Archangel

by Gerald Seymour

  The smoke climbed, the flames tickled, the heat breathed over him. Behind Adimov, Holly slept on.

  Adimov lay on the ground and the warmth of the small flames was like a narcotic. If his boots were dried then, perhaps, he could manage to walk again through the night.

  He leaned forward to take his feet in his hands and rubbed them and chafed the white skin. The smoke from the wood played at his nostrils, the odour was sapping and softening.

  There were many thoughts in Adimov's mind . . . of a wife bedded down with cancer . . . of a woman outside a bank and crossing a road . . . of a tobacco store abandoned in a prison h u t . . . of punishment cells and loss of privilege . ..

  of the smile that would break on the pained cheeks of a woman in sickness. He would walk through the night for that smile. And across the hut, Holly's regular breathing comforted Adimov. His hand settled on another plank, dusty and dry in its rottenness, and he twisted to drop it into the heart of the fire, and his head sagged to the crook of his arm.

  Holly already sleeping, and Adimov now asleep, and the fire bright and the smoke crawling towards the clouds from the doorway of a farm hut.

  Like a kestrel that alternately hovers and then surges forward at speed, the helicopter ranged over the map co-ordinates that had been issued to its crew. The side-doors behind the fliers had been removed and on each flank of the helicopter sat a machine-gunner with a mounted armament, protected from the cold by electrically heated flying suits.

  They flew low, the altitude needle bouncing on either side of the zoo-metre marker on the dial, and the cloud was a ceiling just above them that the pilot avoided. It was hard for them to see any great distance ahead or sideways because the further they looked then the more obscure was the greying mist of evening and darkness. The men in the helicopter placed little trust in the searchlight with which they were now equipped. Any search for fugitives was enough of a pin in a stack operation, but to rely on a narrow cone of light when daylight vision had failed was to hope for the miraculous.

  Beneath them was the snow carpet, a vanishing expanse which played tricks on the eyes. The railway line was their marker-guide, and they had used its dark river slash as a reference to be married to the map that was folded under a plastic cover on the thigh of the second pilot.

  The pilot of the helicopter was not required to make his own decisions on areas of search. The earphones in his flying cap carried the instructions that he must follow. He was aware of a growing frustration in the staccato commands that he was given by the Signals Officer who controlled him from Barashevo.

  He was very young, the pilot, fifty days past his twenty-second birthday. He had been born six years after the death of Joseph Stalin but he knew little of the camps that were Stalin's legacy, except that it was necessary to find a suitable place for the minority scum who were parasites on the State.

  He barely thought of the two men hiding somewhere beneath him. He sought only to find them, before darkness negated his efforts.

  The helicopter hovered. The second pilot pointed to the map with a fur-gloved finger, indicated their position. The pilot acknowledged, switched the button for his mouth transmitter.

  'Area C . .. east of the track. Nothing. Over .. .'

  There was the stamp of static in his earphones, then the distortion of a mechanical voice.

  'Hold your position for further instructions . . . '

  The helicopter yawed, the wind tossed through the thunder of the rotor-blades. There were occasional snow flurries across the perspex, and the wipers smeared the pilots' vision ahead. The second pilot did not speak because he knew that the young man beside him was waiting, concentrating, for the new instructions. But he tugged at his arm, and when he had achieved attention he pointed ahead to the blurred horizon where mist and snow were mingled.

  Something there. Something trickling upwards from the vague outline that might be a snow-sheltered hut.

  The pilot nodded.

  'Command . . . I have smoke, approximately two kilometres, ahead. I think there is a hut there . . . '

  'Give your position.' A keener note to the voice in his ears.

  'Over the railway track, eight kilometres north from Barashevo.'

  'Wait.'

  Didn't the buggers know the light was half gone?

  'For your information, we have no record of an occupied dwelling close to the line and approximately ten kilometres north from Barashevo. Investigate.'

  The engine roared forward, a great camouflaged bird of prey racing from the darkness of the cloud ceiling.

