Adam smiled as he thought of his own father and how much he would have liked Alan Banks. He touched the icon instinctively and was relieved to find it was still in place. The pilot’s words had only made him more determined to get back to England.
“Which way?” asked Adam.
The pilot looked up at the Great Bear. “I’ll head east, seems appropriate, so you’d better go west, old fellow. Nice to have made your acquaintance,” and with that he limped off.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can last, Comrade Major.”
“You must try to hold on, Valchek. It’s imperative that you try. We cannot afford to stop now,” said Romanov. “I know that plane isn’t far. I saw it falling out of the sky.”
“I believe you, Comrade, but at least let me die a peaceful death on the side of the road, rather than endure the agony of this car.”
Romanov glanced across at his colleague, who had been shot in the abdomen. Valchek’s hands were covered with blood, and his shirt and trousers were already drenched as he tried helplessly to hold himself in. He continued to clutch on to his stomach like a child about to be sick. The driver had also been shot, but in the back while attempting to run away. If he hadn’t died instantly, Romanov would have put the next bullet into the coward himself. But Valchek was a different matter. No one could have questioned his courage. He had first taken on the British flat on their stomachs and then the Americans charging in like the Seventh Cavalry. Romanov had Mentor to thank for ensuring they had been there first. But he must now quickly warn him that someone else was also briefing the Americans. Romanov, however, felt some satisfaction in having tricked the Americans into turning their fire on the British while he and Valchek waited to pick off the survivors. The last survivor was an American who fired at Valchek continually as they were making their getaway.
Romanov reckoned he had a clear hour before the French, British, and Americans would be explaining away several bodies on a disused air field. Romanov’s thoughts returned to Valchek when he heard his comrade groan.
“Let’s turn off into this forest,” he begged. “I cannot hope to last much longer now.”
“Hold on, Comrade, hold on,” repeated Romanov. “We can’t be far from Scott. Think of the Motherland.”
“To hell with the Motherland,” said Valchek. “Just let me die in peace.” Romanov looked across again and realized that he could be stuck with a dead body within a few minutes. Despite Valchek’s efforts, the blood was now seeping on to the floor like a faucet that wouldn’t stop.
Romanov noticed a gap in the trees ahead of him. He switched his lights full on and swung off the road onto a dirt track and drove as far as he could until the thicket became too dense. He switched off the headlights and ran round the car to open the door.
Valchek could only manage two or three steps before he slumped to the ground, still holding onto his intestines. Romanov bent down and helped him ease himself up against the trunk of a large tree.
“Leave me to die, Comrade Major. Do not waste any more of your time on me.”
Romanov frowned.
“How do you wish to die, Comrade?” he asked. “Slowly and in agony, or quickly and peacefully?”
“Leave me, Comrade. Let me die slowly, but you should go while you still have Scott in your sights.”
“But if the Americans were to find you, they might force you to talk.”
“You know better than that, Comrade.” Romanov accepted the rebuke, then rose and after a moment’s thought ran back to the car.
Valchek began to pray that once the bastard had left someone might find him. He’d never wanted this assignment in the first place, but Zaborski had needed extra eyes on Romanov, and Zaborski was not a man to cross. Valchek wouldn’t talk, but he still wanted to live.
The bullet from the 9mm Makarov went straight through the back of Valchek’s temple and blew away one side of his head. Valchek slumped to the ground, and for several seconds his body trembled and spasmed, subsiding into twitches as he emptied his bowels and bladder onto the brown earth.
Romanov stood over him until he was certain he was dead. Valchek would probably not have talked, but this was not a time for taking unnecessary risks.
When he woke the next morning he felt the same familiar guilt. Once again he swore it would be the last time. It was never as good as he had anticipated, and the regret always lingered on for several hours.
The expense of keeping up an extra flat, the taxi fares and the club bills nearly made it prohibitive. But he always returned, like a salmon to its breeding ground. “A queer fish,” he murmured out loud, and then groaned at his own pun.
Piers began to wake, and for the next twenty minutes he made his companion forget those regrets. After a moment of lying in exhausted silence the older man slipped out of bed, took ten pounds out of his wallet, and left it on the dresser before going to run himself a bath. He anticipated that by the time he returned the boy and the money would have gone.
He soaked himself in the bath, wondering about Scott. He knew he should feel guilty about his death. A death that, like so many others before him, had been caused by his picking up a young Pole whom he had thought was safe. It was now so many years ago that he couldn’t even remember his name.
But Mentor had never been allowed to forget the name of the young aristocratic KGB officer he had found sitting on the end of their bed when he woke the next morning, or the look of disgust he had showed for both of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ADAM LAY FLAT on his stomach in the bottom of the empty barge. His head propped on one side, he remained alert to the slightest unfamiliar sound.
The boatman stood behind the wheel counting the three hundred Swiss francs for a second time. It was more than he could normally hope to earn in a month. A woman standing on tiptoes was eyeing the notes happily over his shoulder.
The barge progressed at a stately pace down the canal, and Adam could no longer see the crashed plane.
