by Adam Hall
At some other time I saw the cold grey light of the new day defrosting the grime of the window, and had a run of coherent thoughts for the first time since Fenshaw had brought me back here. It was possible that everything would be all right, provided we could find Schrenk. Croder could stop the Zil operation at any time he chose. Logan and Marshal were guarding it at the warehouse and could smash the distributor or pour dirt in the carburetor whenever they got the instructions. Ignatov was also under guard. If Schrenk hadn’t got an alternative lined up, there was a chance that everything was going to be all right.
Dreams again, with the soft discordant chimes of the ice on the night-running river, the soft wet phutt of the silenced gun, blood on the snow.
Then .later I woke to find Bracken leaning over me, speaking softly and with the fear of God in his voice.
‘They’ve shot Logan and Marshal,’ he said, ‘and taken the Zil.’
Chapter 19
Scarecrow
5.41.
The winter night had come down half an hour ago, and the sky was now starless. Snow had started falling again before noon, and was now beginning to settle as the evening temperature dropped below zero.
C-Charlie … Heading west on Sticharevskaja ring road, I checked the time again. C-Charlie was Croder.
There were seven of us out: four of the original cell with Croder, Bracken and myself making up the number. Logan and Marshal had died instantly in the shooting and an ambulance had picked up their bodies after an anonymous telephone call from Bracken. That had been at 6.39 this morning, nearly twelve hours ago. Since that time Croder had kept the whole cell working to locate Schrenk and had failed Nothing had been seen of the Zil.
I picked up the set A-Able … Going east on Krasnocholmskaja, now crossing river bridge.
The snow came out of a black sky, hazing across the taller buildings and covering the roofs of vehicles until they began blending with the background. Traffic was easing as the rush hour neared its end. A few trucks were using chains again, and sand crews had just appeared at the major intersections.
Croder had said: ‘If we haven’t found either Schrenk or the Zil by five o’clock this evening we shall begin patrolling the outer ring road in the hope of sighting the Zil on its way to the Kremlin.’ His face had been pale, and his head sunk I into the collar of his overcoat. ‘We shall maintain constant I radio contact and A-Able will be prepared to go into action if we sight the Zil. What action he may take will depend on the circumstances and his own discretion, but whatever happens we have to realize that the Zil may explode without warning at any time. It may be triggered with a timing device, or Schrenk nay choose to detonate the charge by radio beam, sacrificing the driver. We don’t know. This is a last-ditch stand, and I expect every conceivable effort to be made to avert disaster. I’ve already pointed out to you that the disaster we have to avert does not simply concern the explosion of a motor-car in a crowded city, but concerns the explosion of a totally unpredictable situation on an international scale. Thank you, gentlemen, that is all’
I’d asked Bracken if they were going to reconsider the idea of warning the Guards Directorate by an anonymous phone call a few minutes before the four leading members of the Politburo got into their motorcades. He’d just said, ‘God knows. That’s up to London, not us.’
We knew that Croder was in signals with London hourly through a timed system of public phone box calls to the Embassy. We also knew that Croder was personally against the risk of exposing a plan to assassinate the Soviet chief of state by warning his security forces in time, without making ‘every conceivable effort’ to block Schrenk on his run in and get control of the Zil.
‘There is, of course, the other thing,’ Bracken had told me privately. ‘That Zil might already be inside the Kremlin. If it is, there’s nothing we can do.’
With the bridge behind me I watched the mirror for a few seconds longer than normal because a militia patrol was coming up fast and I started looking for an immediate right turn. The Volga stayed in the minor for ten seconds and then overtook and left me behind. A minute later I caught up with it again at the Kamensciki street junction, slowing behind a mess of vehicles trying to make their way past some sort of accident by the Metro Station: I saw a stove-in radiator with rusty water blowing out of it and a Moskvich draped halfway across the kerb. Sirens had started up from the opposite direction. The surface was tricky in places now because the ruts were getting lost under the new snowfall and you couldn’t use them to steer with. I was keeping my speed down to a little below the limit and checking the mirror the whole time: there shouldn’t be any tags but if I missed sighting the Zil ahead of me I might see it in the mirror and send out a fix on the radio.
