Gerald Seymour

by Traitor's Kiss (b) (epub)

  He tried to steady his voice. 'Guys, this is kind of a defining moment. We go on, or we go back. Nobody tells us what to do, not any more. Mowbray's on his fucking boat, out of it. Locke is the other side of the fence, out of it. We have a map which might be clear, might not, might be a genuine effort by that kid, might not. We all have to volunteer it—no one can stay back. Not enough of us for one to stay here, and three to go forward—I need all of you. So, what's it to be? Don't all speak at once. Guys, we have a few minutes. All lie up and get recovery time, then we talk. Then, it's go on or go back.'

  The word in their dictionary was yomp. They had yomped a little more than eleven kilometres, but it wasn't the Brecon Beacons, it wasn't Dartmoor and it wasn't Woodbury Common—on the Beacons, the moor or the common they'd have done eleven klicks, seven miles, with the load on their backs in less than two hours. It had taken them three hours and thirty-four minutes, including the three five-minute recovery stops. It had taken time because there had been two sentries smoking and chattering near the firing-range munitions bunker, and they'd laid up to see the pattern the sentries walked. Then they'd skirted them, made a wide half-circle to get past and short, darting runs till they were clear. At the missile complex, they'd left the track and gone almost down to the beach because there was a watchtower and another bored sentry: they'd crawled to get round him and round the throw of the arc-lights above the fence. They'd had to duck off the track again when a lorry had lurched on it towards the missile cluster. At Rybacij, a dark mess of ruins from long ago, there had been a pair of stray dogs. At the old airstrip they'd covered four hundred metres on their stomachs. There was a gate a kilometre back from the canal, more sentries and a fence, and they'd waited by the fence a full ten minutes, the maximum Billy could spare to check for patrols, before he'd brought Wickso forward with the wire cutters…and he'd thought what they'd been through was a cup of piss compared with what was ahead. The breathing behind him was softer and his own heartbeat was slower. He worked the calculations backwards from morning's first light at 06.15 hours. Billy's mind whirred with the figures, made the schedule they must keep to. The ten minutes was up, the minute hand had edged a faint luminous path, remorselessly, round his watch face. It was 00.48 hours…No time for debate now: go on or go back. If they succeeded, if they made the snatch, if they were on the beach at first light—06.15 hours—they were meat. If they were on the beach at first light, without cover, they were carcasses. He had to cut ten minutes from each stage of what they must achieve if they were to be on the beach and going for the sunken dinghy at 06.05 hours. By his watch, it was 00.50 hours. Twenty minutes to play with. There would be a hornets' nest behind them. There would be the four of them, and the passenger, and there was only twenty minutes spare in the schedule. There was always a fuck-up, guaranteed, but it could only delay them by twenty minutes.

  'It's now, guys, or it's not at all. Which?'

  There had been no debate, and he hadn't expected one, or an argument. They nodded their assent grimly, like none of them had the stomach to make a laugh out of the moment. They ate into the twenty minutes he had set aside for guaranteed fuck-up as they wriggled into the wetsuits. In place of the suits and flippers the weapons that must be kept dry went into the bags. They would go bare-arsed into the water, without defence. When they left the protection of the hut they moved to the left and distanced themselves from the lights shining down on to the quay where a squat ferryboat was moored. Twice they froze as they heard voices, casual conversations and music played from lit windows, and they saw men in uniform in the rooms with their tunics off. There was no alert, Billy knew it. The base rested for the night.

  They went catlike, hugging shadows, easing forward, stopping, waiting, listening, then scurried forward. In Billy's mind was a soundless curse: the men relied on him as their leader. They followed where he went, as they always had. In the cabin commandeered by Mr Mowbray there had been the admiralty chart, No. 2278, and he had glanced at it, but had not studied it. Chart No. 2369 was the one he had pored over because that had given them the route to the landfall on the beach. He had to lead towards the canal side, but also he scratched in his memory for a recall of the chart that covered the base, the naval harbour and the canal. They crept between shadows, always seeking darkness. For fear of them blinding him, he did not look across the canal at the lights. They reached the bank. Lit up, a patrol-boat powered down the centre of the channel, powerful, deadly. They were crouched beside a big drum of old wire cable, and between them and the start of the black ribbon was a high-stacked pile of pallets. A man pissed near to them, then lit a cigarette. It was thrown down and footsteps retreated.

