by Brian Lumley
‘Of course,’ said Vlady, breathing a sigh of relief, following him to the door; and, as Dragosani went out into the night: ‘Comrade… what happened to Max Batu?’ It was a dangerous question, but he must ask it.
Dragosani paused just beyond the threshold, glanced back. ‘Max? Ah, you know about him, do you? Well, it was an accident.’
‘Oh,’ said Vlady with a nod. ‘Of course…’
When he was alone again, Vlady finished off the vodka and then sat deep into the night, wrapped in his own thoughts. But as a clock tolled midnight somewhere out in the cold city he started up and shivered, and finally decided to break his own rule. Quickly he cast his mind into the future, followed his own life-line to its inevitable end. Which came in just three days’ time, and with a violent, wrenching terminal squiggle!
Automatically then, Vlady began to pack a few things and prepare to flee. And uppermost in his mind was the thought that with Borowitz gone Dragosani would be the head of E-Branch, or head of what survived. Whatever else Gregor Borowitz was, at least he was human! But Dragosani…? Vlady knew he could never serve under
him. Oh, it could well be that Dragosani would die tomorrow night — but what if he didn’t? His line was so very confusing, so very alien. No, there was only one course for Vlady now. He must try — at least try — to avoid the unavoidable.
And almost a thousand miles away, where a dark watchtower overlooked the wall in East Berlin, a Kalashnikov machine-gun waited for Igor Vlady. He didn’t know it, but even now his and the weapon’s futures were bending towards each other. They would meet at exactly 10:32 p.m. - in just three days’ time.
Dragosani drove straight back to his flat. From there he phoned the Chateau and got hold of the Duty Officer. He passed on Harry Keogh’s name and description for immediate transmission to border crossing points and incoming airports within the USSR, along with the information that Keogh was a spy for the West who should be arrested on sight or, if that should prove difficult, shot dead without delay. The KGB would get to know about it, of course, but Dragosani didn’t mind. If they took Keogh alive they wouldn’t know what to do with him, and one way or the other Dragosani would get his hands on him. And if they killed him… that would be the end of that.
As for Vlady’s predictions: Dragosani had some faith in them but it was by no means total. Vlady insisted that the future could not be changed, Dragosani thought differently. One of them must be right but they must wait until tomorrow night to find out which one. In any case, the promised ‘trouble’ at the Chateau Bronnitsy might well turn out to be nothing to do with Harry Keogh after all; and so, until then at least, things must continue according to plan.
After passing on his information to the Chateau, Dragosani had another drink — a stiff one, which was not his normal habit — and at last fell into his bed. Exhausted, he slept right through until mid-morning…
At 11:40 a.m. he parked his old Volga in a copse off the main road half a mile from the closest dacha, turned up the collar of his overcoat and walked the rest of the way into Zhukovka precinct. Just before noon he turned off a track inches deep in snow and walked through a strip of woodland lying parallel to the river, until he came to Borowitz’s dacha. Smiling grimly, he went quickly along the paved path to the door and knocked gently on the rustic oak panels. While he waited, he sniffed at wood smoke where it hung in the bitter cold air. The fine hairs inside his nostrils crackled, but melting icicles where they hung from Borowitz’s roof told him that already the temperature was rising. Soon the snow would melt and Dragosani’s footprints would disappear; there would be nothing to connect him with this place.
There came slow footsteps from within and the door cracked open. Pale, shaggy and red-eyed, Gregor Borowitz peered out, blinked in the grey light of day. ‘Dragosani?’ he frowned darkly. ‘But I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. I — ‘
‘Comrade General,’ Dragosani cut in, ‘if it wasn’t a matter of the utmost urgency…’
Borowitz stepped aside, opened the door wider. ‘Come in, come in,’ he grumbled, but without his accustomed fire. He had been alone here for a week; he no longer seemed robust; his grief was very real and had left him old and tired. All of which suited Dragosani very well indeed.
He entered, followed the other down a short corridor and through hanging curtains into the small, pine-panelled room where Natasha Borowitz lay silently in her shroud. The woman had been a peasant, pleasant enough in life but plain and dowdy in death. Like a stout, badly fashioned candle she lay there, the wax of her face wrinkled, the wick of her hair coarse and sparse. Borowitz patted her cold face and bowed his head as he turned away. But he could not hide a very real tear glittering in the corner of his eye.
