Northlight

14 GUN

Gromyko warns: we are reaching the point of no RETURN. Picture of Gromyko, one finger held up, face blank as usual.

It was the only story on the front page of Pravda and the headline was twice as big as usual.

Let it be stated once again. The obstinacy on the part of the Western Powers to admit to the fact that the United States of America committed what was tantamount to an act of war, in sending an armed nuclear submarine into Soviet waters, is now offering a threat to world peace of a magnitude that has never before faced mankind.

In times of normal diplomatic relations the affair of the US Cetacea would have brought the two great powers to a situation of precipitate crisis. When it is considered that the Vienna meeting was agreed upon in order to alleviate a- crisis in diplomatic relations that already existed before this irresponsible and dangerous act was undertaken, it will be seen even by the least intelligent of America's allies that only a miracle can now save the Vienna summit meeting, and the world from final and irrevocable disaster.

One of them was the man with the shapeless leather bag.

Until this is clearly understood by the intransigent West, the world must remain poised on the edge of an abyss in whose depths lies the grave of civilization as we know it today.

The other was the man with the briefcase, but he wasn't watching me now. I was holding the newspaper to cover the whole of my face except when I turned the pages. Then I checked his image.

It had taken me half an hour to realize what was happening because they were working in shifts, one at a time, and using the interior window glass of the compartments and the windows across the corridor to give them a double mirror effect.

Only a miracle can now save the Vienna summit meeting, so forth. Dear Comrade Gromyko, have a little patience, for Christ's sake. Miracles take a little longer, you know that.

But I wasn't, in fact, feeling terribly confident now of pulling one off. What we must never allow to happen had happened, on pressure from Control. Although I could understand the cause of that pressure — the front page of Pravda had spelt it out clearly enough — the fact remained that the executive in the field had been forced to move into a red sector without being sure he was clean in terms of surveillance and was on his way to a critical rendezvous and taking with him two components of a formidable opposition cell.

There was also a third man.

I didn't have time to worry about the third man because the other two had me in a surveillance pincer movement, but one thing about him was interesting. He wasn't working with the other two. He wasn't with the Rinker cell at all.

I knew this because I'd become aware of him earlier, soon after the train had started off, and I'd mapped his rather elaborate movement patterns: when I'd gone along to the restaurant car for the paper he'd sought immediate cover and didn't show up again until I was back in my compartment, when he'd used another passenger as a shield as he'd come past to check on me. It wasn't that he was inefficient: it was all he could do in this kind of closed environment with only a narrow corridor as the terrain. He was under an added strain, and I'd noted this soon after he'd surfaced.

He not only knew I was under surveillance by the Rinker people. He had to keep it from them, as well as from me, that I was his target too.

In the normal way I would have been extremely interested in the fact that a second opposition network had sent an agent into the field but he was already out of the running because the Rinker cell was on to me and they wouldn't let me go and if I tried to lead them anywhere except directly to Karasov they'd close in and trap me and put me under a light and work on me until I betrayed my objective and blew the mission to bits.

There wasn't any question about this in my mind as I watched the image in the double mirrors, the face of the man who was sitting three compartments along from me with his head tilted back against the quilted upholstery and his eyes apparently closed. His cell was professional and they'd already lost a man and they'd moved in again as if nothing had happened. They wanted Karasov as badly as I did, as London did. Somewhere eke a mission control had sent his people into the field with instructions to find our sleeper.

I began reviewing the environment, but there was nothing here that you wouldn't find in most long-distance trains across the vast expanse of Soviet Russia: doors, windows, brass rails, glass-shaded lamps and upholstered seats, leather straps and racks of netting for small baggage, the emergency chain running through the compartment, glazed posters proclaiming work targets and industrial scenes, a woman in a head scarf, a man in a worker's cap. There wasn't anything that would make a weapon useful enough to offer decisive advantage in a close encounter, nothing better than my own hands; and if I finally made up my mind to draw the opposition into my own immediate vicinity and make a last-ditch attempt at dealing with them and eliminating the threat to Northlight I wouldn't be able to do it without alerting the KGB.

