Red Station

TWENTY-THREE

Stones hammered underneath the car like machine-gun fire and a dust cloud billowed up around them as they skidded to a halt. Amid a volley of shouting and the rattle of automatic weapons being cocked, the doors were wrenched open and soldiers motioned them to get out.

Harry moved slowly with his hands in clear sight. All it needed was a stumble and one trigger-happy soldier, and all hell would break loose. Some of the soldiers looked nervous, and he put their average age at little more than twenty. Then a large figure pushed through the men, waving away the dust cloud.

It was Geordi Kostova.

Behind him came Nikolai. They looked at ease among the troops, who moved aside without complaint to let them through. Kostova motioned Harry to stay where he was, and signalled for Clare to follow him. They walked away a few yards, with Nikolai close by, and the mayor made a display of studying Clare’s passport. He rattled off a few questions, with gestures towards Harry, and although the words were indistinct, the bite in his voice was in distinct contrast to when he had spoken to Harry in the restaurant.

Harry concentrated on trying to stay calm and ignored the weapons pointed at him. Some of the men searched the inside of the vehicle and made a show of moving the seats and playing with the instruments.

An older man thrust his face forwards. ‘You American?’ He jabbed a grimy finger at the Land Cruiser, clearly seeing it as a badge of US wealth. ‘CIA? NYPD?’

‘Not me, mate.’ Harry smiled, one eye on Kostova and Nikolai. They seemed at ease, but he wondered how friendly they really were. Would Kostova help them out if things got nasty? ‘I work for the British Council. Education? Arts? Culture?’

The man scowled but fastened on one word.

‘British? Ah, yes. British.’ He looked towards Clare and asked, ‘What she do?’

‘She?’ Harry rolled his eyes. ‘She drives like a woman.’

The translation prompted an outbreak of laughter, and two of the men mimed jumping clear of the Land Cruiser at the last minute with slapstick grimaces and cries of alarm. Eventually, they lost interest and wandered away, lighting cigarettes.

When Clare returned to the car, she climbed behind the wheel and signalled for Harry to get in. Kostova and Nikolai stayed in the background, watching. When they were on their way back towards town, she asked Harry to pass her another cigarette.

‘That was lucky,’ she said, blowing out smoke. Her voice was shaky. ‘He said if we’d been anyone else, we would have been shot.’

‘Why?’ Harry said. ‘Is this a restricted road?’

‘It is now. Military use only. They must have closed it after we took the fork back there.’

‘Kostova must have clout, lording it over the military like that.’

‘He has.’ She glanced at him with a frown. ‘What was all the laughter for?’

‘I told them that back home you were a rally driver.’

She smiled. It transformed her face, an insight into how attractive she was under the cool exterior. A deliberate mask, he wondered, or a conscious desire to be as different as possible from the character she must have played in her deception role?

‘Did Kostova say what all the military is for?’

‘There’s been a general mobilization. All leave has been cancelled, all units are on stand-by, and there’s a push north towards the border.’

‘That was open of him.’

‘Perhaps because he knows they can’t hide it any longer.’ She pointed skywards, signifying the satellite overview of the planet from which very little could be hidden, then threw the cigarette out of the window with a grimace of distaste. ‘He also confirmed the general talk gathering pace around town for a few days.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The Russians are coming. Can you believe that?’