Angel of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I know of him,’ Clive said. ‘Did he come to the cay?’

  ‘No. He said he had something for us, from Anna. So Tommy went across and met him at the Royal Victoria. He brought back a large suitcase.’

  ‘It contained a whole lot of Anna’s stuff,’ Jane explained. ‘Including some clothes we had never seen before, and her passport.’

  ‘And just about all her jewellery,’ Johann put in. ‘We reckoned she knew that she was going to have to hide out after this job.’

  ‘But Smitten brought no message from Anna?’ Clive asked.

  ‘No. So . . . do you have any idea where she is?’

  ‘I’m afraid I do. Anna was kidnapped from her hotel room just after midnight Wednesday before last.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’ Johann was aghast. ‘Anna?’

  ‘I know it sounds impossible. But as far as we have been able to work out, she had just completed her job and was returning to the hotel to change her clothes before catching a plane back here. What we know indicates that she had had a difficult time, and that when she returned to the hotel she was both dishevelled and coatless. It was February, and the temperature was not much above freezing. But she also appeared to be completely in the clear. My bet, knowing Anna, is that she was thinking of a hot bath before she did anything else, and that her guard had slipped, just a little. These people were waiting for her, and seem to have been able to fake a heart attack.’

  ‘Anna?’ Jane cried. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘I said faked. We think they used some drug or other that produced the same symptoms.’

  ‘You say this happened Wednesday before last?’ Johann said. ‘That is more than a week ago. There must have been a ransom demand by now.’

  ‘There has been no ransom demand. Nor is there going to be one. We are pretty sure she’s been taken by the Russians.’

  ‘What?!!’ Both Fehrbachs shouted together. ‘But . . . after that hurricane . . . It’s been three years.’

  ‘Yes,’ Clive agreed. ‘I imagine Anna felt the same way, that they’d given up. Which is probably the root cause of what happened. Did she ever mention the name Hamilton to you?’

  ‘Hamilton?’ Johann shook his head. ‘Not that I recall. You think this man knows where she is?’

  ‘We think he’s probably with her. He obviously wormed his way into her confidence. How, I have no idea.’

  ‘But if we know the Russians have her,’ Jane said, ‘can’t we do something? The government . . .’

  ‘The British government is not prepared to do anything. As far as they are concerned, Anna has not only broken her agreement with them, she has now committed murder on British soil. In short, she has become an embarrassment. And so have I.’

  ‘What?’ Johann cried. ‘You? But were you connected with this job?’

  ‘Only by being her husband. But we traced the kidnappers’ movements to Tilbury Docks, and it so happens that a Russian vessel had left Tilbury at six o’clock on Thursday morning. But that was only a few hours earlier. So I commandeered a police launch and caught her up, still within the Thames Estuary, then forced her to stop and boarded her.’

  ‘Tremendous!’ Johann shouted.

  ‘But you didn’t find her?’ Jane said.

  ‘Not in the time available. I’m damned sure she was on board, and I would have placed the entire ship under arrest and forced her to return to port for a proper search. But we were recalled before I could do so. At least, the police were.’

  ‘But why, if you were certain . . .?’

  ‘Because,’ Clive said grimly, ‘I acted without authority. I had, in fact, been officially warned not to interfere. So I was required to resign.’

  ‘Oh, Clive.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘This is your home, now and always. You know that.’

  He squeezed back. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’

  ‘And Anna . . .?’ Johann said.

  ‘I watched that ship sail away,’ Clive said bitterly. ‘I just could not believe it was happening.’

  ‘What will happen to her?’

  He sighed. ‘They have spent twelve years, and God alone knows how many lives, trying to capture her. As far as they are concerned, she is the last of the great war criminals still at large. At the very least there will be an elaborate show trial. But the outcome will be predetermined.’

  Johann got up, poured the champagne and handed out the glasses. ‘Anna would have wanted it.’

