“Sure, if it’s my treat and you don’t mind an early night.” McIver held his glass up to the light, admiring the color of the wine. “Charlie, I want you to take the 212 to Kowiss bright and early, Nogger’ll take the Alouette - you can help Duke out for a couple of days. I’ll send Shoesmith in a 206 to bring you back Saturday. All right?”
“Sure,” Pettikin said, wondering why the change of plan that had been for McIver, Nogger, and him to get aboard the Wednesday flight, two other pilots to go to Kowiss tomorrow. Why? Must be Andy’s letter. Whirlwind? Is Mac aborting?
IN THE SLUMS OF JALEH: 6:50 P.M. The old car stopped in the alleyway. A man got out of the side door and looked around. The alley was deserted, high walls, a joub to one side that long ago was buried under snow and refuse. Across from where the car had stopped, dimly seen in the reflection from the headlights, was a broken- down square. The man tapped on the roof. The headlights were doused. The driver got out and went to help the other man who had opened the trunk. Together they carried the body, wrapped and bound in a dark blanket, across the square.
“Wait a moment,” the driver said in Russian. He took out his flashlight and switched it on briefly. The circle of light found the opening in the far wall they sought.
“Good,” the other said and they went through it, then once more stopped to get their bearings. Now they were in a cemetery, old, almost derelict. The light went from gravestone to gravestone - some of the writing Russian, some in Roman letters - to find the open grave, newly dug. A shovel stood upright in the mound of earth.
They went and stood on the lip. The taller man, the driver, said, “Ready?” “Yes.” They let the body fall into the hole. The driver shone the light onto it. “Straighten him up.”
“He won’t give a shit,” the other man said and took up the shovel. He was broad-shouldered and strong and he began to fill the grave. The driver lit a cigarette, irritably threw the match into the grave. “Maybe you should say a prayer for him.”
The other laughed. “Marx-Lenin wouldn’t approve - nor old Stalin.” “That mother fornicator - may he rot!”
“Look what he did for Mother Russia! He made us an empire, the biggest in the world, he screwed the British, outsmarted the Americans, built the biggest and best army, navy, air force, and made the KGB all powerful.” “For damn near every rouble we’ve got and twenty million lives. Russian lives.”
“Expendables! Scum, fools, the dregs, plenty more where they came from.” The man was sweating now and he gave the shovel to the other. “What the hell’s the matter with you anyway - you’ve been pissed off all day.” “Tired, I’m just tired. Sorry.”
“Everyone’s tired. You need a few days off. Apply for Al Shargaz - I had a great three days, didn’t want to come back. I’ve applied for a transfer there - we’ve quite an operation now, growing every day, the Israelis have stepped up their ops too - so’ve the CIA. What’s happened since I was away?” “Azerbaijan’s warming up nicely. There’s a rumor old Abdollah Khan’s dying or dead.”
“The Section 16/a?”
“No, heart attack. Everything else’s normal. You really had a good time?” The other laughed. “There’s an Intourist secretary who’s very accommodating.” He scratched his scrotum at the thought. “Who is this poor sod anyway?”
“His name wasn’t listed,” the driver said.
“Never is. So who was he?”
“Agent called Yazernov, Dimitri Yazernov.”
“Means nothing to me. To you?”
“He was an agent from Disinformation on the university detail; I worked with him for a short time, a year back. Smartass, university type, full of ideological bullshit. It seems he was caught by Inner Intelligence and interrogated seriously.”
“Bastards! They killed him, eh?”
“No.” The taller man stopped shoveling a moment and looked around. No chance of them being overheard and while he did not believe in ghosts or God or anything but the Party and the KGB - the spearhead of the Party - he did not like this place. He lowered his voice. “When he was sprung, almost a week ago, he was in bad shape, unconscious, should never’ve been moved, not in his state. SAVAMA got him away from Inner Intelligence - the director thinks SAVAMA worked him over too before handing him back.” He leaned on the shovel a moment. “SAVAMA gave him to us with the report that they thought he’d been cleared out through the third level. The director said to find out who he was fast, if he had other secret clearances, or was an internal spy or a plant from higher up, and what the hell he’d told them - who the hell he was. He’s not carried on our files as anything other than an agent on the university detail.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead and began shoveling again. “I heard the team waited and waited for him to regain consciousness, then today gave up waiting and tried to wake him up.”
