By nine o’clock, after talks between the Danish government and the Kremlin, the Soviet Army sent one tank division and one motor-infantry division across the Danish border at Flensburg, and landed a division of infantry from the troopship Kursk at Pakhuskaj, in Copenhagen’s Frihavnen. Soviet troops were also being put ashore at Skeppsbron in Stockholm, and two troopships were anchored in Oslofjorden waiting for final arrangements for landing from the Norwegian government.
In the office of the Frederiksberg Paper Company, on Thorvaldsensvej, they heard the church bells beginning to ring all over Copenhagen. Most doleful of all were the bells of Vor Frue Kirke, the cathedral, echoed by the Helligåndskirken, the church of the Holy Ghost. There was no traffic in the streets, even though it was a Monday morning in summer, and there were scarcely any pedestrians. A temporary curfew had been ordered over Radio Denmark to allow the Soviet troops to land as quickly as possible, without interference.
Charles was standing by the window of one of the offices, staring out over the green copper rooftops of the city, listening to the bells, and thinking of Agneta. Inge came into the office and stood behind him, watching him. He could sense that she was there. He could smell her perfume. But he didn’t turn around; and he didn’t say anything, either.
‘Well,’ she said, approaching him slowly. ‘They’re here.’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Is it the end of the world?’ she asked him.
He shook his head. ‘It’s history, repeating itself. History is like a severe case of gas.’
‘You’re very philosophical,’ she said, sarcastically.
‘I’ve lived in Copenhagen a long time. I’ve got a whole lot of friends here. Barmen mostly, but still friends. They remember 1940, when Hitler marched in here. April 9, 1940. It was the same old story. The Germans were here to “protect” the Danes from Allied aggression. The Danes decided it was suicide to fight back. At least. King Christian did. You can’t blame people for wanting to keep their hides intact. And here it is, happening again.’
He was quiet for a moment, then he looked up towards the east. ‘You see those clouds? I always think of Copenhagen when I see clouds like that. They kind of remind me of ships, and islands. The lost ghosts of what Denmark used to be.’
Inge touched his shoulder, as if she were trying to remember something. ‘You should not be so sentimental. This is not a sentimental world.’
He made a face. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’
Without any hesitation, Inge kissed him on the cheek. He raised his hand to his mouth and looked at her, trying to work out why she had done it.
‘I like you, that’s all,’ she said, answering his unspoken question.
‘Well, I guess I like you, too.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me, “What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?”’
‘Sure, if that’s what you want.’
She smiled. “I was a delinquent. I was in porno movies when I was thirteen. Lolita movies, they call them. Well, they’re banned here now; they’re banned almost everywhere except in Holland. And when the Russians take over, of course they’ll be banned for ever, everywhere. The Russians are very prudish.’
‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not so sure that thirteen-year-old girls ought to be appearing in porno movies. I’m not so sure that thirteen-year-old girls ought to know that porno movies even exist.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Inge. She touched his shoulder again, stroked it absent-mindedly, then suddenly turned away. ‘Most of the time, when I was doing it, I liked it. But, I lost something; and I’m not just talking about my virginity. I lost – I don’t know – any capacity to care.’
Charles gave a suppressed shake of his head. ‘Nobody ever loses that; not completely.’
Inge looked at him for a very long time with calm, inquiring eyes. Then she said, ‘Do you want to make love to me? If I asked you, would you do it?’
‘Yes,’ said Charles.
‘I don’t believe you. You would have been more of a man if you had said no.’
‘I would have been a liar. I gave up lying when I left the CIA.’
She laughed. At that moment, ‘Hans’ looked in at the door, and said, ‘We are going to have to do something about Golovanov.’
‘I thought you were going to kill him.’
‘Well, yes, we are. But we must do it now, and then leave as quickly as possible. The SPETSNAZ will be here soon.’
Charles tightened his tie. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Let me talk to him.’