  He was dreaming.

  The same repetitious dream that led to the same tunnel, the same crevice. Always the setting was the ground-floor flat, her clothes on the bedroom floor, her sink in the kitchen filled with unwashed saucepans, her wanting to take in a film when he had arranged to go to Hampton Wick. Piffling excuses for a row. And when he tidied her clothes, and washed her saucepans, and cancelled his arrangements, then she would scream at him. His only weapon against her scream was morose quiet, and that was the catalyst that raised her voice. The dream always ended with her in full cry.

  The scream had become a thunder. As if when she screamed the very ceiling fell on her. A crashing, heaving fall about her as she screamed.

  Holly woke.

  As he opened his eyes, the scream was cut. Not the thunder.

  Thunder filled the hut, and smoke too, and there was a spread of light across the doorway of the hut. Short stabs of light.

  Bastard helicopter.

  Between Holly and the fire, Adimov sat confused.

  'You lit a fire, you lit a bloody fire.'

  i was cold .. .' The defence of a trapped child.

  'You've brought the helicopter.'

  The flames were fanned by the down blast, singed his face as he charged the doorway with Adimov following.

  Through the barrier of flame, through a hiss of fire. He felt the down draught of the rotors and his forage cap was torn from his head and billowed away in cartwheels towards the hiding place of the knife.

  The helicopter coming down, seeking to squash him as a toad would a spider.

  'My boots. . . my socks. . . they're in the hut. . .' Adimov was holding back, trying to wrench himself clear of Holly's hold. Knowing the futility of what he did, Holly bent his back and worked Adimov's arms around his neck. With his own hands he pulled up Adimov around his hips. Holly giving Adimov a piggy-back ride, as if they were part of a children's carnival. He looked up at the blackness of the helicopter's belly, just once he looked up. He reached the railway track, and where the snow was thinly spread he was able to muster the imitation of a run. A slow trot.

  God, he was making good sport for them. A man running with his fellow on his back, and in pursuit was a helicopter with a ground-speed capability of 175 kph. Will they shoot?

  No warning if they fire. Don't look up, Holly.. . get it over, you bastards. He thought of Angela, crying in the flat. He thought of Millet, laughing as he went from his seat to go back to the bar. He thought of two old people in a terraced house at Hampton Wick, who would draw their curtains and put a kettle on the stove and weep only when they were ready to give each other strength . . .

  Get it over, you bastards

  Above the thunder came the shrill crack of the gunfire.

  Holly saw the pattern line of impact in front of him, he heard the singing ricochets from the chip-stones. No man can run into gunfire... there was a man who ran at the wire

  . . . God, he wanted to live, and his legs refused him.

  He stood still on the track and released his grip, and Adimov slid to the snow beside him. The helicopter settled gingerly down avoiding the telephone wires. A searchlight played in their faces.

  'I understand about the fire, friend.' Holly spoke from the side of his mouth. 'Thank you for what you have done . . . '

  Adimov reached up and took Holly's hand, as if by that action he gave himself protection. Holly looked steadily into the search
light beam. If he cowered then they might shoot. He wanted to live. To live was to be in Hut 2, to be alive was to exist behind the wire of Camp 3. He thought of Rudakov, he thought of a letter that he had written, he thought of a man in a cell at Yavas.

  He pulled Adimov to his feet.

  Holly put his hands on his head. He walked upright, surely, towards the helicopter.

  1

  The zeks were straddled in the no-man's-land between the Factory and the living zone when the helicopter landed in the vehicle park. Burdened by the presence of the M V D

  Colonel in his corridors and office, Kypov had thrown himself with his old energy into the detail of the running of the camp. If prisoners were on the move then he would be there to watch. It was his skin that would be peeled if there was future slackness. Let the men watch, Kypov had determined, let them see the degradation of the returned fugitives.

  The intention was based on good sense. It went unfulfilled.

