We waited, drinking coffee and
Why did I trust him? Finn always said that most of his life was instinct and it had never let him down. I had never had so much faith in my own instincts but maybe I had never trusted anyone, except Nana and now Finn. It was easier than I thought to add one more to the list.
I listened from inside the box and felt the truck rumble along the uneven, potholed road and finally pull up at what I assumed was the checkpoint at the depot. I heard the rear doors open and felt no fear. I was committed and, of course, I had a story- not much of one but something at least- if I was betrayed. But the rear doors clanged shut again. I couldn’t hear any of the exchanges, but I felt the truck move on again and drive in what seemed to be a wide circle, pushing me against the metal side of the box. It finally came to a halt.
There was a long wait. I imagined security guards lining up with guns at the ready for the box to be opened, but maybe Anatoly was waiting for the coast to clear. I was becoming more and more cramped and started to feel a panic rising. What if something happened to him? What if he was taken away? What if the truck was taken to a scrapyard? Fear of everything began to flood into my head.
Then I heard the rear doors finally clang open and a figure walking around inside. I heard the key in the padlock and suddenly the door of the toolbox was open and I was looking past Anatoly at an empty concrete space with a barbed-wire perimeter fence behind it and, beyond that, wasteground at the edge of the town.
‘You’ve got about a minute,’ Anatoly said in an unhurried way.
‘The money’s in there,’ I said, and pointed behind me at the toolbox.
Without checking the money, he walked ahead of me and jumped out of the truck while I swung my legs over the side.
‘I’ll be leaving at five o’clock if you’re coming with me,’ he said.
‘Maybe. What’s your cargo?’
‘Spare parts.’
I looked at him.
‘Don’t ask me,’ he said. ‘That’s just what it says on the manifest.’
‘For where?’
‘Ultimately?’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m taking this load to Romania.’
‘OK. You’ll be here at five.’
‘They’ll be loading inside that warehouse over there. Wait for me to pull up the truck somewhere in this area.’
‘Is there a room where the drivers go?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Round the back of that office building. It’s a bare room with dirty calendars and dirtier coffee.’ He grinned.
Finn always said that if you want something, the best thing to do was simply to ask for it. He said it worked for him nine times out of ten. I hadn’t really ever believed in his straightforward method, but I was beginning to now.
There were four and half hours until Anatoly left. It was far too long. I took a clipboard from the inside of my overalls and begin to walk, head down, around the depot. There was no uniform working clothing here and I was relieved. I blended in well enough for a long-haired woman under a pair of baggy overalls.
I walked around to the back of the office block and saw the entrance to the driver’s room. On the way, I saw a truck parked with its doors open and up against the open doors of a smaller warehouse. It was a smaller truck than the rest. Its tarpaulins pulled aside for loading, but the metal sides were still up. ‘Reiter’ was engraved on the side and there, finally, was the outsized eagle.
When I entered the room there were three drivers sitting reading newspapers and sipping from polystyrene cups. They all looked up and didn’t return to their newspapers. Their expressions seemed to suggest I’d walked out of one of the pornographic calendars stuck on the walls.
I pulled my SVR identity card out of my pocket and flashed it long enough for them not to remember the name, only the message. Their attitude changed instantly from mild lechery to embarrassment.
‘Which of you is the driver of the Reiter vehicle?’ I said.
None of them wanted to reply, to draw attention. Eventually the man closest to me, whom I chose to fix with a stare, stumbled out the information that the driver I wanted was in the toilet.
‘Show me identities,’ I said. I wanted there to be some business for them all to do while I waited.
They each showed me their grubby identity cards and the Pribor pass. And then the sound of a toilet flushing announced the return of the man I was looking for. He appeared through a door at the rear of the room still doing up his flies. I could see he wasn’t cowed like the others, and he stood looking at my SVR card without any reaction at all.
‘Your papers,’ I said.
He hesitated and then, with deliberate slowness, took them from an inside pocket. I looked at them and saw he was German.
‘What do you want?’ he said rudely.
‘Show me your itinerary,’ I demanded, ignoring his manner.
‘That’s confidential,’ he said without moving.
‘I’m a colonel in the SVR,’ I reminded him.
‘And I’m the King of Sweden,’ he said.
I tried to imagine what Finn would have done in the same situation. I tried to conjure up the flip remark, the careless, throwaway line that helped people put their guard down, but I couldn’t be Finn and I couldn’t use the full force of my position. I was hamstrung by not wanting anyone outside this room to know I was in the depot.
‘Yes,’ I said, summoning as much of a threat as I could manage. ‘It’s confidential.’
‘My papers,’ he said.
‘You’ll get them back when I’m ready.’
He took a slight move towards me, just enough to show me some aggression, and I turned around until my back was to him. Then I simultaneously cracked my elbow back into his nose and kicked my left foot into his groin as his hands went up to his face. I turned back to watch the effect.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ I said in a quiet voice. ‘I don’t need help to break you in two, but I can call some up and we could really do a good job.’
He was sweating, blood poured from his nose and he could barely walk.
‘Get in that chair.’
I looked at the other three men in the room and they were wide-eyed with shock.
‘Find him some shithouse paper,’ I said. ‘And some water. Clean up that mess on his face.’
‘You bitch,’ the German muttered through his teeth as he sat bent over the table, clutching his balls with one hand and his face with the other.
‘If you want to get back home this year, you’d better listen this time,’ I said.
A look of fear crossed his face.
The other three arrived through the door at the rear carrying toilet paper and several cups of water.
‘Clean up,’ I said.
I took out a piece of paper and a pen and told the German to write out his itinerary. He did so, muttering at me and what he would do to me if he ever caught me in his own country. When he’d finished, I told him to get out separate papers from his pocket with the formal itinerary printed on them and then he began to look genuinely frightened. I could see he hadn’t written the truth.
‘Give me the printed sheet.’ I placed my hand gently on his shoulder and this, I think, frightened him more than anything.
He reached inside his jacket and gave it to me. I studied the route he was to take and gave him back the itinerary.
‘What’s your cargo?’
‘Spares.’
