Radiant State

by Peter Higgins

  ‘Konnie…’ said Maksim.

  Konnie ignored him.

  ‘You can’t get Kistler out of there all by yourself,’ she said. ‘We have some resources, not much maybe, but better than one man on his own.’

  Lom considered. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Yes. That would be good.’

  Konnie turned to Elena.

  ‘You’re welcome to stay here,’ she said. ‘You’ll be safe. You won’t be found. Someone will bring you food. It won’t be more than a week.’

  Elena Cornelius bridled. ‘I’m coming. I’m tired of hiding. I’ve got a job to finish and none of you can do what I can do. Get me a rifle and I will come.’

  5

  Every day in the first pale pink and violet flush of another new morning Vasilisk the bodyguard runs in the hills above Dacha Number Nine. Ten easy miles on yellow earth tracks before breakfast, taking the slopes through fragrant thorny shrub with cardiovascular efficiency, the early warmth of the sun on his shoulders. He sees the soft mist in the valleys. Sees the black beetles crossing the paths and the boar pushing through thickets. Watches the big hunting birds, high on stiff wings against the pale dusty blue, circling up on the thermals. Miles of rise and fall unrolling smoothly and effortlessly.

  No words. No thoughts.

  He knows the routes of the security patrols and the places they watch from and he does not go there; he prefers to drink the mountain solitude in, like cool sweet water. The watcher doesn’t like to be watched. Doesn’t like the feel of a long lens on his back. Ten miles of nobody in the morning sets him up for the day.

  Two hundred push-ups, breathing steady and slow, two sets of fifty per arm, and a downhill sprint between pine trees–jumping tussocks and stony glittering streams–and Vasilisk the bodyguard steps out onto the road, corn-yellow hair slick with sweat. Sweat patches darkening his singlet.

  The guards at the gatehouse phone him in through the gate, as they do every morning. He glances at them lazily, indifferent small blue eyes blank and pale behind pale-straw eyelashes. He goes to his room, picks up a towel and heads for the pool.

  6

  The streets of Anaklion on the Karima coast were wide and shaded by trees. Many of the houses were modern, every fifth building a guest house or hotel. Women at the roadside and in the squares sold figs and watermelons and clouded-purple grapes. Warm air off the sea disturbed the palms and casuarina trees.

  Konnie, Lom and Elena took the funicular up to the Park of Culture and Rest. Gravel paths between long plots of enamel-bright flowers. Statues of dogs and soldiers. Wrought-iron benches for the weary and the convalescent. At the Tea-Garden-Restaurant Palmovye Derevya they took a table some way from the other customers, at the edge of the cliff, shaded by waxy dark green leaves against the low morning sun. A hundred feet sheer below them youths swam in the river, and across the gorge balconied houses recuperated: quiet lawns, striped awnings.

  A waiter materialised at their table. Tight high-waisted trousers, a pouch at his hip for coin.

  ‘Tea,’ said Konnie. ‘With lemon. For four. And some pastries.’ Her long fine hair was burnished copper in the flickering splashes of sunlight between leaves. Her eyes flashed green at the waiter. A hint of a conspiratorial smile. ‘You decide which ones.’ A beautiful young woman with friends, on vacation. A husband or boyfriend would join them soon.

  They’d arrived the night before. Lom used the last of Kistler’s roubles for rooms at the guest house Black Cypress. Maksim hadn’t appeared at breakfast.

  ‘He went up the mountain before dawn,’ said Konnie. ‘He wanted to have a look for himself.’

  Lom said nothing. Since they had left Mirgorod, Maksim had changed subtly. His face cleared. No longer pent-up and clouded with frustration, he was self-contained, competent and direct. Back in the military again, he was a man at his best with a mission. A simple purpose. Lom liked him. He’d started to trust him too.

  ‘We can do this,’ said Maksim when he arrived. ‘It is possible. There is a way. But it’s all about timing. Everything has to work precisely right. Absolute discipline.’

  ‘OK,’ said Lom. ‘Go on.’

  Maksim glanced at him. The two men had never quite resolved the unspoken question of who was in charge.

