olive-green and drab brown vehicles and knots of men that signified the military presence at Khabarovsk Airport. The Moscow flight from Vladivostok had landed at Khabarovsk, a scheduled stop of twenty minutes, less than an hour after taking off. It was a return to the hub of the search for him that Vorontsyev could not avoid.
With the tension mounting within him, he involuntarily fingered the papers in his pocket that declared him to be Tallinn, and a member of the Secretariat. They were good papers, since they were KGB, but the passport photograph on his identity visa — which he had to use for internal air travel — was a hasty affair. And it looked too hastily affixed to the ID card. The other papers would pass inspection.
He wondered who amidst the cold little huddle of passengers climbing the gangway had been detailed by Ossipov to travel on this travel — or had Ossipov decided that a search would be sufficient? He hoped so.
Vorontsyev was travelling first class, as befitted a civil servant visiting the Soviet Far East on state business. There were only a handful of fellow-passengers, including one KGB officer from Vladivostok — a tough, capable looking individual with a broad stomach and a bandy-legged walk — loaned to him for his protection by Svobodny. The man had boarded the plane separately, and gave no sign that he was in any way connected with Vorontsyev.
Vorontsyev turned. The man was looking out of his window, studying the ascending passengers. His only real concern would be with anyone who was to travel first class.
Then the great-coated officer, a colonel, pushed aside the curtain from second class, nodded as the passengers, with one accord, looked up into his face, and said, 'My apologies for any delay and inconvenience, comrades. An inspection of documents is necessary. If you please.'
He was a tall man, his thin face reddened with the wind, then the abrupt change of temperature inside the Tupolev. His eyes were grey, and keen. He waited to be obeyed.
Slowly he moved down the narrow aisle, checking each passenger's papers. He was methodical, and scrutinised photographs carefully comparing them with faces. Once or twice, he held papers up to the light, as if looking for some watermark of authenticity. Vorontsyev, watching him as unobtrusively as he could, did not see him make any comparisons with a photograph he might have possessed. Perhaps Natalia — he remembered her perfidy with a sick lurch of the stomach — had no picture of him. Perhaps there was only a spoken description.
His hair was tinged with silver at the temples, and he had acquired some padding in his cheeks so he appeared fatter-featured. It was a hurried and partial job — Svobodny had clicked tongue against teeth in disparagement at the effect — but it might just defeat a spoken description of an apparently younger man.
The Colonel stood at his side, his hand extended. Vorontsyev passed him the small bundle of documents with an assumed confidence. From the second class compartment, masked by the curtain, came the sound of stifled argument. An irregularity For some reason, it steadied Vorontsyev. The Colonel looked over his shoulder, momentarily distracted.
It seemed an age until the papers were handed back. The Colonel tipped his fur hat with his gloves, and clicked his heels.
'Thank you, Comrade Tallinn. A pleasant flight.'
Vorontsyev was the last passenger in first class to have his papers scrutinised. The soldier turned on his heel, and clicked back through the curtain. Vorontsyev breathed deeply, and returned his attention to the window. After a few minutes, he saw the detachment of soldiers climb back aboard the truck, which pulled away from the aircraft, followed by the passenger gangway and the bus.
No one had entered the first class compartment. Vorontsyev could hardly believe his luck. The 'No Smoking' notice flicked on at the end of the compartment, and the voice of the steward instructed him to fasten his seat belt. He did so, amused at the quiver in his hands; a record of a past tremor. It was over now. He settled back in his seat as the Tupolev turned out of the taxiway on to the long runway.
The steward entered the first class only minutes after the Tupolev had reached its cruising height and speed, taking orders for drinks and breakfast. Vorontsyev decided at first against a drink, then relented and ordered whisky rather than vodka, but no food. He could not feel hungry, even though the steward had hovered at his elbow until he ordered at least a drink. He had again succumbed to the sapping imagery of Natalia's betrayal.
