“No, but don’t stray far.”
“I’m going to take a look at Tamerlane’s Mausoleum,” he said, glancing at Caitlin.
“I could do with some exercise,” she said, seeing a chance to find out why he was still around.
“Take a look behind us,” he said when she asked the question, and there, a hundred yards back, two armed Chekists were sauntering in their wake. When they all reached the mausoleum, the Chekists perched on a broken-down wall while she and McColl admired yet another blue dome.
“They’re sticking closer,” he told her on the walk back. “I don’t think Komarov wants to lose me.”
Neither do I, she thought. But one way or another, she would.
Komarov moved his chair into the courtyard and rummaged in his pocket for the latest cable. Sasha had been his usual thorough self, and the facts his assistant had gleaned from the few available records had refreshed his own memory of that summer’s events. The name of the British agent that Aidan Brady had accused Caitlin Hanley of meeting was Jack McColl. And it had of course been Brady who’d shot the boy in Kalanchevskaya Square. Two reasons for the Englishman to hate the American, but if Davydov really was McColl, surely there had to be more to his presence in Russia than a three-year-old vendetta.
There was nothing to suggest that Piatakova had lied about her relationship with McColl, other than Komarov’s own impression at the time that she’d cared about him more than most people did about long-abandoned lovers. Maybe she had, but another three years had passed since then, and no one Sasha had spoken to doubted her loyalty to the revolution. Which was, he realized, a relief.
There was more. Within hours of this McColl’s escape from Moscow, two crates of crop-rotting poisons had been left on the Vecheka’s doorstep on Bolshaya Lubyanka, and two White agents had been found shot in an Arkhangelskoye dacha, one dead, one severely wounded. Reading the wounded man’s description of his assailant, Komarov could see nothing to rule out the Englishman now masquerading as an interpreter from Tashkent. McColl, it seemed almost certain, had foiled a plot by Russian allies of his own government to destroy the crops that fed Moscow. Which should, Komarov thought, have been the end of his official career as a spy. So whom, if anyone, was he working for now?
The question was still exercising his brain when Maslov ushered a young and uniformed Russian into the courtyard. “Tell Comrade Komarov what you just told me.”
The man was a railway guard. His train had been crossing the Amu Dar’ya bridge the previous night when he had spotted a small boat in midstream. There had been three men in it.
Komarov slapped an armrest with the palm of his right hand, causing the railwayman to step back a pace. “The boat from Charjui to Kerki—when does it leave?”
“It should have left this morning, comrade. At dawn, I think. It was waiting for the spare parts we brought in from Krasnovodsk, so—”
“Check it!” Komarov snapped at Maslov. The subordinate lifted the telephone and asked the operator to get him the Charjui Cheka. The three of them waited in silence, the guard shifting uneasily from foot to foot.
“You can go,” Komarov told him. “Thank you.”
The man needed no second bidding.
Maslov was through at last. “Well, find out!” he shouted down the line. “They’re—”
“I heard,” Komarov said. He was examining the map, remembering that Peters had mentioned how slow the boat was.
“It left at dawn,” Maslov confirmed, “but our men were not on board.”
Komarov grunted. “Ask them when it’s due to reach Kerki.”
Three or four days was the answer.
“Right. Get Chechevichkin in here.”
The grains of rice that clung to his beard indicated the local chairman had been eating his breakfast. “Yes, comrade?”
Komarov passed on the new information. “I must get to Kerki in three days,” he added, studying the map once more.
“I don’t see how—”
“That’s exactly what you must do. Look, here. This road—is it passable for automobiles?”
Chechevichkin considered. “Well…”
“There is a garrison at Karshi, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“Half of them are down with fever.”
“Then half of them are not.”
They drove out of Samarkand soon after noon, cruising along a surprisingly smooth road toward the distant mountains. But not for long. As they left the last habitations behind, the road threw aside any need to keep up appearances, and swiftly degenerated into a jarring duet of potholes and ruts. The first tire burst after about ten miles, the second two miles farther on, making McColl understand why they’d bought eight spares for the two vehicles.
While the drivers busied themselves with the second wheel change, he walked forward along the road, which ran up a wide, dry valley before disappearing between the yellow rock walls of a gorge. Behind him the sand dunes stretched back to the distant line of green that marked the course of the Zeravshan River. Caitlin was sitting on the running board of one car staring thoughtfully into space. Komarov was pacing up and down, his grey hairs glinting in the sun beneath the edge of his cap. Maslov was arguing with the two drivers, probably about their productivity.
They had passed two camel caravans soon after leaving the city, but now seemed alone in the middle of a very large universe. Or almost. A large scorpion emerged from between two boulders not a yard from McColl’s feet, its upflung tail swaying gently as it advanced. He flicked some dust with his boot and watched it scuttle back into the shadows. Like a spy, he thought sourly. Why had Komarov brought him on this last leg?
Maslov was waving everyone back to the cars, and soon they were driving on toward the next blowout. It occurred high in a mountain pass and was swiftly succeeded by another, but then either the road or their luck improved, and they motored safely down into another wide valley, the ancient town of Shahrisabz a growing splotch of green in the distance. Darkness was falling as they entered the main street, pursued by a crowd of children and watched by the curious eyes of the older inhabitants. The local party official had apparently been warned that they were coming; he suddenly appeared in front of them waving a large red flag. McColl wondered if the man intended to walk ahead of the cars all the way to Karshi.
McColl climbed out to interpret, but the Uzbek’s Russian was up to the task of explaining the arrangements for their overnight stay. The drivers were sent off to find spares for the spares; the rest of them were led up onto a spacious roof where food was already being prepared. A large, black, semispherical iron bowl was sitting on a circle of bricks above a wood fire; inside it McColl could see and smell pieces of mutton, onion, carrot, and tomato sizzling in the fat—the beginnings of a pilaf. Cups of water, sliced peppers, and rice were arrayed on a tray beside the fire, ready for adding when the time was right.
He sat himself down, suddenly feeling ravenous. Komarov was talking to the party official; Maslov and Caitlin had disappeared. The street below was still full of children, many gazing up at the roof with disappointed faces, as if shortchanged on a promised entertainment. Most of the town was visible, or would have been half an hour earlier. Now only the higher slopes of the surrounding ridges were bathed in violet light, and as McColl watched, the stars grew sharper above the jagged mountains to the south.
Caitlin came out onto the roof with an Uzbek woman, having let down her hair and changed into a multicolored dress and shawl. She threw him a smile as she and their hostess sat down on the other side of the fire.
The meal was ready in about an hour, although it seemed three to McColl and his stomach. The food was delicious and, by some miracle of local requisitioning, came with a liberal supply of wine. A quintet of Uzbek musicians appeared to serenade them, three playing a stringed instrument that McColl didn’t recognize, the other two beating out rhythms on tabla and tambourine. With the stars bright above, his head full of wine and music, McColl felt a rare sense of contentment spreading through his being. If he was living on borrowed time, all the more reason to enjoy it.