The only choice I had was to close down the mission and leave the field and try to survive.

He'd taken over his shift ten minutes ago, and although he was watching my reflection from between his half-closed eyelids his attention would be less acute than when he'd changed places with his partner. Static surveillance is fatiguing; on the move there is the physical stimulus offered by the need to keep the target in sight and not lose him, but to sit in a rocking train with your head against the cushions and your eyes half-closed is wearying and even mesmeric: the mind plays tricks, and that man in the mirrors wouldn't be absolutely certain that when I moved, it wasn't in his imagination. He would react, by moving himself.

If he didn't, it would be easier, for me.

I got up and kept his mirrored image in sight and made to turn to my left out of the compartment but his head moved and I abandoned the first choice and turned right instead, initiating the more dangerous play and walking past him along the corridor with my head turned away to look through the windows, not because I could hope to conceal my identity at this late stage but because it was the natural thing to do. The scene out there was eerie; there was no true daylight yet but the edge of the snow cloud was drawing away from the northeast and leaving a shimmering luminosity across the face of the hills, and from the huddle of buildings in the valley there was smoke rising from fires that in the winter here would never go out. The light was so strange in its quality that it could be either dawn or dusk or even full moon; in this region I was already finding that the only temporal constant was provided by my own biological clock.

He didn't turn his head as I walked past his compartment; in reflection he could follow me with his eyes as far as the end of the carriage and he'd only get up and take a stroll if I went further than that.

The panel on the toilet door read Unoccupied and I went in and shut the door and locked it and got my heavy coat off because the window was small and I wasn't certain I could squeeze through it. They were larger in the compartments but if I'd left my seat and opened the window he would have heard it and been along here very fast. I'd checked this toilet as soon as I'd got onto the train because it was the only place where I could break any kind of surveillance and make an escape if I had to. The air outside was below freezing and the window frame was shrunk to a loose fit and slid upwards when I pulled on the strap.

The cold air hit my face and I squeezed my eyes half-shut as I looked out. The speed of the train was somewhere in the region of sixty kph and the terrain alongside the track was black rock under a light snow covering: we'd been running due south and the wind was easterly and the drifts had formed on the other side where I couldn't jump without being seen At this speed and with those rocks below me it was going be sudden death but I couldn't see any choice because they could hold off until I got out at Kandalaksha but from that point they'd expect me to lead them straight to the objective and I started trying to lose them they'd close in right away: they couldn't afford that, and they wouldn't give me more than an hour or two before they shut the trap and took me to their safehouse and went to work. If I didn't lead them to Karasov they'd have to force me to tell them where he was. I didn't know, but the rendezvous was in my mind and they might salvage that.

I put my head half out of the window and looked south, the way we were running, but the wind was so cold that my eyes blurred at once and I was blinded. Looking below and behind I could still see nothing but rocks: there was no embankment to roll down, no deep snow to break my fall. But we'd passed through Olenegorsk and there'd be no other stop until Kandalaksha in forty minutes' time and if I didn't get out now I'd be moving into a strictly shut-ended situation.

Rocks, and light snow, and rocks, and now a stretch of flat ground with scrubland beyond it and immediately below me the dizzying comb-tooth sequence of the sleepers. There'd be some kind of chance to make a rolling aikido fall with my coat on but without it I didn't expect much hope of getting away with less than a smashed skull.

But there was a compromise between staying in the trap and doing a suicide drop and I pushed my shoulders through the window and twisted round and got a hand-hold on the half-inch gutter valance and hung on with my left hand and reached inside for my coat. I'd left it in a bundle across the tiny marbled handbasin and it caught on one of the taps but I freed it by whip action and pulled it through the window. The running board was three feet below me and I felt for it, swinging in the slipstream with the cold hitting my body and going through to the bone before I found the board and put my weight on one foot and dropped and grabbed for the windowsill and steadied, getting my balance.

