“What do we do with that lump in the corridor?” Kolya asked, and Korolev, for an answer, pointed to the leather restraining straps on one of the beds.
It took all three of them to drag the giant back into the room he’d emerged from and lift him up on to the bed. They had to pull the straps as tight as they could in order to be able buckle them onto the last notch, so huge was the man’s frame.
Perhaps Mishka’s swearing as he tried to push his nose back into shape but the giant woke just as they’d finished, his eyes meeting Korolev’s for a moment in surprise before they flicked left and right. At the sight of the machine above him however, his eyes went wide with terror and he began to buck and rear on the bed. Even with a gag in place he still managed to make an animal mewling that had the hairs at the back of Korolev’s neck standing to attention.
“What the hell’s up with him?” Mishka asked.
Korolev saw the rubber skullcap that hung down from the machine-a number of small wires dangling from it. On a hunch, he pulled the thing out and held it directly over the man’s head, the wires dangling down to touch his face. The struggling ceased and the giant’s body went rigid. Korolev leaned down to whisper in his ear.
“I have questions for you. Will you answer them?”
The big man nodded and Korolev undid the buckle of the gag. There was silence as he did so and Korolev glanced up to see Kolya watching with interest.
“How many are in the main house?”
“The children?” The man had a voice like pouring gravel.
“Them first.”
“Twenty-two.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. Two dormitories. At the end of the long corridor.”
“And apart from the children?”
There was a slight hesitation, until Korolev made as if to lower the skull cap.
“Eight guards, four nurses, and a doctor,” the man said in a rush. “The guards sleep on the ground floor. It’s the big room beside the front door. The nurses and the doctor are upstairs. The rooms off the landing.”
“It’s past midnight-who will be up and about?”
“A nurse for the children, the guard who does regular rounds, and the guard at the gate. No more than that.”
“And you? What are you up for? And the nurses downstairs?”
“There’s an operation later-we’re getting ready.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It’s when they do them.”
Korolev wanted to ask why, but he had a more pressing concern.
“There was a boy brought in. Yesterday. Where is he?”
“Blond hair?”
Korolev’s stomach seemed to contract. “Yes.”
“Downstairs.”
“The locked room? Where’s the key?”
Again, hesitation, but Korolev knew how to deal with it now.
“The guard up at the house has it.”
Korolev pulled the keys from his pocket and held them up.
“Which one?”
“The brass one.”
“If you’re lying about any of this…”
“On my mother’s life.”
Korolev looked at the size of the man and pitied the woman who’d had to give birth to him. “If you even think of trying to escape, we’ll make an omelette out of that tiny brain of yours. Just so you know. If you stay where you are-you’ll likely come out of this in one piece.”
Korolev motioned Kolya and Mishka to the door.
“Do we trust him?” Kolya asked, when they were halfway down the stairs.
“Well here’s the first test,” Korolev said and put the key the big man had indicated into the locked door. It opened easily and there Yuri was-backed into a corner of the room, his knees drawn up in front of him, his arms holding them tightly and his terrified face looking in amazement as Korolev ran the three steps to him and swung him up into his arms.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Korolev carried his son as they made their way toward the main house, not because Yuri couldn’t walk but because he wanted to hold the boy tight to him.
“Did they do anything to you?” Korolev asked him in a whisper.
“No. But the red-haired nurse”-Korolev remembered the one, she’d been out for the count in the corridor-“she said they were going to fix me, make me loyal to the State. I kept telling her I was loyal. But she kept saying it all the same.”
“There’s no one more loyal, Yuri,” Korolev said, feeling the boy was rigid with indignation. “The Party knows that.”
“Yes,” Yuri said. “Yes, they do. They know everything.”
God help them both if they did, thought Korolev, and nodded to Slivka as she stepped out of the bushes. Korolev was pleased to see Goldstein and the Deacon had joined her.
“Kim,” he said in a quiet voice. “Take Yuri to the woods. Wait for us there. If there’s a problem, head for the cars and go.”
Goldstein nodded, smiled at Yuri, and held out a hand to show him the way.
“Yuri,” Korolev said, leaning down to place him on the ground, kissing his head as he did so. “We’ll catch up with you as soon as we can-but don’t wait if there’s trouble. Kim will get you to the apartment and I’ll meet you there. Understood?”
Korolev pushed him toward Goldstein and watched until they disappeared into the shrubbery.
* * *
They entered the main house through the side door that the guard and the nurse had come out of. They all had their guns out now-six guards could be problematic, and if the giant had been lying and there were more then they really could be in trouble.
Once in, they took the rooms one by one-Korolev and Slivka first making sure the kitchen was clear, while Kolya and the others covered the corridor. There was no need to talk-they worked their way from kitchen, to pantry, to a strongroom with a massive metal door, then into some kind of storage room. They moved quickly and they moved smoothly. Everywhere was empty.
On the ground floor they repeated the exercise, working their way through an incongruously opulent dining room, the table set for twelve, then what seemed to be classrooms, then an office, another office, a sitting room, a toilet. They found the guards just where they’d been told they would be and, with gun barrels pushing into the napes of their necks, bundled them down to the strongroom and locked the half-naked, panicked-looking men inside. Then they started up to the first floor.
Perhaps they’d made too much noise with the guards, and certainly one or two of the stairs creaked as they’d made their way up them, but whether they’d woken him or he’d wandered out onto the landing by chance, Korolev looked up to see a half-dressed man wearing round-rimmed spectacles, staring down at them in surprise, and then fear.
God knew what they must have seemed like to him. Mishka with his broken nose, Kolya with his bumps and bruises, and Korolev’s two-day-old battering probably not looking pretty either. And if Korolev’s face reflected his mood then the fellow was right to look panicked-because a certain Captain of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia had been thinking something through during the last few minutes and had just worked out the answer. If there’d been an operation intended for this very night-then the probable patient had been his son. And if that was true, and if this wretch was a doctor-then Korolev would lay a handsome bet this fellow was the most likely would-be perpetrator of that so-called operation.
“Move one damned inch and I’ll put a slug right between your damned eyes and then I’ll spit in the hole.”
It was only when he’d finished speaking that Korolev realized the voice was his own. What was more, he was surprised to discover that a large part of him was praying the devil would move that damned inch. Korolev’s aim didn’t waver until Slivka reached the doctor and turned him until he was facing the wall, pressing her gun into his spine.
“Are you the doctor?” Slivka asked in a quiet voice and the fellow nodded. And it didn’t take much prompting for him to tell them where to find the nurses. They were broad-shouldered women-hard-faced even in slumber, and hard to wake as well, but wake them they did, and then Slivka and Mishka pushed them downstairs to join the guards.