Sacrifice

by Graham Masterton

  He stepped into the narrow hallway. The floor was boarded with waxed pine, and the hall smelled of forests and garlic. On the wall was a drawing by Malcolm Luber, an arrogant and ugly young man brandishing his penis. At the far end of the hall was a white Danish ceramic planter, containing a fern. Athyrium filix-femina, the lady fern. Highly appropriate, thought Charles, and called again, ‘Agneta!’

  He walked into the sitting-room, orange brick and pine and bright windows overlooking Inderhavn, where the ships from Malmö tied up. Chimneys, ferry funnels, green copper rooftops, and dancing trees; and a sky that stretched all the way to Russia. He paused, and listened. Nothing at all, and that was what was wrong. Agneta had promised to stay in all day, and wait for him. He found himself saying under his breath, ‘Our Father… which art in Heaven,’ and wishing for the second time in two days that he had a gun.

  He stepped into the middle of the sitting-room, listening, waiting.

  ‘Agneta?’ he called again; and then shouted out ‘Hah!’ in shock and surprise as the kitchen door opened and Agneta stepped out, her short blonde hair tousled, and a kitchen-knife held up in front of her, in both hands.

  ‘Charles,’ she said, with relief.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he asked her. ‘The door was wide open. I could have been anybody.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it was you, my love,’ she said, and came forward and hugged him and kissed him On both cheeks, and then on the mouth. He put his arm protectively around her and gave her a squeeze. ‘It might not have been me, for Christ’s sake. It might have been one of those goddamned Russians. Where’s Roger?’

  ‘Roger stepped out to buy groceries. He isn’t used to feeding two people. All he had in the icebox was orange-juice and strawberry-flavoured yogurt. Oh, and thousands of sacks of sunflower seeds. Roger believes that sunflower seeds, if you eat enough of them, give you gloss.’

  ‘Gloss? That makes you sound like a horse, or a piece of antique furniture.’

  Agneta was wearing a plain blue and white smock, very Danish, and short knitted socks from the island of Aero. There were dark smudges under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept very well. She stroked Charles’ arm, and then kissed him again. ‘Did you meet that man? Did you find out what was going on?’

  ‘Kind of. But I’m still not sure. We have to break into their computer first; that’s if we can find someone clever enough to do it. Otherwise, well… there isn’t any otherwise, not as far as I can see.’

  ‘But these Russians—’ Agneta protested.

  Charles shrugged. They think we know more than we do. Either that, or they believe that we’re more curious than we ought to be. Whichever, they seem intent on killing us.’

  They heard the front door open. ‘That’ll be Roger,’ said Agneta, and turned towards the hall. ‘Roger!’ she called. ‘Charles is back!’

  There was no reply. Agneta said, ‘Roger, is that you?’ and stepped out into the hallway before Charles could realize that it couldn’t be Roger, Roger would have answered straight away, without hesitation, because Roger knew they were being hunted down, and the last thing that Roger wanted was a knife-blade between the ribs before he had even had the chance to say, it’s all right, it’s me.

  ‘Agneta!’ roared Charles.

  But even as Agneta hesitated, a huge arm swung around the side of the doorway, and caught her around the neck, tumbling her right off her feet. And then Novikov came into view, the terrible Krov’ iz Nosu, with his scarred nightmare face. He held Agneta clear off the floor, her head caught in the crook of his right arm, his biceps tight against her throat. She clawed at his arm with frantic nails, and kicked wildly at his shins; but she might just as well have been a kitten, or a child. He stood motionless and unyielding, squeezing her neck with little flinches of his muscle until she was crimson-faced and hoarse with suffocation.

  Novikov said nothing. His twisted, scar-tissued face was expressionless; trapped forever in a meaningless grimace of burned muscle and fire-tightened skin. He said nothing; not even a grunt. Charles backed off, knowing with unappeasable dread that he was up against the fiercest and most relentless killer of modern times, a human machine without fear, without conscience, and without any morality except a dogged devotion to the men who had saved his life, and who had sent him to kill others as an exorcism of his own agony and his own fear.

  God. He must have been following him, all the way from the restaurant. ‘Novikov,’ said Charles, ‘I’m warning you now. Put down the girl, and back off.’

