Revelation

26 Escape

Like Newton's apple, it took a collision to jog Petrosian into a new thought. He mumbled an apology to the man with the newspaper, watched him as he hurried off, and then turned into the newsagent's.

And he didn't even have to buy a newspaper: there were a dozen cards stuck on a pin-board, and one of them said:

Pierce-Arrow VI2 Model 53 Roadster 6500 c.c. whitewalled tires servo-assistid breaks resently resprayed padded dash new chrome bumpers spots recent overhaul 50000 miles $500 o.n.o. ask for Tom.

The apartment door was opened about two inches. A dark eye surveyed him suspiciously. The girl, he thought, had beautiful eyelashes.

'Hi. Can I speak to Tom?'

'Maybe he ain't hair.' There was a scuffling sound from the rear of the flat. Petrosian glimpsed a naked black youth running between rooms. The girl said, 'He doan get up at this time, mister.'

'It's about his car.'

'He get up for that.'

The door closed.

It was opened again two minutes later by the youth tucking a shirt into his jeans, who sauntered out of the building to a builder's yard, Petrosian in tow.

And there it was, spare wheel attached to its side, a running board along its length, new chrome bumpers and painted a gleaming black.

'How does it run?'

'Like a dream, mister.'

'I mean, is it reliable?'

'Hey, I ain't never had a day's trouble with it.' The youth was a picture of injured innocence. On the other hand he wasn't offering a trial run.

Petrosian pretended to examine the car. The tyres were bald, and a patch of canvas was beginning to show through one of them.

'What's the mileage?'

'Fifty thou.'

Petrosian looked inside. The driver's seat was sagging and pedals were worn smooth; he estimated that it had done four or maybe five times that distance.

'You're asking for five hundred dollars?'

'Yassuh, faive.'

No time to waste haggling. But if I don't baggie it looks suspicious.

'Okay. But make it four.'

'Hey, I's a poorist, I cain't make charitable donations. I need four seventy five for this piece of luxury.'

'Four twenty-five, then.'

'Done for four fifty, mister. Cash, right?'

Anastas's air fare, Petrosian thought.

'Jurgen?'

'Hey, old pal.'

'They're onto me.'

'Don't say another word. Just listen. It's fixed up for tomorrow night, ten o'clock.'

Petrosian's voice was filled with dismay. 'Tomorrow? I won't last that long.'

'I said just listen.'

'All right, where?'

'A place you know, Lev, a lake where you once thought the planet would overheat. Now my phone's tapped and your call is being traced. So get off the line and get the hell out of there.'

Jesus. 'Thanks, Jurgen.'

'A night and a day, Lev, just hold out for a night and a day.'

'What about you?'

'I got a four-minute start on them. If I don't make it, say hello to the Motherland for me.'

There was a faint, peculiar click on the line. But Petrosian was on Interstate 93, and merged with the heavy evening traffic flowing towards Boston in less than a minute.

'It has been set up?' 'Yes, sir.'

'Nothing can go wrong?'

'Absolutely not. The Corporation need have no fear.'

'You had better be right, for all our sakes. Tonight, I will pray for his soul.' The Chairman sipped at his white wine with satisfaction. 'A good Orvieto is hard to beat, unless it is a better Frascati. And what about his secret?'

'He has been carrying a large briefcase around since he fled. It never leaves his hand. It will of course disappear along with him.'

Something in the man's body language. The Chairman said, 'Was there anything else?'

'There is one thing, a small item.'

The Chairman went still. In his long experience of life, it was small items which brought empires crashing down. 'Well?'

'Within the last hour, I'm told that the FBI have picked up his trail.'

'Yes?'

'He is very close to the Canadian border. If he crosses it…'

The Chairman continued: 'The FBI will have no jurisdiction.'

'Precisely, sir. They would have to cross the border illegally.'

The Chairman relaxed. The man worried too much; a line on a map was indeed a small matter. 'I will speak to Mister Hoover. But be assured, he understands the force of necessity.'

Exhausted, Petrosian saw the lights of a small town.

He had to eat, had to drink, had to sleep.

He had taken the Pierce-Arrow V12 Model 53 Roadster with whitewall tyres six hundred miles east while the faint engine tap gradually intensified until it turned into the deafening clatter of a crankshaft trying to tear loose. The Pierce-Arrow was a twenty-year-old car and bound to attract attention; in Petrosian's case, a Pierce-Arrow with a big end hammering out over the countryside was an invitation to the electric chair. Somewhere past Grand Rapids he had finally lost his nerve, turned off the highway onto some rural road, and driven the car for another fifty miles until steam began to pour out of the overheated engine. He drove it, without lights, as far as he could take it into a wood, and ditched it.

He wished he'd taken the time to look for a Model T.

There was one piece of good fortune. Through the trees, he could see Lake Michigan sparkling in the distance.

There were no buses that early and Petrosian could only have cleared off on foot or by train. The New York express had just left by the time they got to the station and it had taken a lot of phone calling to cover the halts. It was another half-hour by the time a dim-witted young railwayman at Ploughkeepsie identified Petrosian: the spy, they assumed, must have a cool nerve to get off at the adjacent station.

