The Scorpion Signal q-9

by Adam Hall

  I stopped after ten minutes and lay listening, with the torch switched off and the stink of oil in the air, the draught shifting and fretting and freezing the skin. Four vehicles had gone past the warehouse and each time I'd switched off the torch because this building wasn't light-proof. Five minutes ago a train had rolled slowly alongside, its vibration setting up a buzzing in one of the Zil's headlamps.

  You're pushing your luck, old boy. You -

  Shuddup.

  I wiped my hands on the sacking and got out from underneath and opened the driver's door, doing it quickly because there was a Russian roulette factor in play: Schrenk was working in foreign terrain and he couldn't be a hundred per cent certain of his components or materials, however competently he assembled them.

  In twenty minutes I was finished with the interior, lifting out the seat cushions and the carpets, checking the cocktail cabinet, telephones, tape deck, air conditioning vents and the tip-up seats. Most of this time was spent in checking the recess behind the facia panel in the forward compartment, working with extra care among the wiring, terminals and fuse boxes.

  There's only one thing those bastards'll listen to.

  A bomb.

  He was so good at them. I'd watched him rigging a bang more than once, sitting over the bloody thing and crooning like a witch, his thin nicotine-stained fingers stroking and fondling and fiddling, the pliers paring the insulation and making the loop in the copper cable, his fingertip spinning the brass terminal free as if he were playing with a toy, his pale eyes bright and his mouth touched with a faint Gioconda smile.

  'Anyone would think,' I'd said to him once, 'it was a baby rabbit.'

  He'd looked up quickly. 'That's all they are, old boy. Baby rabbits.' A soft chuckle. 'Until they go up, of course. Then they're tigers.'

  I pulled the bonnet lock and went through the engine compartment, taking nearly half an hour because of all the subsidiary tanks, reservoirs, chambers and small boxed components; a lot of them were labelled but I had to identify the rest by following the cables, pipes and linkages to find out which system they served. Then I shut the bonnet and opened the boot and checked the spare wheel, the first aid box and emergency tool kit. The torch battery was running low by this time but I'd almost finished now.

  Didn't find anything, old boy?

  It could of course be packed inside the upholstery or the roof lining or the door panelling, anywhere like that, but a major search with tools would take time and at this stage I'd prefer to report to Croder and get his instructions; until we knew the overall picture we didn't necessarily want Schrenk to know we'd found the Zil and we didn't necessarily want to immobilize it: he could have alternative procedures planned.

  I started on a final check before the torch was too dim, covering the areas behind the radiator grille, inside the wings and under the bodywork valances. Another freight train was rolling through but the warehouse was a sound-box and when the door creaked I froze and waited, concealed by the Zil.

  Light flashed from a torch.

  `You there?'

  `Yes.'

  `Someone coming.'

  I went over to the door. 'Keep inside and stay hidden,' I told Shortlidge. He moved for the pile of crates and I shut the door and got behind it and waited. The train was still rumbling but I could hear footsteps over the brittle snow outside and then a key in the door. It was turned sharply three times: he was surprised to find it was already unlocked.

  I'd have liked to have a final word with Shortlidge because I didn't know whether he'd follow my orders and stay out of the action or decide to get mixed up in it and risk two deaths and no signal to base, but he was a fully trained a-i-p with a Curtain-country post and I stopped worrying and watched the door. It opened cautiously and a man came in and snapped a light on and I used the right hand and searched him for weapons while he was still out and then got some snow and packed his face with it till he came to. Then I began asking questions.

  The rdv was for the road bridge over the Jauza where Stromynka ulica crosses it from east to west and Croder was waiting for me when I got there, Bracken and another man with him, a black Mercedes 220 parked in the cover of shadow.

  'This is Fenshaw.'

  'Good evening.'

  They made room for me in the car and Fenshaw stayed behind the wheel looking edgy. The 220 was facing south but there was enough room to make a one-point turn and get out north if we had to. The river flowed past us under the street lamps; I could see the glint of broken ice drifting.