  ‘There is one ray of hope,’ Clive said. ‘The Americans know what is happening, and Anna was working for them. Therefore she is their responsibility. I have spoken with Joe Andrews, and he has promised to do everything he can.’

  ‘But what can they do?’ Jane asked.

  ‘They hold several Russian spies. They could offer to exchange one, or even two or three of them, for Anna.’

  ‘Do you think they will?’

  ‘Like I said, she got into this mess while carrying out an assignment for them. I’ve told Joe that I would be returning here, and I expect to hear from him at any moment.’

  In fact the HF set was crackling when he checked the radio room the next morning, after a very long and almost sleepless night. It was the first time he had ever slept in Anna’s bed without Anna, with only a restless Isis for company; and the cat obviously wondered what he was doing there without her mistress.

  He sat down in front of the radio. ‘Fair Cay.’

  ‘Where have you been, old buddy? I’ve been calling half the goddamn’d night.’

  ‘I was early to bed,’ Clive confessed. But his heart lurched. Despite the greeting, there was no joie de vivre in his friend’s voice. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Joe said. ‘Damn all. I’ve gone as high as I could, and the answer was the same: that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’

  ‘She was acting on your orders!’ Clive shouted.

  ‘Easy,’ Joe said. ‘Easy. You’ve put your finger on the problem. You know as well as I do that the Soviets have been after her since she got out of the Lubianka. They know I played a part in her escape, but they couldn’t really connect me with the State Department. However, they’ve always had their suspicions about how she got out of this country after that shoot-out in 1941. We always denied we had anything to do with that, but they kept pressing it until the big boys decided that, for the sake of relations, she would have to be sacrificed. Well, that didn’t work out, and the Reds accepted the fact that from then on she was a British problem. If we now try to negotiate her release, it will involve revealing the fact that she has been working for us and has been protected by us, not the Brits, all these years. And to the world at large, Anna remains a war criminal.’

  ‘So you’re prepared to write her off? A girl whose only crime is that she has spent most of her adult life doing your dirty work for you.’

  ‘Hold on, old buddy. Quite a lot of that dirty work was done for you guys. And it was your government that wrote her off first.’

  ‘I know. And I’ve quit.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, as Anna’s husband, I guess you’re entitled to do that – and also in a position to do so. I’m not so lucky. I don’t suppose it would do any good to say what a shit I feel about this whole thing.’

  ‘No,’ Clive said, ‘It wouldn’t do any good at all. Fair Cay out. For the last time.’

  *

  ‘Time to get up,’ Hamilton said, jerking the blanket away to stare at the naked body on the bunk.

  He had done this every morning of the six they had been at sea. Anna had gathered that the shorter route, via the Baltic to Leningrad, had been blocked by ice, and so they had headed south, for the Mediterranean. And as she was allowed on deck for an hour’s exercise every day, she had been able to watch their progress. They had stayed well out at sea after crossing Biscay, and the Portuguese coast had been nothing more than a cloud on the horizon (the weather had been bad on that part of the voyage). But land had been very close as they passed through the Straits of Gibraltar.

>   She had gazed with glowing, but not very hopeful, eyes at the mountain indicating the British colony. She had in fact just been recovering from twin shocks. First of having allowed herself to lower her guard just a few minutes too soon, from the sheer relief of feeling that it was all at last over; and then of having had Clive within touching distance without being able to let him know she was there.

  But by Gibraltar she had regained control of herself. It was time to consider her position. What she might be going to did not bear contemplation. But until she actually faced the firing squad or felt the noose being placed round her neck, she must, as she had always done in tight situations, count her assets and wait, always ready to take the fullest advantage of whatever chance might be given her.

  Besides, even though Clive had been unable to find her during the search, it meant that he, and therefore MI6, had worked out into whose hands she had fallen. Thus they would already be working round the clock to get her back, as would the CIA, who would also by now know what had happened. Obviously they could do nothing about it while she was at sea. But once she was in Russia, unless she was destined for immediate execution (and she did not believe that Beria would be satisfied with anything so quick), they would bring pressure to bear. All she had to do was stay alive and as healthy as possible until then.