Now he led Dragosani through into the more familiar living-cum-dining room and offered him a seat close to a window. The rest of the dacha’s windows were shuttered but this one’s shutters stood open, letting in the light. With a silent shake of his head, Dragosani declined to sit, watched Borowitz flop heavily down on to a padded couch. ‘I prefer to stand,’ the necromancer said. ‘This won’t take long.’
‘A flying visit?’ Borowitz grunted, scarcely interested. ‘You might have waited, Dragosani. Tomorrow they take my Natasha away from me, and then I return to Moscow and the Chateau Bronnitsy. What is it that brings you here so urgently anyway? You told me that your trip to England was successful.’
‘So it was,’ said Dragosani, ‘but something has come up since then.’
‘Well?’
‘Comrade General,’ said Dragosani, ‘Gregor, I want you to ask no questions just yet but simply tell me. something. Do you remember a conversation we once had, you and I, about the future of E-Branch? You said that one day you would decide who would take over from you when you… retired. Also, you said the decision would lie between myself and Igor Vlady.’
Borowitz drew his brows together, stared at Dragosani disbelievingly. ‘So that’s why you’re here!’ he growled. ‘A matter of the utmost urgency, eh? You think I’m ready to step down, do you? Or maybe you think it’s time I stepped down! Now that Natasha’s gone, maybe I’ll think of retiring, eh?’ He sat up straighter, his eyes flashed something of the fire Dragosani was used to seeing in them. Except that the necromancer no longer stood in awe of this man.
‘I said you should ask no questions,’ he reminded, a low, dark rumble in his voice. ‘I am the one who seeks answers, Gregor. Now tell me: who did you decide would be your replacement? Indeed, have you yet decided? And if so, have you made a record of your decision?’
Borowitz was astonished, outraged. ‘You dare…?’ he scowled, his eyes bulging. ‘You dare…? You forget yourself, Dragosani. You forget who! am and where you are. And apparently you forget — or choose to ignore the fact — that I am recently bereaved! Well damn you, Dragosani! But in answer to your questions: no, I have committed nothing to paper — there’s nothing to commit for I’ll be going on as the head of E-Branch for a long time yet, I assure you. Moreover, even if I had chosen a successor, as of this moment you could erase from your mind any thoughts of yourself in that position!’ He stood up, shaking with rage. ‘Now get your damned arse out of here! Get out before I — ‘
Dragosani took off his dark, wide-rimmed spectacles.
Borowitz looked at Dragosani’s face and was suddenly staggered by the massive metamorphosis taken place in him. Why, it hardly seemed like Dragosani at all standing there but someone else entirely. And those eyes — those incredible scarlet eyes!
‘I am retiring you, Gregor,’ Dragosani rumbled. ‘But.you don’t go empty-handed. Not after so many years of faithful service.’ He crouched down into himself, his shoulders and back seeming to bunch up with a grotesque life of their own.
‘Retiring me?’ Borowitz tried to back away from Dragosani but the couch was right behind him. ‘You, retiring me?’
Dragosani nodded, opened his long jaws and smiled,
displayed fangs like scythes. ‘We have a small retire
ment gift for you, Gregor.’ ‘We?’ Borowitz croaked.
‘Me and Max Batu,’ said Dragosani. And in the next moment Borowitz looked into the face of hell itself.
Then — it was as if a mule had kicked him in the chest. He flew backward, his arms thrown wide, crashed into the wall and bounced off. Small shelves and pictures were brought crashing down. Borowitz fell, half-sprawling on the couch. He clutched at his chest, fought to take control of his rubber limbs and climb to his feet, gulped air to his straining lungs. His heart felt crushed — and if he didn’t know how, at least he knew what Dragosani had done to him.
Finally he struggled upright. ‘Dragosani!’ he held out wildly fluttering, pudgy hands towards the necromancer. ‘Drago — ‘
Again Dragosani hurled his psychic bolt, and again. Borowitz was swatted like a fly by the first blast, knocked over backwards on to the couch. He actually managed to sit up, to finish the last word he would ever speak, before the second blast hit him: ‘-sani!’
Then it was done. The ex-boss of E-Branch sat there, upright, dead as a doornail, showing all the signs of a heart attack.