  On the radio I'd asked Bracken why we had to meet in the open and he said Croder wanted to keep within short-distance radio range of three points: the safe-house, the warehouse and Area 2 where they were watching for Schrenk at the Pavilion apartment block.

  'Where is Ignatov?' Croder asked me now.

  'Shortlidge took him to his base, blindfolded. Did you contact Logan?'

  'Yes. He and Marshal are guarding the Zil.'

  'All right.' I had to make a lot of effort to sort out what I had for him because sleep was trying to black me out. 'They're setting up a high explosive action timed for six o'clock tonight inside the walls of the Kremlin. I checked the Zil as far as I could without dismantling anything and when I left there it was dean, superficially. This could tie in with what Ignatov told me — that the explosive hadn't arrived yet.'

  'Do you think he was lying?'

  'No.' I'd had to work on Ignatov's nervous system again but I don't think that would have been enough without additional persuasion so I'd reminded him what his wife and children would feel like when they heard he'd been found dead.

  'Is he to drive the Zil?'

  'No, a man named Morosov, also a Central Committee chauffeur. I don't think Schrenk would trust Ignatov with the end phase: he's not a professional. Schrenk plans to radio-detonate the charge himself, two minutes after Brezhnev goes aboard the Zil at the steps of the Grand Palace, where the Presidium will meet. The car is to be handed over to Brezhnev's personal chauffeur ten minutes beforehand, ostensibly following a maintenance-check road test. The chauffeur's not in the act, and is down for sacrifice.'

  I was trying to get the whole report into order but there were memory gaps and I was aware of them and knew they'd have to be bridged.

  'This man Morosov,' Croder said. 'What's his motivation?'

  'He's a dissident. They all are, except Ignatov. I think Schrenk is blackmailing him into co-operating, judging by his subservience.'

  'Blackmailing him?'

  'He's a trusted functionary. He'd only have to steal a tankful of petrol for his own car to get ten years in the camps. I'd say Schrenk caught him out in something.'

  'The rest of them are dissidents, you think.'

  'Yes. The Borodinski trial's created a lot of anger and they're coming out into the open now.' I shut my eyes and tried to remember other things, but the dark came tiding over me and I jerked my head up.

  'Take your time,' I heard Croder's voice.

  Bracken opened a door to let the cold night air come in. I could hear the river now, and the discordant ringing of the ice floes as they touched together on the surface.

  'There's a four-car motorcade when Brezhnev travels. He always goes in one of four Zils, with two motorized units of the Guards Directorate leading and following.' My mind switched. 'Have you got any closer to Schrenk?'

  'A little. We have a contact.'

  I sat up straighter. 'Oh really?'

  'We can now stop the Zil operation,' Croder said carefully, 'but the danger is that the moment Schrenk knows we can do that, he might switch to an alternative plan. We must therefore conceal the fact that we're on to the Zil for as long as we can.'

  'Not easy, from the moment he starts missing Ignatov.'

  'Precisely. Our main target, then, remains Schrenk himself.'

  Bracken asked: 'If we find him, is Quiller to go in?'

  Croder let a couple of seconds go by. I don't think he was hesitating: I think he was deciding how to phra
se it. 'No. I shall expect him to help us locate and subdue Schrenk, but I shall not expect him to do anything more than that. Schrenk,' he said with a note of warning, 'must be considered strictly expendable. I trust that is understood.'

  The smell of the river came through the open door, the smell of dead fish and diesel oil and rotting wood. Drive him as far as the river, Schrenk had said in front of me, as if I hadn't been there, as if I were already dead. You don't have to use any weights, in the river. All you have to do is to make sure he's found a long way from here.

  'Do you have anything more for us?' Croder asked me.

  My head jerked up. 'What? No. Yes. There's a reception at the American Embassy,' this was bloody important and I'd nearly missed it out, 'and three other Central Committee people are going there with Brezhnev from the Kremlin, by separate motorcade. Kosygin, Andropov and Kirilenko.'

  'What's his idea?' Bracken asked. 'If he doesn't hit Brezhnev he'll at least hit one of the others?'

  Croder turned to me. 'What type of explosive were they going to use?'

  'Composition C-3 plastic in sheet form: four rectangular slabs to fit under the cushions of the Zil. And twenty-five kilograms of steel ball bearings, distributed between the plastic and the cushions.'

  'My God,' Bracken said quietly. 'This is Schrenk, all right.'

  'Yes. Bloody great military grenade. If the four of them came down the steps to their cars together after the meeting, he could hit the whole lot.'

  I shut my eyes again and let my head sink down. I'd told them all I'd got out of Ignatov and I wanted to sleep and let Croder and the rest of them take over.

  'Did you ask him if there was an alternative plan ready to go?' Bracken wanted to know.

  'Yes. He said he didn't know of any.'

  'Was that the truth?' Croder asked.

  'I think so.'

  Listen, you tried to blow my head off out there in that car park, you think that doesn't mean anything to me? You start lying and by God I'm going to leave you here for dead.

  I'm not lying. I want to see my children again.

  The broken sheets of ice touched together on the river's surface, bringing the sound of muted bells. 'I think he was telling the truth,' I told Croder, 'but that doesn't mean Schrenk hasn't got an alternative operation planned.'

  'Precisely. Is there anything more you have to tell us?'

  I took my time to think, in case I missed anything. 'No.'

  'Very well.' He nodded to Bracken and they both got out of the car. 'Take him to base,' he told Fenshaw, 'and ask the woman to look after him. Then I want you to come back here and pick us up.'

  Periods of waking and sleeping, the smell of wood smoke and antiseptic and the rough woven blanket. At one time the sound of metal on metal and I was halfway out of the bed before I was fully awake, something crashing on to the floor.

  'It is all right.' She came over at once and held my arms with her strong fingers, looking into my face. 'I was just putting some more wood on the stove.'

  'Oh. Good of you.' The room was cold.

  'How do you feel?' She picked up the beaker of water I'd knocked over.

  'I was dreaming, that's all.' The big black Zil going up, bursting like a chrysanthemum.

  'You should be in hospital,' Zoya said, leaning over me. 'I am worried about infection.'

  'You worry,' I said, 'while I sleep.'

  At some other time I saw the cold grey light of the new day defrosting the grime of the window, and had a run of coherent thoughts for the first time since Fenshaw had brought me back here. It was possible that everything would be all right, provided we could find Schrenk. Croder could stop the Zil operation at any time he chose. Logan and Marshal were guarding it at the warehouse and could smash the distributor or pour dirt in the carburettor whenever they got the instructions. Ignatov was also under guard. If Schrenk hadn't got an alternative lined up, there was a chance that everything was going to be all right.

  Dreams again, with the soft discordant chimes of the ice on the night-running river, the soft wet phutt of the silenced gun, blood on the snow.

  Then later I woke to find Bracken leaning over me, speaking softly and with the fear of God in his voice.

  'They've shot Logan and Marshal,' he said, 'and taken the Zil.'

  19: SCARECROW

  5.41

  The winter night had come down half an hour ago, and the sky was now starless. Snow had started falling again before noon, and was now beginning to settle as the evening temperature dropped below zero.

  C–Charlie… Heading west on Sucharevskaja ring road.

  I checked the time again. C–Charlie was Croder.

  There were seven of us out: four of the original cell with Croder, Bracken and myself making up the number. Logan and Marshal had died instantly in the shooting and an ambulance had picked up their bodies after an anonymous telephone call from Bracken. That had been at 6.39 this morning, nearly twelve hours ago. Since that time Croder had kept the whole cell working to locate Schrenk and had failed. Nothing had been seen of the Zil.

  I picked up the set.

  A-Able… Going east on Krasnocholmskaja, now crossing river bridge.

  The snow came out of a black sky, hazing across the taller buildings and covering the roofs of vehicles until they began blending with the background. Traffic was easing as the rush hour neared its end. A few trucks were using chains again, and sand crews had just appeared at the major intersections.