  Novikov did nothing but squeeze Agneta’s throat even tighter. Agneta was speechless. Already she was so starved of oxygen that she could do nothing but waggle her legs and cling on to Novikov’s arm.

  ‘Back off!’ Charles screamed at the killer. He picked up a wooden armchair and advanced on Novikov with it raised up over his head. The killer watched him with watery, Mongoloid eyes; not blinking, not flinching, not retreating. Agneta let out a tortured gurgle, and Novikov squeezed his arm even more viciously around her neck.

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ Charles bellowed. ‘You goddamned half-human son of a bitch!’

  He arched back, and swung the chair around sideways as hard as he could, so that it cracked against Novikov’s hip. Then he hit the huge Russian again and again, on the back, on the legs, on the ribs, wherever he could lash out at him without hitting Agneta.

  With the last blow, the chair’s elm-wood seat split in half, but Charles wrenched off one of the legs, and brandished it at Novikov’s face.

  ‘You let her go, you bastard; or I’ll put your eyes out!’

  The creature they called Krov iz Nosu gripped Agneta’s head in both scarred hands, and slowly twisted it around. He watched Charles intently with those Frankenstein’s-monster eyes, as if he wanted to relish every second of pain that Charles suffered, watching Agneta killed in front of him.

  Charles heard Agneta’s spinal column crack, atlas vertebra dislocated from axis. He heard her muscles tear, the sternocleidomastoid, and the splenius capitis. Then her carotid arteries popped, and for one moment Agneta was staring at him with bulging eyes, already dead, but open-mouthed, as if she were about to say something; the next moment, her mouth fountained blood.

  Charles, for a split-second, went berserk. He launched himself at Novikov with a screech of fury, and began to batter him around the head with the chair-leg, a cracking blow to the side of the face, another sharp blow to the shoulder. Agneta’s body dropped sideways on to the carpet, her knees buckling as if she were fainting. Blood sprayed across the wall of the sitting-room like a brilliant red horse’s mane.

  Charles lashed at Krov’ iz Nosu again and again. Any one of the blows with the chair-leg would have knocked a normal man down to the floor. But Krov’ iz Nosu accepted them unflinching, as if they were as light as kisses, and then grabbed hold of the shoulder of Charles’ jacket, shook him violently, and hurled him across the room. Charles stumbled against a glass and stainless-steel coffee-table, and then plunged backwards into it with a shattering crash. Novikov came after him, his eyes as bland and cruel and relentless as before. There was no excitement in them, not even bloodlust. Novikov killed because that was what he did, and that was all.

  Terror surged up in Charles’ throat and it tasted of fishy vomit. He rolled himself sideways, out of the shattered remains of the coffee-table, and threw himself over the back of the sofa. Novikov circled around, his breath rasping like a tenon saw cutting against slate.

  ‘You bastard,’ Charles choked. He felt a sharp pain in his ribs and thought it would serve Novikov right if he suffered a heart attack right now, and dropped dead on the spot, before the Russian could touch him. Novikov said nothing, but tossed aside a brass Italian lamp, which smashed on the floor, and advanced on Charles with both of his burned claws raised up, as if he were promising in grotesque sign language that he would twist Charles’ head off, too.

  Charles circled around the room, never once taking his eyes off Novikov’s mask-like face. �
�You bastard,’ he repeated, in an inaudible whisper, again and again. ‘You bastard.’

  It was then, unexpectedly, that Roger stepped into the room, his arms full of groceries. He stared first at Charles; and was about to say something when he saw the splatters of blood, and Agneta lying on the carpet with her head around the wrong way. Then he saw the broken table, and the smashed lamp, and at last he looked over towards the far side of the room and caught sight of Novikov.

  ‘Charles?’ he asked quietly.

  Charles couldn’t do anything but shake his head.

  Roger put down his two brown-paper bags of groceries, very carefully, one after the other. There was so much blood on the carpet that the bottom of one of the bags was immediately soaked in crimson. Roger eased off his cream linen jacket, and flexed his fingers, and said to Charles, ‘Anything I ought to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles, thickly. ‘This thing’s a killer. Do yourself a favour, put your coat back on, and walk out of the door. Call Povl Isen, at the police headquarters; I mean, right away. Tell him you know where to find me, and tell him to bring a busload of armed men.’