‘Classic!’ Dragosani grunted his approval. He glanced about the room. The door of a corner cupboard stood open, displaying a battered old typewriter on a shelf with papers, envelopes and other items of stationery. He quickly carried the machine to a table, inserted a blank sheet of paper, began to type laboriously:
I feel unwell. I think it is my heart. Natasha’s death has affected me badly. I think I am finished. Since I have not yet nominated another to carry on my work, I do so now. The only man who can be trusted to carry on where I leave off is
Boris Dragosani. He is completely faithful to the USSR, and especially to the aims and welfare of the Party Leader.
Also, if as I fear the end is coming, I want my body put in Dragosani’s care. He knows my wishes in this respect…
Dragosani grinned as he rolled the typewritten sheet up a space or two. He read over the note, took up a pen and scrawled ‘G.B.’ as nearly as possible in the style of Borowitz at the end of the last line, then dusted the keys with his handkerchief where he’d touched them and carried the machine to the couch. Sitting down beside the dead man, He took his hands and laid his fingers briefly on the keys. And all the time Borowitz watching him through sightless, popping eyes.
‘All done, Gregor,’ said Dragosani as he took the typewriter back to the table. Tm going now, but I’ll not say goodbye just yet. After they find you we’ll be meeting again, eh, at the Chateau Bronnitsy? And what price your innermost secrets then, Gregor Borowitz?’
It was 12:25 p.m. when he let himself out of the silent cabin in the trees and backtracked to his car.
Since it was a Saturday there were fewer people about than one would usually find at the Chateau Bronnitsy, but as the guards on the outer wall checked Dragosani through, so they sent word of his arrival ahead of him. At the central cluster of buildings the Duty Officer was waiting for him. Wearing the Chateau’s uniform of grey overalls with a single diagonal yellow stripe across the heart, he came breathlessly forward to greet Dragosani where he parked his Volga in its designated space.
‘Good news, Comrade!’ he declared, walking with Dragosani through the complex and holding a door open for him. ‘We have word of this British agent, this Harry Keogh, for you.’
Dragosani at once grabbed him by the shoulder, his grip like a vice. The other carefully disengaged himself, stared curiously at Dragosani. ‘Is anything wrong, Comrade?’
‘Not if we’ve got Keogh,’ Dragosani growled. ‘No, nothing at all. But you’re not the man I spoke to last night?’
‘No, Comrade. He has gone off duty. I read his log, that’s all. And of course I was here this morning when word of Keogh came in.’
Dragosani looked more closely at the speaker. He saw him remotely. Thin and slope-shouldered, a typical nothing to look at — and yet puffed up with his own importance. Not an ESPer, the Duty Officer was simply Senior Ground Staff. A good clerk, mainly, and efficient, but a bit too pompous — too smug and self-satisfied — for Dragosani’s liking.
‘Come with me,’ he said coldly. ‘You can tell me about Keogh as we go.’
With the DO at his heels, Dragosani loped easily through the Chateau’s corridors and began climbing stairs towards Borowitz’s private office complex. Finding it hard to keep up, the man said, ‘Slow down a little, Comrade, or I’ll not have breath to tell you anything!’
Dragosani kept going. ‘About Keogh,’ he snapped over his shoulder. ‘Where is he? Who has him? Are they bringing him here?’
‘No one “has” him, Comrade,’ the other puffed. ‘We merely know where he is, that’s all. He’s in East Germany, Leipzig. He got in through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin — as a tourist! And no attempt to hide his identity, apparently. Very strange. He’s been in Leipzig for three or four days now. Seems to have spent most of his time there in a graveyard! Obviously he’s waiting for a contact.’
‘Oh?’ Dragosani came to a brief halt, glared at the other, sneered at him. ‘Obvious, did you say? Let me tell you, Comrade, that nothing is obvious about that one!
Now, quickly, come into my office and I’ll give you some instructions.’
A moment later and the DO followed Dragosani into the antechamber of Borowitz’s suite. ‘Your office?’ he gaped.
Behind his desk, Borowitz’s secretary, a young man with thick-lensed spectacles, thin eyebrows and a prematurely receding hairline looked up, startled. Dragosani jerked his thumb towards the open door. ‘You, out! Wait outside. I’ll call when I want you.’