  Croder had said: 'If we haven't found either Schrenk or the Zil by five o'clock this evening we shall begin patrolling the outer ring road in the hope of sighting the Zil on its way to the Kremlin.' His face had been pale, and his head sunk into the collar of his overcoat. 'We shall maintain constant radio contact and A-Able will be prepared to go into action if we sight the Zil. What action he may take will depend on the circumstances and his own discretion, but whatever happens we have to realize that the Zil may explode without warning at any time. It may be triggered with a timing device, or Schrenk may choose to detonate the charge by radio beam, sacrificing the driver. We don't know. This is a last-ditch stand, and I expect every conceivable effort to be made to avert disaster. I've already pointed out to you that the disaster we have to avert does not simply concern the explosion of a motor-car in a crowded city, but concerns the explosion of a totally unpredictable situation on an international scale. Thank you, gentlemen, that is all.'

  I'd asked Bracken if they were going to reconsider the idea of warning the Guards Directorate by an anonymous phone call a few minutes before the four leading members of the Politburo got into their motorcades. He'd just said, 'God knows. That's up to London, not us.'

  We knew that Croder was in signals with London hourly through a timed system of public phone box calls to the Embassy. We also knew that Croder was personally against the risk of exposing a plan to assassinate the Soviet chief of state by warning his security forces in time, without making 'every conceivable effort' to block Schrenk on his run in and get control of the Zil.

  'There is, of course, the other thing,' Bracken had told me privately. 'That Zil might already be inside the Kremlin. If it is, there's nothing we can do.'

  With the bridge behind me I watched the mirror for a few seconds longer than normal because a militia patrol was coming up fast and I started looking for an immediate right turn. The Volga stayed in the mirror for ten seconds and then overtook and left me behind. A minute later I caught up with it again at the Kamensciki street junction, slowing behind a mess of vehicles trying to make their way past some sort of accident by the Metro station: I saw a stove-in radiator with rusty water blowing out of it and a Moskvich draped halfway across the kerb. Sirens had started up from the opposite direction.

  The surface was tricky in places now because the ruts were getting lost under the new snowfall and you couldn't use them to steer with. I was keeping my speed down to a little below the limit and checking the mirror the whole time: there shouldn't be any tags but if I mi
ssed sighting the Zil ahead of me I might see it in the mirror and send out a fix on the radio.

  'We shall expect it to be crossing the ring road,' Croder had told us at the briefing, 'towards the Kremlin. But that doesn't mean it might not have to make a right turn on to the ring road itself and follow it for a time until it can turn left. Watch for that.'

  I hated Croder and I pitied him. I pitied him because he'd run a reasonably effective mission up to the point where I'd failed to kill Schrenk, and in less than twenty minutes from now he looked like seeing the mission being blown out from under him through none of his own fault; and I hated him because the fault was going to be mine and he'd taken pains to let me know it. All right then, not hate. Guilt.

  5. 43.

  G-George… I'm making west along Samotocnaja, just passing the circus building.

  Shortlidge. He was keeping station a mile behind Croder, who would now be moving south and west, somewhere near the planetarium.

  Calling G-George. Repeat signal.

  Radio reception was strengthening and fading as we circled the centre of the city, the new steel-braced constructions affecting the signal. We'd been told to mention a landmark when we could, as well as the street's name. We knew them by now: we'd spent two hours with the maps.

  Shortlidge was repeating. His voice sounded dead. He was the one who'd found Logan and Marshal; he'd known them for three years and had worked closely with Logan on the Yugoslavian spy-bust thing when half the foreign a-i-ps in Moscow were being smoked out of their holes. Logan had a wife, a young ice-skater working her way up through the city championship teams, and Shortlidge was going to have to tell her what had happened.

  I used the set again.

  A-Able… I'm going north, leaving Narodnaja with the Kotelniceskaja Hotel on my left. Where is F-Freddie now?

  No one came on the air for almost a minute; then Croder began asking for a signal. We didn't get one.