by Craig Thomas
‘Too much excess baggage)’ Lock snapped back. ‘Well, fal man? What’s the deal? Where have they taken your guests?’
‘I don’t think I know what you’re-‘ Panshin began. Then Lock struck him across the temple with the barrel of the gun.
He heard Lubin’s indrawn, shocked breath.
He dragged Panshin upright in his chair, perching himself on the edge of the desk, the gun pressed against the man’s cheek.
Blood seeped from the expensive grey coiffure, down one rounded jowl to the white collar of the silk shirt.
‘OK, here’s my deal, Panshin. I don’t give shit about you.
You’re just something I have to go through to get to Turgenev.
I want to know where he’s stashed the guys he dumped on you.
Five, six nuclear physicists, technicians, whatever. Where were they taken — and when does he plan to send them on their way?’
‘I — don’t know …’
‘You can do better than that. A whole lot better.’
‘I don’t know—!’
Their shadows against the wall loomed together over the desk.
Lock’s body blocked Panshin’s view of the others. He heard the whispered instructions as Vorontsyev sent Lubin and Dmitri downstairs. Lock knew he was becoming the room’s only reality for Panshin, he saw it in the man’s eyes. They flicked again to Kasyan, whom Lock allowed him to see, then to Lock’s shoulder, which blocked the reassurance that the sight of an injured and exhausted Vorontsyev would have given.
Panshin shrugged. It was a costly effort.
‘I don’t know what happens next. The GRU came here and took away some people I was asked to — to look after for a day or so. I asked no questions.’
‘Someone as cautious as you, Panshin? You’d have needed to know the whole game-plan. That skin of yours is too well filled not to have been looked after over the years.’ He smiled. ‘Once more, here’s the deal. Where and when? Your gain is you get to survive.’
Panshin began shaking his head, but a second blow with the barrel of the gun snapped his head back, making it appear loose and doll-like. The man cried out with pain. He fumbled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it with the greatest solicitation against his cheek. The wet, pained eyes regarded Lock with impotent hatred. Lock forced casual, indifferent satisfaction into his expression. It wasn’t difficult, he realised.
He said quietly: ‘Pete Turgenev had my sister killed, Panshin.
After that, why should I care what happens to you, what happens here?’ He raised the gun and Panshin flinched away, hands waving feebly as he began to drown in the danger to himself.
‘No!’ Vorontsyev lurched forward out of an apathy of fascination and revulsion towards the desk and the cameo of Lock’s control of Panshin. He experienced a pang of empathetic fear for the club owner, even as he reminded himself of the gangster’s background.
Panshin’s features greeted him with relief as he lunged against the desk.
‘Leave it!’ Lock snarled.
‘Sod you, Yank!’ Vorontsyev growled back. Then he banged the fist of his free hand on the desk and said urgently: ‘Val, it’s all going down the tubes and I don’t know if I can keep this American from killing you! Just tell us what we want to know.’
‘What in hell are you doing playing around with this, Vorontsyev?’
Panshin demanded. ‘This isn’t how it’s done!’
The remark was ludicrous. Vorontsyev felt diminished, as if he had been making a fraudulent insurance claim.
‘Well, damn you, Val — it’s how he does it!’
Panshin’s features creased into sulky folds; uncertainty now dominated his horizon.
‘See, Val,’ Lock said, ‘the rules have been changed. Guys like him-‘ He tossed his head in Vorontsyev’s direction. ‘- didn’t have the motive to go up against Turgenev. It was all getting by and making a rouble and losers are assholes and keep your nose clean. The cops and the bad guys played to the same script. Don’t tell me about it, Val — my country invented those rules!’ He leaned forward. ‘It isn’t about superpowers and systems, Val — it’s about whether or not I kill you. And the rules don’t apply. Do we deal?’
He was on the point of raising the gun, but there was no remaining need. Panshin believed him.
‘I don’t know where … I swear it — but he’s going to get them out today, this morning. Airport. There’s a break in the weather coming … his plane …’
There was nothing more. Panshin slowly subsided onto his desk, his folded arms cradling his head. The coiffured grey hair was glossy in the light of the desk lamp; he seemed to continue to exude power and money, even in decline.