‘We shall expect it to be crossing the ring road,’ Croder had told us at the briefing, ‘towards the Kremlin. But that doesn’t mean it might not have to make a right turn on to the ring road itself and follow it for a time until it can turn left. Watch for that.’
I hated Croder and I pitied him. I pitied him because he’d run a reasonably effective mission up to the point where I’d failed to kill Schrenk, and in less than twenty minutes from now he looked like seeing the mission being blown out from under him through none of his own fault; and I hated him because the fault was going to be mine and he’d taken pains to let me know it. All right then, not hate. Guilt.
5—43: G-George … I’m making west along Samotocnaja, just passing the circus building.
Shortlidge. He was keeping station a mile behind Croder, who would now be moving south and west, somewhere near the planetarium.
Calling G-George. Repeat signal Radio reception was strengthening and fading as we circled the centre of the city, the new steel-braced constructions affecting the signal. We’d been told to mention a landmark when we could, as well as the street’s name. We knew them by now: we’d spent two hours with the maps.
Shortlidge was repeating. His voice sounded dead. He was the one who’d found Logan and Marshal; he’d known them for three years and had worked closely with Logan on the Yugoslavian spy-bust thing when half the foreign a-i-ps in Moscow were being smoked out of their holes. Logan had a wife, a young ice-skater working her way up through the city championship teams, and Shortlidge was going to have to tell her what had happened.
I used the set again.
A-Able … I’m going north, leaving Narodnaja with the Kotelniceskaja Hotel on my left. Where is F-Freddie now?
No one came on the air for almost a minute; then Croder began asking for a signal. We didn’t get one.
Calling F-Freddie. Location please.
No answer. Croder went off the air. F-Freddie was Wilson and either his set was out or he’d skidded on the snow or the police had pulled him in for something.
At 5.44 I saw a black limousine half a block ahead of me and the set was in my hand a couple of seconds later but I didn’t signal yet: it could be a Chaika. I pulled out and got past some of the traffic in front of me with the front wheels shifting across the ruts of packed snow and the rear end breaking away and correcting and breaking away again until I had to start slowing for the lights, Chaika, finding a slot in the right-hand line of traffic and pulling over, it was a Chaika, not a Zil.
B-Bertie … Proceeding south and west along Bolshaja just past the Gorkogo intersection, the Hotel Peking on my right. Did we lose F-Freddie?
I checked the time at 5.45.
A-Able to C-Charlie… This is the deadline.
Croder came back straight away.
C-Charlie… We continue until further orders.
The lights in front of me went green and I got going again. The deadline was 5.45 because Ignatov had said the Zil was to be handed over to the chief of state’s personal chauffeur ten minutes before Brezhnev was to board the car outside the Grand Palace, and it was a five-minute run from the ring road to the Kremlin this time of the evening. The pickup time was six o’clock. So this was zero and the seven of us were circling the target area and the radio was sil
ent and I was beginning to sweat because Schrenk was a professional and has, enough hate burning inside him to carry this thing through to the final blast and if he succeeded the headlines would carry the shock around the world.
Because I had failed to carry out the instructions.
5.46.
Zero plus one and too late.
E-Edward… going north on Ckalova and just crossing Karl-Marx.
The snow drifted out of the dark sky, eddying in the slipstream of the car ahead of me. It was becoming mesmeric, and I wound the window down and let the freezing air come in. taking deep breaths of it. I’d slept for nearly four hours after I’d got back from the warehouse but the blood loss was still a problem. In less than a minute the left shoulder was numbed by the draught and I put the window up again but went on breathing consciously until the haze went out of my head.
If I’d been given this information I would have eliminated Schrenk the minute I found him.
