'You must!' he almost wailed. Again, the indistinct sound of Serov's laughter. 'You're my only hope, Katya.'
'I can't help you, Colonel,' she repeated. 'I know nothing, I can do nothing.'
The noise was louder. She shivered at the sound of Serov's voice, though she could not make out the words.
'Katya — please!'
'I can't,' she began. Then she heard Serov's roar of triumphant laughter, heard him yelling.
'… scared shitless… knew it would happen, should have asked me… rats deserting…' Laughter again, almost choking off the triumph. She lost the words and clung to the tone in which Serov went on.
Deceit?
He hadn't, hadn't… Serov was laughing at him, at her Mure to help him. It wasn't a trick.
'Colonel, Colonel — what is it? What do you want?' Then, more carefully: 'What can I do to help?'
The silence crackled like a bad connection between them. She could hear his breathing, filled with phlegm and tension as he attempted to calm himself. She no longer heard the laughter from further in the room. What had he done, managed to do?
'Thanks,' he said eventually.
'Can you talk?' she asked, becoming the eager partner.
'What? Oh, yes. Serov's here, of course. I have his pistol.'
'What?'
'True.' There was almost a chuckle in his voice. 'He's a bit annoyed about it, as you'd expect… I'm wasting time. I can't get out of here without your help. Will you—'
'Yes. I promise. Whatever.'
'I want our surveillance helicopter ready for takeoff. As soon as possible. Go there yourself and check it out. Don't take any bullshit, just get them to do the full preflight check, fuel up, everything — my orders.'
'Yes, yes.'
'And then bring a uniform here, to Serov's office. Don't worry, Serov will tell them to let you in — won't you?' he added with a kind of malevolent amusement, talking into the room, to be answered by silence. 'He will, anyway. Now, do you understand all that?'
'I don't understand why—'
'Dammit, you don't have to understand why, woman — just do it!' he bellowed. Then, almost immediately, he soothed: 'No, no, I'm sorry, Katya. But please do as I ask. The helicopter first. It has to be ready to fly immediately, tell them. Then the uniform. Got it?'
Strangely, through the thicket of questions that confronted her, one emerged; the silliest, least vital — or so it seemed to her.
'What — what size should the uniform—'
'Size?' he yelled as if at a dim and truculent pupil. 'The American pilot's size, of course!'
'What a brilliant scheme,' Serov observed. He scratched the side of his broad nose with a fingertip, his body leaning back in his chair, which creaked as he shifted his weight in a pose of lei-sureliness. Priabin returned to his own chair, the pistol held in both hands with the same suggestion of inner conflict and desperate urgency. Serov's face mocked him. 'Brilliant.' He sighed. Then he leaned forward in his chair. Sunlight fell across one side of his face, removing any trace of expression. Specks of dust whirled as his hands waved dismissively. 'You aren't going to make it, Priabin. That I can confidently predict. You're falling apart too quickly, too much. You aren't going to make it.'
'Shut up, Serov. Pick up the telephone.'
Serov waved his hands across his desk, as if quickly wiping crumbs from a tablecloth. 'Not yet — perhaps not at all,' he murmured. 'Listen to me, schoolteacher's son.'
'You think I'm soft because my father wasn't a horny-handed son of the soil like yours? If you even know who he is.'
Serov's eyes glinted, but he roared with laughter. 'You're just a little boy in a grown-up world. Little Mitya, his mummy's pretty, darling son. You won't make it. Still, I'll make sure you merit a disused mine shaft as your final resting place — I promise you that. Somewhere quite quiet, and lonely.'
'Pick up the telephone!' Priabin yelled.
Serov shook his head. 'I've told you no — not yet, anyway. It's two-thirty already, Priabin. Time is on my side. You can't walk out of here without me — they'd stop you, or check with me at the very least before they let you pass. So you can do nothing to me, not even make me pick up the telephone. Is that clear, Priabin? You ceased to exist the moment you entered this room.'
Priabin stood up, snatching up the receiver. 'Get the American brought up here — now.'
Again, Serov shook his head. 'Impatient boy.' He sighed, enjoying his situation. Even with the pistol in his hand, Priabin appeared impotent; Serov possessed that degree of power that rendered bullets harmless. Priabin's body jumped and twitched with possibilities, as if its muscles responded to the rapidity of his thoughts. 'Sit down, Priabin. You look foolish.'
Priabin replaced the receiver, sat down obediently. He placed the pistol harmlessly across his lap.
'What have you got?' Serov asked. 'One girl who may or may not be in love with you — not much to rely on, love, in this situation, I'd say — getting your helicopter ready. Where will it take you? I'd say Aral'sk, wouldn't you?' He grinned as Priabin felt his face redden with confession. 'I thought so. Where you were making for by road. But you need a pilot, and you need a witness. All right, 111 pick up the receiver for you, but to make a call of my own — no, you can listen on the extension. Ill show you you haven't a chance.'
He dialed swiftly. Priabin felt the situation beyond his grasp, beyond recovery. Something in him had surrendered to the room's trap; to the central heating, the sunlight dazzling through the window, to Serov's authority. It hadn't been a scheme, something rationally developed, just a madcap insight, a momentary instinct of survival.
Serov nodded at him to pick up the extension. He did so and could hardly feel the plastic in his grip.
'Ah — Ponomarov? Good. What's the condition of the patient now — no, the spy. Yes, that's right, I want a report.'
Priabin listened fearfully.
''Twenty-four hours before he comes around, at least that long. We consider he will be able to be questioned again by Friday, but gently, Colonel, without the use of more drugs. Really, some of your people… mind might have been irreparably…'
Eventually, Serov snapped: 'Thank you, Ponomarov. I don't have time for morality. Just keep him safe. Is he under guard?'
'Your people are here, yes.'
'Good. Thank you, Ponomarov.' He slapped the receiver onto its cradle and grinned, spreading his hands as if in innocence. 'There, that's your witness for you. To have him brought here would be peculiar enough to arouse suspicion, to collect him from the infirmary, suicide. That's your one witness taken care of. See how it shakes you, Priabin? See how much of a blow that is? You're felling apart.'
'Send for the American. Do it!'
Serov rubbed his chin, then his nose, then plucked his lower hp, elongating the silence until it drummed against Priabin's ears. He ran his hands over his cropped hair, even pulled at his earlobes. A whole language of relaxation, confidence, contempt. Priabin raised the pistol and carefully aimed it at Serov's broad, creased forehead, above the gleaming eyes. Serov's smile remained.
'Send for Gant,' Priabin said quietly, aware of the inadequacy of his voice, its lack of command. 'Do it now — because, as you might now begin to guess, you have turned over the stone and found the scorpion under it.'
'Poetry?'
'Even the son of a peasant should be able to get my meaning.' Priabin attempted to sound relaxed. Using contempt steadied his hand, his bluff. 'You know what I mean. You've made my situation hopeless — where does that leave you?' He smiled shakily, but its effect on Serov was minutely visible. The mans eyes narrowed in calculation. 'I'm not going to let you live so that you can kick seven kinds of shit out of me for making a fool of you here, am I? Without you supervising what happens to me, I might even qualify for a neat, military execution at Rodin's orders — mightn't I?'
