“Don’t you realize,” continued the General Secretary, “that we had within our grasp the opportunity to turn the very land the Americans use for their early-warning system into a base for our short-range missiles? If it had proved possible to retrieve our icon, it would also have been possible to site those same missiles along a border less than a thousand eight hundred kilometers from Seattle—two thousand eight hundred kilometers from San Francisco—a mere four thousand kilometers from Chicago. Not only could we have made the Americans’ early-warning system redundant, we could have greatly improved our ability to detect any enemy missiles while they were still thousands of kilometers from our nearest border.”
The General Secretary paused to see if the Chairman of the KGB had any further explanation to offer, but Zaborski kept his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. When Brezhnev began again it was almost in a whisper:
“And for such a prize we would not have had to sacrifice one life, one rocket, one tank, or even one bullet—because all this was ours by right. But if we fail to locate the Czar’s icon in the next thirty-six hours, we will never be given such a chance again. We will have lost our one opportunity to remove a star from the American flag.”
Foreign Secretary Gromyko waited until he was certain Brezhnev had completed his statement before he inquired: “If I may ask, Comrade Chairman, why was Major Romanov allowed to continue being involved in such a sensitive operation after it was suspected he had killed”—with this he glanced down at the papers in front of him—“Researcher Petrova?”
“Because when that situation was drawn to my attention,” replied Zaborski, at last looking up, “I had only seven days left to tomorrow’s deadline, and in my judgment there was no one who could have taken over Romanov’s place at such short notice—”
There was a timid knock on the door. All the faces round the table showed surprise. The Minister of Defense had given specific orders that no one was to interrupt them.
“Come,” shouted Brezhnev.
The great door inched open, and a secretary appeared in the gap. The thin piece of paper in his hand shook, betraying his nervousness. The Minister of Defense waved him in, as Brezhnev had no intention of turning around to see who it was. The secretary walked quickly toward them. As soon as he had deposited the telex on the table he turned and almost ran from the room.
Brezhnev slowly unfolded his tortoise-shell glasses before picking up the missive. Once he had read through the cable, he looked up at the expectant faces in front of him. “It seems an Englishman left an icon in the Louvre and picked it back up this morning.”
The blood quickly drained from Zaborski’s face.
The four ministers around the table all began talking together, until Brezhnev raised the vast palm of his right hand. There was immediate silence. “I intend to continue my plans on the assumption that it will still be us who gets to the Englishman first.”
Brezhnev turned toward his foreign minister. “Alert all our Western ambassadors to be prepared to brief the foreign ministers of the country in which they reside on the full implications of honoring the amendment to the treaty. Then instruct Anatoly Dobrynin in Washington to demand an official meeting with the Secretary of State for late Monday. At the same time I want a further meeting arranged between our ambassador at the United Nations and U Thant.”
Gromyko nodded as Brezhnev turned his attention to the Chief of the General Staff. “See that our strategic forces in all zones are put at a state of readiness to coincide with the timing of the announcement of our diplomatic initiative.” Zakharov smiled. The General Secretary finally turned to the Chairman of the KGB. “Do we still have advertising space booked in every major newspaper in the West?”
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary,” replied Zaborski. “But I cannot be certain they will be willing to print the statement as you have prepared it.”
“Then pay every one of them in advance,” said Brezhnev. “Few Western editors will withdraw a full-page advertisement when they already have the money in the bank.”
“But if we then don’t find the icon …” began the Chairman of the KGB.
“Then your last duty as Chairman of State Security will be to withdraw all the advertisements,” said the General Secretary of the Communist Party.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ADAM WOUND DOWN the car window and immediately the warm summer air flooded in. He had decided to avoid the main road to Calais in favor of the N1 to Boulogne. He still considered it possible that Romanov would have men watching at every port on the Channel coast although he doubted if Lawrence or the Americans were aware he had escaped.
Once he had cleared the outskirts of the French capital, he was confident that he could average seventy kilometers an hour the rest of the way. But what he hadn’t anticipated was running into a hundred or more cyclists, garbed in their various stripes of reds, greens, blues, blacks, and golds, bobbing along ahead of him. As he drifted past them Adam was able to check accurately that they were averaging forty miles an hour.
Having followed the buildup for the forthcoming World Cup in Britain, he was also able to make out the national colors of France, Germany, Italy, and even Portugal. He honked his horn loudly as he passed a group of four men quite near the front, clad in red-white-and-blue T-shirts with the British team van just ahead of them. A few minutes later he had overtaken the leaders and was able to put the car back into fourth gear.
He switched on the car radio and fiddled around for some time before he tuned in to the Home Service of the BBC. He settled back to listen to the news in English for the first time in days. The usual reports of long strikes, high inflation, and of bad weather holding up the second Test Match at Lord’s almost made him feel he was already back home. And then he nearly swerved off the road and into a tree.
The news reader reported matter-of-factly that a young RAF pilot had been found dead in a field off the Auxerre/Dijon road after his plane had crashed in mysterious circumstances. No more details were available at the present time. Adam cursed and slammed his fist on the steering wheel at the thought of Alan Banks becoming another victim of Romanov. He tapped the icon and cursed again.