The steward went away. Vorontsyev, as if for distraction, glanced behind him at the KGB man. He was apparently sleeping, head lolling on the shoulder of a good-looking girl, who appeared reluctant to enjoy the experience, reluctant to move the greasy-haired head. As if she knew the man's occupation. Probably she had seen the ID card.
Natalia. The betrayal went to his loins, to his head; touches of hands and lips, but now cold, revolting. He felt sick, and cursed the feverish imagination she had always encouraged whenever he thought about her. It was not time now to fall to pieces, to dissolve like a snowman into the comfortable seat. He had to be strong, he told himself, tears pricking behind his eyes, and his nose seeming to run. He sniffed like a child, loudly.
He could not believe they had forced her to do it. That was the trouble. He knew she had agreed, that she had only come with him to watch him, to — distract him. He could see her, vividly naked, even when he opened his eyes and tried to concentrate on the dazzle of sunlight off the cloudbase below the wing. Her arms out to him.
He hated, too, the thought that someone else, other than her, knew him well enough to exploit his weakness, his stupid, pleading, childish desire for her. That, perhaps, since all things seemed to return to himself, more than anything; that he was
He coughed, the bile of anguish in the back of his throat, choking him. More than anything, the
The steward proffered the whisky on his tray — soda in a tiny bottle. He looked up in surprise, then seemed to come to himself, and nodded. He wanted the drink now. The steward smiled, the tray with its ringed white cloth waiting for his money. He pulled out his wallet, then, clumsily, fitted the glass into the socket attached to his seat. Then he juggled the bottle from hand to hand, trying at the same time to open his wallet on his lap. He fumbled for money, as if he had just been awoken from sleep, and saw his SID identity card staring up at him. He looked up at the steward, hastily closing the wallet, a ten-rouble note gripped in his free hand.
The steward had noticed nothing. The suspicious quality in his behaviour was that there was no flicker of increased deference hi his manner. Simply the bland, smiling features of a young man who saw nothing. Vorontsyev passed him the money, and raised the glass to his lips. Then things happened confusingly, and his only impression was of the steward being elbowed aside and his lap getting wet as the whisky was spilled. He leaned out in his seat. The steward was on the floor, and a heavy body was astride his, a gun — a big Stechkin — was at the steward's temple.
'What's going on?' Vorontsyev asked, standing up, wiping foolishly at the wet lap of his suit.
'This little bastard put something in your whisky, comrade. I was going to tell you after he went — but you couldn't wait for your reviver!' There was a certain contempt in the voice, as well as delight at the KGB man's own prowess.
'In the drink?' Vorontsyev asked stupidly. He looked round at the other passengers, all of whom were moving out of shock into calculated lack of attention. Except the girl. She seemed relieved that the KGB man had left his seat. With a delicate but angry movement, she wiped at the shoulder of her coat where his head had rested. Vorontsyev returned his attention to the tableau in the aisle.
The KGB man had dragged himself and the steward upright — then he pushed the slight figure in the white uniform jacket into an empty seat. The Stechkin was again thrust against the temple. Vorontsyev, studying the steward for the first time, could see an evident fear, and behind it something that appeared like confidence. It was as if he had the gun, or he were protected by the kind of power and organisation the KGB man had on his side. Puzzling.
'What was it?' the KGB man asked in a harsh voice. The steward said nothing. The KGB man slapped him across the face, then forced his head back with the barrel of the gun, and roughly searched the steward's pockets. The steward did not resist, but even when the KGB man held up a small phial, empty, in his big hand, the steward showed no fear, no terror of discovery. 'What's this?'
The steward did not reply.
'You know who I am?' Vorontsyev said quietly, and the deference that had been missing seemed automatically to reappear in the other KGB man. The steward stared at him unblinkingly.
'Answer the Major!' the KGB man snapped. Silence.
'Who are you?' Vorontsyev asked.
