The Case of the General's Thumb (17 page)

“So now we're quits,” said Sakhno. “Though I deserve extra special for swapping the tablets.”

“When was that?” Nik managed to ask.

“Back in Belarus. I had some for you. They were given to me in Kiev.”

“I don't get it.”

“No mystery. We do the job, one of us gets told to kill the other, after which, what simpler than to give him the chop.”

“When exactly did you hit on that?”

“The moment they gave me the tablets and said you'd be in a denim suit like mine.”

Nik fell back and lay staring at the ceiling, while Sakhno and the girl stood conversing by the stove.

“What's your friend's name?”

“Uli, Ulrike.”

“Pretty … So that was you two in Koblenz.”

“Where did you get that from?”

“The man who phones left a newspaper. It's there somewhere.”

Sakhno found it and Nik translated.

“And that's why you decided to opt out?”

“No. I'd just heard that my wife and son had died in a fire. It was after that I was told to look for the paper. And when you got back, you were to be given the tablets.”

Sakhno looked at him with new interest. “So you decided not to wait for me.”

“It's all over. No sense to anything. They'd get me back, they said. But back where?”

“It's bloody well not all over! We're only just starting!”

“You and Uli are wanted by the police, I'm a dead loss – what the hell can we start?”

“What about the money?”

“What money?”

“The money we were to find, then be killed for finding. We're nearly there, man! All we have to do is go to Trier and shake the tree.”

“Money's no use to me.”

“So, I'll have your share. And actually we don't need to go to Trier. This chap who phones is who we want, and he'll be somewhere in this one-eyed town. Any ideas?”

“I've got his telephone number. His address can be got by working through the directory.”

“So we go for the money?”

“You do.”

“We both do. I need you to speak German.”

While Sakhno busied himself with the directory and Uli fussed over Nina, Nik fell asleep.

With Zanozin and Viktor on different floors in the same hospital, Ratko was able, as he put it, “to kill two hares with the same bullet”. Viktor did his best to do justice to the constant supply of oranges, and Ira helped. Even so, they made little impression on it.

The first snow fell. No longer was his leg suspended from the crane-like device, and the day came when he was issued with crutches, for which he signed, and taken by ambulance to Kharkovsky and his flat to mobilize and resume normal life.

“How long are you laid up for?” Georgiy inquired.

“The plaster comes off in three weeks.”

“Sounds grim. Still, the driver of the lorry's hanged himself. ‘Overcome with remorse.' I don't think!”

“Don't think what?”

“That he hanged himself. What came as a surprise was that you were being photographed from the windows of State Security opposite, as well as observed from HQ.”

“How do you know?”

“You were watching the doors, we were watching for reaction. So you've stirred up two ministries by the look of it. State Security's drawn your file from Personnel.”

“So what do I do?”

“Nothing, just get better. Let events take their course without you. Safer that way. I'll keep you in touch.”

Outside it was dark, but it was no longer snowing. Autumn was slowly giving way to winter.

“Up you get,” Sakhno urged, rousing Nik from an uneasy half sleep. “I've got the address.”

“What time is it?”

“4.00.”

“Can't it wait till morning?”

“Look, while you've been blissfully sleeping, I have spent hours going through the phone book!”

Heaving himself to his feet, Nik saw that Sakhno's bed had been taken over by Uli.

“48-04 is Überkraft, N., Schönparkallee, 18. And that's here,” Sakhno pointed to the top left corner of the street map in the directory.

“What are you going to do?”

“Pay him a visit.”

“And then?”

“Like you said, make a run for it.”

Their footsteps rang out loud and crisp in the silence of the sleeping town, until snow began to fall, steadily muffling them.

Schönparkallee, 18, proved to be a bungalow set back behind a low, well-trimmed hedge.

Sakhno led Nik round to the back, where they found a vent of the kitchen window open.

“Give me a leg up,” he whispered, and by the time Nik joined him, had beer, sausage and cheese ready in the light of the open fridge.

“We'll breakfast first, in case there's no time later. I like eating out. And there's a bottle of Stolichnaya in the fridge that leaves with us when we go.”

“Time we met our host,” Sakhno said, taking a kitchen knife and marching off into the darkness.

Sakhno was now leader. Nik was content to be led.

Following more slowly, he found Sakhno, in a blaze of light, holding the knife to the throat of a bewildered Überkraft still snug in bed.

Physically persuaded by Sakhno, Überkraft finally responded to questioning in Russian.

“It was me delivered the rifle. I collected it from left luggage, Cologne station.”

“Who told you to ring and what to do?”

“Medvedev. My controller in Soviet days. After the break-up, total silence. But two months ago, he phones, tells me I'm reactivated. Tells me to take you under my wing, find you a flat.”

Weinberg, so far as he knew, was a disaffected former agent, with high-level contacts and high-level involvements. Hence the order to call him to account. It was all money, money, money, today. Ideology was out.

“Why did we have to frighten up Pogodinsky?” Nik asked.

“Question of money. He hadn't paid the interest.”

“On what?”

“The restaurant. It wasn't his. It was financed by the Committee.”

“Who was he to pay the interest to?”

“Weinberg, I think. He'd been to see Pogodinsky before we took over.”

They left Überkraft trussed but ungagged.

Outside it was still snowing.

After only three days, Viktor was bored to tears, and irritated at Ira's undisguised pleasure at having him confined to the flat.

“You should break your leg more often,” she told him.

One evening, when Ira was busy putting Yana to bed, the bell rang, and hobbling as fast as he could on his crutches, he managed to catch the postman before he returned to the lift.

“Special Delivery. From Moscow. Sign here, please.”

He signed, and hobbled back to the kitchen.