  The rotor-blades died, circled slowly, came to rest. The 246

  parking area was lit by headlights. Uniformed men, some straining behind taut dog-leashes, ran forward.

  Kypov saw Holly jump down from the helicopter.

  All the zeks saw him.

  All the guards saw him.

  He jumped easily, landed as if on the balls of his feet. The helicopter crew had not come prepared from Saransk, they had carried no handcuffs, and Holly's wrists were free.

  Holly turned back to the helicopter doorway and he reached out with his arms and steadied and then caught Adimov who was propelled out by a boot. All the zeks saw the whiteness of Adimov's feet. The guards closed round Holly.

  Like a bobbing twig on a fast stream his head alone was visible amongst them, held high.

  Kypov elbowed his way past the zeks and the guards. A swagger-stick was in his hand. He split open the cordon round Holly, and the swagger-stick was raised high in the air and whipped down on Holly's face. The swagger-stick rose and fell, and Adimov screamed from the blows that found his shoulder. All the zeks saw the Adjutant pull Kypov away with the hesitant force that a subordinate will exercise on his superior. Holly still carried Adimov on his back and there was blood on his cheek, and there were some at the front of the ranks of zeks who were to swear that they saw him smile, that they saw his hand lifted in a wave of salute.

  Like a tidal flow the anger moaned in the lines of prisoners, splashed andbeatacrosstheguardswhogavemorerein to their dogs and backed away and lifted their rifles to the aim. But the prisoners did not cower before the guns and the dancing dogs.

  Poshekhonov said, 'He showed no fear. He gave them nothing.'

  Chernayev said, 'The camp has been a new place since he came. He should have been on his knees, and the bugger waved .. .'

  Byrkin said, 'He is a leader, born to lead. In battle he would be forward of the front-line troops.'

  Feldstein said, 'He could take men to hell, and he would not care if they did not return.'

  There was a strange music in Kypov's ears. He heard the catcalls, the jeers, the NCOs' shouts for silence that went unobeyed.

  Irina Morozova climbed down from her bunk. She slept on an upper bed, and it was beside the window, so she had a vantage-point from which she could see over the high wooden fence ringing the Women's zone. Her movements were deliberate, as if she had been struck a blow, as if she must be careful not to lose her footing. The noise of the helicopter descent had drawn her to the window. She had seen him jump down from the helicopter's door. She had not seen him again. There had only been the flash of his face as he had jumped. She felt a great wound, the misery that comes with the ending of hope.

  Chapter 18

  Security's surveillance operation had been in place a full week before word of it seeped across central London to the desk belonging to Alan Millet in the East European section at Century.

  A chauffeur of the Soviet Trade Delegation, working out of their Highgate office, was the target of attention. •

  Late on a Monday afternoon, the memorandum requesting basic help reached Alan Millet.

  A guarded little memorandum, giving little, telling less.

  It was by chance that the contact had been made with the chauffeur. Routine. A leading aircraftman from the Royal Air Force base on the island of Anglesey had actually been idiot enough to write a letter to the Trade Delegation offering information for cash. And what sort of information could an L A C offer from miserable old Anglesey? An RAF

  station for the Hawk trainer, where once in a blue moon a squadron of Phantoms called in for low-level flying over the Irish Sea. Who would want information about such a stereotyped aircraft? There could hardly be anything in the Hawk's makeup that the Soviets didn't already know. And a fool of an L A C had dipped his nib and written off. The Soviets had sent one of the Delegation chauffeurs on a cheap day excursion from Euston to Holyhead. That was three days after the LAC's letter had been steamed open in the basement room of the Post Office sorting building at Mount Pleasant. Special Branch had been asked to pull a man off the ferry watch to Ireland to provide the muscle up at the far end of the line. An SB sergeant had phoned in his report while the chauffeur was slogging back to London via Chester, Crew, Stafford and Rugby. The LAC and the chauffeur had met for half an hour and no papers had been exchanged.

  The LAC's bank manager yielded up reluctantly the details of an overdraft of £672.89, an RAF Special Investigation Branch officer reported that the L A C had recently been on an insubordination charge, and that his wife was pregnant yet again. A boring little creep . . . and SB would probably have been left to handle it in their own sweet way if the LAC

  hadn't gone sick two days later and made a trip to London and been identified by the watchers at Euston, picked up by the Soviets, taken to lunch in a Wimpy bar and gone for a walk in Regent's Park with the friendly chauffeur. The L A C

  travelled home to his red bank balance and his bulging wife and his engine maintenance. The chauffeur returned to work and the residential compound in north London. SB in Wales could look after the LAC, Security struggled with their manpower problems to maintain a 24-hour surveillance on the chauffeur. Nine men working three eight-hour shifts. Gave the buggers something to do, Millet thought, and about all they were fit for.

  They might have elaborated on the memorandum, they might have flashed more images onto the single page of typescript than had been intended by its authors.

  Security wanted to know if the chauffeur figured on Century's computer. Was the rank of chauffeur a cover? No Major of KGB covert intelligence seemed to give a shit what his title was abroad.

  Millet had taken the lift down to the Library. A bit archaic, calling it the Library. Precious few books there. The central floor area was set with Visual Display Units. He had typed out the chauffeur's name, but got back damn all in return. Nothing on the chauffeur in Century's machines.

  There was a silly small smile on Millet's face when he went back to the lift late that Monday afternoon. The button he pressed took the lift past the floor where East European was housed, to the office of the Deputy Under Secretary.

  He stood in front of Maude Frobisher's desk, a suspicious and unhappy owl behind her hornrims.

  'I have to see him, Miss Frobisher.'

  'He's clearing his desk because he has an early engagement this evening.'

  'I have to see him.'

  if you listened to me, Mr Millet, I said he was clearing his desk.'

  'I'll go in.'

  Millet strode past her desk, was confronted by the closed door, hesitated, then knocked. A respectful little tap. Miss Frobisher's displeasure pierced his back. He heard the muffled call. He couldn't help himself, he fingered his tie straight. But it was a bloody good idea.

  Nothing wrong with this idea at all.

  'I'm at an FCO dinner tonight. Our Lord and Master will be there. I could raise the matter quietly, Millet.'

  it's because we've nothing in the bank to pay for Holly at the moment, sir, but we
could have. We could get this wretched little driver. Nine times out of ten their operatives have diplomatic immunity, and all we can do is shove them back onto the Aeroflot. But the chauffeur doesn't have diplomatic immunity. We can hold him, we can charge and imprison him. Then we'll have currency to pay for Holly.'

  it's not the most imaginative of concepts, going back twice to pee against the same tree trunk. Shouldn't we learn a new trick?'

  'I couldn't think of another trick, sir.' Millet gazed unhappily across the Deputy Under Secretary's desk. 'I just thought that this way offered us the chance of a positive reaction to Michael Holly's situation.'

  'Another swap . . . ' The Deputy Under Secretary tapped his pen cap on the desk top. it's a plausible programme.'

  'You told me I should not forget him.'

  indeed, I told you that. In fact, I said more than that. I said I'd break your neck if you ever forgot him.' •

  'We're not forgetting him, if we pull the chauffeur in.'

  'I'm at the FCO tonight for dinner with the Secretary of State, then I'm away for a fortnight. I've an hour and a half before I leave here, so come and see me before I go.

  Meanwhile, talk to Security. I have to know their attitude before I'll take it any further.'

  is that quite necessary?'

  'I've said what I'll do, and I've said what I want from you.

  I'll be waiting to hear from you, Mr Millet.'

  'Does it have your support, sir?'

  'You're wasting the limited time that is available to you, Mr Millet.'

  They shook hands. It was nearly dark and the paths in St James's gleamed from the yellow sodium lights and the slow drizzle of rain. Security had requested that Millet should meet the man in the park.