It was seven o'clock in the evening when the chief of staff finally decided to leave Welton. Bill Tanner and Tyreen Mackenzie went into the small lounge reserved for senior officials and accepted drinks.
The officer in charge of Welton was a retired brigadier, with an impressive war record. He was sympathetic. "Of course it's disappointing; but then it's not unexpected. The girl's suffering a reaction. She's not sure she did the right thing, so she's holding out."
"She's lying," Tyreen said angrily. "She's lying through her teeth and I know it. Don't you think so, Bill?"
"I'd say so," he replied, nodding slowly. "She has made up her mind to cooperate as little as possible. I rather expected this. I've seldom come across anyone so intensely hostile." He sipped his glass of sherry. "Particularly to you, Tyreen."
Tyreen nodded, thinking about Colin Lomax.
"Since that seems to be the case," Tanner continued, "perhaps you shouldn't participate at this stage. Maybe you'd better stay out of it until Tim has made some kind of breakthrough. She seemed to respond better to him. Anyway, he speaks perfect French and that establishes some kind of relationship." Not that Tyreen's French was anything less than perfect, as the chief of staff very well knew. She had inherited her mother's linguistic abilities; that had been one of skills that had landed Chirren a position in Marlen's communications section.
"Her English is better than she makes out," Tyreen said. "She understands everything, provided we don't talk too quickly. But I think you're right, Bill. I seem to serve as some kind of irritant. Though I'd still like to observe, if I may."
Tanner nodded, and said, "I'd like to talk to her alternately with Johnson, for the next few days anyway. See if her attitude changes."
"You made no progress at all?" the brigadier inquired. He had been fully briefed on the background of his visitor.
"None," Tyreen said irritably. "Where is Tim?"
"He said he was going for a quick walk," the brigadier answered. "Wanted to stretch his legs. It's certainly a lovely evening." He turned to the chief of staff. "Have you any special instructions, Mr. Tanner?"
"I don't think so," Tanner said wearily. "I will tell you one thing. If she goes on like this I'm going to call her bluff."
"How?" Tyreen asked. She disliked Tanner in this mood. He was snappy and on edge.
"I'm going to send her back to SEDECE with a recommendation that they give her the full treatment," he said. "She knows who killed the Duvaliers. I'm not putting up with this little-girl act for long." Tanner got to his feet. "Thanks for the drink, Brigadier. Keep a very close eye on her, won't you?"
"Don't worry," the brigadier reassured him. "She can't make a move without our knowing. The whole room is a bag of electronic tricks. I'll see you both to your car." Outside he turned to Tyreen. "Will you be back tomorrow, Ms. Mackenzie?"
"I think we'll leave Johnson to it," Tanner answered for her. "I'll take over in a couple of days and give him a break. Good night." He hurried down the steps and got into the car. Tyreen followed and slid in behind the wheel. She furious at the way he had answered for her. And then, typically, he made amends. "I'm sorry I'm so on edge. Of course you must say whether you want to go back, or leave it to Tim. It's entirely up to you."
She didn't want to be mollified. "I think I'd rather leave it as you arranged," she said stiffly.
Tanner didn't notice the sulk. He sighed. "God, I'm tired. It's the frustration of sitting there, hour after hour, listening to her lie." He sighed again.
Tyreen lit a cigarette and inhaled. "All that stuff about being shy and feeling inferior. I could have boxed her ears at one point! And she knew it. She was deliberately mocking me. She knew I didn't believe a word of it." She started the engine. "We've got to break through. After the news from Modena, this is the only hope we've got. Valdorini was only small fry. She'd told him everything she knows, and it's not enough. They didn't leave Franklin's killer around to answer questions. And they tried to murder this one; that proves how important she is!"
"We'll never find Father Marnie's murderer," Tanner said gloomily. "MacNeil's people are combing through all the meditation centers, or whatever they're called. It'll take months to find out which are genuine and which are just making money out of gullible idiots. Let alone if one of them is a British version of Ma-Nang."
"You can bet it is," Tyreen said. "You can bet they've used the same technique as they did in France and Italy. But that's not our pigeon, Bill. We can't do everything. It's up to Macneil and CID to get together and sort out the freaks." She lit a new cigarette from the stub of the previous one. "The traffic's heavy for this time of night."
