauffeur. And, as Galakhov had known he would, he half-turned in the secrecy of childhood or examinations, away from the intruder upon his privacy. Galakhov listened. The humming Arab passed the door, which he reached behind him to lock silently, and the noise of the battery shaver started up again, long louder strokes as the man worked at the last rough places.
Galakhov raised his hands above his head, pulling at the strap of his watch, stretching out the thin wire until he clasped it with both gloved hands — the gloves were padded, to protect the fingers — and then Ozeroff was beginning to turn, having been puzzled by the forged letter. Loop, pull. He was slightly to one side of the man so that he could not exert the knee in the back, and would have to choke him. The letter fluttered to the floor, and slid under the door of the cubicle, and Ozeroff's hands were trying to scratch at the biting wire around his throat. Galakhov could see the eyes, the way they asked questions still even as they protruded more and more — the mottled skin turning a satisfactory purple, the hands scrabbling, tearing the skin on the neck, the body and legs doing nothing, nothing. They never did, never did, he thought. Too much concentration on the attacked area, no rationality when a man is being choked to death. Ozeroff reached out one hand to the wall, obscuring a scrawled bit of graffiti, as if steadying himself. Already Galakhov was taking the weight of the body as it began to slump, while tightening the wire still further. Feet of Ozeroff trying to maintain balance, instead of lashing out.
All the time, for every moment, Galakhov could hear the noise of the battery shaver. Ozeroff made no noise, pressed rigid between Galakhov and the wall, no scrabbling, no breath. When Galakhov released the wire — he felt Ozeroff's body slump further, and saw the eyes roll up under the lids — he began to whistle tunelessly, as if in embarrassment at being overheard by the man shaving. The shaver paused for a moment, then continued to buzz. Galakhov leaned forward, and guided Ozeroff's limp arm with his elbow.
The toilet flushed.
Galakhov released the body, caught it against the wall with his hip and stomach, and lowered it on to the seat. Then he leaned back against the wall, feeling hot, stifled. He did not look at Ozeroff's face, but listened. The buzz of the shaver had stopped. No one else had come into the washroom. He looked at his watch as he rewound the wire. In another two minutes, his two 'dustmen' would arrive to take away the remains.
'Hey — in there.' American!
'Y- yes? What is it?'
'You dropped a letter, or something?'
'Yes — yes I have.'
'In Russian?'
'Yes.' All the time, Galakhov had spoken with a more pronounced accent than he normally used when speaking English. 'Business — I am from Finland.' He looked into Ozeroff's dead face, and smiled.
'Sure. None of my business. Here—'
The letter appeared at his feet, pushed under the door. Next to the notebook and pencil that he had dropped — Galakhov realised he hadn't heard them fall.
'Thank you — thank you very much.'
The washroom door swung shut behind the American. Galakhov relaxed, staring at the high ceiling of the room, ignoring the body slumped on the seat. Then the door of the occupied toilet swung open. Water flushing, then hands being washed, then the click of the roller towel — the washroom door opening, sighing shut, then opening again, the footsteps of two men.
Water running.
'All clear,' he heard in the tall man's excellent English.
He opened the door, saw the man dressed in white overalls, and took the suitcase that was handed to him. He changed in the next cubicle, listening to the noises of Ozeroff's body being bundled into the linen basket on wheels, covered with dirty linen. The other man changed the roller towels.
The men were gone before he finished changing, taking the suitcase with the chauffeur's uniform when he passed it out to them, leaving another suitcase, Ozeroff's, for him to employ in his cover.
Galakhov made the final flight call for his Finnair jet to Helsinki. It was the evening of the 18th.
PART TWO
MAIN FORCE
18th to the 22nd of……,19…
'A civil war is inevitable. We have only to organise it as painlessly as possible.'
Six: Things Fall Apart
He was left now, on the A40, the driving, persistent sleet obscuring vision and inducing lethargy, with nothing more than a desire to stop. Only when the small delivery van stopped would he begin to think of a drink, or food. He and the tall man had finished the flask of coffee — and he knew he could not drink anything more from the silver hip-flask without falling asleep.
The M40 had been bad enough — lunatic drivers overtaking, spraying the windscreen, and the sluggish wipers, with slush; out the A40 was worse. He and the tall man and the body of Ozeroff seemed to have been imprisoned in the delivery van for an endless time. He was irritated, and careless, with the fatigue of long having completed his task, and not being able to relax from it. They had not even stopped at a pub; something stupid, even superstitious — pushing their luck — about leaving Ozeroff in the car park while they drank whisky by a fire. He shrugged, amazed at his own surrender to the conditions of this aftermath. After all, the signal had gone off to Kutuzov direct; all they had to do was to lose this body for the space of less than a week. By that time, it would all be over — and they would be out of the country, anyway. Stupid.