The Scorpion Signal

by Adam Hall

  But of course he only needed one, even a lucky one, to drop me cold.

  I’d lost sight of him and that was dangerous but he wouldn’t know that. I was crouched under cover of the Pobeda and all he had to do was lie flat and take aim and smash one of my ankles to subdue me and stop me running but he hadn’t thought of that: because of his fear he was thinking more about being attacked than attacking me. I was beginning to know him.

  Then I saw his face and as the gun flashed my shoes slipped and dug in and I went sideways and then forwards, hurling myself towards the car immediately behind and feeling the bite as a bullet scored a neck muscle and smashed into the bodywork of the car alongside. I ran hard but it was open ground and my feet were slipping as the cold air pumped into my lungs and froze the neck wound as I lunged for the pickup truck in the corner and slipped again and hit the front wing and went down with one foot dragging and my back exposed. I could hear him following and I think he slipped once and went down because his breath grunted out and there was a scuffling sound; then I was behind the truck and moving towards its rear, backing and facing the way I’d come.

  I couldn’t hear him now.

  Blood was seeping into the collar of my coat from the neck wound. The shoulder had been oozing and filling the sleeve but there was no artery hit or I would have weakened by this time; my left arm was still usable and there was no other damage. I stood in a half crouch, listening to the silence. He would be close to the truck, on the other side: from here I could see the open ground I’d run across and he wasn’t there. He had two more shots left in the magazine and he might be aware of that: he wouldn’t like it but he’d now have to stalk me at close range and make sure of a lethal hit when he fired next. I didn’t want to lie flat and sight for his feet underneath the truck because I’d be too vulnerable if he rushed me; I had to rely on auditory cues alone for information but they wouldn’t be very strong: his breathing and the brittle sound of the snow when he moved. For the moment I heard nothing; the night was grave quiet.

  The snow was fresh in the lee of the truck and I scooped it into my hands and compressed it, making a snowball, kneading it until it was heavy and iron-hard. I would need to blind him or hit the wound on his temple if I were going to do any good but there’d be no time to aim before he fired and he wouldn’t fire until I was securely in his sights: he had learned from the uselessness of those six shots. I waited, with the snowball gradually melting through my fingers.

  He was moving now: I heard the faint crunching of snow from the front of the truck. It was a risk but I dropped flat and sighted along the underside of the truck and saw his face and the blossoming flash of the shot and heard the fluting rush of air against my jaw as I twisted over and reached for the tailboard and pulled myself up with my left hand slipping because of the blood, my shoulder flaring with sudden pain as I flexed it: the bullet had lodged there close to the bone.

  Seven. But I was scared now because he was getting close and he knew he’d have to make it for certain with the last shot. I lowered my feet to the snow again because he wouldn’t shoot to maim at this stage. The snowball was resting on the surface and I picked it up and pressed it harder and put it on the metal footrest below the tailboard and stopped and made another one and held it ready, listening.

  He didn’t move. I thought I could see the top of his head, a dark patch in the corner of the truck’s windscreen; but I was sighting through the rear window of the cab and the image was indistinct: it could be the driving mirror or the corner of a roof in the distance. The whole truck was sliding to one side and then lifting silently - watch it - and I fell forward against the tailboard and took a deep breath until the scene steadied, losing more blood than I’d thought, getting light-headed. I tried to drop Sat again to see where his feet were but the scene started rocking badly and I straightened up and held the snowball against the neck wound to slow the bleeding.

  Something below me and I looked down. Blood on the snow, black in the acid light of the street lamps. Nothing else to attract the attention, no sound from him. He mustn’t know. He mustn’t know about the blood because I couldn’t do much to stop it until I was out of range and all he’d have to do was to wait it out until it left my brain, quietly draining, while the scene shifted and swung and turned over on me and I hit the snow and he came to stand over me, phutt… finis.

  I would have to make him fire again for the last time. He hadn’t moved yet, or I would have heard his shoes on the dry snow; he would be waiting for me to move first, waiting and listening. He was right-handed and if he moved he would circle the truck anticlockwise with his gun-hand leading; but he didn’t move. It worried me. I made another snowball, a bigger one, black and white in the green unearthly glow of the street lamps, blood and snow, pressing it harder, the dark stain spreading across its surface as the truck tilted and went down, dipping and rising and oh Christ I’m leaving it too late, steadying, a deep breath, I would have to find him in the next sixty seconds while there was enough blood left to feed the brain, Ignatov where are you, the pain flaring again in the shoulder as I fell Sat and stared into the narrow gap between the truck’s chassis and the snow.

  He wasn’t there.

  The ball of ice freezing my hand, the scene shifting again as I got to my knees and then to my feet. He wasn’t there, that was all right, I could go now and try to get someone to look at my - watch what you’re doing and think for God’s sake think because he’s — Towering over me, stark against the street lamps with his feet on the step of the cab and the gun coming into the aim at short range, snowball, all the strength I had left and it flew upwards against the flash and struck his face but I was spinning round and going down again hitting the snow and bouncing with the pain bursting in the shoulder and the truck’s angular shape rocking against the sky and the blood coming into my head again and bringing consciousness back, scaring me because there were sudden intervals of amnesia and I couldn’t remember if that was the seventh or the eighth shot, but he didn’t fire again and I managed to grab his foot as he dropped from the metal step and tried to start running. He came down full length and I put him out with a neck strike that would leave him alive because all I had to do was to stop him going to the nearest telephone before I could get clear.

  The keys of the Syrena took a long time to find in the snow, two or three blackouts, the shoulder burning alive, but found them, the keys, all right I called the Embassy from the underground garage and got Bracken direct at Ext 7. Speech code for Schrenk, Apt. 15 Pavilion, Baumanskaja, told him they’d have to be quick. And pick me up.

  Then I walked through the concrete columns and up the ramp and found the Pobeda where I’d left it, got in and sat wailing, might hit something if I drove any more. I hoped they wouldn’t be long, blood on the phone down there, whole trail of it, someone might notice. Dizzy and getting thirsty, singing in the ears, dark coming and going. Hurry.

  Chapter 17

  Midnight

  ‘For God’s sake leave me alone,’ I told them.

  ‘He’s all right,’ a voice said.

  ‘Who is?’ I hit out and felt an arm and heard something crash on to the floor.

  ‘Steady,’ someone said. It sounded like Bracken. ‘Open your eyes.’ This was in Russian, a woman’s voice. I’d heard it before somewhere, ‘Eyes?’

  Then I saw her, swaying from side to side, leaning over me, melting into some kind of shadow and taking shape again. I remembered her now.

  ‘Can’t you keep still?’ I asked her. She laughed, deep in her throat. Raging thirst.

  ‘Can he sit up?’ I saw Bracken now. Place stank of chemicals.

  They helped me, but only on one side. The other side was peculiarly numb. ‘Am I in bed, for God’s sake?’ Take it easy,’ Bracken said.

  I let them pull me upright and when they weren’t ready for it I swung my legs over and stood up and they caught me as the wall swung round and hit me full in the face, ‘When was that?’ I asked them.

  �
�An hour ago.’ Bracken was trying to sound cheerful. He was sitting hunched on a brown-painted crate below the window, his big blunt face lit by the street lamps outside and the glow of the stove. The woman was leaning against the wall watching me with her arms folded, black sweater and slacks, raven black hair, eyes like slow coals, Zoya, you are for safe keeping, a lot of it was coming back.

  ‘I’ve got a thirst like a wooden god.’

  She laughed and swung a jug over a glass. The room looked like a hospital ward, bowls and towels and instruments all round the bed, a sickly stink in the air. I drank three glasses of tepid water and lay back again and then the whole thing hit me.

  ‘Bracken. Did you find him?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No. But then we didn’t expect to.’

  I shut my eyes and something inside my head kept saying all that for nothing, all that for nothing.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked him.

  ‘You phoned at 8.42. I got three men there by 8.57. He’d had fifteen minutes to get out, quite long enough.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘You did your best.’

  My eyes came open. ‘Time for epitaphs, is it?’ There were half a dozen pillows and a couple of them rolled on to the floor but I kept moving and got my legs over the edge of the bed. She came at me fast but I said, ‘Leave me alone for Christ’s sake, I’m all right now.’ My left arm was in a sling and I couldn’t feel anything on that side. It didn’t interest me; all I could think about was that bastard Schrenk. I’d nailed him at his base and now we were about as dose to him as we’d been when I’d first got into Moscow.

  Why had I let him reach that gun?

  Because I hadn’t wanted to kill him. I’d been holding off, taking things right to the brink, chancing my own life and trying to save his. Sometimes you learn the hard way.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Bracken said, and got off the crate to hold me up.

  ‘Time is it now?’ I asked him, and wobbled about, leaning on him when I had to.

  ‘Nearly twelve.’

  Twelve what? Oh. Night.’

  ‘He must rest,’ Zoya said angrily. I suppose she was waiting for me to fall over, going to be right out of luck. Two lumps of metal lying on a bloodied swab in one of the basins, I said: ‘What are those?’

  They both went into the same shoulder,’ Bracken said. The woman began clearing the stuff away, obviously not prepared to speak to us anymore.

  ‘Did you find Ignatov?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the girl?’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘There was a girl there. Misha.’

  ‘The apartment was empty when our people got there.’ He steadied me as I moved my feet. Weak as chewed string, bloody infuriating.

  Someone was outside the door and we all froze by habit and Zoya opened it, standing close in the gap. A man spoke in Russian and she nodded and went out, shutting the door.

  ‘Croder’s on his way here,’ Bracken said and I jerked my head to look at him.

  ‘Croder?

  Things have been moving. Look, why don’t you sit down for a bit?’

  ‘How did he get into Moscow?’

  Patiently he said: ‘You mean Croder?’

  I let him lower me on to the crate and I put my head back against the wall and waited until the throbbing eased off. It was the first time I’d ever heard of a control coming right into the target area from London and now it had to be Croder and he was going to find his executive in the field looking just about as useful as something the cat had coughed up and there was nothing I could do about it.

  ‘What’s he doing in Moscow?’ I asked Bracken.