The idea was to hang on like this until we were running across better ground but there was no guarantee: these rocks were lethal but in this terrain I couldn't hope for more than flat ground frozen iron-hard under the snow and if I jumped wrong and landed badly I could pitch under the wheels.

It was difficult even to see what was below me because at this speed the ground was blurred, and in any case it was no go because a sound came and I looked upwards into the barrel of his gun.

They were really very good.

But he was nervous. He hadn't left me in the toilet for more than a couple of minutes before he checked on me from the next window along.

It was the next window forward of the toilet and he'd chosen it so that he could look back without the slipstream in his face. His gun was perfectly steady and his eyes were narrowed, sighting along the barrel. He was the Lithuanian with the shapeless leather bag.

'Come back,' he said in Russian. His voice carried well above the roaring of the wheels.

I looked down and away from him to clear my eyes. I didn't need time to think; there was no decision-making to be done. We were both professionals and we understood that, and the situation was simple enough. He'd taken away the only chance I'd had — the hope of dropping and rolling on flat ground and getting away with it. If I dropped now the last sound I would hear would be the shot. He'd only need one: it was a magnum he was holding, a man-stopper.

His chances of saving his own mission weren't very good now because he couldn't afford to let me get away: if I got away I might survive and reach Karasov and take him to a frontier. The Rinker cell could no longer use me as a tracker dog to lead them to Karasov: I was blown. But if this man had to shoot me dead there would still be a small chance for him and for his mission. He would expect my network to replace me, just as his own had replaced Rinker. He would then hope to pick up the tracks of my replacement and follow him to the objective.

So there was nothing to stop him putting a shot through my spine if I let go and dropped.

'Come back into the train,'

He'd got the bloody thing cocked.

The acrid stink of the locomotive up there ahead was in my lungs and I began shallow breathing. The valance was sharp under my fingers and I didn't know how long I could hold on: the whole of my body was numbed by the blast of the slipstream and I began wondering if it would have been any good trying to squeeze through the window with my coat still on, and when you begin wondering things like that when you should be planning your next move it's time you 'Three,' he said, and held up three fingers.

His voice brought me back to full consciousness: I'd been slipping into alpha waves because the cold was clamped round my skull and shrinking the carotid arteries below the jawline. I would have to do something, or You've got to do something.

Yes, bloody little organism starting to panic.

If you don't do something we 'II get killed and I don't want to the.

For Christ's sake shuddup.

Panic. Panic's the real killer when all's said and done.

'One,' I heard the Lithuanian calling out.

A rush of clear thought came and I realized he wouldn't be joking because he didn't have a lot of time to spare: if those KGB people came past the compartment he'd have to shoot them if he could before they got to their guns because dial would be professional: he still had a mission running and his instructions would be to do anything necessary to protect it and see it through, and even though the major Western services try not to do the kind of thing I did to that KGB colonel in Moscow when the car was being smashed up they sometimes have to take things to a conclusion if there's no other way, just as the KGB sometimes knock some spook off his perch in Paris or London or Bonn if they're running a tricky operation and he's making things difficult.

This man would take on the KGB but he'd much rather not: he'd rather get me back in the train and pistol-whip me or use a syringe and shove me under the seat until he could get me off at Kandalaksha.

"Two."

I was worried about my coat. It was still draped half across the windowsill of the toilet and I was so cold now that it was the only thing I could think of by simple association, thirst, drink, so forth. I thought of something terribly funny to say — Do you mind if I fetch my coat?

Not funny, no. You've got to do something, I don't want to the.

Shuddup you snivelling little bastard.

Then a spark came flying back from the engine and stung my face and I came out of the alpha waves and thought oh Jesus Christ this is going to be it.

'Three.'

I squinted upwards and saw the gun and remembered what was happening and moved my feet along the running board and brought my hands level and then moved my feet again and saw from the corner of my eye the coat fall from the window but there was nothing I could do about that.

