The Scorpion Signal

19: SCARECROW

5.41

The winter night had come down half an hour ago, and the sky was now starless. Snow had started falling again before noon, and was now beginning to settle as the evening temperature dropped below zero.

C–Charlie… Heading west on Sucharevskaja ring road.

I checked the time again. C–Charlie was Croder.

There were seven of us out^: four of the original cell with Croder, Bracken and myself making up the number. Logan and Marshal had died instantly in the shooting and an ambulance had picked up their bodies after an anonymous telephone call from Bracken. That had been at 6.39 this morning, nearly twelve hours ago. Since that time Croder had kept the whole cell working to locate Schrenk and had failed. Nothing had been seen of the Zil.

I picked up the set.

A-Able… Going east on Krasnocholmskaja, now crossing river bridge.

The snow came out of a black sky, hazing across the taller buildings and covering the roofs of vehicles until they began blending with the background. Traffic was easing as the rush hour neared its end. A few trucks were using chains again, and sand crews had just appeared at the major intersections.

Croder had said: 'If we haven't found either Schrenk or the Zil by five o'clock this evening we shall begin patrolling the outer ring road in the hope of sighting the Zil on its way to the Kremlin.' His face had been pale, and his head sunk into the collar of his overcoat. 'We shall maintain constant radio contact and A-Able will be prepared to go into action if we sight the Zil. What action he may take will depend on the circumstances and his own discretion, but whatever happens we have to realize that the Zil may explode without warning at any time. It may be triggered with a timing device, or Schrenk may choose to detonate the charge by radio beam, sacrificing the driver. We don't know. This is a last-ditch stand, and I expect every conceivable effort to be made to avert disaster. I've already pointed out to you that the disaster we have to avert does not simply concern the explosion of a motor-car in a crowded city, but concerns the explosion of a totally unpredictable situation on an international scale. Thank you, gentlemen, that is all.'

I'd asked Bracken if they were going to reconsider the idea of warning the Guards Directorate by an anonymous phone call a few minutes before the four leading members of the Politburo got into their motorcades. He'd just said, 'God knows. That's up to London, not us.'

We knew that Croder was in signals with London hourly through a timed system of public phone box calls to the Embassy. We also knew that Croder was personally against the risk of exposing a plan to assassinate the Soviet chief of state by warning his security forces in time, without making 'every conceivable effort' to block Schrenk on his run in and get control of the Zil.

'There is, of course, the other thing,' Bracken had told me privately. 'That Zil might already be inside the Kremlin. If it is, there's nothing we can do.'

With the bridge behind me I watched the mirror for a few seconds longer than normal because a militia patrol was coming up fast and I started looking for an immediate right turn. The Volga stayed in the mirror for ten seconds and then overtook and left me behind. A minute later I caught up with it again at the Kamensciki street junction, slowing behind a mess of vehicles trying to make their way past some sort of accident by the Metro station: I saw a stove-in radiator with rusty water blowing out of it and a Moskvich draped halfway across the kerb. Sirens had started up from the opposite direction.

The surface was tricky in places now because the ruts were getting lost under the new snowfall and you couldn't use them to steer with. I was keeping my speed down to a little below the limit and checking the mirror the whole time: there shouldn't be any tags but if I missed sighting the Zil ahead of me I might see it in the mirror and send out a fix on the radio.

'We shall expect it to be crossing the ring road,' Croder had told us at the briefing, 'towards the Kremlin. But that doesn't mean it might not have to make a right turn on to the ring road itself and follow it for a time until it can turn left. Watch for that.'

I hated Croder and I pitied him. I pitied him because he'd run a reasonably effective mission up to the point where I'd failed to kill Schrenk, and in less than twenty minutes from now he looked like seeing the mission being blown out from under him through none of his own fault; and I hated him because the fault was going to be mine and he'd taken pains to let me know it. All right then, not hate. Guilt.

5. 43.

G-George… I'm making west along Samotocnaja, just passing the circus building.

Shortlidge. He was keeping station a mile behind Croder, who would now be moving south and west, somewhere near the planetarium.

Calling G-George. Repeat signal.

Radio reception was strengthening and fading as we circled the centre of the city, the new steel-braced constructions affecting the signal. We'd been told to mention a landmark when we could, as well as the street's name. We knew them by now: we'd spent two hours with the maps.