  The final building they came to had no roof and its walls were pocked with bullet-holes, a relic of a long-ago war. Billy didn't care about others' wars, only his own. There was a drop of double his own height from the stone retaining wall down to the water. Oil gleamed back at him. He lay on his stomach, had left them behind by the wall with the bullet-holes. They had started late and it had taken two minutes longer than he'd allowed to reach the canal; the minute hand on his wrist told him more of the fall-back minutes were exhausted. He scrabbled, a heavy crab, to his right, and reached the worn stones where, in history, a ladder had been bolted to the canal side. Billy made the sign for them to close up on him, slipped on his flippers and went over the side. The third rung collapsed under his weight, and fell down into the water, splashing. He hung from the top rung—no shout came, no challenge. He went down. The water took him. He paddled, then reached up and took the weight of the first inflatable bag. It pulled him under and the cold, oily water was in his mouth and nose.

  Billy and Lofty took the first bag, Ham and Wickso shepherded the second. They were blessed, he thought, by the blackness of the ribbon of the canal. He looked ahead now, had to, and land lights blazed in front of him. He struck out with his feet, kicked, and the bag supporting him and Lofty seemed to glide on the water. He only looked ahead.

  'Christ…' Wickso's shout was strangled.

  Billy looked his way and saw only the darkness, but Wickso's hand was off the bag and pointed up the canal, up-river. Billy's eyes darted that way.

  He reckoned the ship was five thousand tonnes—give or take a tonne, as if that fucking mattered—and it ploughed up the canal towards the open sea. Where they were, treading water, it would pass within fifty metres of them. Now Billy heard the rumble of the big screw, and he saw the wave thrown out from the bow. They seemed, each of them, tiny and helpless.

  Billy called, 'Ride it—all we can do is ride it.'

  The ship towered over them, then the wave caught them and lifted them high and as they fell back a second wave thrust them back towards the canal's quay. Then they were sucked forward by the churn of the propellers. Billy clung to the bag with one hand and to Lofty with the other. The foam thrown by the screw dragged them down, he held on to the bag and to Lofty as if it were for life and for death. They bobbed. It was going away. In desperation, Billy kicked. He looked round. Ham and Wickso should have been close to them, but had been pushed back, and more time was lost before they had closed up. They crossed the centre of the canal channel, then the last of the ship's waves surged them towards the lights of the base. Close to the far quay they were confronted by a line of lights. They stayed in the dark water and he searched for a wandering sentry.

  A half-sunken ship lay against the far quay. Its bow was under water, its deck awash up to the superstructure of the bridge. They paddled round it, then came to an abandoned landing-craft.

  They used the ropes that tied it to the quay to drag themselves up. They were ashore…

  Quietly, each of them retched the canal water from their throats, then the bags were unzipped.

  Ham sent the burst message: 'Delta 1 to Havoc 1. Arrived on location. Going forward. Out.' Billy took his weapon, the Vikhr SR-3 assault rifle. He armed the weapon and the noise seemed to deafen him, would have woken the dead.

  A road was in fr
ont of them, then darkened buildings, then the distant lights of the sleeping base that was home to the famed Baltic Fleet. They left the bags by the bollard to which the landing-craft was fastened. Four figures, black in the darkness, exploded across the open road towards the cover of the buildings.

  In his cot, Igor Vasiliev tossed. Near to him a boy cried for his mother and far from him a boy writhed in a damp dream; others snored and coughed. A single dim lamp burned from the ceiling halfway down the dormitory block, and by the block's entrance a line of light spilt from under the door of the platoon sergeant's room.

