Karl here.'
At the end of the pool they passed out through another door into a gently curving corridor which Jazz recognized as the perimeter. That was what they called it, 'the perimeter': a metal-clad, rubber-floored tunnel which enclosed the entire complex about its middle level. From the perimeter, doors led inwards into all the Projekt's many areas. There were still a few doors Jazz hadn't been through, the ones which required special security access. He'd seen the living areas, hospital, recreation rooms, dining hall and some of the laboratories, but not the machine itself, if there was such a beast. Khuv had promised him, however, that today he was to visit 'the guts' of the place.
Khuv led the way, Jazz following, with Vyotsky bringing up the rear. People came and went around them, dressed in lab smocks, overalls; some with millboards and notes, others carrying pieces of machinery or instruments. The place could easily be some high-tech factory anywhere in the world. As Jazz and his escort proceeded, so
Khuv said:
'You asked about your debriefing. Well, you're right about our Bulgarian friends: they really have a knack for brewing potent stuff — and of course I'm not just talking about their wine. The pills were to cause you pain; they cramp muscles, heighten sensitivity. The shots are part truth-drug, part sedative. They have the effect of making you susceptible to suggestion. It's not so much that you can't refuse, more that you're far more likely to believe — anything that we tell you! Your Debriefing Officer not only speaks very good English, but he's a top-rank psychologist, too. So don't blame yourself that you let your side down. You really had no choice. You thought you were home and dry, and that you were only doing your duty.'
Jazz merely grunted for reply. His face was void of emotion, which was the way he'd kept it most of the time since discovering he'd been duped.
'Of course,' Khuv continued, 'your own British, er, 'chemists' are rather clever men in their own right. That capsule in your mouth, for instance: we weren't able to analyse its contents here at the Projekt. Hardly surprising; we aren't equipped with a full range of analytical facilities — that's not what the Perchorsk Projekt is about — but even so we were at least able to conclude that your little tooth capsule contained a remarkably complex substance.
That's why we've sent it to Moscow. Who can say, maybe there's something in it we can use, eh?'
While he spoke to Jazz, Khuv kept glancing back at him, checking him up and down as he'd done so often during the course of the past few weeks. He saw a man only thirty years of age, upon whose shoulders his Secret Service masters in the West had placed an awesome weight of responsibility. They obviously respected his abilities. And yet for all Simmons's training, his physical and mental fitness, still he was inexperienced. Then again, how 'experienced' can a field agent in the Secret Service be? Every mission was a flip of a coin: heads you win, and tails… you lose your head? Or as the British agent himself might have it, a game of Russian roulette.
For all Simmons's expertise in his many subjects, still they were only theoretical skills, as yet untested under 'battle' conditions. For on his very first assignment the dice had rolled against him, the cylinder had clicked into position with its bullet directly under the firing-pin. Unfortunate for Michael J. Simmons, but extremely fortunate for Chingiz Khuv.
Again the KGB Major's dark jewel eyes rested on Simmons. The Englishman stood just a fraction under six feet tall, maybe a half-inch less than Khuv himself. During the time he'd spent in his role as a logger, he'd grown a red beard to match his unruly shock of hair. That had gone now, revealing a square jaw and slightly hollow cheeks. He'd be a little underweight, too, for apparently the British liked their agents lean and hungry. A fat man doesn't run as fast as a thin one, and he makes a much easier target.
For all that he was young, Simmons's brow was deeply lined from frowning; even taking into account his present circumstances, he did not seem a particularly happy man, or even one who'd ever been especially happy. His eyes were keen, grey, penetrating; his teeth (with the exception of the ones Karl had removed) were in good order, strong, square and white; about his sturdy neck he wore a small plain cross on a silver chain, which was his only item of jewellery. He had hands which were hard for all that they were long and tapered, and arms which seemed a little long, giving him a sort of gangling or gawky appearance. But Khuv was well aware that appearances can be deceptive. Simmons was a skilled athlete and his brain was a fine one.
