by Adam Roberts
I thought about fear. Shouldn’t I be afraid? But if there was any sensation there it was, rather, the memory of fear than fear. I contemplated my situation. It seemed clear to me - mental clarity sometimes drew its ticklish bow across the violin string of my consciousness - that I needed to get out of bed if I wanted to save my life. I needed to get up and lock the door. I needed, however hard it might be, to rise from my bed and get to the door. If I could lock the door, I would survive. Did the choice really present itself to me so starkly? Death here, life there, a key in a keyhole the difference. I had the memory of an elongated chopstick of light shining through a keyhole and into a darkened room. Why was the room so darkened? What was the light on the other side of the door that spilled so promiscuously through the tiny hole? Where was it shining from? A chink of light. Then I thought to myself: Of course the light is defined by the darkness. I don’t know why I thought this.
I moved my legs round until they dangled over the edge of the bed, like two sleeves of cloth. Then I pulled the wormy plastic tube from my arm and got, unsteadily, to my feet. Red-haired Death was sat in the chair, regarding me with a complacently predatory expression. I suppose he was wondering what I thought I was doing.
‘After the first death,’ I told him, with a grunt, ‘there is no other.’
‘Gabble gabble,’ he said again. From a holster inside his jacket he withdrew a pistol.
Three steps, doddery, and I was at the door. This motion tired me out. I paused for a moment to breathe.
‘Are you thinking of making a run for it?’ he asked. ‘A stagger for it? A bumble for it?’ He was amusing himself. ‘A shuffle for it?’
‘I don’t think I’d get very far,’ I said. I needed to pause twice in the middle of this short sentence in order to catch my breath. There was a deep-bone ache in my legs. I felt nauseous. This was too much exertion for me. But at least I was at the door now.
‘I’ve been involved in various pursuits of suspects in my time,’ he said. ‘This will be an interesting, if brief, addition to that body of experience.’
I opened the door an inch, two inches, and I reached an arm round to the outside. I could feel, without needing to look round, the pistol aimed between my shoulder blades. ‘I think,’ I said, groping for the key in the lock, ‘you mis—’ and there it was, and I fumbled it from its hole, ‘—understand.’
I pushed the door shut, and leant against it for a moment, to recover. But my labour was almost completed now.
‘Get back in the bed, old man,’ said the redhead. ‘I have no objection to shooting you, but it might be simpler all round if I just smother you with a pillow.’ He did not move from the chair. ‘It’d be demeaning to have you lurching down the corridor at half a mile an hour. I’d shoot you in the back, you know. I have no compunction about shooting people in the back. You’d bleed out on a hard hospital floor. Wouldn’t you rather die in bed? You’re an old man. Old men always hope to die in their beds’.
‘There,’ I said, slipping the key into the keyhole on the inside of the door, and turning it round. ‘A little privacy.’ I pulled the key out.
Make no mistake: the physical effort this manoeuvre required, and, without wishing to sound vainglorious, the courage and application it entailed, was greater than any effort I had made for decades. But I was fighting for my life. And, without anxiety or fear, and without any strong preference for living over dying, I so fought.
‘What are you doing?’ the redhead demanded, a peevish tone entering his voice. ‘Have you locked us in?’
I turned. One step and my knee almost folded. Another step. I didn’t want to collapse in a heap on the bed; or, worse, miss the edge of the bed and tumble to the floor. That wouldn’t do at all. It required a focus of effort. ‘A little,’ I gasped, ‘privacy.’
‘Give me the key,’ he ordered, flourishing his pistol.
The final step and I paused. ‘A moment,’ I gasped. ‘Let me get. Back into the bed.’
‘Why did you lock the door?’
‘A little,’ I panted, ‘privacy.’
I was standing with my hands down on the mattress. My intention had been to swallow the key straight down, but now that I had it in my hand it seemed far too large and jagged. I thought about taking a drink of water, but even so I could not see it going down the gullet. Things are often different in imagination to the way they are in reality.
I put my hip against the edge of the bed, and levered myself round into a sitting position, facing him. The mattress felt hard beneath me. Still in his chair, he was aiming the pistol directly at my face.
