Northlight

16 BRIEFING

One of the sailors threw his cards down onto the table and got up and hauled another man off his chair and pushed him into the door and the hinges broke and the door swung down with the man on top of it. A bottle hit the floor by his head with a crash and I put my hand up to protect my eyes from flying splinters of glass.

'Cheating son of a whore!'

The sailor began kicking the man on the floor and some other people stopped him and dragged him away to the bar.

'What's that?' Fane asked me.

'Chap arguing.'

'Where are you speaking from?'

'A workers' club.' It was nearer than the post office.

The man on the floor began crawling outside, leaving a trail of blood. Two or three of his friends went out to help him.

'Debrief,' Fane told me.

'I've located the objective.' We couldn't afford to mention his name; even on an unbugged line there could be an operator with a sharp ear, and Karasov was being hunted throughout {Western Russia. 'He's lost his nerve, as you suspected. Volodarskiy is first class, for your information. Also for your information, the woman Tanya Kiselev is either a KGB swallow or she's with the Rinker cell or some other opposition group.'

I waited. It was a long pause. 'How do you know?'

'The objective denies any knowledge of her, and there'd be no point in his lying.'

'Did he mention his wife?'

'No. But he knows I'm getting him out of the country and if he sees her again it'll be in the West. There was nothing to stop him admitting he had a mistress: I wasn't likely to tell anyone.'

Another pause. 'Have you been in touch with her since your first meeting in Murmansk?'

'Yes. I phoned her to say he was safe and well.'

'You didn't say where he was?'

'Not really. He's the objective.'

'Did she ask where he was?'

'Of course.'

There was silence for another few seconds. 'It's not going to be an easy run for you.'

'Croder wouldn't have sent me otherwise.'

Glass smashed again at the far end of the room where the bar was. I couldn't see what was happening because the place was thick with tobacco smoke. I think they were having trouble with the sailor. The other man hadn't come back. There was a freezing draught coming in and two men were trying to put the door back but the hinges had been torn right out of the moulding.

'I'll signal London,' Fane said on the line. He meant about Tanya.

'Don't let anyone go near her.'

'Of course not.'

She had to go on thinking she hadn't been blown.

'I've got some transport for you,' Fane said. 'It's a black Moscwicz pickup truck loaded with grain. Where do you want it left?'

'Is it available now?'

'Yes.'

'Have it left outside the public reading room behind the main post office. There's a car park there. What's the number?'

He read it to me and I memorized it. 'I'll also need some papers for the objective. His were no good: I burned them.'

'There are some new ones on the way from Moscow by plane tonight. Unless there's any kind of hitch the courier will arrive in Kandalaksha on the 11:15 train tomorrow morning, snow conditions permitting.'

'Where do I make contact?'

'Immediately below the iron footbridge across the freight-yard at the station. There's only one bridge and one freight-yard. The rendezvous is for 11:30. If the train is delayed you'll rendezvous again at twelve noon and every hour after that, on the hour.'

'Parole?'

'He'll ask you if you're waiting for the geese. You'll tell him they were sent yesterday on the market train.'

'Roger.'

They were taking the sailor out now, singing drunk. Two other men had found a carpet from somewhere and were nailing one end across the top of the door to keep the draught out.

'As soon as you've got the papers,' Fane said, 'drive to Severomorsk, just north of Murmansk on the Kola River, the east bank. I'm going to try getting you both out by ship.'

I felt sudden hope. Fane was working more efficiently than I'd expected: he'd already found some transport and was getting the papers through and working on a plan to ship us out. There was no reason for the KGB to stop us on the drive north, and the Rinker cell hadn't picked up my scent. It looked as if we were actually going to be taking the objective to the West. End of mission, so forth.

'What's my cover story?'

'I'll leave that to you.'

'There was a thousand-to-one chance the two KGB men who'd questioned me on the train might now be helping in' the search for Karasov along the roads, so I would say that I couldn't get the job I'd hoped for at the foundry and I was earning a few rubles carting the grain to a chicken farm in the north.

'All right.'

'Do you need anything else?'

'No. Will you be in touch with the courier before tomorrow morning?'

'Yes.'

'Synchronize watches.'

'15:21.'

'That's right."

There was a short silence, then Fane said, 'Good luck.'

'Thank you.'

I hung up the receiver and pulled the carpet aside and went out under the dark afternoon sky, and heard the faint distant singing of the drunk.

'I don't see how we can get through,' Karasov said.

I'd been expecting this. He'd hardly slept during the night: he'd woken me a dozen times, turning on the straw mattress alongside mine.

Volodarskiy spat, turning away. I already knew his contempt for Karasov's lack of courage.

'Everything is arranged,' I told Karasov. 'We're going to make a short run to the coast, and there's a ship waiting.' I turned to the heavy screen of cowhides and pulled it aside, and heard the dog voice, low in its throat. The dog too had been awake in the night, disturbed by something outside.

'I would rather wait for a time,' Karasov told me, standing there with his hands hanging by his sides and his head down. 'In another week they will have stopped hunting for me.'

Volodarskiy came back from the shadows, his eyes as bright as the dog's.

'Out!' he said.

Karasov flinched. 'You don't understand my position. They-'

'But I understand mine, my friend. If they find you here I shall spend the rest of my life breaking stones. Out!'

The dog voiced again, sensing the menace in its master's tone. Karasov flinched again but didn't move.

'It'll take me a few minutes to start the truck,' I told him. 'Once it's going, I'm driving north. If you want to come with me you haven't got long to make up your mind.' I went out into the snow. If he didn't get the point I would have to come back and drag him to the truck and if necessary all the way to the Kola River. Not terribly propitious, you might say, not precisely a joy-ride, but theirs not to question why, theirs but to do or the, so forth.

The barn was a hundred yards from the cave and I'd run the black pickup truck inside it last evening, going in backwards and leaving it to one side where the earth floor sloped towards the entrance. If the battery couldn't turn the engine after the night's cold we had a chance of a push start. As I crunched through the snow I listened for Karasov but so far he hadn't left the cave. There wouldn't be any problem getting him out of there: Volodarskiy would give the appropriate word and the dog would do the rest. The problems would come later unless I could shake him out of his blue funk.

It was just ten o'clock and the early light was seeping across the sky from the east above the black skeletal trees. It was thirty minutes' drive to the rail yards and I was leaving an hour to check out the environment before we kept the rendezvous. As I went into the barn I looked back and saw Karasov trudging through the snow, a hunched, bulky figure with its head down. There were no doors on the barn: it was a huge ruin of a building, its rotting timbers holding up as if by virtue of the dogged endurance that had brought it through so many winters here. It faced west, towards the cave, and the shadows were still deep. Odd shapes reared against the walls, of wrecked machinery and crates and implements and things unknown. Cattle, I supposed, must have sheltered here once, and even died in here, frozen on their feet.

I got behind the wheel of the truck just as Karasov reached the entrance of the barn and stood there for a moment looking in, his shoulders hunched and his mittened hands hanging by his sides.

'Don't come near,' I told him through the open window of the truck.

'What?'

'Keep away. Go back to the cave.'

I was sitting perfectly still.

'Why?'

I tried to pitch my voice loud enough for him to hear me, and no more.

'Karasov, I want you to go back to the cave. Tell him I sent you.'

My scalp had lifted and I could feel the gooseflesh creeping along my arms. It was just the smell, really: there was nothing to see or hear.

'Go back?' Karasov called out.

'Yes. Wait there for me.'

He went on staring for a long time, trying to think why I'd changed my mind; then he turned away and his figure grew smaller across the snow. I didn't move until he'd reached the cave. Then I moved very carefully.