Shortlidge was repeating. His voice sounded dead. He was the one who'd found Logan and Marshal; he'd known them for three years and had worked closely with Logan on the Yugoslavian spy-bust thing when half the foreign a-i-ps in Moscow were being smoked out of their holes. Logan had a wife, a young ice-skater working her way up through the city championship teams, and Shortlidge was going to have to tell her what had happened.

I used the set again.

A-Able… I'm going north, leaving Narodnaja with the Kotelniceskaja Hotel on my left. Where is F-Freddie now?

No one came on the air for almost a minute; then Croder began asking for a signal. We didn't get one.

Calling F-Freddie. Location Please.

No answer. Croder went off the air. F-Freddie was Wilson and either his set was out or he'd skidded on the snow or the police had pulled him in for something.

At 5.44 I saw a black limousine half a block ahead of me and the set was in my hand a couple of seconds later but I didn't signal yet: it could be a Chaika. I pulled out and got past some of the traffic in front of me with the front wheels shifting across the ruts of packed snow and the rear end breaking away and correcting and breaking away again until I had to start slowing for the lights, Chaika, finding a slot in the right-hand line of traffic and pulling over, it was a Chaika, not a Zil.

B-Bertie… Proceeding south and west along Bolshaja just past the Gorkogo intersection, the Hotel Peking on my right. Did we lose F-Freddie?

I checked the time at 5.45.

A-Able to C–Charlie… This is the deadline.

Croder came back straight away

C–Charlie… We continue until further orders.

The lights in front of me went green and I got going again. The deadline was 5.45 because Ignatov had said the Zil was to be handed over to the chief of state's personal chauffeur ten minutes before Brezhnev was to board the car outside the Grand Palace, and it was a five-minute run from the ring road to the Kremlin at this time of the evening. The pickup time was six o'clock. So this was zero and the seven of us were circling the target area and the radio was silent and I was beginning to sweat because Schrenk was a professional and had enough hate burning inside him to carry this thing through to the final blast and if he succeeded the headlines would carry the shock around the world.

Because I had failed to carry out the instructions.

5.46.

Zero plus one and too late.

E-Edward… going north on Ckalova and just crossing Karl Marx.

The snow drifted out of the dark sky, eddying in the slipstream of the car ahead of me. It was becoming mesmeric, and I wound the window down and let the freezing air come in, taking deep breaths of it. I'd slept for nearly four hours after I'd got back from the warehouse but the blood loss was still a problem. In less than a minute the left shoulder was numbed by the draught and I put the window up again but went on breathing consciously until the haze went out of my head.

5. 47.

If I'd been given this information I would have eliminated Schrenk the minute I found him.

But the instructions were already there.

The snow swirled against the windscreen. There was of course a chance that Schrenk had made a mistake or the stuff hadn't arrived in time or the Zil had come unstuck in the snow but he was highly talented and they'd crippled him and he knew what he wanted to do and it wasn't particularly difficult with that amount of feverish dedication driving him: history was liberally punctuated with successful assassinations and he wasn't trying to do anything new.

This was why I looked to my left at every intersection, sometimes seeing the glow of a golden dome through the snow haze. That was where we would see the column of smoke going up, a few minutes after six o'clock.

The traffic was thinning now as the city's population flowed from the factories and offices to the apartment blocks in the suburbs.

5.48.

D-Donald… I've got a Zil.

C–Charlie calling D-Donald — give your location.

I'm heading north and coming up to Uljanovskaja. The police let him through on the red light. The Zil is moving west on Uljanovskaja now and going fast.

Did you see the number plates?

No. It was broadside on when it went past.

Did it have any kind of escort?

No. It went through the lights on its own.

C–Charlie calling A-Able. Where are you?

I hit the button. A-Able. I'm at Obucha and the lights are red. There's a left-turn arrow and I'm waiting for it now.

Two seconds went by.

From your present location, can you intercept the Zil before it reaches the Kremlin?

The map had been open on the passenger's seat since we'd started patrolling and I looked at it now. It depends on what speed he makes. 1 can't go across the lights as he can. But I've got a chance of cutting him off at the Solanka intersection.

The left-turn arrow went green and I gunned up and took the intersection in a controlled slide across the ruts and got the Pobeda straight and settled down.

A-Able moving west towards the boulevard ring, light traffic. Orders?