Tanner grunted. He felt tired too. He hadn't enjoyed the session either. He found Helene Blondin a most disturbing personality. He didn't envy Tim Johnson her company for the next few days. But he was right when he said the girl reacted violently against Tyreen. It was unmistakable; Helene Blondin hated Tyreen Mackenzie with the animosity that some women felt for others of their sex. He wondered why, wished they'd designated someone else as the initial greeter, and then gave up thinking about it. Tyreen dropped him off at his flat and the drive took her directly home.
She had waited until nearly a quarter of nine for Colin Lomax to turn up that morning, but he didn't come. She turned on the television, watched impatiently for a few minutes, and then switched it off. It had been a hellish day. Frustrating, but worse, she had the feeling of being deliberately baited. She got herself a cup of coffee. She couldn't be bothered to eat. Cigarettes. She was nearly out of them.
She decided to ring Colin Lomax. The telephone rang for ages before he answered.
"Why didn't you come this morning? I waited for you."
"I overslept. Sorry."
"Like hell you did." She could feel her temper rising. "You could at least have called me and said you weren't coming."
"Had a bad day, have you?"
"Yes, bloody awful. And why should you care?"
"You always try to pick a row when you're uptight. Listen, Tyreen, my part of the deal is over. There's nothing for me to see through, as you put it. So don't be difficult. What went wrong then, that it was so bloody?"
"If you were the slightest bit interested," Tyreen said, "you'd have come to Welton and found out." She rang off, and turned on the television again. If Helene Blondin continued to be obstructive, they'd have to give the information on the House of Ma-Nang to the French. And return the girl. Leaving a vacuum, with the murder of Father Marnie, the CND vice president, unsolved, and everybody depending on the goodwill of SEDECE, who were unlikely to appreciate the British poaching on their preserves. Especially since Lomax had made them look fools by finding out more in a week than their investigators had done in months... She hadn't been concentrating on the news program. And it was a minute or two before she realized that her front doorbell was ringing. She picked up the entry phone and asked, "Who is it?"
"It's me,Tyreen. Let me in."
She put back the phone, hesitated, and then pressed the release knob that opened the front door. He came up stairs at a run. Two at a time. "Well, this is a surprise," she said.
He looked at her. "It shouldn't be," he said. "When you wanted to fight, it always used to end up one way, remember?"
"Colin ---" she started.
He stopped her. "Let's just pretend we've had the row," he said, and took her in his arms.
That night Helene Blondin had a nightmare. She hadn't dreamed that kind of dream for nearly a year. She woke, her body cold with sweat, and panting with anxiety. For some seconds she couldn't remember where she was; then she reached out and turned on the light. As she did so the hidden camera operating in the ceiling light above the bed recorded every movement. She pulled herself upright and sat, forcing herself to relax, to be calm. Her mother. She hugged herself tightly, adopting the pose of a child without realizing it. A frightened child, using body language to protect itself. She had dreamed that her mother was in the bedroom, carrying the stick in her right hand, walking toward her. She had tried to scream, but she had no voice. She felt paralyzed, unable to run from the approach of that awful punishment, and her mother's enjoyment in inflicting it. Her father wasn't in the dream. He had no part in Helene's nightmare, because he hadn't been there when it was reality. Away on his endless trips abroad, leaving his wife and the child she hated in the house alone.
Her earliest recollection was fear. Fear of the woman who had total power over her. And it was a power that only expressed itself in punishment. The crying child was slapped and pinched in its cradle. The toddler was locked in the dark. There was a particular cupboard that reduced her to whimpering hysterics. Her mother shut her in it for the slightest mistake. A dirty smudge on her dress, a poor appetite, and, horror of horrors, a fit of bedwetting. That always produced the cane. Helene Blondin was beaten into seeming submission. And through the anguish of her childhood, her father came and went unknowing, while her mother loomed, the smiling sadist in the background, daring her to complain.