Lock was staring at him.
‘There’s nothing more!’ Vorontsyev stormed. ‘That’s all he knows, all we need to know.’ It was as if Panshin was an actor resting after a performance of sincerity. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Him?’
Vorontsyev snatched Panshin’s head off the desk by jerking at the thick hair. He turned the man’s terrified, bemused features towards Lock. ‘Tell him you won’t ring Turgenev, Val — tell him you’ll be signing the order for your own execution if you so much as lift the phone.’ He shook Panshin like a rat. ‘Tell him, Val, and he’ll let you live!’
‘It’s true,’ Panshin muttered, too submerged in the moment and the most distant consequences to give his assertion any authority. ‘It’s true.’
When Vorontsyev let go of his hair, Panshin let his head decline onto his arms once more. Vorontsyev nodded to Lock, who got up from the desk obediently and followed him to the door.
The phone in Vorontsyev’s pocket trilled.
‘Yes?’
‘A friend at headquarters gave me your number.’ It was Bakunin. ‘I know where you are. I’m calling from just down the street. In my night-glasses, I can make out the head of your girl detective, sitting in her car. So can one of my marksmen through his nightscope. Will you come out or shall I give the order to fire?’
Turgenev whirled round in triumph, erasing the expression from his features. The Iranian had not knocked, simply emerged into the study as if by right. The phone in his hand seemed to Turgenev to betray something.
‘Yes,’ he said carefully, ‘I quite agree. Put that into operation right away, would you.’ He cut off the connection to Bakunin and put down the receiver. ‘Hamid — I’m sorry, but I do have other concerns.’
‘Of course, my friend. I simply came to collect the files on our passengers to Tehran. I hope that is in order?’
Turgenev plucked up from the desk a thick wodge of files, bound with red ribbon.
‘Appropriate, I think — the colour of celebration?’
‘Perhaps. Thank you.’
And now, get out, Turgenev thought. Get out and allow me to attend to more important matters.
He admitted tiredness, the erosion that bouts of unaccustomed excitement, much like sudden debaucheries, had brought on.
The punctuations of Bakunin’s reports, on which he had insisted, had dragged at his reserves. That Vorontsyev and more especially Lock were trapped in Panshin’s club was a line drawn beneath the whole business — but instead of being able to turn freely to the matter of Grainger Technologies or his other American interests, he must attend to this medium-ranking officer in Iranian Intelligence. It demeaned him; the man’s presence was no longer tolerable.
‘If you’ll excuse me, Hamid, there are things I must attend to.’ He ushered the small Iranian to the door.
‘Of course. My apologies.’ Then he was gone, at least for the moment.
Turgenev carried a sheaf of faxed reports to the desk, a whisky in his other hand. Putting both down, he fumbled in his pocket for his half-glasses and sat down. There were at least a dozen urgent phone calls, faxes He plucked off his glasses and stared at the blank of the window behind the desk, turning his chair with a slight squeak.
His gaze travelled past the paintings and por
celain that invaded even the one room that was intended as a workplace, a puritanical domain. The storm continued to fling the snow across the window, almost horizontally in the glare of the security lights.
Around eight, they continued to predict.
Very well, he would believe them. It would be little more than a diversion, now that Bakunin was on the point of eliminating all immediate risk. Lock, the anxious, eager-to-please boy, the young man never-quite-there, the stereotype, would soon be bagged rubbish to be carted away. He smiled, almost sadly, with recollection. It had been Billy Grainger who had described Lock as the best and worst kind of American — the Peace Corps boy with a handgun. They had agreed, over the vodka and caviar in the rude hut in the Afghan mountains, while Lock patrolled outside on guard, that the world had killed a lot of Americans just like him in a lot of foreign wars.
Which is just what this encounter was. Billy had even added that America had killed a lot of Americans like Lock.
Turgenev shook his head, again with some proximity to sadness.
Then he replaced his glasses and checked the most urgent faxes and retyped phone messages. Yes, he decided, he would sell his small holding in that Far East satellite TV corporation to Murdoch … no, he would not sell that much sterling at the moment… yes, he would take that offered stake in the Kuwaiti exploration company seeking to nuzzle into the trough of the Asian republics’ oilfields … no, not that, yes, that was OK …
‘Then torch the place yourself — before they do it for you!’ Lock shouted, rounding on Vorontsyev.