Stay on the air and report progress. C–Charlie calling all other stations… All other stations remain listening but do not signal unless emergency repeat do not signal unless emergency. Break pattern and head for A-Able with all speed.

I was coming up on two taxis and a truck and pulled over to pass but the ruts were deep and I lost the rear end as the steering dug in and the momentum set up a swinging action, left to right, left to right until I changed down and put a lot of power on and broke the rhythm, one of the taxis using the horn because I'd swung too close.

Croder dropped the call sign now: from this point there'd only be his voice and mine on the air.

What is your direct route to the Kremlin?

Due west by Podkolokol'nyj. Solanka, and Razina.

Present location?

Crossing the boulevard ring.

The trees stood on either side, white with snow against the iron sky. The lights were changing to amber and I kept my speed constant and crossed over and gunned up a little because they'd put sand down here. The inner boulevard signal was at red and I switched my headlights full on and kept going and crossed the intersection and heard a whistle blow.

I am now on Podkolokol'nyj. Traffic police alerted because I crossed on the red, but my rear plate is illegible.

Acknowledged.

I hadn't intended to take the intersections on the red because the police would use their radios and I'd be initiating a collision course with the nearest mobile patrol but the Zil would now be curving north-east across Ustjinskij prospekt and heading for the major fork at Solanka and it was the only chance of my cutting him off because if he got there first I wouldn't be able to catch him and there were no other oblique streets where I could gain on him by using angles.

Location… Podkopajevskij on my right. I'm passing the junction now.

Acknowledged.

He would want to say more than that, but he left the air clear for my signals. He would want to say that I should make every conceivable effort to reach the Solanka fork before the Zil because that was the only hope we had left. He would want to say that there was a red lamp burning at the top left corner of the board for Scorpion in London and that the lamp must go out when the mission had succeeded, not because it had failed.

A taxi was pulling away from the kerb and doing it too wide and I touched the brakes and got nothing so I used the wheel and angled the front end out of the ruts and straightened again, overcorrecting and hooking the rear bumper of the taxi: I watched it in the mirror, sliding against the kerb and bouncing and coming to a stop with the front wheels locked hard over.

Location… Passing Ivanovskij on my right and approaching the fork at Solanka.

Acknowledged. C–Charlie to all other stations. Keep heading for A-Able at the Solanka fork as fast as you can. If necessary ignore traffic lights.

The nearest to me would be E-Edward, last locating south of me on the ring road at Uljanovskaja, and he would have made an illegal U-turn and come back to the intersection and turned right to follow the Zil. D-Donald had been farther to the north and would have turned west and south and would reach the Solanka fork soon after E-Edward. Bracken had last signalled from the other side of the ring road and would be coming east and rounding the walls of the Kremlin, but he had more distance to cover. In five minutes from now the Zil could be in the centre of three or four converging cars and it wouldn't be heading for the Kremlin at this time unless it had the explosive on board and that could be dangerous: Composition C-3 was relatively insensitive to impact but if the Zil crashed it could false-trigger the detonation device. If I sighted the Zil I'd need to make a signal.

Location… Solanka fork, approaching fast, lights at red.

I could hear a siren somewhere. I'd run the red at the boulevard intersection and hit the taxi soon afterwards and the policeman who'd blown the whistle could have radioed the network to put a car on me; or it could be F-Freddie in trouble after his failure to acknowledge or it could be just an accident somewhere in the icy streets and nothing to do with us.

The lights were still at red and I took the Solanka fork on the low side of fifty kph with the front end stable enough in the ruts to take me close along the nearside kerb with a chance of bringing the wheel over hard if I had to, putting the Pobeda into a front-wheel skid and breaking the ruts to slow the momentum if anything came through on the green from the main fork road to my left. I wasn't risking a broadside collision because the fork road had the only right of way and the traffic would merge at forty-five degrees, but I flicked the headlights to full again and started watching the left-hand outside mirror.

Crossing Solanka, lights at red.

The Zil wasn't there.

We began hitting the cross-ruts and the front end lost its line and cocked over and wouldn't come back but the wheels had some resistance left and I waited and then hit the brakes as we ploughed into the loose sand alongside the kerb and the Pobeda shook itself straight as the nearside rear wheel hit and bounced and got traction as I gunned up and settled down again with a number 55 bus a hundred yards ahead of me and nothing this side of it but a taxi. It was no go.