Suddenly, far off in the distance, he heard distinctly what sounded like a gunshot. Even as he listened, the woman turned and scuttled down the hatch like a frightened rat. The barge plowed its course on slowly through the night while Adam listened anxiously for any other unnatural noises, but all he could hear was the gentle splash of the water against the barge’s hull. The clouds had moved on, and a full moon once again lit up the bank on both sides of the river. It became abundantly clear to Adam as he watched the towpath that they were not moving very fast. He could have run quicker. But even if it had cost him the remainder of his money, he was grateful to be escaping. He lowered himself again and curled up in the bow of the boat. He touched the icon, something he found himself doing every few minutes since he had discovered its secret. He did not move for another half hour, although he doubted that the barge had covered more than five miles.
Although everything appeared absolutely serene, he still remained alert. The river was far wider now than when he had first leaped on the barge.
The boatman’s eyes had never left him for long. He stood gripping the wheel, his oil-covered face not much cleaner than the old dungarees he wore—which looked as if they were never taken off. Occasionally he took a hand from the wheel, but only to remove the smokeless pipe from his mouth, cough, spit, and put it back again.
The man smiled, took both hands off the wheel and placed them by the side of his head to indicate that Adam should sleep. But Adam shook his head. He checked his watch. Midnight had passed, and he wanted to be off the barge and away long before first light.
He stood up, stretched and wobbled a little. His shoulder, although healing slowly, still ached relentlessly. He walked up the center of the barge and took his place next to the wheel.
“La Seine?” he asked, pointing at the water.
The boatman shook his head, no. “Canal de Bourgogne,” he grunted.
Adam then pointed in the direction they were moving. “Quelle ville?”
The boatman removed his pipe
. “Ville? Ce n’est pas une ville, c’est Sombernon,” he said, and put the stem back between his teeth.
Adam returned to his place in the bow. He tried to find a more comfortable position to relax and, curling up against the side of the boat, rested his head on some old rope and allowed his eyes to close.
“You know Scott better than any of us,” said Sir Morris, “and you still have no feel as to where he might be now, or what he might do next, do you?”
“No, sir,” admitted Lawrence. “The only thing we know for certain is that he has an appointment for a medical exam on Monday afternoon, but somehow I don’t think he’ll make it.”
Sir Morris ignored the comment. “But someone was able to get to Scott, even though we didn’t call D4,” he continued. “That icon must hold a secret that we haven’t begun to appreciated.”
“And if Scott is still alive,” said Lawrence, “nothing is going to convince him now that we’re not to blame.”
“And if we’re not, who is?” asked Sir Morris. “Because someone was so desperate to discover our next move that they must have taken one hell of a risk during the last twenty-four hours. Unless, of course, it was you,” said Sir Morris. The Permanent Secretary rose from his desk and turned around to look out of his window on to Horse Guards Parade.
“Even if it was me,” said Lawrence, his eyes resting on a picture of the young Queen which stood on the corner of his master’s desk, “it doesn’t explain how the Americans got there as well.”
“Oh, that’s simple,” said Sir Morris. “Busch has been briefing them direct. I never doubted he would from the moment he joined us. What I hadn’t anticipated was how far the Americans would go without keeping us informed.”
“So it was you who told Busch,” said Lawrence.
“No,” said Sir Morris. “You don’t end up sitting behind this desk risking your own skin. I told the Prime Minister, and politicians can always be relied on to pass on your information if they consider it will score them a point. To be fair, I knew the Prime Minister would tell the President. Otherwise I wouldn’t have told him in the first place. More important: do you think Scott can still be alive?”
“Yes, I do,” said Lawrence. “I have every reason to believe that the man who ran across the tarmac to our waiting plane was Scott. The French police, who incidentally have been far more cooperative than the Swiss, have informed us that our plane crashed in a field twelve miles north of Dijon, but neither Scott nor the pilot were to be found at the scene of the crash.”
“And if the French reports on what took place at the airport are accurate,” said Sir Morris, “Romanov escaped and they must have had a couple of hours’ start on us.”
“Possibly,” said Lawrence.
“And do you think it equally possible,” asked Sir Morris, “that they have caught up with Scott and are now in possession of the icon?”
“Yes, sir, I fear that is quite possible,” Lawrence said. “But I can’t pretend it’s conclusive. However, the BBC monitoring service at Caversham Park picked up extra-signals traffic to all Soviet embassies during the night.”
“That could mean anything,” said Sir Morris, removing his spectacles.
“I agree, sir. But NATO reports that Russian strategic forces have been placed at a state of readiness, and several Soviet ambassadors across Europe have requested formal audiences with their foreign secretaries, ours included.”
“That is more worrying,” said Sir Morris. “They don’t do that unless they are hoping for our support.”
“Agreed, sir. But most revealing of all is that the Active Measures section of the KGB, First Chief Directorate, has booked pages of advertising space in newspapers right across Europe and, I suspect, America.”
“Next you’ll be telling me they hired J. Walter Thompson to write the copy,” growled Sir Morris.
“They won’t need to,” said Lawrence. “It’s a story that will make every front page.”