They reached an area of the perimeter Jazz had not seen before. Here the coming and going of staff was far less frequent, and as the three turned the curve of the long corridor so a security door had come into view, blocking it entirely. On the approach to this door the ceiling and walls were burned black; great blisters were evident in the paintwork; closer to the door the very rock of the ceiling appeared to have melted, run down like wax and solidified on the cool metal of the artificial walls. The rubber floor tiles had burned right through to naked metal plates, which were buckled out of alignment. It seemed somehow paradoxical that a Russian Army flame-thrower stood on a shelf against the exterior wall, clamped in position there. In surroundings like these Jazz might well have expected a fire extinguisher — but a flame-thrower? He made a mental note to ask about it later, but right now:
'The Perchorsk Incident,' he said, watching Khuv for his reaction.
'Correct.' The Russian's expression didn't change. He faced Jazz eye to eye. 'Now we are going to take that strait-jacket off you. The reason is simple: down in the lower levels you will need some freedom of movement. I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. However, should you attempt anything foolish, Karl has my permission — indeed he has my instructions — to hurt you severely. Also I should tell you that if you got lost down there, you could well find yourself in an area of high radioactivity. Eventually we may get around to decontaminating all the hotspots, but it's unlikely. Why should we when we won't have cause to use those areas again? And so, depending on how long it took you to surrender, or how long it took us to flush you out, you would almost certainly jeopardize your health — perhaps even fatally. Do you understand?'
Jazz nodded. 'But do you really think I'd be stupid enough to make a run for it? Where to, for God's sake!?'
'As I explained before,' Khuv reminded him while Vyotsky unfastened the restraining straps on his strait- jacket, 'we aren't too concerned that you'll try to escape. That would be sheer suicide, and you no longer have reasons to wish to die — if you ever did. What we are concerned about is the damage you might do, maybe even large-scale sabotage. And that could have very grave consequences indeed. Not only for everyone here, but for the entire world!'
For once Jazz's expression changed. He slanted his mouth into a humourless smile, laughed gratingly. 'A bit melodramatic, aren't we, Comrade? I think maybe you've been watching too many decadent James Bond films!'
'Do you?' said Khuv, his slightly slanted eyes narrowing a fraction and becoming that much brighter. 'Do you indeed?'
He took a key from his pocket, turned to the heavy metal door. It was equipped with a lock set centrally in a steel hand-wheel, like a locking device on a bank vault. As Khuv went to insert his key, so the wheel turned through quarter of a circle and the edges of the door cracked open. Khuv stepped back. Someone was coming through from the other side.
The door opened fully toward the three where they waited, and a handful of technicians and two men dressed in smart civilian clothes came through. One of the two was fat, beaming, jovial: a VIP visitor from Moscow. The other, grave-faced, was small and thin; his face was badly scarred and the hair was absent from the left half of his face and yellow-veined skull. Jazz had seen him before; he was Viktor Luchov, Direktor of the Perchorsk Projekt — a survivor of Perchorsk Incidents One and Two.
Brief greetings were exchanged between Khuv and these two men, and then the larger party went on its way. Then Jazz and his escorts passed through the door and Khuv locked it behind them.
Beyond the door the complex took on an entirely different aspect. By comparison, the damage on the approach to this area had been superficial. Jazz stared and tried to make sense of the chaos he saw there. The evidence of terrific heat was apparent everywhere: stanchions were blackened and in places eaten half-way through; the floor-plates were missing entirely, had been replaced with timbers; the face of the exterior rock wall — literally the mountain itself — was black, dull and lumpy, like lava frozen in its course. A metal chair or desk — difficult to tell which — and a steel cabinet projected in twisted ruin half out of a massive nodule of lava which was in turn welded to the wall; and above this anomalous nodule a cylindrical shaft maybe twelve feet in diameter had been drilled through the rock upwards at an angle of forty-five degrees, from the lip of which the lava could be seen in large part to have issued.