  ‘The dacha is a fortress,’ Maksim began. ‘A compound surrounded by steep hills. The only way in is a tunnel through the mountain. There’s a gate at the entrance from the road: wooden but three inches thick and reinforced with iron. There’s a gatehouse–always two guards, with binoculars and a view for miles down the mountain. They’d see any vehicle coming ten minutes before it reached them. The gate is kept closed and barred from within. It’s opened at a signal from the gatehouse, when they’re expecting company. But nobody comes and nobody goes, except the domestics make a shopping trip once a week. A couple of guards go with them.’

  ‘And inside?’ said Lom.

  ‘VKBD security. Plus Rond is there, and he’s got Parallel Sector personnel with him. And Rizhin has his own personal security. Two bodyguards. Part of the family. Very dangerous. Say, twenty in all.’

  ‘Not so much,’ said Lom.

  ‘There’s a militia company in the town, an armoured train five miles away, a cruiser in the bay. They think they’re safe enough.’

  ‘Patrols in the hills?’

  ‘No information,’ said Maksim. ‘But assume so. Yes.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ said Lom.

  ‘We must have the gate open at eleven tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock exactly, to the second. No sooner and no later. Kistler will be coming out in a car.’

  ‘A car?’ said Konnie.

  ‘Rizhin’s personal limousine. It’s the most powerful and heavily armoured they have. Bullet-proof glass in the windows. Thick steel panels underneath too. Hell, even the tyres are bullet-proof.’

  ‘And all we have to do,’ said Lom, ‘is open the gate tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’ said Konnie.

  Maksim’s face clouded. ‘It can’t be unbarred from outside, so we’ll need explosives.’

  Konnie looked around at the Park of Culture and Rest, at the teenage boys and girls in the river and stretched out on flat slabs of rock, lazy under the sun.

  ‘Where do you get explosives in a place like this?’ she said.

  ‘Every construction project here has to start with blasting rock,’ said Maksim. ‘There’s got to be a supply somewhere. A builder’s merchant. An engineering yard.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Lom. ‘You can leave the gate to me. I’ll take care of it. And the guards in the gatehouse too.’

  Maksim looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘How?’ he said.

  Lom hesitated. Maksim’s expression was soldierly. Sceptical. He couldn’t begin to explain. Explaining would make it worse.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ said Lom. ‘Please. I know what I’m doing. Leave it to me. If you can get Kistler to the gate at eleven, it’ll be open.’

  Maksim bridled.

  ‘I must know what you intend,’ he said. ‘I will not lead my people blind. Lives depend on me.’

  Lom shrugged. ‘Stay here then. I’m grateful for what you’ve done, and from here I will go on alone.’

  ‘Maksim,’ said Elena Cornelius quietly, ‘I think we should trust Vissarion. He has brought us this far. Without him we would be nowhere. We owe the chance we have to him.’

  ‘Chance!’ Maksim began, but thought better of it. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be at the gatehouse with you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lom. ‘Thank you.’

  He took a long draught of hot sweet tea and considered the plan. It was terrible. A really shit plan. But it would be fine.

  Just keep blundering on. Plough through the obstacles as they come. Way too late to back off now.

  7

  Weary after weeks of frustrating travel–delays over paperwork, failed and diverted trains, fuel shortages, their carriage attacked by a hungry mo
b–the Philosophy League arrived at the Wieland Station. Penniless–all their money spent on unexpected expenses along the way–but back in Mirgorod at last.

  They’d hoped for more of a reception. Forshin had wired ahead to Pinocharsky to warn him of their arrival. They’d expected journalists and prepared the lines they would take: Forshin had the text of a speech in his pocket, and Brutskoi had written an article for the Lamp, a manifesto of sorts, a call to intellectual arms. But there was no one to meet them. The League stood together in a disgruntled huddle on the platform, surrounded by their suitcases and chests of books, their luggage much battered and repaired. They all looked to Forshin for answers.

  ‘Well?’ said Yudifa Yudifovna. ‘So what are we to do?’

  Eligiya Kamilova stood somewhat apart from the rest with Yeva and Galina Cornelius. The girls were restless and unhappy.

  ‘Do we have to stay with these people any more?’ said Yeva. ‘Can’t we go home now?’

  Home? thought Kamilova. What is home?