No sign of the Zil. I'm across the -

Mirror.

Zil.

Correction, I've got the Zil now, I've got the Zil.

It was behind me, crossing the fork on the green with its headlights full on and coming up fast.

Croder's voice came faintly through bad static but with a lot of control.

Repeat, Please. Repeat signal.

I hit the button again. I've got the Zil behind me at fifty yards and closing up on me fast. Listen, I want the others to hold off, tell them to hold off, we can't risk crashing the Zil — it's a live bomb.

I switched to listen and heard him acknowledge and then start telling all stations to support the scene but keep clear of the Zil. He repeated and asked for acknowledgement and the others began coming in as the siren started up again from somewhere in the immediate area, another one joining it: the network had been alerted to something and the patrols were closing in.

The bus was moving slowly in the nearside lane and I checked the mirror and pulled out in the path of the limousine behind me. In this city the Zils and Chaikas normally drive on full headlights for the police to let them through the intersections but this one began using the horns when it saw me pull out. According to Ignatov it would have the Politburo chauffeur Morosov at the wheel and he wasn't used to other vehicles getting in his way and tonight he was running two minutes late and his rendezvous was ultra-priority.

I began slowing.

There was still a clear lane on my offside and I waited for him to take it. The Zil was massive and could break through the ruts of snow and keep its steering stable enough to make a lot of speed through streets like these and if I let him go past me I'd lose him without any chance at all of catching him again: this was strictly a one-time operation because he now had a straight run to the Kremlin and the police would let him through every light. Through the snow haze ahead of me I could see the bright gold domes of St Basil's church at the south end of Red Square: we were less than a mile from the Kremlin now and time was running out.

The Zil was shaping to overtake, its dark mass filling the mirror. Its horns were still blaring and its headlights blinding and I had to use my left hand as a shield against the window glass while I kept on slowing and watched the shadow of my own car on the road ahead of me: if the Zil pulled to the left or right I'd see the angle change. When it stopped hooting I could hear the sirens again, their howl loudening as they neared the area. I hit the tit.

I've still got the Zil behind me and I'm blocking it. We're approaching Razina ulica. Several sirens going, they've been getting nearer.

The Zil began using its horns again and I saw the angle of the Pobeda's shadow change, shifting to the left as the limousine started pulling out to the right lane in another attempt to get past. I pulled out too, blocking him again and bringing the speed down to less than forty kph. We were past the bus now but there were two taxis and a truck ahead of us on the far side of Razina ulica, the major street that ran at right angles across our path. At this point I was moving into a situation that looked strictly shut-ended: if I kept on across Razina the Zil would turn left and head directly for the Kremlin; but if I turned left on to Razina it would keep straight on and use the left turn at Kujbyseva and reach the Kremlin that way.

Whichever I did, the Zil could peel off and get dear.

Morosov was an experienced driver and would know every minor turning if I tried to cut him off. The Zil could go through every light and the instant its image was seen by the guards at Spassky Gate they would change the signals to green and let him through. So I would have to stop him in the next thirty seconds and I'd have to do it without making him crash because there was enough explosive on board to wreck half the block.

Location Solanka and Razina intersection. I'm going to try stopping the Zil.

Its massive shape was right behind me with its horns strident and its lights dazzling as I made three rapid feints to the left, right and left as we reached the intersection. Morosov reacted instantly, swerving to the right, left and right to overtake, and as he swung to the right for the last time I gunned up and went for him, nosing across his front end and forcing him to slow and then throttling into a rear-wheel slide and coming back across him and feeling the Pobeda tilt suddenly as the weight of the limousine made oblique contact. The horns had stopped now because he was having to use both hands on the wheel, and I heard the sirens again.

There was sand on the surface here but the snow had packed into ice underneath it and for a moment I lost the Pobeda as it reacted to the impact and swung full circle and hit the kerb and came off again still swinging; but I was still on the right side of the limousine and got enough traction back to nose across its path and this time Morosov braked too hard and started sliding, the black polished bodywork veering across my windscreen as it corrected and slid again with its huge momentum taking it in a series of swings that sent it glancing against the Pobeda three times before it lost the surface and swung full circle, its speed gone and its rear wheels spinning as Morosov tried to find traction and failed.