If it hadn’t been for the ceaseless throbbing in his shoulder, Adam might not have woken so quickly. The barge had suddenly swung at ninety degrees and started heading east when Adam woke up with a start. He looked at the boatman and indicated that the river was far wider now and could he ease them nearer to the bank so he could jump off. The old man shrugged his shoulders, pretending not to understand, as the barge drifted aimlessly on.
Adam looked over the side and despite the lateness of the hour could see the bed of the river quite clearly. He tossed a stone over the side and watched it drop quickly to the bottom. It looked almost as if he could reach down and touch it. He looked up helplessly at the boatman but he continued to stare over his head into the distance.
“Damn,” said Adam, and, taking the icon out of his blazer pocket, held it high above his head. He stood on the edge of the barge feeling like a soccer manager asking the referee for permission to substitute a player. Permission was granted, and Adam leaped into the water. His feet hit the canal bed with a thud and knocked the breath out of his body despite the fact that the water only came up to his waist.
Adam stood in the canal, the icon still held high above his head as the barge sailed past him. He waded to the nearest bank and clambered up on to the towpath, turning slowly around as he tried to get some feel for direction. He was soon able to distinguish the Plow again and plot a course due west. After an hour of soggy jogging he began to make out a light in the distance that he estimated to be under a mile away. His legs were soaking and cold as he started to squelch his way across a field toward the first rays of the morning sun.
Whenever he came to a hedge or gate he climbed over or under like a Roman centurion determined to hold a straight line with his final destination. He could now see the outline of a house, which, as he got nearer, he realized was no more than a large cottage. He remembered the expression peasant farmer from his school geography lessons. A little cobbled path led up to a half-open wooden door that looked as if it didn’t need a lock. Adam tapped gently on the knocker and stood directly below the light above the doorway so that whoever answered would see him immediately.
The door was pulled back by a woman of perhaps thirty, who wore a plain black dress and a spotless white apron. Her rosy cheeks and ample waist confirmed her husband’s profession.
When she saw Adam standing under the light she couldn’t mask her surprise—she had been expecting the postman—but he didn’t often appear in a neat navy blue blazer and soaking gray trousers.
Adam smiled. “Anglais,” he told her, and added, “I fell in the canal.”
The lady burst out laughing and beckoned Adam into her kitchen. He walked in to find a man, evidently dressed for milking, sitting at a sparse wooden table. The farmer looked up and when he saw Adam he joined in the laughter—a warm, friendly laugh more with Adam than against him. When the woman saw that Adam was dripping all over her spotless floor she quickly pulled down a towel from the rack above the fire and said, “Enlevez-moi ça,” pointing to Adam’s trousers.
Adam turned toward the farmer for guidance, but his host only nodded his agreement and added a mime of pulling down his own trousers.
“Enlevez-le, enlevez-le,” the woman repeated, pointing at him, and handed him the towel.
Adam removed his shoes and socks, but the farmer’s wife went on pointing until he took off his trousers, but she didn’t budge before he had finally removed his shirt and underclothes and wrapped the towel around his waist. She stared at the large bandage on his shoulder but then quickly picked up everything except his blazer and took them over to the sink while he stood by the fire and dried himself.
Adam hitched up the towel around his waist, as the farmer beckoned him to join him at the table, pouring a large glass of milk for his guest and another for himself. Adam sat down next to the farmer, hanging his fashionable new blazer over the back of the chair near the fire. A delicious aroma arose from the pan where the farmer’s wife was frying a thick slice of bacon, which she had cut from the joint hanging in the smo
ky recess of the chimney.
The farmer raised his glass of milk high in the air. “Winston Churchill,” he toasted. Adam took a long gulp from his own glass and then raised it dramatically.
“Charles de Gaulle,” he said, and finished off the warm milk as if it had been his first pint at the local pub.
The farmer picked up the jug once more and refilled their glasses. “Merci,” said Adam, turning to the farmer’s wife as she placed in front of him a large plate sizzling with eggs and bacon. She nodded and handed Adam a knife and fork before saying, “Mangez.”
“Merci, merci,” Adam repeated, as she cut him a thick oval slice from the huge loaf in front of him.
Adam began to devour the freshly cooked food, which was the first meal he’d managed since the dinner he’d ordered at Robin’s expense.
Without warning the farmer suddenly rose from his place and thrust out his hand. Adam also got up and shook it gratefully, only to be reminded how sore his shoulder still was.
“Je droix travailler à la laiterie,” he explained.
Adam nodded and remained standing as his host left the room, but the farmer waved him down with a further “Mangez.”
When Adam had finished the last scrap of food—he did everything except lick the plate—he took it over to the farmer’s wife, who was busy removing a pot from the stove in order to pour him a large, steaming cup of hot coffee. He sat back down and began to sip at it.
Adam tapped his jacket pocket almost automatically to make sure the icon was still safely in place. He pulled it out and studied Saint George and the Dragon. He turned it over, hesitated, and then pressed the silver crown hard. The icon split in half like a book, revealing two tiny hinges on the inside.
He glanced up at the farmer’s wife, who was now wringing out his socks. Adam noticed his pants had already joined the trousers on the rack above the fire. She removed an ironing board from a little alcove by the side of the stove and began to set it up, showing no interest in Adam’s discovery.