Priabin swallowed his disappointment. Kedrov was not there. He must have called Orlov to warn him he was going into hiding. Where the hell was he? Panic mounted; he eased it away with the small rituals of the interrogator's foreplay.
'No. I want to know about the transmitter.'
'Transmitter?'
A turn of the head, a fearful gleam behind the glasses as the clatter of parts tipped out of some box was clearly audible. There'd be a lot of damage, and some looting, of course. Priabin had no feeling either way; par for the course. New, shiny amplifiers would disappear, and the latest tapes. It didn't matter so long as they found the transmitter. That could be used to open up Orlov like the key to a tin of sardines. The transmitter—
— or its components!
'Viktor! Viktor!' he yelled. Orlov had stayed because he thought he was safe. He'd hidden the bloody transmitter. Zhikin appeared in the doorway to the rear of the building, dust on his overcoat, his hands grimy. 'Viktor, tell them to look for the bits and pieces, yes?'
Zhikin's face brightened. 'Should I get a couple of technical boys out from the town office?'
'Yes, do that.'
'Phone's in the back — I'll do it now.' Zhikin disappeared, whistling. Orlov's eyes were narrow with calculation as Priabin grinned at him.
'After all, you could have spent all night taking it to pieces, now couldn't you?' Priabin said lightly. Yes, he could play this role— interrogator-as-seducer. Apart from anything else, it kept his anxiety at a controllable level. He purred: 'Where is it now? Forming the innards of a couple of new hi-fi systems?' He grinned. 'We'll find it, Orlov. You shouldn't have tried to play with the big boys — not the Yankees, anyway. Where's Kedrov?' he snapped suddenly, harshly.
'He's—'
Priabin nodded. 'What did he tell you last night? That he was suspected, he was getting out? Something spooked him. Did he say what it was?'
'I don't know what you're talking about, comrade Colonel, sir.' His eyes were still narrow with cunning. There was a kind of daring, too, that Priabin was forced to admire. The man wasn't really afraid, but then, he didn't know the stakes Priabin had put down on the table. 'I don't understand what you want. You already know about this place. I mean—'
'We know. We know.' Priabin sighed. His gloves tapped on the edge of the counter, flicking back and forth like windshield wipers. 'But we just wondered whether you'd gotten into some other things, say like drugs?'
'Never!' A prim, virginal refutation—
'I have never touched such things, believe me, comrade Colonel. Never!'
'I don't doubt it, now. That's why we were watching you in the first place, not for the hi-fi's. That's how we stumbled on the transmissions, and then onto Kedrov. You see, we've known for a long time. It's why we sent in a burglary squad last week, looking for the damn transmitter.' Priabin's voice broke off, his gloves slapped almost playfully, but hard, at Orlov. There was the tiny clatter of eyeglasses falling behind the counter, and the rustle of the disturbed chain-snake on the oily newspaper.
As Orlov scrabbled for his glasses, Priabin said: 'Where is it? How much information has gone to the Americans, Orlov? How much?' The anxiety mounted again, as if he had pressed his tongue against a rotten tooth. It was obvious; the laser weapon. Kedrov had worked on it, part of its huge technical services team. How much had been passed via Orlov's transmitter?
Orlov's face appeared above the counter, glasses replaced. His mole features sniffed the danger in the electric silence of the shop.
'Come on, Orlov. I have the power, all the power. It doesn't matter if you deny it, if we find nothing, like the burglary squad. You'll never crawl out of the hole I can put you in. You know that, don't you?'
Orlov shuddered, a small, thin, old man's shudder, like the breeze flapping a semitransparent shower curtain. Priabin could see through Orlov, as if he were vanishing before his eyes. He knew Orlov now regretted everything.