“A mistake? Someone gave him too much?” “Who knows - the poor sod’s dead.” “That’s the one thing that scares me,” the other said with a shiver. “Getting fed too much. Nothing you can do about it. He never woke up? Never said anything?”
“No. Not a damned thing. The shit’s that he was caught at all. It was his own fault - the mother was working on his own.” The other cursed. “How’d he get away with that?” “Buggered if I know! I remember him as one of those who think they know it all and sneer at the Book. Smart? Bullshit! These bastards cause more trouble than they’re worth.” The taller man worked strongly and steadily. When he was tired the other took a turn. Soon the grave was filled. The man patted the earth flat, his breathing heavy. “If this mother got himself caught, why’re we taking all this trouble, then?”
“If the body can’t be repatriated, a comrade’s entitled to be buried properly, that’s in the Book. This’s a Russian cemetery, isn’t it?” “Sure, of course it is, but damned if I’d like to be buried here.” The man wiped the dirt off his hands then turned and relieved himself on the nearest gravestone.
The taller man was working a gravestone loose. “Give me a hand.” Together they lifted the stone and replanted it at the head of the grave they had just filled.
Damn the young bastard for dying, he thought, cursing him. Not my fault he died. He should’ve withstood the dose. Sodding doctors! They’re supposed to know! We had no option, the bastard was sinking anyway and there were too many questions to be answered, like what was so important about him that that arch-bastard Hashemi Fazir did the interrogation himself, along with that sonofabitch Armstrong? Those two high-flying professionals don’t waste their time on small fry. And why did Yazernov say “Fedor…” just before he croaked? What’s the significance of that?
“Let’s go home,” the other man said. “This place’s foul and it stinks, it stinks worse than normal.” He took the shovel and trudged off into the night.
Just then the writing on the stone caught the driver’s eye but it was too dark to read. He switched on the light momentarily. The writing said, “Count Alexi Pokenov, Plenipotentiary to Shah Nasiru’dDin, 1830-1862.” Yazernov’d like that, he thought, his smile twisted.
AT THE BAKRAVAN HOUSE, NEAR THE BAZAAR: 7:15 P.M. The outer door in the wall swung open. “Salaam, Highness.” The servant watched Sharazad as she swept past happily, followed by Jari, into the forecourt and pulled the chador off and was now shaking her hair and puffing it with her fingertips more comfortably. “The… your husband’s back, Highness; he came back just after sunset.”
For a moment Sharazad was frozen in the light of the oil lamps that flickered in the snow-covered courtyard leading to the front door. Then it’s over, she was thinking. Over before it began. It almost began today, I was ready and yet not… and now, now I’m saved from… from my lust - was it lust or love, was that what I was trying to decide? I don’t know, I don’t know but… but tomorrow I’ll see him a last time, I have to see him once more, have to, just… just once more … just to say good-bye….
Tears filled her eyes and she ran into the house and into the rooms and salons and up the stairs and into their suite and into his arms. “Oh, Tommyyyyyy, you’ve been away such a long time!”
“Oh, I’ve missed you, where have you… Don’t cry, my darling, there’s no need to cry….”
His arms were around her and she caught the faint, familiar oil-gasoline smell that came from his flight clothes hanging on a peg. She saw his gravity. HBC flared into her head but she put it all away and, not giving him a second, she stood on tiptoe, kissed him, and said in a rush, “I’ve such wonderful news, I’m with child, oh, yes, it’s true and I’ve seen a doctor and tomorrow I’ll get the result of the test but I know!” Her smile was vast and true.