‘Is this about delay?’ he demanded. ‘Come on, old man. You’re a hero of the Patriotic War. Don’t demean yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. Leaving the key tucked into my bedclothes I raised my right hand, empty, and put it to my mouth. With what I hoped was a convincing dumb-show I made as if to swallow the key.
‘Hey!’ said the redhead, leaping to his feet. ‘What are you playing at?’
‘Gah!’ I said. Did that sound like somebody with a key sliding down his gullet? ‘Gur! Gah! That is uncomfortable.’ I leaned back against my pillows, and slid my heels along the mattress until my legs were flat. Then, perhaps too theatrically, I patted my stomach. ‘The condemned man,’ I puffed, ‘can choose his last meal.’
‘You’ve gone gaga!’ said the redhead. Why’d you do that? You’ve locked yourself in a room with your assassin.’
‘I decided against,’ I said, slowly as I recovered my puff. I could feel the key digging into my buttock. ‘Trying to run away.’
‘I suppose I can go out the window?’ the redhead said, and went over to look. ‘Or, well that’s quite a drop. I suppose I can just kick the door down.’
‘You could easily kick the door down.’
‘Why did you lock us in?’ he asked.
‘I thought it would be more fun,’ I said, ‘the other way around.’
‘What’s the other way around?’
‘Me. Chasing you.’
‘That’s more like it,’ he said, smiling broadly at the absurdity of the situation. ‘That’s the spirit that beat the Nazis! You’re an old man. Unarmed. Walking three paces exhausts you. I’m a young, fit, KGB operative with a gun. I’ve killed dozens of people healthier than you. But you’re the one chasing me! That is indeed the way to think of it. That’s a better way to go.’ He tucked his pistol back into his holster and beckoned. ‘Come on then! Come get me!’
‘When you say,’ I said, reaching over for the bedside cabinet, ‘that I am unarmed . . .’
I pulled out the Geiger counter.
Immediately he drew his gun again and held it two-handed, pointed straight at my head. ‘Put that down,’ he said.
‘It’s not a gun,’ I said. ‘It’s a Geiger counter.’
There was a pause. ‘Geiger-M̈ller tube,’ said the redhead; but he kept the gun trained on me.
‘Here’s a funny thing,’ I told him. ‘The American President? His name is Reagan. You know what that means, in English? A literal translation into Russian would be President Laser Pistol. Isn’t that funny?’
I pointed the tube at my own chest.
‘Stop!’ he barked. ‘Is that a laser pistol? You said Geiger counter. Is it a laser pistol, though?’
‘Tch! And where would I get hold of a laser pistol?’
‘You and I both know where,’ he retorted quickly. ‘Who knows what weaponry they might dispose of, when it’s no longer useful to them?’
This barely wrongfooted me. It might have given me pause, if I hadn’t been so tired. I pushed on. ‘Well if it’s a laser pistol,’ I said, settling the end of its plastic muzzle over the exact centre of my chest, ‘and I pull this trigger, then I’ll do your job for you. On the other hand, if it’s a Geiger counter, all that will happen is that you’ll discover how radioactive I am.’
I could see the fox-like process of calculation flicker in his eyes. He was starting to work out what I had d
one. He glanced over to the door. Then he took a step towards me, and then stopped. ‘You’ve locked me in,’ he said, in a low voice.
‘It’s not a question of me escaping from you,’ I told him.
‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘Bluffing is what you are doing.’
‘Shall we see? Shall I press the button?’
‘Bluffing,’ he said.
‘You know how one of these works?’
‘Go on,’ he instructed.
I pushed the test button, and the counter crackled and trilled to life. For long seconds he stood there, listening to the malign static interference sizzle and sizzle. Eventually he spoke. ‘You’ve been here more than a week.’
I turned the machine off.
‘If you’re that radioactive,’ he said, backing against the window. ‘You’d have died long ago.’
‘Are you concerned about my health?’ I asked. ‘Or your own?’
He swallowed. ‘Is it them?’ he said.