But the instructions were already there.
The snow swirled against the windscreen. There was of course a chance that Schrenk had made a mistake or the stuff hadn’t arrived in time or the Zil had come unstuck in the snow but he was highly talented and they’d crippled him and he knew what he wanted to do and it wasn’t particularly difficult with that amount of feverish dedication driving him: history was liberally punctuated with successful assassinations and he wasn’t trying to do anything new.
This was why I looked to my left at every intersection, sometimes seeing the glow of a golden dome through the snow haze. That was where we would see the column of smoke going up, a few minutes after six o’clock.
The traffic was thinning now as the city’s population flowed from the factories and offices to the apartment blocks in the suburbs.
5.48.
D-Donald… I’ve got a Zil.
C-Charlie calling D-Donald - give your location.
I’m heading north and coming up to Uljanovskaja. The police let him through on the red light. The Zil is moving west on Uljanovskaja now and going fast.
Did you see the number plates?
No. It was broadside on when it went past.
Did it have any land of escort?
No. It went through the lights on its own.
C-Charlie calling A-Able. Where are you?
I hit the button. A-Able. I’m at Obucha and the lights are red. There’s a left-turn arrow and I’m waiting for it now.
Two seconds went by.
From your present location, can you intercept the Zil before it reaches the Kremlin?
The map had been open on the passenger’s seat since we’d started patrolling and I looked at it now. It depends on what speed he makes. I can’t go across the lights as he can. But I’ve got a chance of cutting him off at the Solanka intersection.
The left-turn arrow went green and I gunned up and took the intersection in a controlled slide across the ruts and got the Pobeda straight and settled down.
A-Able moving west towards the boulevard ring, light traffic. Orders?
Stay on the air and report progress. C-Charlie calling all other stations … All other stations remain listening but do not signal unless emergency repeat do not signal unless emergency. Break pattern and head for A-Able with all speed, I was coming up on two taxis and a truck and pulled over to pass but the ruts were deep and I lost the rear end as the steering dug in and the momentum set up a swinging action, left to right, left to right until I changed down and put a lot of power on and broke the rhythm, one of the taxis using the horn because I’d swung too close.
Croder dropped the call sign now: from this point there’d only be his voice and mine on the air.
What is your direct route to the Kremlin?
Due west by Podkolokol’nyj, Solanka, and Razina.
Present location?
Crossing the boulevard ring.
The trees stood on either side, white with snow against the iron sky. The lights were changing to amber and I kept my speed constant and crossed over and gunned up a little because they’d put sand down here. The inner boulevard signal was at red and I switched my headlights full on and kept going and crossed the intersection and heard a whistle blow.
I am now on Podkolokol’nyj. Traffic police alerted because I crossed on the red, but my rear plate is illegible.
Acknowledged.
I hadn’t intended to take the intersections on the red because the police would use their radios and I’d be initiating a collision course with the nearest mobile patrol but the Zil would now be curving north-east across Ustjinskij prospekt and heading for the major fork at Solanka and it was the only chance of my cutting him off because if he got there first I wouldn’t be able to catch him and there were no other oblique streets where I could gain on him by using angles.
Location … Podkopajevskij on my right. I’m pasting the junction now.
Acknowledged.
He would want to say more than that, but he left the air clear for my signals. He would want to say that I should make every conceivable effort to reach the Solanka fork before the Zil because that was the only hope we had left. He would want to say that there was a red lamp burning at the top left comer of the board for Scorpion in London and that the lamp must go out when the mission had succeeded, not because it had failed.
A taxi was pulling away from the kerb and doing it too wide and I touched the brakes and got nothing so I used the wheel and angled the front end out of the ruts and straightened again, overcorrecting and hooking fix rear bumper of the taxi:
I watched it in the mirror, sliding against the kerb and bouncing and craning to a stop with the front wheels locked hard over.