  He could not sleep, cuddled his pillow, and his waking thoughts were nightmares. He had thought the man was going to kill him. The knife had been in the man's hand, and a fist had gripped his hair, forcing back his head to expose his throat. When he had gone to the targets, and the four ghost shapes had materialized from the forest, they had called for Viktor. He had babbled Viktor's name, Viktor Archenko's name, the name of the chief of staff to the fleet commander…Viktor, Viktor…his friend's name. The knife had been lowered. Stale water from a canteen had been given him, and he had talked—gradually calming—of Viktor, his friend. After the knife had been put back into its sheath, more water had been given him, and he had drawn the map. Are you a friend, too, of Viktor, of Captain Archenko? The man said he was. You have come to save him? No response. He had been led through the trees to the other men—and they had released him. He had gone back down the track to the firing position, had shouldered the weight of the machine-gun, tramped back and found a truck to give him a lift to the ferry. Back at the base, he had gone to the armoury and cleaned the weapon, without the usual care. He had been in the dormitory a few minutes before the lights were put out.

  He could have told the truck driver that armed foreigners were ashore, could have told the NCO in charge of the ferry, could have told the lieutenant who had been at the armoury, could have gone and told the night duty officer in the headquarters building, could have gone to the senior officers' mess and waited respectfully at the outer door while Major Piatkin was called…could have knocked on the door of the sleeping room of his platoon sergeant and told him.

  Could have…and had not. It would have been easiest to tell the driver of the truck, but with each opportunity passed up the next chance had become harder. It was stifled inside him. He did not know whether he had helped Captain Archenko, his friend, but he did know he was now a traitor to every conscript in every bed in the dormitory. He was washed with fear. He lay on his stomach, his side and his back. Sleep would not come.

  'There has to be a dead drop, Viktor…' The purr was in his voice. It was imperative to Yuri Bikov that he showed no trace of annoyance. He did not think the prey could fight much longer. 'There is always a dead drop…I believe your dead drop was at Malbork Castle.'

  It would be the tiredness that defeated his prey's resistance. The tape spool still turned in the outer office. He needed one grunted confirmation, only one. After the first acceptance of the questions he put, the first tremored, blurted or whispered yes, the rest would come like a torrent. It was always that way. After the first acknowledgement of defeat, he would blow out the last gasp of the candle, slither across the concrete floor and his arm would be around his prey's shoulder. Then the confession would come. It would be coughed up, and spat out. It was the stalking of the prey that both intrigued and excited him, but in the moments after the start of the confessional he would feel, again, a sense of let-down. It was what the hunters told him when they went after deer or bear in the wilderness forests: the killing and gutting of an animal left nothing but a feeling of inadequate emptiness.

  'Let us forget the walk-in, Viktor, at Murmansk or Severomorsk, and then the initial contact that followed it. You were transferred to Kaliningrad oblast. You were now within reach of your new friends. They would need a satisfactory dead drop. Not here…they would not want the dead drop near to Baltiysk. Inside the oblast, they would face the risk of identification and compromise—but you give what is, to them, a heaven-sent opportunity where all the risk is for you and none for them. You go to Malbork Castle. Every two months, because of your esteemed position, you are permitted to travel into Poland and visit the historic site of ancient history. Myself, Viktor, I have not been to Malbork Castle, I only have photographs to guide me. I imagine a great rambling place with dark corners and crannies on steep stairs and rubbish-bins. Ideal. You are in civilian clothes, you merge, you wander. You spend half a day in the castle, and in one corner, cranny or rubbish-bin there is a place where you leave documents, photographs or microfilm. They would not be there, your new friends, because to be there and to meet you face to face would put you in hazard, and them. They would come later. The pickup from the dead drop would be a few hours after you had gone, or the next day. They are very satisfied with the arrangement they are safe. The dead drop is at Malbork Castle, Viktor—yes or no?'

  'No.'