‘It’d be better for my purpose if you came over here,’ I told him. ‘Get a fuller dose. Put a pillow over my mouth, and lean over me. Get a proper coating.’
‘Did they make you immune, somehow, to radiation? Is that why you’re still alive?’
‘Never mind that. Are you immune to radioactivity, comrade? That’s the question.’ I was gathering my strength after my exertion; such strength as I had. ‘Because if you are, then feel free to stay here as long as you like. But if not—’ I breathed in, and out. ‘If not, then I’d advise you to get out as soon as possible. Really, there’s no time to lose. Every second increases your cancer risk.’
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You’re white hot. Christ you’re a fucking bomb.’ He pulled the window open and peered out. Presumably he thought: too far to jump, because he turned back to face me, and this was the first moment since his arrival in my room that I felt hope flicker in my brain. There was a panic in his eyes.
‘That hairdo,’ I said. ‘You towel it dry after showering? That’ll start falling out now, of course. Bright side: you won’t have to bother about it anymore. No more tiresome washing or drying your hair. You can skip that whole portion of the morning routine. Think of the time you’ll save.’
He raised his pistol at me, and then lowered it. ‘Give me the key,’ he said.
‘As for that,’ I said. ‘Your options are: to get me to vomit it up. Or perhaps cut me open for it. You have a knife?’
‘Give me the fucking—’ He aimed the gun at me again. Then he reholstered it.
‘Just cut me open and rummage around. Of course, it’ll significantly increase your dose. But if you stay here too long then—’ I started coughing at this moment, on account of all the talking I was doing and the dryness of my throat. But it succeeded in increasing the panic in the redhead’s face. I took a sip from the glass of water beside my bed.
The redhead bolted suddenly for the door, and heaved with all his strength on the handle. ‘Give me the key or I’ll blow your alien brains onto the wall!’ he shouted.
‘My alien brains?’ I said. ‘I have to assume you’re going to shoot me whatever happens.’ I was fingering the Geiger counter in my lap. ‘So your threat is hardly an incentive.’
He began kicking at the door. He was wearing comfortable leather loafers. ‘Army boots would be more useful for that, comrade,’ I told him.
He kicked, and kicked again. ‘Bastard!’ he grunted. ‘Bastard!’
‘You do not seem to be making much of a dent.’
He spun round and, once more, drew his pistol on me. ‘I’ll at least finish you off,’ he told me.
‘All right, all right,’ I said, calmly. ‘Hold on a moment. I’ll give you the key! I’ll cough it back up! I’ll even wipe it on the bedclothes, to remove as much of my highly radioactive saliva as I can manage.’
It did not suit his face for his eyes to be as wide open as they were. He looked disconcerting. He levelled the pistol at my head, and then with a moan of frustration he span and fired into the door once, twice, and then a third time. The noise of the pistol was very great, and it struck my inner ear like a crashing blow, leaving me with a high, pure singsong note. There was the stench of burnt powder. I shook my head ponderously, and the whine vanished from my ear.
The redhead aimed another kick at the punctured door, and kicked right through it. Now he was compelled to hop on one foot, for the other had become snagged through the woodwork. He almost fell backwards, and then he pulled the foot free, and did a little staggery dance. He swore.
‘The door opens inward, comrade,’ I said.
The wood around the handle was splintered and frayed. He pulled his right arm into the sleeve jacket, and using the fabric as a makeshift glove to protect his skin from splinters, he took hold and hauled the door towards him. It gave way with a noise of snapping wood, and once again he almost fell backwards. But at least his exit was clear now.
In the open doorway he turned around to face me. ‘They should keep you in a fucking lead-lined room!’ he said. He aimed the pistol at my chest.
I did not experience any spike or fear, or excitement. My heart kept beating smoothly.
‘Hey!’
This was my doctor’s voice. I heard running footsteps in the corridor outside. The redhead turned and waved his pistol at them. ‘KGB business,’ he barked. ‘KGB business.’
‘Murdering my patients in their beds is nobody’s business,’ cried the doctor. Ah! But she was fearless, my wonderful Dr Bello. I learned afterwards that she was not alone; the banging and thumping had roused half a dozen hospital staff, and they had all come scurrying down to see what the fuss was about. I daresay the red-headed man contemplated gunning them all down; but it was not a likely calculation.