A saturation search of the town revealed no sign of the spy; neither had he taken a bus, called a taxi or hired a car. However, a trawl of early morning shops had turned up a newsagent who recognized him. The man had entered his shop, looked at the cards on the wall and left without buying anything. He'd only noticed the guy because he looked a bit foreign and had seemed in an agitated state.

One of the cards advertised a car for sale. Tom Clay, a local delinquent, denied any involvement in the liquor store heist the previous week and informed them that the Colt 45 in the drawer was being held for a friend. However he readily admitted to selling the Pierce-Arrow to a weirdo with more money than sense.

By the time an APB had been issued, the spy could have been anywhere within a hundred and fifty mile radius, which encompassed such conurbations as New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. Common sense dictated that he would by now have ditched such a conspicuous car and be on a Pullman or a Greyhound to anywhere. It was therefore a wonderful piece of good fortune that a routine tap on his controller, Rosenblum, turned up a brief conversation with Petrosian. The trace told them that he was in all probability heading for Boston.

Except that the spy knew the call was being traced. Therefore unless he was really stupid — and the agents had to assume that an atomic scientist wasn't — he would be heading in some other direction. This being the north-east of the United States, he had somewhat limited options. He might head for Portland, Concord or Albany, or of course he could be trying for Canada, across the border to Montreal. The St Lawrence River was a barrier which could only be crossed at a handful of places, such as Sherbrooke or Niagara Falls.

There was one further piece of information: he had a rendezvous at a lake. In that case he would be heading west, towards one of the Great Lakes. He would then be on the 1-90 which, being a toll road, meant that he would easily be picked up, say at Syracuse or Buffalo.

As the hours passed and no news came in, it became increasingly likely that he had slipped the net. But the information about the lake was so clear that it had to be assumed he was by now on one of the towns or villages bordering Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie or Ontario.

'A lake where you once thought the planet would overheat.' It might be weird, but it had a vaguely nuclear sound about it. Maybe somebody in the AEC or Army Intelligence could shed some light, maybe even some of his longhair colleagues would help assuming they weren't all bleeding-hearted commies.

They had until ten o'clock tomorrow to catch this guy.

The briefcase was like a lead weight, no matter which hand he held it in. He wandered along the main street, keeping an eye out for police and attracting the occasional curious glance from passers-by. The door of a neon-lit bar opened as he passed, and he was enveloped in a wonderful stream of hot, beery air. A spicy food smell reminded him that he hadn't eaten all day. Further along the street he passed a hotel. He caught a glimpse of the dining room. A couple of blond children were watching delightedly as a waiter poured flames over their steaks. Then the door had swung shut and he was tramping on through the snow. He had the money, US dollars. He too could eat a steak diane flambe; he too could spend the night in a warm, comfortable bed.

It was much too dangerous. The FBI could be checking hotels in the area. Even by walking on the main street, with suit and briefcase at this time of night, he was taking a terrible risk. But to stay out overnight, in some park, was to risk death by exposure. Already the bitter cold seemed to be numbing his spine.

Near the edge of the town, the shops and bars petered out. There was a dark lake, reflecting lights from the far shore. An esplanade ran alongside it, and on the side away from the lake was a scattering of terraced houses and waterfront hotels. A couple of hundred yards ahead, a pier projected out. A cluster of motor boats and yachts was moored alongside the pier, the masts of the yachts swaying gently.

The oldest urge of all — the urge to survive — brought a desperate thought to Petrosian's mind.

This far from town, the road was deserted. He crossed to the waterfront, climbed over a rail and walked along the pebbled shore, to be invisible from the houses. At the pier he climbed up slippery stone steps and walked along it, looking down at the moored vessels.

Petrosian knew nothing about boats. He guessed that the motor boats would be started by ignition keys and that the owners would keep these at home. His eye was drawn to one of the yachts; in the dark it seemed blue. 'The Overdraft was written on its side. Suddenly the cold and exhaustion were just too much to bear and Petrosian went down the smooth, treacherous steps, gripping the rusty handrail to keep balance, and then he was on the yacht.

There was nobody in sight. There was a little trapdoor and a steep flight of stairs. Down these, he groped around, adjusting his eyes to the dark. There was a strong smell of diesel. He could make out, from the little frost-covered portholes which lined the walls, that the cabin curved inwards. As his eyes adapted to the dark he could make out a sofa, cupboards, a galley, and the door to another little room which he assumed was a toilet.

A galley meant a stove and heat. He scrabbled through drawers and found a near-empty box of matches. Experimenting, he soon had propane gas hissing on a ring. He struck the first match. It promptly fizzled out. Suddenly realising there were only two matches left, he took great care with the second only to find the phosphorus head splitting off with a fizzle.

The last match was now the most important thing in Petrosian's universe. He struck it carefully, firmly but not too harshly. It lit, flickered, started to die. He tilted it, cupping his hands round it, brought it to the hissing gas. There was a pop and the gas lit, throwing a blue light around the little cabin. Petrosian was too weary to laugh or cry.

At the front of the cabin were two bunks, built into the side. There were folded sheets, and wooden planks, and cushions. In a minute Petrosian had made them into a bed. He flopped on the edge of it, watching the gas flame as if it hypnotized him.

In a minute the cabin had warmed. He threw off his suit, just had the presence of mind to turn off the gas, slid between icy sheets and in moments fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion.