by Adam Hall
The signal had specified a warehouse in Losinoostrovskaja ulica alongside the main rail line between Belokamennaja and Cerkizovo stations and I reached there at 3.21 and slid the Pobeda across the ruts into the shadow of the building and cut the engine and wound the window down and waited, checking for sound and movement. It wasn’t likely to be a trap but if Schrenk picked up my trail he’d come for me himself instead of leaving it to Ignatov, I knew that There was a train rolling somewhere, north and west of the warehouse, and its sound made a blanket for aural cues in the immediate vicinity and that was dangerous: I would have preferred to leave the car and get into more flexible cover but the contact had to show himself first and it was a safe principle so I stayed where I was, listening to the train and trying to pick up closer sounds. Something was changing in the visual pattern on the other side of the car and I watched it: a door along the wall of the warehouse was coming open. Someone was standing there but I did nothing until a torch was flashed on and off three times, one long and two short; then I got out of the car and walked across the snow with a trickle running through the spine because a night rdv is always risky: a signal can be intercepted and you can find yourself walking straight into an ambush.
‘Midnight red.’
I countersigned and he flashed the light briefly over my face and then his own, and I recognized Shortlidge. He led me into the warehouse and shut the door, then switched on the torch and swung the beam across piles of broken crates and sacking and loose timber until it focused on the black Zil limousine.
‘OK?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Fill me in.’
CI was watching Area I and saw Ignatov’s car come up. Two men got out and went into the apartment block - one of them could have been Ignatov but I’d only got your verbal description. One of them came out in about half an hour - not Ignatov, too young and too thin, a dark chap. We -‘
‘How was he walking?’
‘Walking? Quite normally.’
‘He wasn’t crippled. Hobbling.’
‘No.’
‘All right, go on.’
Two of us tagged him here and he stayed fifteen minutes and then left. Logan’s still on the tag and we’re reporting by radio. I was told to stay here and show you this lot.’
I gazed across at the brilliantly-polished Zil. ‘Did you see what he was doing in here?’
‘No. He locked the door after him.’
‘How did you get in, afterwards?’
‘Picked the lock. It’s a tumbler.’
‘Did he bring anything with him?’
‘Nothing too big for his pockets.’
Take anything away?’
‘Not that I saw. He wasn’t carrying anything.’
He was moving his feet up and down, his hands stuffed into his pockets. There was no heating on in this place and a freezing draught was blowing across the floor. The building was old and looked abandoned; above our heads there was a gap of light where the roof had started caving in under the weight of the snow, and the whole place creaked. Various smells were distinguishable: rotting timber, damp sacking, sour grain, petrol and rubber.
I went on staring at the big black limousine, not comfortable with it. ‘All right,’ I told Shortlidge, ‘I want you to keep watch outside. I’ll be here about an hour. Where’s your car?’
‘Round the back.’
‘Can I use this torch?’
‘Help yourself.’
There’s one in the Pobeda glove pocket, if you want one. Listen, if you can’t see the door to this place from your car, sit in mine. I want you to warn me if anyone comes, but keep out of the action if anything starts, understood?’
He considered this, moving his feet up and down. ‘What about if you’re up against it?’
‘I’ll look after myself. Your job is to get a signal back. Croder’s instructions.’
‘OK.’ He left me.
I stood listening to the creaking of the building, feeling the cold draught numbing my ankles as I stared at the big black Zil. It was probably going to be all right, but even Schrenk was human and could make a mistake, and it was a minute before I was ready to go across to the thing and start work.
Long wheelbase, four doors, Central Committee MOII number plates, immaculate bodywork and chrome. I shone the torch through one of the windows. Brushed vinyl club seats, thick blue_ carpeting, two telephones, built-in tape deck, air conditioning vents and controls, cocktail cabinet, wood-grain panelling, dark blue nylon curtains at the rear windows, a thick glass division between the front and rear seats separating the passengers from the chauffeur and escort.
I began underneath, fetching some sacking from a pile near the wall and spreading it on the dirt floor and sliding inwards on the flat of my back with the torch in my right hand. The general layout was massive but clean, with cross-braced box section chassis members and two enormous exhaust silencers running half the length of the car. I checked ledges, niches and junctions, inching my left hand along the topside of every component, the sweet beginning because the organism was confined and wouldn’t be able to help itself if anything went wrong, wouldn’t even know about it except for a microsecond of cataclysm.
Careful, old boy. Don’t touch the wrong thing. Amusement in his tone as he watched me, his eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette.
Bugger off.
I went over the rear axle casing, propeller shaft tunnel, flywheel housing, crankcase flanges and trays while the building creaked and the draught chilled my bones and the bastard began laughing softly with that awful laugh of his that turned to coughing because of the cigarette smoke.
You’re taking a chance, old boy, I suppose you know that.
Yes, I knew that. He was human and he might have lost some of his cunning when they’d half-killed him in that bloody place and I couldn’t be sure that my hand wouldn’t at some time touch a badly assembled trip mechanism or set off a too-sensitive rocking device or break a circuit when I opened a door and triggered the interior lamps. Taking a chance, yes, and I couldn’t get his voice out of my head.
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 b
ecause 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 fining 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 clean, 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 tank-fill 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 riding 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 Hanger 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 phrase 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. 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.’