They were collected like the dispirited remnants of an audience for a concert that would never begin, amid the stacked tables of the club’s auditorium. Dmitri was to one side, on Vorontsyev’s instructions, and Lock’s raised voice angered him because it might alarm Marfa, make her next movement precipitate and suspicious.
‘- still, that’s it,’ he encouraged, as if he could actually see her sitting in her car outside on K Street. ‘No, there’s no order to fire … all you have to do is to slide down slowly, slowly in the seal, or bend down as if looking for something, and gel out of the car…’ Why she hadn’t seen them arrive, Dmitri had no idea. He was sweating profusely, on her behalf rather than his own. ‘OK — no, begin when I tell you … What?’ He held Vorontsyev’s phone close to his lips. He hoped that Marfa was holding her phone below the sightline offered by the windscreen as she had been instructed to do. She seemed consumed by guilt that she had noticed nothing through the rushing blizzard.
‘OK. All you have to do is to get away from the car. No, I don’t know in which direction they have you in sight, I’d guess from the front, in this weather, to see you at all. Just remember they can’t see anything properly, nightscopes or not, through the snow. OK — yes, in your own time, but slowly …’
Lubin was still dabbing at his temple. The blood had already dried to a crust. Perhaps it was a nervous reaction because Marfa was in danger. Dmitri nodded to Vorontsyev.
‘Is that what they’ll do, Lock — really? Why not storm the place, call on us to surrender?’
‘Listen, Vorontsyev, what would you do? Not as a cop, not even as GRU — but as a gangster? Have fun setting the place on fire and shooting the rats as they come out … wouldn’t you?’
Vorontsyev nodded with great reluctance. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Good!’
‘And afterwards?’
‘We don’t have any choice, you know that. The airport.’
‘And how do we get there?’ Vorontsyev stormed. ‘We can do roadblocks in this country like no one else on earth! You don’t think someone like Bakunin has forgotten all those old habits, do you? I’m pretty easily identified, in case you hadn’t noticed!’
‘OK, OK — I can get through on my fake passport. Gas company executive. You — you go in the trunk of a car or the back of a truck, well hidden. Look, just get there, OK?’ he ended in exasperation, waving his arms as if against a sudden swarm of midges.
‘Separate exits?’ Lock nodded. ‘K Street is-?’ Vorontsyev glanced at Dmitri, who held up the mobile phone, shrugging pessimistically. God, she had to be all right ‘They’re all around us, if they have any organisation,’ Lock pronounced. ‘But we’re dots in a blinding snowstorm. They’re the best odds we can get, Alexei.’
The trilling of a phone.
‘Yes?’ Dmitri’s voice.
‘Is she — ?‘Vorontsyev began, but Dmitri waved him to silence.
He listened intently, then began nodding like a Russian doll; the layers and enclosures of the doll were exposed one by one, so that the final impression was of a furious, small figure rocking violently to and fro. Marfa was all right.
‘OK — OK. She says sorry. She can’t see anyone, apart from one truck on the street. They must be in the buildings.’
Lock crossed to Dmitri and snatched the phone, in the same moment gesturing to Lubin to begin dousing the furniture with the petrol he had found stored in the basement, next to the racks of house wine.
‘Listen to me, Marfa,’ he said overbearingly. ‘It’s up to you to help us out of here — don’t argue, just listen! OK, that’s better … Now, describe the cover out there, the streetlighting, everything!’
‘Wait!’ Vorontsyev ordered, turning to where Panshin was sitting hunched on one of the club chairs, his temple still bleeding and covered by his stained silk handkerchief. ‘There’s Panshin’s BMW outside. Got the keys, Val?’ Lock’s flippant exhilaration was infectious.
‘Not all of us,’ Lock warned. ‘We need to split up. We’re too easily spotted together. Marfa — hold on.’ He studied Panshin thoughtfully. Then he said: ‘Lubin, go look out the rear. Carefully.
If they’re not around, then OK, you and Dmitri can get the Major out in the BMW. Move it.’
