construction began. Many vehicles had taken advantage of the situation.
Kurbsky took a spot in a corner and noticed a manhole. He backed up against it, opened the rear door, found a crowbar among the tools and levered up the manhole, then positioned the yellow cones around it and propped the “Man at Work” sign against the Ford’s windshield. Now he was set for a while.
There was no sign of a laundry van. It was just after five, a certain gloom in the air as evening approached. He continued to search among the parked cars, and then he saw a notice on the wall: “Trade vehicles at rear entrance.” An arrow pointed to a narrow footway through an archway, and he hurried along.
BACK FROM HIS meeting, Blake Johnson had been dropped at the front entrance of the hotel only fifteen minutes before Kurbsky arrived, and Igor Oleg saw it. He was wearing a green uniform, the name of a laundry company printed on the back. His companion, Petrovich, was waiting in the courtyard at the rear of the building.
Oleg had gone around to the back using the very footway that Kurbsky was on now, and hurried down the steps to his companion, who already had a large four-wheeled cloth container waiting filled with towels.
“He’s here,” Oleg told him.
“Let’s get it done, then.” They went in through the basement door, entered the service elevator, and went up to the top floor.
BLAKE HAD TAKEN off his jacket, loosened his tie, and poured himself a whiskey-and a large one. Not because of his exertions at the NATO meeting-the highly classified twenty minutes he had spent with his good friend Charles Ferguson afterward had been much more demanding. The interesting thing about politics was that sometimes, though not often, you could help to make history just a little bit.
The door buzzed, he walked toward the door, drink in hand, opened it, and Oleg punched him very hard just under the breastbone. As Blake’s legs buckled, Oleg caught him and dragged him backward so that Petrovich could wheel in the laundry cart. His wrists were handcuffed together with plastic ties, his mouth was taped, a large plastic tie bound his ankles.
Towels were removed, and they hoisted him between them and dropped him in the cart, then covered him with the towels again. Oleg opened the door, checked that the corridor was clear, and they walked to the end and discovered the service elevator was on its way.
Oleg glanced nervously at Petrovich as they waited for the elevator door to open. A Filipino cleaning woman, in hotel uniform and carrying a mop and pail, emerged, nodded without a word, and walked off down the corridor. They got in the elevator and descended, smiling at each other, emerging on the ground floor and pushing the cart out into the courtyard toward the truck.
Kurbsky, emerging from the walkway, saw everything. He remembered Oleg and Petrovich from the GRU safe house outside Moscow, and the fact that they were pushing the cart said it all. The top half of the back of the truck was stretched canvas, the bottom half metal. Opened, it provided a ramp to facilitate loading. They shoved the cart inside, closed the ramp, and walked around to board.
Kurbsky was already rushing down the steps as the engine roared and the truck started to move. The bottom of the ramp protruded slightly, and he got a foot on it and hung on by his left hand, clutching the twine that held the canvas tight. He reached in his boot, found the gutting knife, stabbed into the canvas, and cut it from top to bottom. Then he sliced to one side, raised the flap he had created, and pulled himself through.
Once inside, he replaced the knife in his boot, found the ski mask in his left leg pocket, and pulled it on, stuffing his tweed cap into the pocket in its place. It was gloomy outside now and even gloomier in the truck. There was no sound from the cart, and there were several more all full of laundry, and he had to force his way through and listen from the back of the cab. He could hear voices, but not what they were saying.
He took out the gutting knife and sliced a hole in the canvas on the left side so that a flap hung down and he could see out to where they were going. Traffic, houses, but a busy road, obviously pushing out of the city. He turned to the cart and pulled out the towels, revealing Blake Johnson.
He had obviously recovered his senses, and his eyes were wide open and staring. Kurbsky spoke to him in street Russian, heavily accented working class. “I hear you speak Russian? If I’m right, nod your head.” Blake did so, and Kurbsky carried on. “You’ve been kidnapped by some pretty bad people. They’re taking you to an airfield called Berkley Down in Kent, where there’s a Falcon waiting to take you to Moscow or Siberia. I’ll take the tape off now so you can talk, but keep your voice low.”
He yanked the tape off in one quick pull, and Blake winced. “Christ, that hurt,” he said in English.
“Better we stick to Russian.”
Blake did. “Who the hell are you?”
“You ask too many questions, my friend.” Kurbsky sliced the plastic ties at his wrists and ankles. “There you go.”
His harsh, uncultivated tones could have been the voice of some low-life member of a Moscow Mafia gang, and Blake, pulling himself out of the laundry cart, had to grab hold of the nearest strut to stop himself from falling over.
“What’s going on?”
“You Americans have a thing called extraordinary rendition, right?”
“I know that can happen, and I’m not proud of it.”
“Well, this is the Russian version, and I’m saving you from it.”
“But why should you care?”
“Now you disappoint me, Mr. Johnson.” Kurbsky pushed Blake so he fell on a pile of towels. “Sit down and shut up.”
He peered out through the hole he had made in the left side of the canopy. They were moving out into country now, fields, woods, only the occasional house. He turned, went to the tailgate, and sliced the canvas till it was open from top to bottom, then undid the clamps on each side that held the ramp in place and kicked it open so that it trailed down, scraping on the road.
The truck swerved, and he grabbed a stanchion and took out the Walther. Blake, rolling among the towels as the truck swerved again, cried, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making them stop,” Kurbsky said.
They swerved again into a lay-by that stood empty for the moment, backed by trees and fields. There were voices raised, and both of the cab doors banged open.
“Get ready,” Kurbsky said.
Petrovich and Oleg appeared from each side and stood there, amazement and shock on their faces. “Good evening, Comrades,” Kurbsky said cheerfully.
“What is this?” Oleg demanded. “Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare. Mr. Johnson doesn’t fancy the holiday in Siberia. It’s the wrong time of year.”
Petrovich suddenly pulled a Beretta out of his pocket, and Kurbsky shot him in the hand. “Really stupid, that. Now you’ve got to manage without knuckles.” He was out of the truck, followed by Blake, and said, “Get their weapons.”
Which Blake did. “Now what?” he asked, calmer and in control.
“Well, you won’t want the police in on this, and neither will the pride of the GRU here, so we’ll leave them and drive away. These days they’re only a mobile call away from like-minded comrades who’ll come running. Have you got one?”
Blake said, “Luckily, I always carry it in my pants pocket.”
“Well, there you are. I’ll drop you off at a service station.” He turned to Oleg. “Raise the ramp and put the clip in place on the right-hand side. I’ll do the left.”
Oleg was bitterly angry, his face said it all, but he did as he was told until, seizing a moment that Kurbsky turned, pulled out a spring-blade knife and slashed. Kurbsky only just managed to ward it off. It sliced through the sleeve of the overall and into his left arm.
Kurbsky hit him across the face. “That was very stupid, but you always were a moron.” He rammed the muzzle against Oleg’s right ear and shot half of it off. Oleg howled, and Kurbsky shoved him into Petrovich, who was trying to stop the bleeding from his knuckles with a handkerchief and failing miserably.
“Are you okay?” Blake asked. “You’re bleeding.”