‘Get out!’ snapped Dr Bello. She had reached the door, now, and was looking with horror at the mess of splintered wood. ‘Damaging hospital property? Breaking down doors? Threatening hospital patients with a gun? I’ll call the Militia, KGB or no. I’ll speak to your superiors! I’ll take it all the way to the top. I know people.’
The redhead growled, and looked at me, and then he growled again. ‘You want,’ he said, speaking in a low tone, ‘to put him in a fucking lead-lined room.’ And he stalked away.
And then they all came hurrying into my room, and fussing about me, and reconnecting my drip. Dr Bello took the Geiger counter from my lap. ‘Doctor,’ I told her. ‘You have saved my life.’
‘It is a doctor’s business,’ she said, in a plain voice, ‘to save the life of her patient.’
After that there was a great deal of fuss. The Militia came to see me again, and a guard was placed on my room. I was visited by a senior KGB officer. He was very old, and in uniform - a vast, stiff concoction of cloth and braid, upon which a great many medals clustered like bees upon a beehive. His face was prodigiously weathered by age, and lined with a series of deep creases in the vertical and the horizontal, giving him the appearance, almost, of crumbling brickwork.
‘Comrade,’ he said, in a voice like rust. He did not tell me his name.
‘Comrade.’ I nodded.
‘You fought in the Great Patriotic War,’ he said.
‘As did you,’ I replied, nodding towards his medals. ‘And now, you are in the KGB?’
He smiled, and leaned a little towards me. ‘Confidentially, now,’ he croaked. ‘As one old soldier to another.’
‘As one old soldier to another.’
‘People think the KGB is a unity,’ he said to me. ‘But it is not so.’
‘No?’
‘No. There are different . . . sects, shall we say. Different tribes. Shall we say different tribes?’
‘We can say tribes.’
He leaned back again. ‘My subordinate will take a statement,’ he said, shifting his weight in the chair, and groaning slightly, either with the effort of moving himself or else with the world-weariness of having to go through these formalities. Then he said, ‘Colonel Frenkel is presently under investigati
on.’
‘He’s a colonel? I had no idea he was so elevated.’
‘Between you and me,’ said the senior KGB officer, ‘and in confidence as one old soldier to another, he is not - universally liked.’
‘You astonish me,’ I said.
‘I have seen the report on your war service, and I have seen the report on Colonel Frenkel’s war service, and frankly yours is more glorious.’
‘Yet he is a colonel in the KGB, and I am an out-of-work translator in a hospital bed in Kiev.’
‘You were never going to get on in the world, once you’d decided to work as a translator,’ croaked the senior KGB officer. ‘Who can trust translators? Living in two languages? How can speaking like an American not corrupt the soul a little?’
‘There may well be something in that,’ I conceded.
‘As one old soldier to another,’ said the fellow again, wearily. ‘Colonel Frenkel had been put in charge of a section, tasked with a certain highly secret long-term mission, by Chernenko himself. It is sometimes the case that, with the death of a general secretary, the missions inaugurated by that general secretary possess enough inertial velocity to . . .’ But he seemed to lose his thread. He peered at the bright window, and then he yawned.
Everyone, it occurred to me, seemed very tired. I, of course, felt tired myself.
‘Did this project have to do with UFOs?’ I asked.
‘It is secret business,’ said the senior KGB officer. ‘But as one old soldier to another? Chernenko certainly believed in aliens from space, like a credulous boy. This is, in fact, a matter of public record. Other general secretaries have shared this belief. A great quantity of military, and KGB, resource has been wasted chasing UFOs around the Soviet Union. Wasted.’
‘You do not believe in UFOs?’
‘Of course not. And neither do you. I require that you give a statement to that effect. Write this: James Coyne, the American, was murdered by people - do not say government agents, say counter-revolutionaries - in a crude attempt to make it appear he had been kidnapped by space aliens. Say that.’
‘And we are certain,’ I said mildly, ‘that he was?’