  ‘Ha!’ said Forshin, visibly relieved. ‘Here’s Pinocharsky at last.’ He waved. ‘Pinocharsky! I say, Pinocharsky! Here!’

  Pinocharsky came towards them, arms open in a mime of embrace. He was wreathed in smiles but looked harassed, his wiry red hair wisping.

  ‘Well then!’ he said. ‘Here you are; you have come at last! But you’re late. I was expecting you two hours ago. You have to hurry. Your train is waiting on the next platform.’ He gestured for porters. ‘What a lot of luggage you have. But no matter, there’s no doubt plenty of room.’

  The members of the League were looking at one another in dismay. Forshin took Pinocharsky by the arm.

  ‘Train?’ he said. ‘What train? We’ve only just arrived, man. We need a hotel. We need a meeting. Editors. Publishers. We need a plan. We have much to say to the people.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Pinocharsky. ‘Well, no, not exactly. Not yet. There’s been a change of plan. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to contact you.’ He was looking shifty.

  ‘A change of plan?’

  Yes. The House of Enlightened Arts… Rizhin decided Mirgorod wasn’t the place for it after all. He has a new plan, a better plan. You’ll see the advantages when you understand.’

  ‘What?’ said Forshin. ‘No. This is unacceptable.’

  ‘I’m to take you there directly,’ said Pinocharsky. ‘The train’s waiting—’

  ‘This is outrageous,’ said Forshin. ‘I protest. On behalf of the League. There must be consultation.’

  ‘These are the instructions of Rizhin himself,’ said Pinocharsky stonily.

  ‘At least let us have some time to rest and recover from the journey. The ladies—’

  ‘I’m sorry, that won’t be possible.’

  ‘Then tell us where we are going, man,’ said Olga-Marya Rapp. ‘At least tell us that.’

  ‘A new town in the east,’ said Pinocharsky. ‘A pioneering place. Leading edge. A city of the future. A place called Vitigorsk. There’s a great project under way there. I don’t know much about it yet myself.’

  The League muttered and grumbled and cursed under their breath but there was no rebellion. They were too weary, too inured to disappointment; they knew in their hearts the limits of their true worth. Porters picked up their baggage and moved along the platform, and they followed in a subdued huddle.

  Eligiya Kamilova caught up with Forshin.

  ‘Nikolai…’

  Forshin looked at her, puzzled. She and the girls had slipped his mind in all the fuss.

  ‘Oh, Eligiya, of course…’

  ‘I wanted to thank you, Nikolai. You’ve been very kind to the girls and me. You’ve done more than we had any right to hope for.’

  ‘Oh. You’re not coming with us? No, of course not. But do. Come with us to this Vitigorsk place, Eligiya. See where all this excitement leads. The future is opening for us, I feel sure of it.’

  ‘I can’t, Nikolai. I must take Galina and Yeva to look for their mother.’

  ‘Of course you must do that.’ He held out his hand and she took it. ‘Well, goodbye then.’

  ‘Thank you, Nikolai. And good luck.’

  Eligiya Kamilova watched Forshin walk away purposefully, hurrying to catch up with Pinocharsky. She never saw or heard of him, nor any other member of the Philosophy League, ever again.

  ‘Eligiya,’ said Yeva, ‘can we go now, please? We have to go and find our mother.’

  Two hours later they were standing in the street where their aunt’s apartment building had stood, the place where the Archipelago bomb had fallen: six years before in Mirgorod time, but for them it was a matter of months.

  Everything was different. Everything was changed.

  Of their mother Elena Cornelius there was of course no sign at all. They waited a while, pointlessly. It was futile. They were simply causing themselves pain.

  Eligiya Kamilova wondered what to do. It was only now she was here that she realised she had no plan for what came next, no plan at all.

  ‘We’ll come back again tomorrow,’ said Galina to Yeva. ‘We’ll come every day.’

  8

  The next morning, early, Lom went up into the mountains with Maksim, Konnie and Elena. Konnie had rented a boxy grey Narodni with a dented near-side wheel arch. The interior smelled strongly of tobacco smoke. There was a heaped ashtray in the driver’s door. The streets climbed steeply out of Anaklion into scrub and scree and dark dense trees. No sun yet reached the lower slopes.