  'You see, Viktor, I don't criticize you. I understand you, I have sympathy for you…you would, of course, leave instructions as to the timing of the next dead drop, but you would not know how your package is received. Viktor, answer me a question.'

  'What question?'

  'I am inclined to believe you spied for the British, not the Americans—the Americans are more electronic, but the British go with old tradecraft, it is their style. How many packages from dead drops do you think the British receive each week? How many? That is my question.'

  The trick was blocked by silence. The prey would see the mantrap laid for him. He would be aching now with tiredness, hunger, stress, but still had—just—the capability to recognize the trap. Bikov could not see his prey's face but he could hear the stifling of yawns, and there would be the pain of hunger, and the stress eating into him. The cold clung in the room.

  'Not many, not many packages in a week. You might be the only provider of a package in a week. A man in London may have a diary in which he makes a red cross on the day you travel to Malbork Castle. You are the centrepiece of that man's life. Because of you, in London he has status—that is why he tells you he is your new friend. On your back, Viktor, that man's career prospers. One week there is a package from Viktor Archenko, the next week another man receives a package in Cairo, the week after a package comes from a ministry clerk in Beijing, and the last week in the month perhaps there are no packages. They have a big building, Viktor, by the Thames river in London. Two thousand people work there, but they have very few packages coming to it. In the crown of a man's career, Viktor, you are a jewel…but that man does not take a risk. No, Viktor, the risk is left to you. That is the way they work. Your new friends have a toy and they play with it. I am your real friend, Viktor…so tell me that the dead drop was at Malbork Castle, yes or no?'

  'No.'

  The voice had a whistled thinness to it, and there had been a pause before the denial. Bikov sensed his prey's strength sank. It would not be long. The aircraft would be fuelled and ready. On the aircraft, the prisoner would be handcuffed, his eyes would be covered with adhesive tape and he would not be allowed to piss or shit, except in his trousers. He would be humiliated, and he would never again see his interrogator, but his ears would hear the playing of the tape from the first single word of confession through the torrent flow as it was transcribed by Yuri Bikov's sergeant. A car and a van would be at the military side of Sheremetevo, and Bikov would go home in the car to sleep. His prisoner would go on the floor of the van to the basement cells of military counterintelligence. Bikov felt no sympathy, no remorse, no pity. He believed the collapse was close.

  'I hear you, Viktor…always remember I am your friend—not them. We shall move on.'

  She did not reply.

  Locke said, 'Didn't you hear me? They've called through. They're on the base. I don't know what the hell they think they can achieve.'

  She sat on the bed. She could see him dully framed in the doorway, and she could hear the pent-up aggression in his voice.

&n
bsp; 'They've crossed the canal, they're inside the base. It's what you wanted, isn't it?'

  Alice said, 'I suppose you hope they'll fail.'

  'Don't pretend to yourself that you can read me.'

  Alice murmured, 'Because if they fail then you were right from the start. Their failure will prove you right, and that'll be important to you.'

  He turned from the door and moved away a pace, two paces, into the hall. He stopped. She thought he put up his hand and leaned against the wall, his arm taking the weight, but she could not be sure in the night darkness.

  'I'm going out. I'll be gone some little time. I'd like you to listen out on the radio—you know the call signs. Just listen out and relay anything relevant on to Mowbray. Do that, please.'

  'Are you running away?'

  He spun in the hall. The sudden movement of his body was clear to her, and he came back through the door and the bulk of him loomed closer to her. He strode towards the bed. She had been sitting. She slid down on to her side and curled her knees up; her arms were around her chest as if for protection. Alice thought he was going to punch her. She readied herself for the impact of his fist, ducked her head down. She could smell his body, unwashed since he had slept in the tunnel under the Gdansk railway tracks, and his breath. He bent over her. She stiffened. Alice felt his lips on her forehead, the damp touch of them. They lingered for a moment then moved an inch, and he kissed her a second time. The first two kisses were gentle; the third was pressed hard down on her forehead, catching strands of her hair. Then he was up and gone.