  With that comforting thought in mind, it was even possible to be amused by her immediate situation. Whether it was their idea of soul-destroying humiliation she did not know, but she had been given no clothes to wear. As being naked in front of glowing eyes did not concern her in the least, certainly as the ship was well heated throughout, they had quite failed in that objective; and she had to smile as she exercised on deck, where the wind, though getting steadily warmer as they moved south, was still chilly enough to bring her out in vast goose pimples. It was amusing to see the enormous precautions that were taken to prevent her from either throwing herself overboard or attacking one of them. She was surrounded by men, and a rope was made fast round her waist and controlled by two men standing in opposite directions, so that they could bring her back if she attempted to stray.

  But it was even more amusing to observe the manner in which, during her exercise period, every member of the crew, even the engine room staff, managed to find some reason to visit the boat deck; the sight of the infamous Countess von Widerstand standing naked in the wind with her golden hair flowing behind her was apparently something to be committed to memory, no doubt for the solace of their old age.

  But best of all was the pleasure of watching their frustration grow. Especially Hamilton’s. He could look at her for as long as he wished, but he could not touch her, at least in any way that might leave a mark, while even stroking her involved, as far as he was concerned, the memory of the blow with which she had destroyed the man on Love Beach. All the guards in the world would be unable to help him if she were allowed the split second to deliver such a blow, certainly as her guards were under the same orders as he was: that she must be delivered to the Lubianka unharmed and unmarked.

  In Lavrenty Beria’s apparent lust lay her greatest hope of salvation – at least until she was actually delivered. In the meantime, she was being fed three perfectly palatable meals a day, although the only alcohol on offer was vodka, a drink she remembered disliking during her sojourn in Russia thirteen years ago. And all the while, for six days now, she had refused to say a word. From time to time, she could see Hamilton’s frustration coming close to fury. He had tried everything, from threats and blandishments to outlining, in as graphic a manner as he could, every last thing that she was going to suffer before oblivion – quite unaware that, as he had a limited imagination, he was suggesting nothing that she had not already experienced during her long and tumultuous career.

  And her only response, over the past six days, had been to stare at him. She wondered what nightmares that stare was inducing into his midnight hours.

  But now the voyage was nearly over. Two days after sighting Gibraltar there had been land again as they passed between Sicily and Malta, and the following day they had found themselves cruising through the Aegean Islands before turning north for the Dardanelles. And yesterday she had watched the graceful minarets of Istanbul rising above Seraglio Point as they slipped by to port.

  They had entered the Black Sea. And now . . .

  ‘Today we reach Sevastopol,’ Hamilton told her. ‘So it is time for your bath.’

  *

  This was another daily routine, and one with which she certainly had no quarrel. She could soak in a hot tub, watched by both Hamilton and Tatiana, and torment them even more by washing herself with sensuous luxury, even giving little sighs of pleasure as she soaped between her legs.

  ‘I’ll be damned glad when we are rid of the bitch,’ Tatiana remarked.

  ‘It’ll be a day or two yet,’ Hamilton reminded her. ‘Time to get out, Countess.’

  Anna got up, stepped from the bath, and he handed her a towel. She dried herself, took a second towel from Tatiana, and worked on her hair for five minutes, by no mean drying it completely but leaving it merely damp.

  ‘Now,’ Hamilton said. ‘I have some things for you.’ They had returned to the cabin, and he indicated the bed.

  Anna gazed at the clothes lying there, and then looked at him.

  He grinned. ‘I know. They are not your usual chic. No silk and satin, eh? No furs. But they are what you must wear.’

  Anna dressed herself. There was no underwear, the trousers were baggy and completely obscured her legs. The blouse, of an equally rough material, hung straight from her shoulders in a shapeless mass and was heavy enough to obscure her breasts, while the boots were the heaviest things she had ever had on her feet, huge, thick-leather monstrosities that required lacing up.