‘You want to talk to him?’ asked Inge. ‘All that needs doing is to put a bullet in his head.’ She pointed a finger against her right temple, and imitated a pistol-hammer with her thumb. ‘Do svidanya, Timofey.’
Charles knew that Inge was deliberately trying to shock him. He went through to the small side office where they had kept Golovanov imprisoned during the night. Inge followed him. Golovanov was sitting dully in a chair, as if he were a cancer patient waiting for news of his latest X-ray. He looked up when Charles walked in, and sniffed.
‘Do you want a handkerchief?’ Charles asked him. ‘Bumajnye plotky?’
Golovanov raised his hand, and said, ‘Nyet, spasibo.’ He looked desperately tired.
Charles drew up another chair, and sat close to him. He was fascinated by Golovanov’s uniform, and by his insignia, and by the simple fact that he was a marshal of the Soviet Union. In all the years that he had worked for the CIA, Charles had never had an opportunity like this. It was like an SOE officer being granted an interview with Hitler.
Inge sat close by, translating. Charles said, ‘You and I can do each other a favour.’
‘What favour?’ asked Golovanov, averting his eyes.
‘A very considerable favour. You realize these people want to shoot you.’
‘They might as well.’
‘What are you saying?’ Charles asked him, spreading his arms. ‘The Soviet Army is already landing troops at Pakhuskaj, not ten minutes away from here. The cavalry has come to the rescue! And you sit here, quite content to be shot.’
‘Do you have a word in your language for “disgrace”?’ asked Golovanov, with a trembling chin.
‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘And we also have a word for “futile”. Not to mention a word for “bananas”.’
Golovanov frowned. He turned to Inge, and asked her a long and heated question in Swedish, German, and fragments of Russian. Inge eventually turned to Charles, and said, ‘He thinks you are mad, because you keep talking about things like “cheese” and “bananas”.’
‘Tell him bananas means crazy,’ Charles growled.
In broken Swedish, Golovanov said, ‘What is the favour which we can do for each other?’
‘Simply this,’ said Charles. ‘We can let you live, and in return you can tell your friends out there that it was us who rescued you from your kidnappers.’
‘That would be a lie,’ Golovanov replied.
‘Of course it wouldn’t,’ Charles protested. ‘Just because we happen to be the same people who kidnapped you, that doesn’t mean we can’t rescue you from ourselves.’
Inge translated this to Golovanov, and while she did so, Golovanov regarded Charles with a serious, baleful face. When she had finished, he said, simply, ‘Banan.’
Charles told Inge, ‘I don’t think you have to translate that.’
Just then, ‘Hans’ came into the office. ‘I’ve had another call from my friend in SAS. Apparently the Russians are allowing out one plane only – for American and British diplomatic staff. This was part of the Copenhagen Agreement, he says. The plane will land first at London, and then refuel and go on to New York.’
Michael was standing behind ‘Hans’ in the doorway. ‘Did he say what chances there were of getting us on to it?’
‘Very little. I’m afraid,’ ‘Hans’ told him. ‘The Russians have already secured Kastrup airport and nobody is being allowed anywhere near.’
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Charles stood up. ‘Well I, for one, would very much like to get a seat on that plane.’
‘Can’t you try?’ asked Michael, desperately. ‘Surely there must be something you could do.’
‘Hans’ slowly shook his head. ‘My friends, if there was a way… But now I have to be thinking about my own people, too. The Russians are here, and I have to make sure that all of them melt away, and that all of our safe houses are dismantled.’
‘There is a way,’ Michael insisted.
‘Sure there’s a way,’ Charles agreed. ‘We head for the airport in a hijacked taxi, machine-guns blazing, and demand to be flown home. What could be simpler?’
‘No,’ said Michael. ‘You seem to be forgetting that we have one of the highest-ranking officers in the whole Soviet Army sitting right here. If he can’t get us on to that plane, then who can?’
Charles pouted his lips approvingly. ‘The kid has imagination, I’ll give him that. What do you say, “Hans”?’