'Faster,' the Lithuanian called.

The whole thing was rocking badly now — the train felt as if it were running across the bare sleepers instead of the rails because I wasn't much more than a frozen carcass and normal consciousness kept slipping into zen as the mind tried to save the organism by relaxing and going blank and letting the body fight its way out of trouble if it could.

'Faster!'

Bastard thought I was a fucking miracle worker.

He had the door open and he was crouching on his haunches, because even he'd got enough sense to know that if I were going to climb back into this train I'd need some help. You can't expect anyone to hang on and go on hanging on with the shimmering light and the scent of roses, till you can't. Wake up.

What? Yes. Nearly lost it all.

Dangerous, this is very dangerous, we- I don't want to the.

Shuddup.

'Come on,' he said, and I took another look upwards with the air-rush tearing at my eyes and the stink of the coal-smoke bitter-sweet in my lungs. He still had the gun on me but his knee was hooked against the edge of the doorway to keep him stable and he was reaching down with his free hand. I thought of taking hold of it but couldn't manage that: it would be too personal, like a handshake, too intimate within the context of kill or be killed. It would pay him to take my hand and pull me to safety but it would also pay him later to shoot aminazin or sulfazin into my veins and blow the last vestige of sanity out of my skull.

You're no friend of mine.

'Take my hand.'

Not bloody likely, you've probably got the pox.

He was reaching down but I wouldn't cooperate so he got fed up and took hold of my jacket and I let him get the top part of my body across the doorway with my face against the floor and the smell of linoleum and ancient tobacco stains in my nostrils and then I dragged back enough of my consciousness to work things out because we couldn't go on like this, it was bloody humiliating.

I could feel the relative warmth of the compartment against my head and shoulders and it brought back a feeling of life, a small flame that began flickering through the veins and the nervous system and working on this half-stiffened carcass and bringing some kind of rational thought back into the mind. I began noting things: the bulk of the Lithuanian still crouched on his haunches; the trembling of the floor as the train rocked on its way through the snows; the uncertain light from the bulbs in the ceiling as they blinked to a faulty contact; the ring of steel pressed against my temple and the smell of gun oil.

'Make an effort,' he said.

Rather formal, that. He could have said come on you bastard I haven't got all day, or something equally rude. He was quite educated, quite a gentleman, but frankly, you know, when someone's digging your grave for you it doesn't make any difference if he's a gentleman or an absolute shit.

'You know what this is?' The ring of steel pressed harder.

'Gun.'

I suppose he was testing me to see how far gone I was.

'Get a grip on that seat,' he said.

I could see the edge of it from where I was lying with my face still against the floor. I reached up and got a hold with my fingers below the cushion and realized that full consciousness was back in my head now and my body was losing its numbness in the warmth of the compartment. I didn't know how much time had gone by since I'd dropped from the window but it was probably a good three or four minutes. That was important, because this man was in a hurry to get me phased out in some way and shoved under the seat. Or he might rely on the gun and order me to sit beside him with the thing against my ribs and make some kind of plausible conversation when people went past along the corridor, we've had a rotten grain crop again, you know what that means, we'll have to buy it from those bloody Americans.

I got it half right and that was dangerous because it left the gun flat against the side of my head and if he pulled the trigger he'd probably blow my shoulder off but at least I'd made a start and he hadn't been ready for it — I'd swung my arm up in a sweeping forearm block and that had paralysed his arm and got the muzzle of the gun away from my temple but there was a lot to do yet if I wanted to survive and I wasn't at all certain I could muster enough strength out of a half-frozen body. He wasn't saving anything, wasn't trying to warn me. I suppose he was enough of a pro to know there wouldn't be any point in talking: the situation wasn't very complex and he knew I understood that unless I could do something effective I'd either finish up with my head blown off or he'd pitch me out of the train and deal with things that way.