  ‘Going to help us out. Want another drink?’

  ‘You don’t need any help, for God’s sake,’ He’d pulled me off the street and got .me into the safe-house at a minute’s notice, even Ferris couldn’t have done any better. ‘Fill me in, will you?’

  I’ve been in signals with London for the past twelve hours. They-‘

  ‘Did you know Croder was coming out here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Uninformation, Jesus, I -‘

  ‘His orders. They blew Gorsky, by the way.’ He didn’t want to talk about Croder.

  ‘Gorsky?’ The man at the first safe-house, a good man, reliable. ‘Did Schrenk think I was there?’

  ‘Presumably. The KGB raided the place an hour ago.’

  Schrenk wasn’t going to leave me alone. That was all right The next time I’d follow instructions. All we want is his silence.

  Do it for Gorsky.

  ‘Mind getting me some water?’

  ‘Coming up.’

  I was drinking it when the door opened and Croder came in, a thin scarecrow in the heavy military coat, his skull’s head catching in the light from the corridor and then darkening in shadow as he moved farther into the room, picking his way through the cluttered furniture as if through a minefield, halting in front of me at last and staring down with his black hooded eyes.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Schrenk tried to kill him,’ Bracken said.

  ‘Where is Schrenk?’

  ‘We lost him again.’

  The skin drew taut across the pale pointed face and the hooded eyes blinked once. It was like watching a lizard, but I felt a strange sensation of comfort: with someone like this here, cold-blooded and totally dedicated, we wouldn’t make any more mistakes.

  He heard the door click shut and turned with a quick swing of his shoulders; it was Zoya coming back. He looked at Bracken again. ‘How many do we have left in the cell?’

  ‘It’s still intact. Six of them.’

  ‘How are they deployed?’

  Two are watching Schrenk’s last known base and two are watching an apartment block where Schrenk’s lieutenant lives with his family. Pyotr Ignatov. One mobile liaison, one signals.’

  Croder swung back to look down at me. ‘I assume you’re not operational.’

  I was so annoyed that I got on to my feet before Bracken could try to help me. This time it didn’t feel too bad I’m short on protein, that’s all. There wasn’t time to eat’

  ‘He lost blood,’ Zoya said in thick accents. ‘I could not make any transfusion here, of course. He is weak.’

  Croder looked at her. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘Yes. There are two bullets, and a third wound. He needs to rest. He came out of a general anaesthesia an hour ago.’

  ‘Can he handle protein yet?’

  ‘Perhaps, in liquid form. But you are taking risks. He has lost blood, quite a lot, and so he is weak. The conditions were sterile but I cannot guarantee there will be no infection.’

  ‘Have you any liquid protein?’ Croder was into fast fluent Russian.

  ‘I have chicken broth, yes.’

  ‘Give him some, if you will.’

  I sat down on the crate again, sliding my back against the wall and feeling the left shoulder gradually coming to life. The room span slowly for a while and then Croder came back into focus, perched on the end of the bed. Zoya went out and he asked Bracken: ‘What’s security like in this place?’

  ‘As good as you’ll get,’ he said, ‘in Moscow. She even keeps weapons here.’

  ‘We don’t want those.’ Croder looked back at me. ‘I don’t wish to press you, but I’d like your report on Schrenk. Just give me the salient points if you feel up to it.’

  There was still some fog in my head but I thought I could work out a summary. I took a minute and then said: ‘He’s gone half out of his mind. They roughed him up too much in Lubyanka. And he’s Jewish. He’s made some friends among the dissidents. He’s out for revenge and he’s rationalizing it, thinks he’s crusading for the cause. Just my impressions.’

  I had to wait for a bit because I was out of breath. Croder watched me, still as a reptile, his black eyes brooding.

  ‘Don’t hurry,’ he said.

  ‘He blew me off the street. He said he had to get me out of his way, didn�
�t want anyone to know where he was, wants to be left alone.’ I tried to remember what else Schrenk had said, with the cigarette smoke curling past his narrowed bloodshot eyes and his body twisted to face me. ‘He said there’s only one thing the bastards will listen to, by which he meant it was no good just protesting against oppression. I’d say there’s something he wants to do, and very badly. I’d say he’s become a dangerous fanatic.’ I stopped again to get my breath.. ‘Something else. He said “Moscow needs me.” I was trying to talk him into pulling out with us, and that was his answer. Degree of megalomania, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Croder.

  I thought about it. ‘It’s hard to say. I mean he’s still a very capable operator. He could do a lot of damage if he wanted to.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  Then the door opened and we all looked round. It was Zoya.

  ‘Bracken,’ I said. ‘Does Schrenk know this address?’

  ‘No. Don’t worry.’

  All very well Schrenk had just blown Gorsky’s safe-house and if he knew about this one he’d send in the KGB and there’d be nothing we could do: they’d get the London director, the director in the field and the executive all in one bag. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Zoya had brought me a can of self-heating soup, US Army issue, God knew where she’d got it from. She poured it into a thick white cup and gave it to me.

  ‘Would you say,’ Croder asked in his cold thin tones, ‘that Schrenk has got a cell together?’