  They drove in silence. Lom, squeezed onto the scuffed leather bench-seat in the back next to Elena, watched out of the window. The Narodni struggled on the steep inclines and Konnie swore, fishing for the second gear that wasn’t there. The back of Maksim’s head sank lower and lower between his shoulders.

  After forty-five minutes Konnie pulled off the road onto a rough stony track. Out of sight among boulders and black cypress she killed the engine.

  ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘You walk from here.’

  Maksim, Lom and Elena left her with the car and started up a steep narrow hunting trail. Elena carried a rifle slung across her back. When they crested a ridge and clear stony ground fell away to their right, she broke away on her own. Two minutes later Lom couldn’t see her at all.

  It took him and Maksim another hour to work their way around to the thick woodland above and behind the gatehouse of Dacha Number Nine. Maksim picked his route carefully, stopping to look at his watch. He seemed to know what he was doing. Once he had them crawl on their bellies in under thick green spiky vegetation.

  ‘Patrol,’ he hissed.

  The sun was higher now, kindling scent from crushed leaves and crumbling earth. Slow pulses of purple and blue rippled across the cloudless sky. A liminal solar breathing.

  Lom’s every move and step was a startling noise in the thin motionless air.

  They crouched in the shadow of a pine trunk. The roof of the gatehouse was fifty feet below them, and beyond it the closed gate itself. Maksim checked his watch again and put his face close to Lom’s ear.

  ‘Now we wait,’ he whispered. ‘I will tell you when.’

  9

  Lukasz Kistler was lying on a low cot bed in his cell. Every part of him was in pain. He followed the passing of days and nights by the rectangle of sky in the high window, but he didn’t count them. Not any more. He divided time between when he was alone and safe and when he was not, that was all.

  When the key turned in the lock and the door opened he wanted to open his mouth and scream but he did not. He knotted his fingers tight in his grey blanket and pulled the fabric taut: a little wall of wool, a shield across his chest. A protection that protected nothing at all.

  Vasilisk the bodyguard stepped inside and padded across to the bed. Looked down on Kistler impassively with sleepy half-closed eyes.

  ‘Please,’ said Kistler. His mouth was dry. ‘Not any more. There is no more. It’s finished now.’

  ‘You’ve got friends outside the dacha,’ said
Vasilisk. ‘They’re coming to take you away.’

  Kistler tried to focus on what he was hearing. He couldn’t get past the fact it was the first time he had heard Vasilisk speak. His voice was pitched oddly high.

  ‘They’re going to try to blow up the gate,’ he said. ‘Stand up. You have to come with me.’

  ‘I refuse,’ said Kistler. He pressed himself deeper into the thin mattress. The springs dug into his back.

  ‘You refuse?’ Vasilisk looked at him with faint surprise, like there was something unexpected on his plate at dinner.

  ‘I refuse,’ said Kistler again. ‘Absolutely I refuse. No more. I will not come again. Not any more. I’m finishing it. Now.’

  Vasilisk bent in and hooked a hand under Kistler’s shoulder, iron fingers digging deep into his armpit, hauling him up. Kistler resisted. Pulled away and tried to fall back onto the mattress.

  Vasilisk leaned forward and jabbed him in the solar plexus.

  Kistler screamed and retched and tried to bring his knees up, curling himself into a protective ball, but the last of his strength had gone. Rizhin’s bodyguard yanked him to his feet and held him upright, though his legs failed him and he could not stand.

  Kistler heard a strange sound and realised it was himself sobbing.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Vasilisk and jabbed him again.

  On the slope above the guardhouse Maksim nudged Lom in the ribs and gestured with his chin.

  Go! Go!

  Vasilisk the bodyguard half-carried, half-dragged the unresisting semi-conscious Kistler through the rose garden and past the swimming pool. There was no one there. From half past ten to half past twelve there was tennis.

  Iced tea at half past eleven.

  Rizhin’s car was parked in the courtyard and Vasilisk had the keys in his pocket. He checked the time on his watch: 10.51.

  He opened the rear door and bundled Kistler inside. Pushed him down into the footwell. Kistler groaned and retched again, spilling sour vomit down the front of his shirt.