Firefox

Lanyev consulted his notes.

'All three of them will be inside the hanger itself, Comrade Colonel — unfortunately.'

'Yes, indeed. Three times as dangerous as they might otherwise be. Give me details.'

'Baranovich has worked on the weapons system itself, Comrade Colonel — as you know.'

'He will be working on the aircraft during the night, until it takes off-'

'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'

'He cannot be replaced?'

'Not possibly.'

'Very well! What of the others?'

'Kreshin and Semelovsky are both little more than highly-favoured mechanics, Comrade Colonel,' Lanyev supplied. 'They will be concerned with the fuelling, and the loading of the missiles and the other weapons. Also, the Rearward Defence Pod. But they are most familiar with the systems, and not easy to replace.'

'They can be watched?'

'Very closely. Our informers will be shoulder-to-shoulder with them throughout the night.'

'As long as our informers know enough to recognise attempted sabotage when they see it!'

'They do, Comrade Colonel.'

'Good. For that, I can take your word. Dherkov, naturally, will be at home, sleeping with that fat wife of his.' Kontarsky smiled. His mood was being sustained by what he was hearing, by the action he appeared to be taking, the decisiveness of his manner, his voice… 'Yes. May I sum up, gentlemen? Our GRU colleagues will throw a ring around Bilyarsk that will be impregnable; our borrowed Security Support Unit will arrive tomorrow, and will assist the guards on the perimeter fence, the hangars, the factory, and the boundaries of the town itself. Our three dissidents will be very closely watched — especially Baranovich. Have I left anything out, Dmitri-'

'I have everything here, in my notes,' Priabin said.

Kontarsky stretched behind his desk, arms above his head. The smile that was beginning to irritate Priabin was fixed on his thin, dark features. His uniform collar was open at the neck, showing his prominent Adam's apple, and the thin, bird-like throat, the skin stretched, yet loose, like a turkey… Priabin dismissed the irritation from his mind.

'I think, as a further precaution, we will go and collect the Moscow end of the chain. No, not tonight. If they disappear with almost forty-eight hours to go, then Lansing may discover that fact, and warn off our friends at Bilyarsk. No! Tomorrow will do, giving us perhaps twenty-four hours to find out what they know! You will take care of that, Dmitri?'

'Yes, Colonel. I shall have the warehouse they use as a cover watched from tonight — and move in on your orders.'

'Good. I would like to see them before — before I myself fly down to Bilyarsk tomorrow. Yes. Ask for surveillance by the 7th Directorate, Dmitri, on the warehouse. We need not spare too many of our own men, and they are in business to watch people. They can be replaced by our team when I give the word.'

'Very well, Colonel.'

'Very well? Yes, Dmitri — I begin to feel that it may indeed be very well!' Kontarsky laughed. Priabin watched the Adam's apple bob up and down in the turkey-throat, hating his superior's overconfidence more than he feared his lapses of nerve.

* * *

The black saloon had eased itself into a convenient parking-place opposite the portico of the Moskva Hotel. As Gant had passed into the hotel foyer, and had patted his pockets as if to ensure he still had his papers, he had observed that the two men inside the saloon had made no move to follow him. One was already reading a newspaper, while the other, the driver, had just lit a cigarette. Warned by their inactivity, Gant surveyed the foyer from the vantage point of the hotel desk, and picked out the man who was waiting to identify him. His picture must have been transmitted via wireprint from Cheremetievo to Dzerzhinsky Street.

Had he not been thoroughly briefed by Aubrey as to what to expect, Gant might have been left breathless by such efficiency; the intrusive, dogged pursuit of himself. As it was, the realisation of the degree and intensity of the security with regard to himself, merely as a suspected 'economic criminal', though deadened, still caused him a momentary feeling of wateriness in the pit of his stomach.

The man watching for him, masked by his copy of Pravda, showed no sign of interest. He was seated in one of the many alcoves off the central foyer, overcoat thrown over a chair, apparently at his ease. If, and when, Gant left the Moskva, that man would follow him. Probably already, the car outside had been relieved by another, operating under the auspices of the same Directorate of the KGB as the man behind the newspaper.

Once in his room, Gant removed the clear-glass spectacles, ruffled his hair deliberately, and pulled off his tie. It was as if he had released himself from a strait-jacket. He opened his suitcases, then slipped off his shoes. The room was a small suite, with the tall windows looking out over the windswept expanse of Red Square. Gant ignored the window, and helped himself to a Scotch from the drinks trolley placed in one corner of the room. He seated himself on a low sofa, put his feet up, and tried to relax. He had begun to realise that his attempted indifference would not work, not even in the apparent, luxurious safety of his centrally-heated, double-glazed hotel room. He had been instructed not to look for bugs, since he couldn't be sure that he was not being observed through some two- way mirror device.

He glanced in the direction of the huge mirror on one wall, and then dragged his eyes away from it. He began to experience the hypnotic effect of KGB surveillance. It was too easy — it required a real effort of mind to avoid doing so — to imagine himself pinned on a card, naked and exposed, with a bright white light beating down upon him. He shivered involuntarily, and swallowed at the Scotch. The liquor, to which he had become used merely as a part of his general training to assume the mask of Orton, warmed his throat and stomach. He inhabited a landscape of eyes.

It was difficult to consider, coldly, objectively, the Russian defence system, the hours of the flight in the Firefox, the training on the Foxbat and the simulator constructed from the photographs and descriptions supplied by the man at Bilyarsk — Baranovich. With an effort, he decided to postpone such considerations.

He lapsed into thoughtless inactivity. Getting up, he moved to the window and looked down from the twelfth floor over Red Square. He had no interest in the rank of cars parked directly below. Under the lowering sky, in the gathering gloom of the late afternoon, he stared, for a long time, down the vast length of the square, over the roof of the History Museum, towards the towers and domes of the Kremlin. He could just pick out the guards before the bronze doors of the Lenin Mausoleum, and the tiny figures moving in and out of the glass doors of the grey edifice of GUM. At the far end of the square, huge, incredible, was St. Basil's Cathedral — garish, irreligious. His eyes continued to rove over the desert of Red Square, barely focused.

The Scotch, as he swallowed another mouthful, no longer warmed him. Already his thoughts were reaching into the immediate future, towards the meeting with three men he did not know on the embankment of the Moskva, near the Krasnoknlinski Bridge. He was to leave the hotel after dinner, and behave as a tourist, no matter who tailed him. All he had to do was to be certain to arrive at ten-thirty. He was to be sure to take his hat and overcoat — no, to wear them — and he had to take the transistor radio. That told him that he would not be returning to the hotel; it would be the beginning of his journey to Bilyarsk.

* * *

Alexander Thomas Orton left the bar of the Moskva Hotel a little before ten that evening, having taken dinner in the hotel dining-room. Throughout his meal he had been observed by a KGB man from the Surveillance Directorate — a short, obese man who had dined at a single table placed advantageously so that he could observe everyone in the huge room. The man had followed him into the bar, and had sat blatantly watching him, a large vodka before him on the table. Gant suspected that his room would be thoroughly searched during the meal, which was why the small transistor radio sat in the pocket of his overcoat, as it had done throughout dinner — he had hung the coat where he could see it, and where he could be seen to be able to see it. The pockets had not been searched.

Throughout dinner, he had studied his Nagel Guide to Moscow, following the text on a large map which he folded ostentatiously out over the table cloth during his dessert. He had continued to study map and text during the hour he had spent in the bar. When he left, he was followed almost immediately.