By the time she was sixteen her mother had developed terminal cancer. While the illness progressed she stayed quiet, daydreaming of the moment when she would find the woman helpless, and leaning over the deathbed, put her hands around her throat, and squeeze and squeeze. The moment never came. Marguerite Blondin went to the hospital and died there. Helene stood by the bed with her father and said nothing. Did nothing. The intolerable hate festered inside her, unrelieved. She carried it out into the world with her, an ordinary young girl, an average student, a walking time bomb who was about to go off and blow herself to pieces.
That was when she decided to try meditation. It helped insomnia, apparently; another lycée student told her about it, and mentioned the institute. They were Chinese, and their methods weren't as otherworldly as the Indian. She had gone and found it very helpful. At this time she was living with her aunt. Her father was away so much it was decided that she couldn't stay at home. The nights were spent reading until dawn, her nerves screaming for the sleep that wouldn't come. There was no one she could tell about the nightmare. Certainly not her aunt. She hated her. She hated her because she was kind, and all Helene knew was cruelty. She was weak and easy to dominate. The girl despised her. She wanted strength and punishment, like before. To inflict on others what she had suffered herself. But not to sleep, in case she dreamed.
So she went to the house of Ma-Nang and found there the answer to all her problems. The nightmare stopped. The threatened mental breakdown receded, and a different madness took its place. The desire to kill and destroy.
She kept the light on for some time. She had been taught to rationalize when she felt afraid or disoriented. Her mother's reemergence was the result of her confinement, and the fact that she was at the mercy of another woman. But she had no need to fear. She was strong, invincible in her strength now. She had proved it once. She was France. Nobody would ever get the better of her now.
She turned off the light and went to sleep. Her last conscious thought was about Tyreen Mackenzie. What would she say if she knew that she had killed all those people? That would make her look at Helene Blondin with very different eyes...
Opening her eyes, Tyreen Mackenzie looked around in the early morning gloom. The soft breathing told her that Colin Lomax was still asleep.
It had been a pleasurable night, she couldn't deny that. Not exactly the same as with John Bannon, who knew about her Arion abilities, but no less pleasurable. She'd had been careful not to reveal her strength to Colin, and that had taken away some of the enjoyment, but not too much.
Still, she felt a twinge of guilt.
Getting up carefully so as not to wake him, she went into the bathroom. Taking care of the necessities and a quick shower, she returned to the bedroom and started to dress.
Colin, awake now, pulled the pillow behind his head. "You've lost a bit too much weight, darling."
Kneeling on the bed, Tyreen looked at him. "How would you know? You haven't seen me naked in years before last night."
"I've known you long enough, darling."
"Colin, please. Be serious, can't you?"
"No," he said firmly. "Not at the moment. I've made love and I'm happy. And I'm not going to let you spoil it. I didn't ask to come back, but back I am, and this time, it's going to work, whether you think so or not."
"What makes you think that?"
"I'm here, aren't I? Not Bannon."
"He's still in hospital."
"And when he comes out?"
She looked at her watch. "Breakfast," she said. "My God! Look at the time; I've got to be in the office in an hour."
He showered and dressed, and had coffee and eggs while she checked her briefcase and made two telephone calls. He watched her and didn't say anything.
He cleared the dishes, and they left the flat together. In the entrance hall he kissed her lightly. "Dinner tonight?"
"Am I cooking?"
Not yet, my love, he thought to himself. But you will be. "I am," he said. "Come to the Barbican. Make it eight; give me time to get my apron on."
Tim Johnson decided that he had been patient long enough. He looked at the girl sitting opposite him; smoking the cigarettes provided, asking for special food, stalling his questions with a supposed migraine. He decided the time had come to attack. "You've got a headache?"
"Yes," Helene Blondin said sulkily. "I can't answer you with a pain like this."
"Same sort of headache as the night the Duvalier family was murdered?"
She hadn't expected that. Her anger showed. "That was worse. I was blind with the pain."
"You get headaches at the most convenient moments, don't you? Did you get the headache before, or after?"
"Before or after what? I don't understand you."
"Before your friends killed them," Johnson sprang it on her. "You let them in, didn't you? You opened the door for them and then you slipped upstairs and drugged yourself. Did you know they were going to shoot them all? Even the girl who was your friend. No wonder you get headaches."