We were in a lock at the moment, like two wrestlers. He was a strong man and he was above me and he had the gun but the face of my sensei had come into my mind and his image was floating there as he lent me his spirit, his ki, so that I was able to stop thinking about what had to be done and concentrate instead on how to do it, which moves to make, which muscle groups to call into action, which angles and surfaces and hand-holds would be best for me if I could find them and use them. There was for instance the strap of the window touching the fingers of my left hand, and I thought about it, picturing the inside of the compartment until I could identify the strap and decide whether it would help me.

My arm was still across his throat and his neck was arched back with his head against the door-hinge but I couldn't increase the pressure enough to block his windpipe because he knew where the danger was: the throat is the primary killing area at close quarters for three very good reasons and he knew what they were. I couldn't increase the pressure there but I had to maintain it because he was waiting for me to slacken off and lose the initiative and then he would move his right hand and fix on the target again and squeeze his index finger and send a 200-grain hollow-point projectile into my skull and through the soft grey convolutions of my brain at 1500 feet per second and I didn't want him to do that.

He'd shut the inside door of the compartment after him when he'd come in here and when the train hit the tunnel it slammed a gust of stinking air across us and blocked the eardrums as the tumult of the wheels built up against the tunnel wall and produced a long sustained roaring that shut down a certain degree of consciousness while the brain tried to accept what was going on and reassure the emotions.

For the moment I couldn't do anything but keep him where he was and it wouldn't be long before muscle fatigue set in and he made a move and caught me by surprise and finished me off so I began trying to work something out, using the tactile data that was available. He had a choice, of course, and we both understood what it was: if he couldn't put a bullet somewhere conclusive he would have to push me bodily off the train; and as I thought about it I became gradually aware that the tactile information coming in confirmed it. He'd started to ease the pressure of the gun against my head and transfer it to my left arm. If he could break my arm or paralyse it at the median or the radial nerve it would release my fingers from the edge of the seat and I would fall backwards through the open doorway and he'd have time to put the bullet in to make sure.

I began putting pressure the other way to see if I were right and I was: he reacted at once, increasing his own. It was like a silent conversation going on, not terribly civil but perfectly articulate; we were equally experienced at clinging to life and there wasn't likely to be anything more than luck involved when we reached the conclusion; meanwhile our two heads were within twelve inches of each other and inside them there was going on this telepathic dialogue, so explicit that each of us had started anticipating the other's next move.

The train was still in the tunnel and I was shallow-breathing again because the compartment was thick with smoke and my eyes were streaming the whole time. The muscles in my right forearm were beginning to feel the fatigue of keeping up a constant pressure and when I took it off and clawed for his eyes we both shifted to the shock of the sudden movement and I felt the gun swinging across my temple and waited for the noise and found my right arm free and smashed the elbow against his face but missed and grazed his head and felt the whole of my weight falling backwards until I found one of his eyes with my fingers and used a gouge and sent him hard against the seat as he tried to stop me. I thought he was screaming but it was the locomotive — the sound came shrilling along the tunnel like a cry of pain.

No go. I'd relieved the strain on my arm but we were locked again and the gun was pressed against my face with the barrel pointing downwards along my body and it was only a matter of time before he fired and waited for blood loss and pushed me out of the train.

He began hurrying now and I knew why. If he could shoot me and push me out while we were still in the tunnel he'd bring off a certain kill: it wouldn't matter if the shot didn't do anything lethal because when I went down I'd hit the wall and bounce back under the wheels and that would be final. He was hurrying by millimetres and I felt it and gave it some thought and realized that he wanted to make sure of a useful shot before he pulled the trigger: it was no good just putting it into my leg because you can go on working for quite a long time unless there's an artery hit and even then you can try for an overkill before the blood loss starts weakening the organism.

So I began hurrying too and pulled my arm from his neck and formed a half-fist and went for the windpipe but he was ready for any kind of move and blocked me and then there was a rushing of foetid air and the eardrums opened as the train ran clear of the tunnel and I lost my balance and clawed for a grip on anything I could find but it was no go and I went pitching down to the track.