The Pobeda was down to crawling speed and I hit the door open and got out and began running, pitching down once on the gritty ice before I got to the Zil and wrenched at the driver's door. The sirens were coming in and a dazzle of light flooded the street as the heavy door swung open and Morosov brought a revolver into the aim and began firing too late and too high: the explosions hammered against my eardrums as I used my right hand in a rising fork strike and got the gun clear and hooked him off balance on to the roadway. He tried to get up and I chopped twice and dropped him and climbed into the Zil. The engine was still running and I slammed the door and found the throttle and teased the rear wheels into motion as a black patrol car came in from Solanka with its siren going.

The Zil was on the move but the surface was tricky and I had to keep tapping the throttle to use the power of the huge engine to take me in a series of swings before I could straighten up and give it the gun. I'd rammed the radio into the pocket of my coat when I'd abandoned the Pobeda but there wasn't time to use it as the limousine got up speed and I swung left at the first intersection and brought the power on and settled down. The mirror grew bright but I'd got a hundred-yard lead and swung left again to work my way back to the ring road and away from the Kremlin.

Time check: 6.07.

1 began thinking about Schrenk. He couldn't be far away.

I tugged the radio out of my pocket and hit the button.

A-Able to C–Charlie… Location approaching Solanka fork road from south. I am now on board the Zil. Has anyone seen Schrenk? Has anyone seen Schrenk?

The lights were still in the mirror but there was no siren going.

Calling A-Able. You have three of us in your immediate area. Anyone identifying Schrenk report immediately.

I watched the mirror. The car behind me wasn't trying to close up. It was probably D-Donald or E-Edward but it could be Schrenk.

Who is behind me? Who is behind me?

Schrenk had planned to radio-detonate the charge and the only way he could do that was to join the Zil on its way in to the Kremlin and then peel off and circle the area and wait for the Zil to come back through Spassky Gate. But Schrenk was a man to cover his risks and he would have done that.

D-Donald calling… I'm following the Zil.

I acknowledged and turned right and headed for the boulevard ring. Sirens were loudening from the left and a flood of light came into the limousine as I crossed the intersection.

Schrenk would have covered his risks and made sure the Zil would blow, even if something stopped him doing it by radio beam. I knew that. I knew him well.

The ruts of the snow were sending the big front wheels too far to the nearside and I brought them out and felt the rear end go and had to throttle up and break the ruts to get any bite from the treads; my speed was a rising sixty kph and there were two vehicles ahead of me in the nearside lane. A patrol car came in from the left and its lights filled the interior again; its siren was wailing and I throttled up to clear it as the driver tried to cross my bows near the Solanka fork road.

There was no time to think but I'd have to. Schrenk would have covered his risks and the only way to be quite sure the Zil would blow would be to time the charge. And he would have timed it for five or ten minutes after six o'clock, when the Soviet chief of state would be on board. Time check: 6.o8.

The sweat broke out on me and I had the urge to slide the limousine into the kerb and get out and run for my life but I couldn't do that because I wasn't certain of the facts and if I abandoned the Zil and it didn't blow, it would remain an appalling danger on the open streets of the city.

I would have to blow it myself.

Calling D-Donald… D-Donald… The Zil could explode by timer at any minute. Keep your distance.

My scalp was shrinking and my palms were wet on the wheel. I'd have to blow it myself and that meant crashing it and I was trying to remember where I'd passed the construction site on the way from the ring road.

D-Donald acknowledging.

C–Charlie calling all stations. Keep your distance from the Zil.

I'd passed the big construction site not far from the boulevard ring, after turning on to Obucha ulica and heading west. I made for there now.

The night was full of sirens wailing as other police patrols began focusing on the area. I saw two cars going fast across the inner boulevard ring and a third in a controlled slide coming from the south and turning in my direction. It was past me before the driver recognized the image of the Zil behind my headlights and the note of the siren died away behind me.

Two cars now in my mirror: D-Donald and a smaller Moskvich, possibly Schrenk. He would have been looking out for the Zil and once he'd seen it he'd track it by cutting through some of the minor streets and my scalp contracted again because he'd come out of Lubyanka half crazed and if he realized I'd taken over this thing from Morosov he might use his radio beam to detonate in a final access of rage.