  Roger nodded towards Novikov. ‘This is a killer? This lump of overdone hamburger?’

  ‘Roger, please, listen to me. This is not just a killer. This is a killer. The most dangerous man in the KGB.’

  Roger hesitated for a moment or two, then smiled. ‘Quite a challenge, then. Not like those two meatheads who tried to attack you the other day. I could quite enjoy a run-in with a real killer.’

  ‘Roger,’ Charles pleaded. ‘Listen to me. Call Povl Isen. Please.’

  But Roger didn’t seem to be listening any more. He took up the crouching stance of the kungfu adept, and stood facing Novikov for almost ten seconds without moving. Charles was desperate to call him off, but anxious at the same time not to break his concentration. Roger’s nostrils flared, his neck arched back, and he eyed Novikov narrowly, his open hands circling and circling as if he were winding silk out of the air.

  Suddenly, Roger shrieked, ‘Banzai!’ and leaped at Novikov, kicking him hard in the chest. To Charles’ amazement, Novikov dropped heavily on to the floor. Roger immediately sat down on Novikov’s stomach, seized his right leg, and began to twist it around.

  ‘All right, you goddamned meatloaf!’ Roger screeched at him. ‘Let’s see what you think of this!’

  But Roger reckoned without Novikov’s inhuman lack of concern for pain. Novikov had been splashed in the face with white-hot metal; he had endured years of surgery; years of agonizing therapy; and years of the fiercest physical training that anybody could devise. Roger was strong: if he had twisted anybody else’s leg, even the leg of a professional wrestler, he would have brought shouts of submission. But Novikov was unimpressed by pain. He had suffered so much that it no longer had any effect on him. He could be knocked over, as Roger had proved. But he could not be hurt.

  Novikov snatched out with his claw-like hands and dug them into Roger’s face. Roger shook his head, and snarled happily, but then he suddenly realized that Krov’ iz Nosu could not be thrown off with such humorous abandon. The Russian’s horny talons dug into the sides of his mouth, and into his cheeks, and into the sockets of his eyes.

  Roger’s triumphant barking suddenly turned into a scream. Like a man tearing the flesh off a peach-stone, Krov’ iz Nosu tugged the skin and the muscle away from the bones of Roger’s face; so that for one second Roger looked startled and rubbery, his eyes popping, and the next second his face was nothing but a clawed mass of meat. His eyeballs dropped out, dangling on their optic nerves, his lips were ripped away, baring his naked skeletal jaw; and the sound that came out of his mouth was like nothing that Charles had ever heard from a human before. A chilling, high-pitched gargle.

  Charles dived for the doorway. He collided with a young man who was just coming into the sitting-room; brown-suited, probably KGB; but sent him sprawling across the corridor, and into the large potted fern. Then Charles was out of the door, and bounding down the wooden stairs three at a time. He reached the street, and kept on running, dodging between startled passers-by, crossing Peder Skrams Gade and Holbergsgade, and limping at last into Herluf Trolles Gade.

  He rested at last at Nyhavn, overlooking the water, sweating and gasping in the summer heat. The stark bloody image of Roger’s tom-apart face was imprinted on his mind so vividly that he could scarcely see the boats and the trees and the children with balloons. A wandering musician with a piano-accordion was playing Happy Days Are Here Again.

  He lit a cigarette with wildly erratic hands. Then he started walking again. He would have to hide somewhere, and quickly. There was no doubt that the Russians were out to kill him, the way they had killed Jeppe, and that they didn’t care who happened to get hurt in the process. He had already cost Agneta her life, and Roger, too. The shock and the pain of seeing them killed hadn’t begun to sink in, but he knew in a strangely detached way that it soon would; and that it would be better for him to be hidden away when it happened. Him, and a couple of bottles of Jack Daniel’s.

  He could only think of one place to go. He hailed a taxi, climbed in, and said, ‘How do you fancy a long trip?’

  ‘American?’ asked the taxi-driver.

  ‘Do you want the job or don’t you?’ Charles snapped at him, already beginning to burst out into the grey sweat of total shock.