Location :. . Passing Ivanovskij on my right and approaching the fork at Solanka.
Acknowledged. C-Charlie to all other stations. Keep heading for A-Able at the Solanka fork as fast as you can. If necessary ignore traffic lights.
The nearest to me would be E-Edward, last locating south of me on the ring road at Uljanovskaja, and he would have made an illegal U-turn and come back to the intersection and turned right to follow the Zil. D-Donald had been farther to the north and would have turned west and south and would reach the Solanka fork soon after E-Edward. Bracken had last signalled from the other side of the ring road and would be coming east and rounding the walls of the Kremlin, but he had more distance to cover. In five minutes from now the Zil could be in the centre of three or four converging cars and it wouldn’t be heading for the Kremlin at this time unless it had the explosive on board and that could be dangerous: Composition C-3 was relatively insensitive to impact but if the Zil crashed it could false-trigger the detonation device. If I sighted the Zil I’d need to make a signal.
Location … Solanka fork, approaching fast, lights at red.
I could hear a siren somewhere. I’d run the red at the boulevard intersection and hit the taxi soon afterwards and the policeman who’d blown the whistle could have walkie-talked the network to put a car on me; or it could be F-Freddie in trouble after his failure to acknowledge or it could be just an accident somewhere in the icy streets and nothing to do with us.
The lights were still at red and I took the Solanka fork on the low side of fifty kph with the front end stable enough in the ruts to take me close along the nearside kerb with a chance of bringing the wheel over hard if I had to, putting the Pobeda into a front-wheel skid and breaking the ruts to slow the momentum if anything came through on the green from the main fork road to my left. I wasn’t risking a broadside collision because the fork road had the only right of way and the traffic would merge at forty-five degrees, but I flicked the headlights to full again and started watching the left-hand outside mirror.
Crossing Solanka, lights at red.
The Zil wasn’t there.
We began hitting the cross-ruts and the front end lost its line and cocked over and wouldn’t come back but the wheels had some resistance left and I waited and then hit the brakes as we ploughed into the loose sand alon
gside the kerb and the Pobeda shook itself straight as the nearside rear wheel hit and bounced and got traction as I gunned up and settled down again with a number 55 bus a hundred yards ahead of me and nothing this side of it but a taxi. It was no go.
No sign of the Zil. I’m across the Mirror.
Zil.
Correction, I’ve got the Zil now, I’ve got the Zil.
It was behind me, crossing the fork on the green with its headlights full on and coming up fast Croder’s voice came faintly through bad static but with a lot of control.
Repeat, please. Repeat signal.
I hit the button again. I’ve got the Zil behind me at fifty yards and closing up on me fast. Listen, I want the others to hold off, tell them to hold of}, we can’t risk crashing the Zil -it’s a live bomb.
I switched to listen and heard him acknowledge and then start telling all stations to support the scene but keep clear of the Zil. He repeated and asked for acknowledgement and the others began coming in as the siren started up again from somewhere in the immediate area, another one joining it: the network had been alerted to something and the patrols were closing in.
The bus was moving slowly in the nearside lane and I checked the mirror and pulled out in the path of the limousine behind me. In this city the Zils and Chaikas normally drive on full headlights for the police to let them through the intersections but this one began using the horns when it saw me pull out According to Ignatov it would have the Politburo chauffeur Morosov at the wheel and he wasn’t used to other vehicles getting in his way and tonight he was running two minutes late and his rendezvous was ultra-priority.
I began slowing.
There was still a clear lane on my offside and I waited for him to take it. The Zil was massive and could break through the ruts of snow and keep its steering stable enough to make a lot of speed through streets like these and if I let him go past me I’d lose Him without any chance at all of catching him again: this was strictly a one-time operation because he now had a straight run to the Kremlin and the police would let him through every light. Through the snow haze ahead of me I could see the bright gold domes of St Basil’s church at the south end of Red Square: we were less than a mile from the Kremlin now and time was running out.