‘What?’ bewildered, the man stood up. ‘Comrade Dragosani, I must protest! I — ‘
Dragosani reached across the desk, grabbed the man by the left cheek of his face and dragged him bodily across the desk top, scattering pens and pencils everywhere. Amidst a squall of muted, pained squawkings, he whirled him towards the open door and aimed a kick at his backside as he released him. ‘Protest to Gregor Borowitz next time you see him,’ he snapped. ‘Until then obey my orders or I’ll have you shot!’
He continued through into Borowitz’s old office, the DO trembling as he followed on behind. Without pause Dragosani lowered himself into Borowitz’s chair behind his desk, continued to glare at the DO. ‘Now, who’s watching Keogh?’
Completely overawed, the DO stuttered a little before settling down. ‘I… I… we… the GREPO,’ he finally got it out. “The Grenzpolizei, the East German Border Police.’
‘Yes, yes — I know who the GREPO are,’ Dragosani scowled. Then he nodded. ‘Good! They’re very efficient, I’m told. Right, these are my orders — on behalf of Gregor Borowitz. Keogh is to be taken, alive if possible. That was what I ordered last night, and I hate to repeat myself!’
‘But they had no holding charge, Comrade Dragosani,’
the DO explained. ‘He is not listed, this Keogh, and so far he has done nothing wrong.’
‘The charge is… murder,’ said Dragosani. ‘He murdered one of our agents, a sleeper, in England. Anyway, he will be taken. If that proves difficult, the orders are to shoot him! I ordered that, too, last night.’
The DO felt that he, personally, was being accused. He felt he had to make excuses: ‘But these are Germans, Comrade,’ he said. ‘Some of them like to believe that they still govern themselves, if you see what I mean.’
‘No,’ said Dragosani, ‘I don’t. Use the telephone next door. Get me the headquarters of the Grenzpolizei in Berlin. I’ll speak to them.’
The DO stood gaping at him.
‘Now!’ Dragosani snapped. And as the man scurried out he called after him: ‘And send in that dolt from outside.’
When Borowitz’s secretary entered Dragosani said, ‘Sit. And listen. Until the Comrade General returns I’ll be in charge. What do you know about the working of this place?’
‘Almost everything, Comrade Dragosani,’ answered the other, still pale and frightened and holding his face. ‘The Comra
de General left many things to me.’
‘Manpower?’
‘What about it, Comrade Drag-‘
‘Cut that out!’ Dragosani snapped. ‘No more “Comrade”, it wastes time. Simply call me Dragosani.’
‘Yes, Dragosani.’
‘Manpower,’ Dragosani said again. ‘What do we have here right now?’
‘Here at the Chateau? Right now? A skeleton staff of ESPers, and maybe a dozen security men.’
‘Call-in system?’
‘Oh, yes, Dragosani.’
‘Good! I’ll want at least enough men to make our
numbers up to thirty. And I’ll want them by 5:00 p.m. - at the very latest. I want our best telepaths and forecasters, including Igor Vlady, to be among them. Can that be done? Can we muster these men by 5:00 p.m.?’
The other immediately nodded. ‘In more than three hours? Oh, yes, Dragosani. Definitely.’
‘Then get on with it.’
When he was alone Dragosani settled back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. He thought about what he was doing. If the East Germans took Keogh, especially if they killed him (in which case Dragosani must make sure that he, personally, got hold of the body) that must surely cancel out the possibility of Keogh’s being part of tonight’s disturbance. Mustn’t it? In any case it was difficult to see how Keogh could possibly make it here, from Leipzig, in just a few hours. So perhaps Dragosani should be concentrating on some other eventuality — but what? Sabotage? Was the cold ESP war finally starting to heat up? Had his murdering Sir Keenan Gormley lit some sort of slow fuse, laid perhaps a long time ago? But what could possibly harm the Chateau? The place was impregnable as a castle. Fifty Keoghs wouldn’t even make it over the outer wall!
Angry with himself, with the gradual build-up of tension inside him, Dragosani forced Keogh out of his mind. No, the threat must come from somewhere else. He gave a little more thought to the Chateau’s fortifications.
Dragosani had never fully understood the need to fortify the Chateau, but now he was glad indeed for its defences. Of course, old Borowitz had been a soldier long before he had started E-Branch; he was an expert strategist, and doubtless he’d had his reasons for insisting on this degree of security. But here, right next door to Moscow itself? What had he feared? Insurgency? Trouble from the KGB, perhaps? Or was it just one of the old man’s hangups from his political or military feuding days?