  ‘Sure. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Drive north on 19 until I tell you to stop.’

  ‘I’m going to want some money in advance.’

  Charles reached into his shirt pocket, which was crammed as usual with crumpled notes, and sorted out 500 Danish kroner. ‘Here. Now let’s go.’

  The taxi-driver took the money, shrugged, and switched off his FRI light. He turned up Gothergade, past the spires of Rosenborg Palace and the Botanical Gardens, and drove alongside Sortedams Sø, with its waters glittering like necklaces. In the back seat, Charles closed his eyes, and tried to convince himself that nothing had happened, that he was on his way somewhere else, that he had never heard of Novikov; or Roger, for that matter; or Agneta.

  He opened his eyes. They were just crossing Fredens Bro. ‘Agneta,’ he whispered; and knew that he would never want to speak her name again.

  Eighteen

  Their driver spoke no English but he told Michael that his name was Yakov. Lev, translating, explained that Yakov was a Lithuanian whose grandfather had hated the Communists, and whose father had hated the Communists, and who therefore considered that it was his family duty to hate the Communists, too. His grandfather had owned a garage in Siauliai, in the 1920s, and had owned and run one of the first Buick Sixes that had ever been seen in Lithuania. His father had taken over the garage in 1935, and even though he had been bombed out during the war, he had taught Yakov everything that anyone could ever want to know about cars. Michael believed him: the Moskvich growled along the long empty roads at nearly 100 mph, dark forests flashing past like fairy-tales, swamps and lakes gleaming between them in quick, half-seen instances, like words that were thought but never spoken.

  It was their high speed that had saved them; that, and their devious route eastwards, making sure that they created a ridiculous commotion as they sped through Scolkovo, blowing their horn and revving their engine and skidding their way through every traffic signal they came across; only to U-turn back north-westwards, once they had reached the eastern outskirts, to Ivantejevka, and then drive flat-out to Puskino.

  They had turned due west at last where the highway crosses the Vor’a River, and they had seen no highway patrol cars at all until they reached Dmitrov. There, in a back street overlooking the Imeni Moskviy canal, they had driven their Moskvich into a tatty lock-up garage and abandoned it. A newish Volga-22 was waiting for them in the next street. Lev explained nothing to them; nothing about their route; nothing about how this new getaway car was ready for them. Rufina Konstantinova was still with them, after all, and if they happened to be caught, she would probab
ly tell the KGB everything they needed to know.

  Probably, but not certainly; for as they sped nearer and nearer towards the West, as the day went by and they still remained at large, Michael noticed that Rufina began to change. She talked more freely, with more vivacity. She stopped criticizing Lev, and demeaning their chances of escape. It occurred to Michael that Rufina actually wanted to get out of the Soviet Union almost as much as they did. If she had to go, she might as well enjoy it. Beyond that Western frontier, there was a world of cosmetics, and perfume, and fashion, and food. There were books and films and uncensored newspapers and sex and shoes and rock music.

  They crossed the bridge over the Volga at Novozavidoskij at three in the afternoon, on Friday. The land was flat and swampy, interspersed with low-lying forests. The ruffled surface of the river bobbed with ducks. John, on the other side of the car, was sleeping with his head against the window. Rufina was sitting silently, her hands in her lap. In the front. Lev was whistling softly between his teeth; tension, and boredom. Yakov had long ago stopped talking about his father and his grandfather and his Buick Six.

  ‘No roadblocks,’ Rufina remarked. Michael had been wondering whether it would be wrong of him to reach over and take her hand. They had, after all, been lovers. But real lovers? Or just pretend lovers? Had she felt anything for him, or not? She had made love to him in ways that Margaret never had; he could still picture Rufina with her eyes closed, her lipsticked mouth a perfect crimson O around the shaft of his penis. And now he felt apprehensive about holding her hand.

  Lev turned around in his seat, and remarked, ‘They still think we’re heading east. But give them time. At least we’ve managed to cross the Volga without being intercepted.’

  Rufina said, ‘Are you going to let me go, when you reach wherever it is that you are headed for?’

  ‘You know where we’re headed for?’ asked Lev.