‘Hans’ said, ‘Very, very risky, my friend. How can you rely on a Russian? He would only have to make the wrong gesture, and you would all be dead.’
There was a bustle and a small commotion outside. Then Niro appeared, the boy with the gappy front teeth and the UZI machine-gun. He was pushing in front of him Rufina Konstantinova, who was looking red-eyed and exhausted. There was a bruise on her left cheekbone, and her mouth appeared to be swollen. She saw Michael, and stopped where she was, but when he said, ‘Rufina—’ she turned her head away.
‘What’s been going on?’ Michael demanded. ‘Has she been beaten?’
‘Hans’ looked him up and down. ‘Does it matter to you?’
‘Yes, it damn well does matter to me,’ Michael told him.
‘She is KGB, my dear fellow. She was trying to enslave you for the rest of your life, take you away from your family. Now, with her active assistance, her own people have taken over most of West Germany and Scandinavia, and by the end end of the week there won’t be any Europe left. Your wife and children will be prisoners of the most oppressive political system that the world has ever known. And you are concerned because we bruised her face a little?’
Michael said, ‘It doesn’t matter what she or her people have done. That doesn’t give us the right to behave just as badly.’
Charles lit a cigarette, and without taking it out of his mouth, said, ‘Bull… shit.’
Michael turned on him hotly, but Charles waved his hand at him to cool down. ‘Listen, pal,’ Charles told him, ‘all the time that you’ve been making your toys in cloud-cuckoo-land, there’s been a war going on. A real war with real guns and real people torturing each other and dying and you name it. Now, I know all about you English people and your sense of fair play and what’s cricket and what isn’t, but if you want to survive in this war you have to be slightly vicious. You don’t have to be a psychopath or anything, as long as you’re sharp, and quick, and you’re quite prepared to hit the other guy when the other guy hits you. And let me tell you something: the most vicious intelligence agents of all that I ever knew were British. They had a flair for it. A combination of sneakiness and sadism. I guess they learned it at Eton. So – don’t let’s be too sympathetic here, okay?’
Michael flushed with anger and embarrassment; but ‘Hans’ said, ‘This is no time for such posturing, my friends. Believe me, Mr Townsend, Mr Krogh is not the tough nut he is trying to pretend to be. But this doesn’t matter. Your most important consideration is whether you wish to try to get to the airport with Marshal Golovanov, or whether you wish to try to escape with the rest of us.’
Charles turned to Inge. ‘Tell the marshal we’re going to drive him to the airport. Tell him that as soon as we get on to that diplomatic flight, we’ll let him go.’
‘But what then?’ asked Inge. ‘Once we have released him, he could immediately order the plane to be grounded, and have us arrested.’
Charles smiled, and shook his head. ‘Tell him we’re taking his compatriot Miss Konstantinova here along with us, as a hostage. She’s coming on the flight. And, believe me, if that plane even so much as falters, even if the toilets don’t work, she’s going to get her head blown off.’
Golovanov jerked his head towards Rufina. ‘I am a marshal of the Soviet Army. What makes you think that I care whether this girl lives or dies? During the war, I sent hundreds of men to their death. Hundreds. And women, too.’
‘Couldn’t we take the marshal himself as hostage?’ Michael suggested.
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘With him on board, the Russians wouldn’t even let us taxi to the end of the runway. Besides, I doubt if the US diplomatic staff would let us take him on the plane, either. The US have done a deal with the Soviets, remember? They won’t want to upset the applecart by helping a bunch of gangsters like us to kidnap a full-fledged Hero of the Soviet Union.’
‘Then we have no real guarantees,’ said Michael.
‘You want guarantees, go to the Institute of Good Housekeeping. Miss Konstantinova here will have to do.’
‘I will not help you,’ Golovanov said, through Inge.
‘It would be better for you if you did,’ said Charles.
‘I would rather die first.’
Charles checked his watch. The glass was so scratched that he could scarcely see the hands. ‘What time does this plane leave?’ he asked ‘Hans’.