I crossed the outer boulevard ring at close on seventy kph and saw a group of cranes poking into the night sky over to the north. I was going too fast for the intersection but the surface had sand on it and I brought the speed down and swung left at the next side road and straightened up with lights moving into the mirror again and the sirens loudening. The patrols hadn't got an accurate fix on me yet but it'd be a matter of minutes now before they found me and closed in.

Red lights and I ran them and cut it close and had to lock over to avoid a patrol car storming through on the green but the front wheels of the limousine went into a skid and the offside wing clouted the patrol car and sent it spinning full circle across the intersection with its headlights sweeping the buildings and flashing once across my eyes before I got the Zil straight and saw the construction site coming up through the haze of snow.

Lights came into the mirror again and stayed there, closing on me. I tilted the glass to cut the dazzle.

Who is behind me? Who is behind me?

It wasn't a police car: the sirens were still some way off.

Who is behind me?

The lights continued to flood the interior of the Zil.

All stations, Croder's voice came. Who is following the Zil?

There was no answer.

Then it could only be Schrenk.

He had picked up the Zil near his planned rendezvous point and lost it and come up on it again and now he was sitting there. Either he was aware that I'd taken over the wheel or he was wondering why Morosov had gone off course away from the Kremlin. I think if he'd thought Morosov was still at the wheel he would have started using his horns by now, signalling the Zil to stop. He wasn't doing that. He wasn't even flashing his lights.

A-Able calling… I think Schrenk is behind me now. I'm at Obucha going north from the outer boulevard ring and trying to reach the construction site. I'm going to crash the Zil in an attempt to detonate the charge. Keep your distance. Keep your distance.

The lights were still behind me.

Calling C–Charlie… There's a car on the tail of the Zil and it must be Schrenk. Watch out for him.

I couldn't increase speed on this surface and the building site was too close now for me to use the side streets in the hope of shaking him off. He was sitting there watching the big shape of the Zil, his gnome's head on one side and his thin body twisted against the seat, his eyes narrowed in the backwash of the headlight. What was in his mind?

Old times…

Sitting there watching me take the dream out of his hands, the grandiose dream of making a statement in the name of the oppressed and in the name of the man they'd taken inside Lubyanka and half destroyed. This is what you have done to me. Now I'll show you what I can do to you.

He was watching me now with one hand on the wheel and the other on the radio detonator. Old times… Old times…

What else could he be thinking? There was nothing left for him to do now but turn his rage on me. And nothing I could do to stop him.

Time check: 6.10.

If Schrenk had timed the charge he wouldn't have left it later than 6.io because the American Embassy was a ten-minute run from the Kremlin so this was zero and he didn't even have to squeeze his transmitter: all he had to do was wait. When the Zil blew, he would go too: he was well within range and he knew that. But this would be the way he'd choose.

Nothing I could do.

The black cranes grew against the snow haze and the headlights swept across the rubble this side of the excavation crater as I put the Zil at the truck ramp and gunned up again with the wooden safety rail dead ahead. I waited until the speed rose as the rear wheels got a grip on the rough terrain and then I hit the shift into neutral and pushed the door wide open and dropped and rolled and sensed the weight of the huge car sliding past me towards the crater as I went on rolling with a blaze of pain burning in the left shoulder and the snow flying up before I hit rubble and crashed to a stop and got up and began running.

I heard the Zil going through the rail and breaking it up as it reached the crater's edge and tilted over, and for an instant I swung round and saw its headlights filling the hollow as the dark figure of a man began moving across the wasteland from the car that had come in alongside.

Perhaps he thought he could get to the Zil and disarm it in time, because he'd worked hard on this and he didn't want to see it all come to nothing; or perhaps, like a small boy who couldn't keep away from fire, he'd come here to watch the tiger. I don't know, nor will I ever know. He was still moving towards the crater at a hobbling run when the night broke into thunder and in the blinding shock of light I saw him silhouetted for a moment against the fiery curtain of snow, his small shape flung upwards by the blast like a scarecrow in the wind.

I turned and threw myself down and felt the shuddering of the ground under me as the air roared past in a heated wave, tearing at my coat and bringing a hail of debris whining through the night. The steel shrapnel was now moving outwards from the crater, crackling across the facade of the buildings opposite and smashing windows.

Then headlights swung in from the street and a car neared me, its wheels bouncing across the rubble. I got on to my feet and a door came open, and I heard Bracken calling to me to get in.

The End