Lubin put down the petrol can and scuttled away and along the corridor to the rear door. Lock seemed puzzled for a moment, then he began studying Vorontsyev and Dmitri, examining them it. as carefully as a doctor reluctantly confirming a pessimistic diagnosis.
‘We’re it. Lock, the whole army,’ Vorontsyev murmured.
‘I know it. Marfa ‘
‘Yes?’
‘Any movement?’
‘N-no,’ the girl replied with urgent uncertainty. A girl scout, he thought disparagingly.
‘OK, hold on there — I’ll get back to you.’ The girl seemed unresponsive to the joke; perhaps she didn’t understand it.
‘Yes,’ she replied gloomily.
Lubin reappeared, his face excited as a child’s.
‘I can’t see anyone out there — no fresh footprints, tyre tracks ‘
‘They have to be out there somewhere’
‘Lock, we’re wasting time!’ Dmitri barked, joining them.
‘Either we move now or we don’t move!’
‘OK. The Major can’t move quickly, anyway. Take him in the BMW.’
‘Call Marfa in.’
‘I’ll take care of Marfa!’ Lock replied.
‘You mean, she’s part of the distraction. I won’t have her put in more danger—’
‘Vorontsyev, she’s all the way into this thing! She’s no passenger.
I’ll take care oi her!’
Vorontsyev nodded reluctantly. Lubin appeared about to protest, then Lock snapped at him:
‘Torch the place!’
‘What about him?’ Dmitri asked, nodding at Panshin. Then he understood. ‘You can’t,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘He’ll just blunder out of one door or the other and they’ll ‘
‘- be distracted,’ Lock completed. ‘Let’s hope so.’ He turned to Lubin. ‘Go ahead, do it!’
Flame spurted at once from the place where Lubin had thrown the bundle of paper napkins he had lit. Panshin’s face was filled with firelit horror.
‘Get moving!’ Lock growled to Vorontsyev. ‘Forget him!’
He urged them towards the rear door. Dmitri had snatched Panshin’s keys from his hand. The fat club owner seemed uncertain, but Lo
ck knew he would follow him to the front door.
The flames roared up towards the club’s low ceiling. The smoke was already thick, choking. Panshin’s features crawled with terror, and with concern at the fate of his club.
Vorontsyev nodded at Lock and disappeared along the corridor towards the rear door, Dmitri beside him like an overcoated nurse. There was no time to consider their chances — nor his own. He began moving swiftly towards the club’s street entrance, ha If-attentive for the noise of shooting, or a car engine from the rear. He heard Panshin labouring alter him, heavy footed, dazed.
Lock crouched against the tinted glass, dark enough at night to conceal him even from nightscopes. He visualised the street as best he could. The storm flung its weight of snow across the blurred light of the streetlamps and neon that dimly summoned to shops and clubs and bars he could no longer see across the street.
Time to go. Panshin? He watched the man as he might have done an insect … Something stopped him from thrusting Panshin through the door. The corridor was lit by the fire, and the smoke wrapped itself more thickly about them. Nevertheless, the moment of utter detachment in which he could have used Panshin as a shield had passed and he couldn’t recover it.
‘You’re on your own, pal!’ he snapped and pushed the door wide. ‘Live long, uh?’
Then Lock was through the door, slipping on the drift of snow heaped in the porch and on the steps — skidded, was deafened by the wind, then lurched against the smoked-glass windows of the club, his hand smearing the snow. The glass shattered near his hand, fell inwards from the impact of the first shot. They could see nothing more than moving blurs, shadows — but hadn’t missed by more than inches. He scuttled to the corner of the alleyway, and heard the roar of a car engine, saw the muzzle flashes of two guns, high up as if suspended in the storm. Window vantages overlooking the club car park. The BMW’s brakelights wobbled on and off as if in uncertainty, but they were retreating into the storm’s murk, heading away from K Street. A last violent glare of the brakes, then it was gone.
Now you, he urged himself. More glass shattered somewhere close. He skidded his way across the alleyway, dropped behind the cover of Marfa’s parked car, already assuming the lumped lack of identity of other stationary vehicles burdened with snow.