The envelope contained a typed but unsigned letter, presumably from Refat, and the photostat copy of a handwritten letter. The former read:

Looking at Tsensky in the photograph, Viktor felt sorry for his having to write home so impersonally.

Taking his tea over to the window, he pressed his face to the glass.

Parked at the block entrance, cab light on, was a minivan. A car drew up. A man got out, and the minivan moved off in the direction of the metro and the Kharkov Highway.

“Belgium next, so get the map,” Sakhno informed Nik, sitting squeezed against Uli on the front seat of the hearse. Uli was nursing the now hibernating Nina in a cardboard box packed with screwed up balls of newspaper.

“We shan't get far at this rate,” Nik responded, snow having reduced traffic to a crawl.

“More haste, less speed.”

Nik envied his assurance.

“Pity there's no radio-cassette player,” Sakhno added. “It'd cheer things up a bit.”

“Music? In a hearse?”

“Don't see why not, especially if the corpse was musical. Apart from which, we're not corpses.”

As they waited to join the Autobahn, Sakhno conducted a sign-language conversation with Uli, which ended in an exchange of kisses. Nik did his best to be non-existent, immersing himself in the road map, and calculations of time and distance.

After a while Uli took over the driving, and Sakhno lolled yawning beside him, Nina in her box on his knees.

In Liège they bought warm clothing and ate in a Vietnamese restaurant. Nik was surprised at Sakhno's ordering no vodka, but made no comment.

“How far to Luxembourg?” Sakhno asked.

Nik didn't know, but Uli apparently did.

“What does she say?”

“Three hours in this weather, and another hour to Trier. So we can look up Herr Weinberg this evening. And how much shall we touch him for? Two hundred thousand dollars? Half to you, less expenses. And away you go.”

“Where will you go?”

“We've got a place lined up … God, I could do with a drink! But not till we've got ourselves some money.”

Coming in sight of the hearse they saw two youths busy doing something at the rear of it. Sakhno darted ahead and knocked one of them senseless. The other fled. The back window was smashed.

After stowing their scattered possessions back in the hearse, Sakhno got Nik to help lift the unconscious youth on board.

“What's the point?”

“He might come in useful.”

First a tortoise, now a thief.

Sleeping little at night from the discomfort of lying on his back, Viktor spent his days dozing fitfully from exhaustion. Waking from one such doze, he seemed to remember hearing the doorbell and a male voice as well as that of his wife.

“Was that someone at the door?” he asked.

“A man offering to do repairs at a moderate charge. I said we didn't need any repairs. Oh, and he said he could fix an extra aerial for better telly reception.”

“And you opened the door to him?”

“You were in the flat, and he'd been everywhere else on the floor.”

“What's Yana doing?”

“Playing.”

“Don't open to anyone else. I don't think that accident of mine really was an accident.”

“An attempt to kill you, do you mean?” she asked in alarm.

“I don't know … Just a suspicion. Don't worry. The vital thing is to be more on guard.”

Yielding to the temptation of sun and sparkling snow, he went for a hobble round the block, and was encouraged to find his leg no longer hurting, just aching. Sitting on the bench by the entrance and looking round, he spotted a minivan. Miller Ltd Suspended Ceilings. No call for them here in the new blocks. District could do with a few, though. Maybe the driver was local.

At that moment two smartly dressed men emerged from the block, got in and drove away.

That evening Georgiy rang.

“Paris is off, I'm afraid. There's no one to go for, Assistant Military Attaché Kylimnik being no longer with us. Threw himself
from an upper window at the Embassy, and to spare embarrassment, into an inner courtyard rather than the street.”

“I should have been there, not hanging around Border Troops HQ,” Viktor said bitterly.

“In which case there'd have been no defenestration. All things are for the best. Tell you more when we meet.”

“When will that be?”

“Plaster comes off tomorrow, right?”

“At three o'clock.”

“I'll ring soon after.”

“Don't move, lie still for ten minutes. I'll be back,” said the doctor, leaving Viktor in screened-off solitude after removing his plaster.

“Glad you're on the mend!” came Georgiy's voice. “Leg OK?”

“Just about.”

“Well done! Welcome back to our invisible ranks! Now here's something for you. While you were on watch, we slipped those fine photos of yours to a certain general – the one with a window above the entrance – so that he could study them as well as you. And it worked! He lost his nerve! He had you smashed up, Kylimnik eliminated, then, like a fool, ran straight to those he's in league with. And if they're a bit brighter than him, he'll be the next to fall from a window. They've just the one trump card for all situations, these military types. No finesse. None of the softly-softly approach. Nothing of the chess player about them.”

“So do we know who he's in league with?”

“We do, and they're not easily got at – at least not immediately. They're too high up. Our General would seem to be more the trusted executant than one of the strategists. Increasingly, there's a dimension of State Interest. It could be our President who's after the cash. Now, to come back to you and your future. A spell of detached service, I think. First to Saratov. Then further afield.”

“Why Saratov?”

“To see Mrs Fourth Man. Her good husband keeps in touch, even when ‘on a mission'. You might learn something.”

A journey for nothing, Viktor thought, rather wishing he could tell Georgiy what he had already learnt from Refat. Nor did he relish the thought of leaving Ira and Yana alone at this time.

“Where after Saratov?”

“Depends what you come back with. Your London trip set things moving. You must travel more.”

“But not to Paris?”

“Paris could yet be on. There are still people of possible future interest there. We'll see. But I'm off. Here's your nice lady doctor coming back. Do what she tells you. Ring you tomorrow.”

Viktor sat at the kitchen table, oppressed by the pointlessness of travelling to Saratov and unable to seek advice, except at the unwelcome cost of betraying to Refat the subordinate nature of his own role. It couldn't be worse.