  ‘Now this.’ He handed her a very large bandanna. ‘Your hair must be entirely obscured.’

  Anna pinned her hair into a bun, then tied the kerchief under her chin.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you look exactly like a Russian peasant woman. A very handsome peasant woman, to be sure. But nonetheless a peasant.’

  Anna frowned, mentally. She had assumed that her return to Russia would be a publicized triumph for the Soviet Union, the capture of the last remaining major war criminal, after twelve years of determined pursuit, which would also be a means of severely embarrassing Great Britain and the United States. There should be cameras and reporters by the score, and a crowd of carefully orchestrated onlookers, booing and hissing. But this made it appear as if she was being smuggled into the country, incognito.

  ‘Do not fear,’ Hamilton said. ‘I am sure that you will be supplied with proper clothing in which to be hanged.’

  *

  Then it was a last meal, by the end of which the ship was entering Sevastopol Harbour; and shortly afterwards Anna was setting foot on Russian soil, for the first time since 23 June 1941.

  For the trip ashore she was handcuffed, and then shrouded in a cloak that effectively concealed her from neck to ankles, making a nonsense of anything she might be wearing.

  This was the first time that she had been in Sevastopol, or indeed anywhere in the south of the vast country, but she had no time to admire the architecture or the landscape, as she was placed in the back of a closed car, sitting between Hamilton and Tatiana, and driven directly to the airport, where a military aircraft was waiting for her.

  Still handcuffed, she was at least given a window seat. ‘Take a good look at it,’ Hamilton suggested. ‘It is the last time you will ever see it.’

  As usual, Anna ignored him, though in fact there was not a great deal to look at, as they were flying quite high and, when the clouds cleared sufficiently to reveal the ground, there seemed to be nothing beneath her but an endless sheet of snow, occasionally punctuated by wisps of smoke rising from what she supposed were factories. And as it was after lunch when they landed, it was dark long before they approached Moscow.

  As they had taken away her watch, she had no
idea what time it was when they touched down, but as it had been dark for several hours, even allowing for an early sunset at the beginning of March, she reckoned it was about midnight. Not that she would have recognized anything even had it been broad daylight, as she had never flown into or out of Russia before. In the autumn of 1940 she had entered Russia by train on her way to take up her official position as a secretary at the German embassy; and when the British and Americans got her out of the country the following June, they had smuggled her north to Murmansk to board a British ship.

  But she could remember the city itself well enough to realize, during the drive in from the airport, that Moscow had changed out of all recognition. She knew that it had been heavily bombed during the War, with widespread destruction, but it seemed that no attempt had been made to restore any of the ancient character of the place. Instead, she was surrounded by high-rise apartment blocks in every direction, all apparently built to identical designs, creating a monolithic similarity entirely lacking in distinction, and soul.

  However, the centre of the city was largely as she remembered it, dominated by the immense fortress of the Kremlin, from the wall of which Lenin’s tomb protruded into Red Square, and at the top end by St Basil’s Cathedral (a showpiece even though Christianity had been officially abolished) and at the other by the State Historical Museum – while opposite the Kremlin, on the other side of the square, was the GUM department store, barred to the ordinary Muscovite as only ‘hard’ foreign currency could be used there.

  It was in this square, Anna recalled, that the infamous photograph had been taken of her when she was on a tour of the city in September 1940. At that time she had been too young (just twenty) and inexperienced to regard it as more than an impertinence on the part of the photographer, who had apologized profusely. But when she had become the Soviet Union’s most wanted criminal, that photo had found its way into the hands of the NKVD; and thence, eight years later, into the hands of the Mafia hit squad hired by Beria to kill her. She had retrieved it from the first of the boats sent to deal with her, before sinking the craft and its crew, and it was now in the hands of the CIA – although so far, she reflected, that had not done her a lot of good.