Firefox Down

He shook off the angry, restraining hand of the senior interrogator and crossed the room. Gant's eyes were staring blankly, his mouth was open like that of a drowning man, but instead of precious air bubbles it was the one word No! which emerged, over and over again. Vladimirov looked up, confused.

'What is it?' he shouted. 'What is it?'

The interrogator reached Vladimirov's side. The doctor was checking Gant's pulse, his pupil dilation, his respiration. When he had finished, he shrugged, murmuring an apology at the interrogator.

'Put him out '

'No — !' Vladimirov protested. He bent over Gant. 'He knows! He was about to tell us…' The mimic had moved away, removed his earpiece; anxious not to be blamed. 'Do something!'

'Put him out,' the interrogator repeated. 'Shut him up! We'll make another attempt later — ' He turned to Vladimirov. 'It's simply a matter of time. We have stumbled upon something that is interfering with the illusion. There's always a risk of tripping over something in a dark tunnel…'

The doctor injected Gant. After a moment, he stopped repeating his one word of protest. His head slumped forward, his body slackened.

'How long?' Vladimirov asked, and bit his lower lip. 'How long?'

'A few hours — this evening. We'll start from a different point. With more careful preparation. Think of it as mining for gold — only the last inches of rock lie between us and the richest seam in the world!' He smiled. 'Next time, he'll tell us.'

* * *

Dmitri Priabin shivered in his uniform greatcoat as he watched Anna's son playing football on the snow- covered grass of the Gorky Park of Culture and Rest. The bench on which he was seated was rimed with frost which sparkled in the orange sodium lights. Beneath the lights which lined the paths through the park, Maxim and his friends would play until it was fully dark, and then on into the night, if they were allowed. He felt indulgent, despite the cold, though he knew that when Anna arrived she would scold all of them, him most of all for allowing them to get cold and damp and tired. He smiled at the thought, and at the high, childish voices, the imitations of star players' protests and antics. He contented himself with occasional glances towards the gigantic stone porch and architrave that marked the main entrance to the park. Beyond it, traffic roared homewards on the Sadovaya Ring and along the Lenin Prospekt. Workers hurried through the park, one or two of them stopping for a moment to watch the boys' football game; stamping their cold feet, rubbing gloved hands before rushing on into the gathering dusk.

Maxim had new boots — Dynamo First Class — which Priabin had purchased for the boy's birthday the previous week. The ball also belonged to Maxim. He watched as Anna's son dribbled past two friend-opponents and slid it inside the tall metal rod which marked one goalpost. Maxim pranced, hands in the air, after he had scored. Another boy protested at offside while the very diminutive goalkeeper picked himself out of the snow after his desperate, unavailing dive for the ball. Priabin clapped his gloved hands, laughing, then looked at his watch. Time to go — at least to begin to round them up.

He glanced towards the architrave and the Communist Party symbols carved upon it. Then, from beneath the curving weight of the stone porch, he saw Anna Borisovna Akhmerovna emerge, and he found his breath catching, as it almost always did when he unexpectedly caught sight of her; when it was no more than a few moments before she would be at his side. Hurriedly, with a great show of concern, he stood up and walked through the snow, waving his arms, collecting the teams. All the time, he was aware of her approach, half-amused, half eager, almost to the point of desperation. He still could not properly catch his breath. The boys crowded reluctantly, protestingly around his tall figure. He continued to wave his arms in shepherding gestures, turning eventually to where he knew she had stopped. Red-faced and puffing, he knew he could easily have appeared to be one of the schoolboys. He was taller and heavier, but closer to their age-group than he was to the woman who stood on the frosty path, arms folded, head slightly on one side, appraising the group of which he formed the centrepiece.

'I didn't realise the time… you're late, anyway,' he protested. Maxim waved shyly, a gesture he could not prevent but which was muted out of deference to his friends and the rough masculinity of their recent activity.

'Who won?' she called.

'I — don't know,' he laughed.

'Maxim's team — lucky swines!' one boy explained.

'No luck in it!' Maxim retorted.

Priabin walked towards Anna, feeling his cheeks glow. She was wearing a fur coat and hat with long black leather boots. Her fair hair escaped untidily from the hat. Her face was pale from the cold. Priabin could not bear not to touch her, but contented himself with a peck on her cold cheek and murmured endearment. Her gloved hand touched the side of his face, briefly; his skin seemed to burn more heatedly afterwards.

'Come on — all of you,' she ordered. 'Collect your things. Change out of those wet boots before you go anywhere! No, no, coats on first or you'll all catch pneumonia!'

The boys fought for places on the bench. Cold fingers fumbled and tugged at wet, icy bootlaces. Bodies that had wisps of steam about them in the freezing air struggled into overcoats and anoraks and thick jackets. The sons of civil servants, schoolteachers, one of them even the son of a Soviet film star. Boys from the same expensive block of apartments as Maxim. From the place where he lived with Anna -

'Come on,' he said. 'Hot dogs and hamburgers all round — but only if you're quick!' He turned to Anna. 'One good thing the Olympics did, from their point of view. We now have Muscovite hot-dog stands!' He sniffed the air loudly. 'I can smell the onions from here!' he exclaimed. The boys hurried into their shoes and boots arid coloured Wellingtons. Bobble-caps and scarves, and they were finally ready. Priabin handed Maxim a crumpled heap of rouble notes, and nodded towards the stone porch and the Lenin Prospekt beyond. 'Your treat,' he said. 'And none of you stray away from the stand before we get there!'

Noisily, the party of footballers and would-be diners ran off. Football boots, trailed carelessly, clattered on the frosty path as they ran. The ball bobbed between them before it was retrieved.

'He's not going to take any chances with that ball!' Priabin laughed.

'Like his mother,' Anna replied, slipping her arm into that of Priabin. 'He can recognise a good thing when he sees it!'

'Bless you,' Priabin said awkwardly, blushing. He patted her hand.

She leaned her face against the shoulders of his greatcoat, then said mischievously, 'Those new shoulder boards are very hard.'

He burst into laughter. The noise of the traffic was louder as they walked towards the archway. Away to their left, across the darkening park, the double line of lights along the banks of the river were fuzzy. An icy mist hung above the Moskva. Priabin shivered. He had remembered their argument the previous evening.

As if she read his thoughts, Anna murmured: 'I'm sorry about last night — '

'It doesn't matter.'

'I'm still glad about that damned aircraft — I'm still glad it's been stolen, it's gone- !' she added vehemently, as if making an effort to fully recapture her emotions of the previous night; rekindle their argument.

'I know,' he soothed.

'When I think-!' she burst out afresh, but he patted her hand, then grabbed her closer to him.

'I know it,' he murmured. 'I know it.'

He detested the vehemence in her blind, unreasoning hatred of the MiG-31 project. It was an intellectual hatred, the worst kind. He had loathed the previous evening and the argument that had seemed to leap out of the empty wine bottle like a jinn. He had been totally unprepared for it. He had informed her of the death of Baranovich at Bilyarsk almost casually, his head light with wine and the meal she had cooked to celebrate his promotion. He had been high on drink, and on his colonelcy. Blind. He hadn't seen the argument coming, hadn't watched her closely enough. Baranovich had been the trigger. As he held her now, he could hear her yelling at him across the dining table.

'Baranovich is dead?' she had asked. 'You pass me the information like a bundle of old clothes? Your project — your damnable bloody project has killed Baranovich? His mind was — priceless! And that filthy project killed him!'

There was much more of it. Priabin crushed Anna's body to him to prevent the working of memory, feeling