“Why do you believe that?”
She said, “Because Moltsk has been full of rumours for the last twenty-four hours. There is nothing definite, but our people seem to sense that shortly Russia is to be world-powerful. This must suggest something terrible, to bring such a thing about.”
“How shortly?”
She hesitated. “I have the impression that it will be very soon. Moltsk is becoming an uneasy place. There is a change in the atmosphere. It is a feeling of terrible anticipation, of joy, which I myself find shocking and unholy.”
“Are the people behind all this, then — are they reacting as if they approve?”
She said sadly, “Yes. In many cases, yes. As for the others — they have to approve. There is no alternative other than Siberia. They will not criticize, not even to one another in their homes. But even so I believe there are in Russia many, many people who share Godov’s views and mine.”
Shaw asked suddenly, “Your cousin? He doesn’t share them?”
“Ah — so Godov mentioned him, did he?” She laughed, and it was a scornful sound. “Igor, my cousin, is an extrovert, and a militarist, and an excellent communist, all the things that I am not, or Godov. We have many arguments when I cannot contain myself — he uses my flat when he is off duty — but even he does not know entirely how I think.”
“Does he know about Godov — that you are friendly with him, I mean?”
She gave him an odd look. “Oh yes! He does not approve, Mr Alison, but I do not let my cousin run my life for me! As it is, he laughs and says the old man is harmless, that Moscow has his measure and he is too senile to be a danger now — so, you see, we do not disagree about him too violently.” She added, “But of course I shall say nothing to Igor about your visit.”
He grinned at that. “Just as well not to! By the way — how long are we safe here now?”
“From Igor? A long time!” She grimaced. “He is out with a woman, and he will not be back to-night. He will appear for lunch tomorrow, late and full of vodka. Then he will go on duty for twenty-four hours from four o’clock in the afternoon. This is how he has divided his time for the week he has been here in Moltsk — women, drink, duty. Nothing else. He is an animal.”
Shaw nodded reflectively. “He’s working on that tower, isn’t he, on the oil-drillings — or I gather it’s in use as a store now. Can you tell me anything more about it?”
She said, “A little, perhaps. Igor is in charge of a large body of engineers and men of the artillery who are working there. I do not know exactly what he does, but you are right that it is being used now as a store, that tower. I believe that it has been used so for some time, but the news has come out since the last day or two only. I can tell you little else… except that when the borehole was first sunk there were genuine oilmen working on it to send down the first cutting-head, but when that had been done and no oil appeared, other men, scientists and engineers, came to widen the original small shaft, and to build the tower over it. And now the soldiers are there, you see. All of them have had training in the handling of nuclear devices, which possibly is no more than natural when they are putting such devices in the store… but I confess I am sceptical about that store, and I have told Godov so.”
“So am I, Dr Somalin. I’ve asked myself why a tower should be considered as a safe store. Unless it goes very deep and can be well sealed off, but even then…” He paused, running his hand along his chin thoughtfully. “No, there’s a damn sight more in that tower than meets the eye.”
Shaw left the flat soon after, determined to get into the military area as soon as he could. He had just said good-bye to Triska Somalin and she had shut the door, and he was making for the lift, when he saw a big man in uniform bounding up the stairs. Some sixth sense made him sink back into a cross-passage where he could watch and not be seen, and a few moments later he heard the man thumping on Triska’s door. Then he heard her say sarcastically,
“Well, well. What’s gone wrong with your plans, Igor?”
Shaw didn’t catch the answer but the man sounded savagely angry. Evidently cousin Igor’s woman had failed to come up to scratch. Shaw congratulated himself on having got clear of the flat just in time. Major Igor Bronsky certainly looked a dangerous character, with a white, sadistic face and a strutting manner.
Shaw came quietly out of hiding, found that the lift was out of order, and went down the stairs fast.
Twelve
Shaw went back to his hotel first and equipped himself with his torch and a pair of binoculars which he concealed under a loose raincoat. After that he went out and walked down Arkhangelsk Street again, casually smoking a cigarette, on the look-out for a parked bicycle. Triska had told him she had a small car of her own but he felt that a car anywhere near the military area would invite unwelcome attentions to say the least of it. On the other hand a bicycle could easily be hidden or disposed of when necessary, and since Moltsk seemed to be full of bicycles he would be reasonably inconspicuous.
He found one leaning against a building farther on in a quiet, dark street and he wheeled it out into the roadway and mounted it. As he pedalled away he reflected that if he was unlucky he might be pinched for stealing but it was doubtful if such a minor affair would merit any police action before he was back and had ditched it again.
He went rapidly along the road to the north that he had taken that same afternoon to Godov’s house, until, just short of Emets, he reached the road leading north-eastward to the sea. Turning off along here he went on cautiously, keeping well on the look-out for anything on the road ahead. Farther along, climbing some rising ground to the crest of a seaward-stretching slope, he saw the floodlights ahead, the heavily guarded, double-banked wire fence, and the pole-barrier thrown across the road with two armed men walking up and down behind it. In rear were groups of low huts, probably billets and offices for the troops. Along the shoreline he could see what he took to be banks of rocket-launchers and there were also two turrets of heavy conventional guns. Beyond — a long way beyond and well out to sea — was a vast blaze of light, a blaze like artificial daylight which lit up the flat top of a thick projection rising sheer out of the sea like a sawn-off lighthouse.
The tower.
Chucking the bicycle down on the verge Shaw lifted his binoculars and studied that tower. From it a pier ran shoreward, reaching the beach to the south of the pole-barrier, a wide pier that seemed to carry a roadway and sidewalk. He could also make out the ring of smaller constructions which carried the protective boom around the main erection.
There was a prickling sensation in his scalp as he watched, and a gnawing uncertainty. He had found the tower, but what was he going to do about it? Use his transceiver to warn Latymer, give him an exact position so that the bombers could be sent in, or the missiles, to blow it sky-high? That would hardly do; bombers and missiles would be an act of war, which would play right into the hands of these people. Short as the time was now, he must not send anything approaching an action-signal until he had found out exactly what that tower contained, exactly what it was there for, and then, perhaps, and only then, if indeed it contained the threat which was so extreme that nothing could be made any worse by an act of war, they could send the missiles in. Meanwhile there was so much conjecture about all this, so much that was really sheer, unsubstantiated hearsay. That tower could be perfectly innocent for all Godov and Triska had said; the soldiers working on it might indeed have had nuclear training — but so what? Might they not simply be blasting to get deeper, in order to extend the place as a store?