‘You have an hour,’ ‘Hans’ told him.
Charles went across to Niro, and unslung the UZI from his shoulder. He slammed back the cocking-handle, and then pointed the muzzle directly at Golovanov’s nose. Golovanov didn’t even flinch; didn’t even draw his head back.
‘Now, are you going to take us to the airport or not?’ Charles demanded.
Golovanov looked up at him intently. ‘No,’ he said. ‘And you may count on that.’
Charles squeezed the safety-catch at the back of the UZI’s pistol-grip, releasing it. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you want, I’m going to redecorate this office with your brains.’
Inge said, ‘He won’t do it, Mr Krogh. He will accept death, rather than do what you tell him to. He is more than stubborn.’
‘Then what the hell are we going to do?’ Charles asked her.
‘Leave him to me for a moment,’ said Inge.
‘You mean alone?’
‘Yes,’ Inge insisted. ‘Just for a while.’
Charles released the UZI’s safety-catch and handed the weapon back to Niro. ‘Beats me,’ he said, to nobody in particular. ‘I thought that I was stubborn.’
‘Perhaps that was why they didn’t appoint you to be a marshal in the Soviet Army,’ smiled ‘Hans’.
They trooped through to the main office, leaving Inge alone with Golovanov. On the other side of the room, John and Lev were talking together. John was trying to explain to Lev how to prepare a simple household-accounts program for his home computer. Since Lev had neither a house nor a home computer, the whole exercise seemed more than faintly irrelevant.
Michael went up to Rufina, and stood in front of her for a long time, saying nothing.
‘You don’t have to apologize for your friends,’ said Rufina.
‘They beat you.’
‘They did worse than that. But our training prepares us for such things.’
‘They didn’t—?’
She looked away. Niro kept his eye on her, his machinegun raised, although even if she attempted to run away, there was nowhere for her to go.
Rufina said, ‘You want to hear that they raped me?’
‘Did they?’ Michael asked her. His skin felt cold all over, as if he had been electrocuted.
Rufina was silent. Michael reached out and tried to take her arm, but she tugged it away.
‘You should go back to your wife and child,’ she said. ‘You do not know anything about loving a woman like me.’
Michael didn’t know what to say. She was still beautiful, in spite of her bruises; a martyred angel. But she was quite beyond hi
s reach. He knew that he would have to go back to Margaret, and Duncan, and the small house in Sanderstead.
‘May I kiss you?’ he asked her.
She stared at him. ‘Why should you want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Because I feel guilty, about what they’ve done to you. Because I still care about you, even if I can’t have you. Because – well, I don’t know. I do care for you, very much. I never met anybody magical before, if that doesn’t sound too soppy.’
‘Magical?’ she asked him. She hesitated, and then she came closer, and lifted her face to him. He leaned forward, and kissed her very gently on her swollen lips. She didn’t close her eyes; but watched him as he kissed her, from only an inch away. Michael found it strangely disconcerting, as if he were being examined under a microscope.
‘Do you know what they did to me?’ she said. ‘They pushed a wine-bottle up me, base first, and then they boiled a kettle. They said that unless I talked to them, they would fill the wine-bottle with boiling water.’
Michael turned around in shock, and stared at Lev. Lev, not realizing what Rufina had been talking about, frowned back at Michael and then shrugged. John was saying, ‘From then on, only the transactions which you type in on the keyboard are going to be printed.
‘Your precious friends,’ said Rufina. ‘They are just as bad as the KGB. Worse, in a strange sort of way, because they always pretend that they are so honourable, and so humanitarian. And you, what do you do? You ask me for a kiss.’
She made the word ‘kiss’ sound like something unimaginably mean and degrading.
The door opened and Inge reappeared. Charles said, ‘Well? What happens now?’
Inge said, ‘What happens now is that we hurry. We have less than an hour to catch that plane.’
‘You mean that Golovanov will take us?’
‘Golovanov will take us,’ said Inge. ‘So let us make haste.’
Sacrifice Page 39