“It was foolish of you to contact me, young man,” said the old banker. “You’re not exactly a hero of the Soviet Union at the present time.”
“Listen, old man, I don’t have to be a hero any longer because I may never come back to the Soviet Union.”
“Be warned: Mother Russia has extremely long fingernails.”
“And because of my grandfather’s foresight, I can afford to cut them off,” the caller said, touching the gold medallion he wore beneath his shirt. “I just need to be sure you don’t let them know where I keep the scissors.”
“Why should I remain silent?” asked Poskonov.
“Because if I haven’t got my hands on Saint George within the next twenty-four hours, I’ll phone again with the details of how you can hope to collect a larger golden handshake than you could have expected from your present employers.” The banker offered no comment.
The ambassador’s secretary rushed into the room without knocking. “I told you no interruptions,” shouted Romanov, covering the mouthpiece with his hand.
“But we’ve located Scott.”
Romanov slammed the phone down. In Moscow, the old Russian banker wound the tape back. Poskonov smiled and listened to Romanov’s words a second time and came to the conclusion that Romanov had left him with only one choice. He booked a flight to Geneva.
“Robin?”
“Batman. Where have you got to?”
“I’m just outside Paris on my way back home,” Adam said. “Are you sticking to the schedule you outlined on the bus?”
“Sure am. Why, are you still desperate to spending the night with me?”
“Sure am,” said Adam, mimicking her. “But when do you get back home?”
“The orchestra is taking the ferry from Dunkerque at six-thirty tonight. Can you join us?”
/> “No,” said Adam. “I have to return by another route. But, Robin, when I reach London can you put me up for the night?”
“Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,” she said, and then repeated her address to be sure he had time to write it down. “When shall I expect you?” she asked.
“Around midnight tonight.”
“Do you always give a girl so much notice?”
The young KGB officer standing in the adjoining booth had caught most of the conversation. He smiled when he recalled Major Romanov’s words: “The man who brings me the Czar’s icon need have no fear for his future in the KGB.”
Adam jumped back into the car and drove on until he reached the outskirts of Beauvais, where he decided to stop at a wayside routier for a quick lunch.
According to the timetable he had picked up from the Hertz counter, the ferry he wanted to catch was due to leave Boulogne at three o’clock, so he felt confident he would still make it with about an hour to spare.
He sat hidden in an alcove by the window enjoying what might have been described in any English pub as a plowman’s lunch. With each mouthful he became aware that the French plowmen demanded far higher standards of their innkeepers than any English farm worker was happy to settle for.
As he waited for his coffee, he took out Albert Tomkins’s papers from his inside pocket and began to scrutinize them carefully. He was interested to discover exactly how many weeks he had been claiming unemployment benefits.
Through the window of the inn he watched as the first of the cyclists pedaled by. In the athletes’ determination to remain among the leading group, their muscles strained. As they shot through Beauvais, Adam was amused by the fact that they were all breaking the speed limit. The sight of the competitors reminded Adam that he was expected to attend the final part of his medical for the Foreign Office tomorrow afternoon.
Romanov read the decoded message a second time. “Scott returning Geneva. Check German girl and bank.” He looked up at the KGB officer who had handed him the missive.
“Does Mentor think I’m that naive?” said Romanov to his Parisian colleague. “We already know from our agent in Amsterdam that he’s now on his way toward the French coast.”
“Then why should Mentor want to send you in the opposite direction?”
“Because it must be him who’s been briefing the Americans,” said Romanov coldly.
Romanov turned to the colonel who was standing by his side. “We know it can’t be Dunkerque, so how many other possibilities are we left with?”
“Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, or Calais,” replied the colonel, looking down at the map laid out on the table in front of him. “My bet would be Calais,” he added.
“Unfortunately,” said Romanov, “Captain Scott is not quite that simple. And as the motorway takes you direct to Calais, the captain will expect us to have that part of his route well covered. I think our friend will try Boulogne or Dieppe first.”
He checked the timetable the second secretary had supplied him with. “The first boat he could hope to catch leaves Boulogne for Dover at three, and then there’s one from Dieppe to Newhaven at five.”
Romanov also checked Calais and Le Havre. “Good. Calais left at twelve this morning, and as he phoned the girl after twelve he had no hope of catching that one. And Le Havre doesn’t leave until seven-fifteen tonight, and he won’t risk leaving it that late. Assuming we can beat him to the coast, Colonel, I think Captain Scott is once again within our grasp.”
Once Adam had left the relais routier it was only minutes before he began to catch up with the straggling cyclists as they pedaled on toward Abbeville. His thoughts reverted to Romanov. Adam suspected that his agents would have the airports, stations, autoroute, and ports well covered. But even the KGB could not be in fifty places at once.
Adam took the Boulogne route out of Abbeville but had to remain in third gear as he kept to the center of the road in order to avoid the bobbing cyclists. He even had to slam his brakes on once when an Italian and a British rider collided in front of him. The two men, both traveling at some speed, were thrown unceremoniously to the ground. The British rider remained ominously still on the side of the road.
Adam felt guilty about not stopping to help his fellow countryman but feared that any holdup might present him catching his boat. He spotted the British team van ahead of him and speeded up until he was alongside. Adam waved at the driver to pull over.
The man behind the steering wheel looked surprised but stopped and wound down the window. Adam pulled up in front of him, leaped out of his car, and ran to the van.
“One of your chaps has had an accident about a mile back,” shouted Adam, pointing toward Paris.
“Thanks, mate,” said the driver who turned round and sped quickly back down the road.
Adam continued to drive on at a sedate speed until he had passed all the leaders. Then, once again, he put the car into top gear. A signpost informed him that it was now only thirty-two kilometers to Boulogne: he would still make the three o’clock sailing comfortably. He began to imagine what it might be like if he could survive beyond tomorrow. Would his life ever be routine again? Jogs in the park, Foreign Office interviews, workouts with the PTI and even the acknowledgment of the part he had played in delivering the icon into safe hands. The problem was that he hadn’t yet decided who had safe hands.
A helicopter looking like a squat green bullfrog swept over him; now that would be the ideal way to get back to England, Adam thought. With help like that he could even make it to Harley Street in time for his medical for the Foreign Office.
He watched as the helicopter turned and swung back toward him. He assumed that there must be a military airport somewhere nearby, but couldn’t remember one from his days in the army. A few moments later he heard the whirl of the blades as the helicopter flew across his path at a considerably lower level. Adam gripped the wheel of the car until his knuckles went white as an impossible thought crossed his mind. As he did so the helicopter swung back again and this time flew straight toward him.
Adam wound the window up and, crouching over the top of the steering wheel, stared into the sky. He could see the silhouette of three figures sitting in the helicopter cockpit. He banged his fist on the steering wheel in anger as he realized how easy it must have been for them to trace a car signed for in the one name they would immediately recognize. He could sense Romanov’s smile of triumph as the chopper hovered over him.
Adam saw a signpost looming up ahead of him and swung off the main road toward a village called Fleureville. He pushed the speedometer well over ninety, causing the little car to skid along the country lanes. The helicopter likewise swung to the right and, doglike, followed his path.
Adam took a hard left and only just avoided colliding with a tractor coming out of a newly plowed field. He took the next right and headed back toward the Boulogne road, desperately trying to think what he could do next. Every time he looked up the helicopter was there above him; he felt like a puppet dancing on the end of Romanov’s string.
A road sign depicting a low tunnel ahead flashed past them, and Adam dismissed the melodramatic idea of trying to make them crash; he didn’t need reminding that it was he who was proving to be the novice.
When he first saw the tunnel he estimated it to be sixty or seventy yards in length. Although it was quite wide, a double-decker bus could not have entered it without the upstairs passengers ending up walking on the bridge.
For a brief moment Adam actually felt safe. He slammed on the little Citroen’s brakes and skidded to a halt about thirty yards from the end of the tunnel. The car ended up almost scraping the side of the wall. He switched on his sidelights, and they flashed brightly in the darkness. For several seconds he watched as approaching cars slowed down before safely overtaking him.
At last he jumped out of the car and ran to the end of the tunnel where he pinned himself against the wall. The helicopter had traveled on some way but was already turning
back and heading straight toward the tunnel. Adam watched it fly over his head and moments later heard it turn again. As he waited, two hitchhikers passed by on the other side, chatting away to themselves, oblivious to Adam’s predicament.
He looked across desperately at the two young men and shouted, “Were you hoping to thumb a lift?”
“Yes,” they called back in unison. Adam staggered across the road to join them.
“Are you all right?” Adam heard one of them ask, but he could hardly make out which one, as his eyes had not yet become accustomed to the darkness.
“No, I’m not,” Adam explained simply. “I drank too much wine at lunch, and because of a cycle race the road is just crawling with police. I’m sure to be picked up if I go much further. Can either of you drive?”
“I only have my Canadian license,” said the taller of the two youths. “And in any case we are heading for Paris, and your car is facing the opposite direction.”
“It’s a Hertz Rent-a-Car,” Adam explained. “I picked it up on the rue Saint Ferdinand this morning, and I have to return it by seven tonight. I don’t think I can make it in my present state.”
The two young men looked at him apprehensively. “I will give you both one hundred francs if you will return it safely for me. You see, I can’t afford to lose my license, I’m a commercial traveler.” Adam explained. Neither of them spoke. “My papers are all in order, I can assure you.” Adam handed them over to the taller man, who crossed back over the road and used the car lights to study Albert Tomkins’s license and insurance before carrying on a conversation with his friend.
Adam could hear the helicopter blades whirling above the tunnel entrance.
“We don’t need the hundred francs,” the taller one said eventually. “But we will need a note from you explaining why we are returning the car to Hertz in Paris on your behalf.” Adam pulled out the colonel’s pen and, feeling remarkably sober, he bent over the hood of the car and scribbled on the back of the Hertz agreement.