Firefox Down

worry… and it won't matter how long it takes to get cosy with Dmitri again. You'll have the time to do it. For Christ's sake, Anna, just cross the border with me and I promise you everything will work out!'

He gripped her hand fiercely. It lay dormant in his fist. He dropped it onto her lap, sighed, and slumped back in his seat.

After a long silence, he heard her say softly, almost apologetically, 'Very well. I have made up my mind. You are right. I will come with you.'

He looked at her carefully. He could see the pale skin and her cheeks seemed dry. Her eyes were in shadow. The touch of her hand did not seem pretended or assumed, and he believed her.

'OK,' he said. 'You've made the right choice. I know you have.'

'Will he understand?'

'He knew all along — '

'But that was different — ' It was almost a wail.

'You mean — you weren't helping me, uh?' Gant snapped. 'I wasn't the key to his career?'

'He wouldn't think like that.'

'Maybe, maybe not. Whichever way you look at it, he owes me. He's a man with a lot of grief to unload, and I gave him all of it. I just hope he sits tight in Leningrad and boozes himself into self-pity. It could be safer for all of us.'

'You mean-?'

'I don't mean anything. Let's just hope, uh?' He was angry that he had voiced his own fears precisely at the moment she had become reconciled to accompanying him. He glanced at his watch, holding its dial close to his face.

Harris had been gone for more than fifteen minutes.

He gripped the door handle.

'I'm going to look for Harris — stay here,' he ordered.

'You think — ?' she asked fearfully, as if Priabin threatened her, too. Priabin, yes, he thought. Both of us are afraid of the same man -

'I don't think anything. He could have slipped and broken a leg. I'll be back.'

He pressed his fur hat onto his head and squinted into the blowing snow. Anna watched him as he trudged as quickly as he could out of the lay-by and onto the main road. The high bushes hid him.

Anna turned back, and stared at the thick coating of snow that obscured the windscreen. There were lighter, paper-like coverings on the side windows. The car was claustrophobic, small and cell-like. Her fears enlarged within it.

She had coped, so easily and successfully she had always coped — ! But not with this.

She rubbed her hands down her face, as if scouring her skin. She was trapped, utterly trapped. Only the American, whom she ought to have hated because he had acted as the catalyst of her ruin, offered her any hope of escape. If they would let her go — if only they would let her go!

Gant had said it didn't matter how much time it took to rebuild her relationship with Dmitri. He had promised her time in which to do it. She could only believe him, because there was no other solution. No other way out.

The door of the car opened. She turned her head and stared into Dmitri's face. Her mouth opened, as if to protest at the appearance of a ghost, and then he had climbed into the rear of the car and was holding her in his arms. She gasped and clung to him. His overcoat was chilly and wet with melting snow. His cheek was cold against her temple, but it soothed her. She held onto him, even when he made as if to push her away, because the world was no larger than the material of his coat, the cold of his cheek, the noise of his laboured breathing in her ear. Then he forced her to sit upright, holding her arms tightly enough to hurt. She studied his face in the darkness of the car. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he seemed to be searching her face for some emotion he feared to find.

'Dmitri-where…?'

'No time, Anna,' he said breathlessly, placing his gloved forefinger on her mouth. 'Listen to me. Come back with me now. Please come back with me now — !' It was an order, but more than that, a plea. As if he saw into a black future, and wished to pull her back from it as from the edge of a cliff.

'What is it?'

'What do you mean? I want you to come with me. Quickly, before Gant returns. Let him cross the border by himself. We can be in Leningrad before morning, in Moscow by noon. Look, Anna, we can explain everything. I–I can explain in some way or other why I had to leave Moscow, why I travelled to Leningrad. No one need know that you ever left the city. Come quickly now, before he returns…' He was eager to be gone, like a thief leaving a house he had ransacked. She did not understand his urgency. She did not understand why he was there, how he had followed them. There was something in his tone that lay beneath love, and she could not help her mistrust of it.

'Why? Dmitri, what's the matter — tell me…? '

Her hands gripped his arms. They appeared to be jockeying for a position whereby one could use a wrestling throw upon the other. She shook her head slightly.

'There's nothing the matter. Now, come with me, Anna — quickly, before he returns — '

She knew, then. The anxiety was clear in his voice. Knew part of it, at least. 'Where's Harris, Dmitri? Where is the driver? What will the American find?' She shook his arms.

'It doesn't matter,' he said softly.

'Tell me!'

'You killed him?'

'There was a struggle,' he answered lamely.

'No there wasn't — !' she almost screamed, outraged more by his lie than by the death of Harris. 'You killed him. Don't lie to me!'

'Come on — '

'No! Not until you tell me what will happen.'

'Anna — '

'No. What will happen?'

'Gant will be arrested at the border — perhaps even shot. Yes, best if he were shot.'

'You mean you've told them to expect him — expect us?' she asked, appalled, her hand covering her mouth, then both hands clamped upon her ears.

'No. Not yet. I came for you first.'

'Dmitri — for God's sake, what are you doing — ?'

'Saving you — saving us. Harris knew about you, Gant knows about you. He won't give himself up at the border when they try to arrest him — they'll have to kill him. You'll be safe, then.'

'No-'

'What matters most — him or us? Anna, if Gant dies no one will know you helped him. He won't be able to tell them — '

'And the CIA?' she asked bitterly. 'They will know.'

'No they won't! You can tell them he made you turn back, that he went on by himself while you returned to Leningrad… he and Harris were killed. It's easy — '

'Easy? Killing two people is easy?'

'Anna — forget all this. Just get out of the car, come with me and let him go by himself. I'll — I won't call the border post, I'll let him go. I promise he'll be safe-'

'I don't believe you — you want him to die.' She studied his face; even though he mqyed his head back and away from her, she could distinguish the gleam in his eyes. He did want Gant killed. Like a jealous lover, he wanted his rival dead.

The windows of the car were fogged. The snow was slush-like, beginning to slip down to the sills, because of the warmth inside the car; their anger. She did not know what to do. Dmitri could not protect her from the CIA. She could not let Dmitri kill Gant. Because he was Dmitri, because she could not live with him if she acquiesced… she would learn to live with Harris's death, change it from murder into something else. But not Gant. She would have known beforehand, and would never escape it. 'I can't let you…' she murmured eventually.

'What? You want to protect him?' Dmitri raged. 'You want to go on being a