They were lined up to see him board the helicopter. General, Pnin, commanding Finland Station Six, already in position south-east of Ivalo, across the border with Finland, was pleased and gratified by the sight. He shook hands with each of his headquarters staff, who would join him only after Ivalo was taken and secured, and they snapped into salutes one by one — like a row of clockwork soldiers, he thought, then dismissed the unkindness. Good men.
He ducked under the rotors when the last man had been saluted, and climbed into the MIL helicopter. His aide saluted, and proceeded to strap him into his rear seat in the passenger-compartment of the command helicopter. Then Pnin nodded that he was secure, and comfortable, and the aide spoke into the microphone.
Immediately, the beat of the rotors increased, and Pnin, twisting his head to look out of one of the ports, saw his staff retreating to a distance where the downdraught would be less distressing. He raised his hand once more in salute. The noise of the rotors reached a whine, and there was that little fearful moment as the whole helicopter wobbled as it first left the ground. Then it rose slowly, its lights — he could see them reflected through the port — splashing redly on the snow of the take-off pad. He could see the upturned faces of his staff, caught by the light, hands holding on to fur hats Then the seat seemed to lift quicker than the rise of the whole machine, but he could not be sure because the scene in the MIL turned from shadow into orange into whiteness and he could see nothing. He could feel, just for an instant. He was being pulled apart, and scalded and deafened.
The staff officers below saw the MIL stagger, then rip like a tin can, belching flame, spit off bits of molten metal and chunks of rotor blade and fuselage — before they began running to escape the debris as it sagged then drove down towards them.
Marshal Praporovich had not heeded his own warning, nor that of Kutuzov. He was faintly amused, rather than disturbed, by the knowledge. And tickled at the idea that, while he had made love to the young lady whose apartment he had visited, two of his officers had stood guard outside the door — another two had been posted outside the entrances to the apartment block.
A risible occasion — but he could not help but be smug about his performance. Not that he had been impotent — no, never that. But — disinterested, certainly unenthusiastic. And he could not explain why the study of the map-table, the digestion of the innumerable movement and disposition reports, the smiles and confidence of his staff-officers — why those things had concentrated themselves in a genital itch which blossomed into lewd images, a vulgarity of mental language that had surprised him, gratified him.
And the girl's call — that had come at just the apposite moment. He had not thought it strange, only convenient — even mystically appropriate. And, laughing, he had collected his little team of bodyguards, and as if they had all been Suvorov cadets they had passed round a flask of vodka in the staff car, and there had even been jokes and vulgarities about occasion and performance and community of indulgence — which he had allowed, so satisfied had been his mood.
He studied himself in the long mirror in the bedroom, touched his fur hat with his gloves in mocking salute, glanced at the sleeping girl in the round bed under the mirror in the ceiling — that, too, an innovation he had submitted to, enjoyed — then turned on his heel, went out through the lounge where the empty glasses stood next to the champagne bottle, half-empty. He let himself out of the apartment. He acknowledged with a nod the evident interest in the eyes of the two young aides on duty outside the door. They followed him with undisguised smiles to the lift.
The house was on the island of Krestovski Ostrov, between the Bolchaia and Malaia Nevkas (The Great and Middle Nevas). It was in a tree-shrouded suburb off the Morskoy Prospekt, amid old and spacious houses. The nearby Maritime Park of Victory and the Kirov Stadium were both masked by the trees — gaunt though they were in the cold pre-dawn as Vorontsyev paced the pavement near the Volga saloon in which he had sat for most of the night.
The house was at least a century old, pre-Revolutionary, lavish, perhaps the retreat of a wealthy businessman or landowner. It had been taken over as a subordinate office and interrogation centre by the Leningrad KGB; just as many of the big houses in those quiet streets had become offices, clinics, kindergardens.
Vorontsyev ground out the cigarette with his foot, and looked at his watch. Five minutes before six. The sky was dark, but the stars were fading. He was cold with the hours of waiting. The pavements and the road were bright with rime, silver in the light of the few street lamps. Two other cars were parked in this quiet street — containing the team he had selected and briefed from the resources of the Novosibirsk office. The men were bored, yet eager. They had come through visa control at Leningrad airport at midnight, as a part but unconnected with Vorontsyev, ahead of them in the short queue. They were noisy, but apparently drunk. The local KGB man wished them a successful and drunken leave in the city.
The cars had come from Intourist — a waspish woman woken from sleep in her flat above the office who was immediately, ingratiatingly humbled by the ID card he showed her. If there was a connection between Leningrad KGB and the group of traitors — he thought about them consistently in that way now — then the Intourist woman would be unlikely to possess sufficient suspicion of SID to pass on the information that an alien KGB apparat was in the city.
He had a reasonable, though undetailed, impression of the interior of the house. If this one — three storied, double-fronted, deep with rooms — worked to the general pattern, then the Englishman would be in the cellar. The cellar would have been converted to interrogation rooms and cells.
He was still dog-tired, he admitted, yawning. He had slept deeply on the five-hour shuttle Aeroflot Tupolev from Novosibirsk, via Sverdlovsk, Perm, Kirov and Vologda — but a sleep interrupted when he was jerked out of unconsciousness each time the plane landed.
He would have felt more comfortable with his own men — he remembered that Ilya and Maxim were dead — but he had no special fear of these strangers. They would not fail. He had chosen young men, men who reminded him of his own team. Most of them were graduates of a university as well as one or other of the KGB training schools, and all of them were ambitious. He had chosen them partly because of their ambition. To work with SID was a privilege, something which would assist their careers. It mitigated the sense they must have of working against comrades. At least, he hoped it did.
He returned to the car, held out his hand, and the driver, trying to look wide-awake with bleary eyes and bleached cheeks, handed him the radio microphone. They had set up a HQ for radio or telephone traffic to be relayed to them from Moscow at another KGB safe house — one due for redecoration in a few weeks and therefore empty. One of their team had been left there with a radio and telephone link.
' "Father" to "Son" — are you receiving me, over?'
The voice was faint, tired and bored. 'Receiving you, "Father" — over.'
'Any more Moscow traffic?'
'Three reports for you, "Father", from Centre. Priority One.'
'Very well. Make them brief- over.' The young driver was looking at Vorontsyev with wide eyes. The highest priority for KGB radio traffic, for a young Major in the SID. He was impressed.