'And there's always a family, isn't there?' Priabin persisted. 'Son, daughter, grandchildren probably, in your case — all flesh and blood, all with jobs, some of them in the Party, expecting to go places.' Priabin was smiling an open, almost joyous smile. Orlov was shivering; vulnerable as much as chilly. 'Cars drive too fast on slippery roads, pupils are downgraded and moved out of the Science School to one of the — oh, agricultural places.' Orlov appeared aghast. 'You know I can do anything to you, or to them, whoever they are. Orlov, tell me about Kedrov. Tell me everything. We might even decide to leave you alone — you never know.'
'May—' After a long silence, his voice seemed rusty, or grappling with a foreign language. 'May I sit down?'
'Where?'
'In — in the kitchen. It's warmer.'
'Of course. You can make coffee. Then we'll talk.'
Excitement rose in Priabin; anxiety thrust into it like a bout of indigestion. Orlov looked at him with a myopic squint. His nose twitched. The blind mole scenting the air. His cheeks seemed hollow with defeat. Then he said, in a quavering voice, 'I don't understand anything you've said, comrade Colonel. Drugs, transmitters— anything.'
Priabin sighed, pressing close behind the little old man as they went down the narrow, dusty passage toward the kitchen. His head was cocked to one side, as if listening for the noises of the old man's inward collapse. Impatience. He pressed the heel of routine down on it. No one knew, not yet, only his people. Kedrov was out there somewhere. Orlov would know, would be able to make an informed guess.
When they found the transmitter or its component parts — circuitry, dish aerial, control panel, anything — he would be able to break the old man like a dry stick.
The ice-cold concrete corridor whispered, even after he had stopped walking. His clicking footsteps simply wouldn't stop; they continued, echoing and fading gradually. Yes, silence at last. There was no one behind him except the phantom of his own footsteps, his own fear. He smelled grease, oil, dust. Concrete dust. He touched his hand along the rough wall, seeking the metal conduits that carried the land lines, the firing circuits, the ceiling lights. His ankle ached because he had twisted it — not climbing over the roof, merely slipping in the tunnels leading to this place. He'd stumbled over the rails that had once carried the missiles on their long trolleys along this underground section of the abandoned silo complex.
Kedrov calculated he was seven or eight miles from his flat. It was a frozen, sub-zero morning above ground. It was cold here, too. He was shivering despite his heavy clothing. His hand continued its scrabbling along the icy conduit. He moved his body after his hand, stepping carefully but with the panic that the deep silence had brought. He kept his shoulder, then shoulder and arm, then shoulder, arm, and hip in contact with the wall, shrinking to one side of the long tunnel, the air in front of him alive with the danger of becoming solid, a dead end, at any moment. He had discovered this hideout weeks before, memorized and mapped it. Now memory seemed to fail like a weakening bulb. He rubbed his arm and hip along the wall, step after step.
Switch?
He touched its outlines, the button, hesitated, then threw the heavy switch. It clicked. How could he have simply forgotten the carefully noted locations? Dusty white light seemed to shower like plaster from the roof. There were pools of light on the concrete all the way down to the steel doors that marked the entrance to the silo. Warning signs, the scribbled graffiti of security and danger, littered the walls. Conduits, rails, the scent of concrete dust and dampness. He shivered. It was icy cold down here.
The claustrophobia weakened, fear diminished. He was alone, saw he was alone, sensed he was safe. No one came here, not any longer.
He turned, counting the steel doors that led off the corridor. Four. He wanted the seventh door. He hurried, limping slightly but heedless of the now-innocent rails. Six, seven. The room behind it had not even been stripped when the old silo system had been abandoned for more sophisticated warrens elsewhere within Baikonur. The tunnel had not been used since the early sixties.
He touched the door. Icy. His fingers showed momentarily because, even chilled through, his body was warmer than the door. Then they vanished. He pushed the door open and switched on the long, narrow room's lights. Bulbs set in the ceiling were protected by wire mesh. He saw the familiar rows of bunks, set four high against the walls. Cupboards he had forced open on a previous visit were filled with unrusted cans of food. There