He didn't get the reaction he expected, there was something like contempt in her eyes when she looked at him. "I didn't let anybody in," she said. "I was upstairs with a migraine and I took sleeping pills."
"If you didn't have any part in it," he persisted, "why are your friends trying to kill you? They killed the man who murdered the American Secretary of State --- you know that, don't you?"
"I know what you've told me," she said. "Maybe they didn't try to kill me. Maybe the car was an accident."
He turned away from her. "I think you're wasting my time," he said. "I'm going back to London. Somebody else can talk to you. But I am going to put in a report about you, Helene. I shall say that you're being deliberately obstructive and that we should send you back to France."
The threat didn't shake her. She made a grimace. "Maybe I will cooperate with the new person." Her eyes lowered and then examined him, still with the gleam of contempt lurking in them. "Will it be that woman?"
"No," Johnson snapped. "You're not important enough to interest her."
The mockery was suddenly gone. A red flush burned in her cheeks. "I'm more important than you think!"
"I don't agree." Johnson was in the ascendant. He pressed the advantage. "I think you're a pathetic nobody, giving yourself airs. She has better things to do than waste her time with you. I'll make sure she knows it."
"I won't speak to this other person!" Helene shouted. "Tell them that! Tell them not to come!"
Johnson didn't answer. He left the room and walked away down the passage. The cameras would be watching her reaction when she was alone. Before he drove back to London, he had a screening of the film. What he saw made him and the brigadier exchange looks.
"Meditating?" the brigadier asked.
"Autohypnosis," Johnson explained. "She put herself out. Otherwise I think she'd have smashed up the room. I'd better get back. I think we'll let her cool off tomorrow. Maybe for a few days. I'll let you know."
"What nags me is this so-called meditation institute. Ma-Nang sounds authentic but actually means nothing at all." Tyreen Mackenzie turned to Tim Johnson. "Why pick a phony Oriental name?"
"And why not use it here in England? Unless of course they sent in a foreign operative to kill poor old Marnie."
"You're right," Tyreen said. "Of course you're right. We couldn't get anything on Ma-Nang on our computers because they didn't set up a place over here. And the question is, why not? Why France and Italy and Russia, for God's sake, and not here? Whoever murdered Nikolaev was a Russian, we know that. So this brainwashing business has a base in Russia too." She turned to the chief of staff. "Bill, listen, it's probably a crackpot idea, but why don't we bring Poliakov in on this?"
"I don't see that it's crackpot," Bill Tanner answered. "As were leaving Blondin to stew for a bit, it can't do any harm. He might have an idea. He's forgotten more about the way the Russians think than we'll ever know. See if you can find Poliakov. He may be at home; the pubs are shut!"
But Serge Poliakov had taken his vodka with him. He was belligerent and muddled when Tyreen spoke to him. "I'll have to go to his flat," she reported. "Sober the old bugger up. There's no use having him round here like he is."
It was nearly five before Tyreen reappeared. The old man was very pale, watery-eyed, and distinctly unsteady. But it was sobriety that made his hands shake. He said to the chief of staff, "Mr.Tanner --- this hoyden has been making my life a misery since three this afternoon. I was sitting at home perfectly peaceful, reading, when in she comes ---"
"You were pissed as a newt," Tyreen interrupted. "And the only thing you'd been reading, old chap, was the label on the bottle. However, black coffee does do the trick in the end."
"I was sick," Poliakov announced with dignity. "What are you paying for this? I expect a bonus, otherwise I refuse to help you. Did you take my advice and send someone over to Paris?"
"We did," Tanner answered. "And you were quite right. She's a guest at Welton this very moment."
"Ah," the Pole managed a painful smile. "Good I remember what a comfortable hotel that was. Some of our best traitors stayed there, didn't they? Now, if I could have a small drink, just to steady myself after what I've been through." He paused. He was sober, and his eyes were knowing.
Tanner decided not to argue. Poliakov was notoriously temperamental. Tyreen had shown great zeal in getting him here in lucid condition. "I can get you some brandy from Personnel," he said. "Will that do?"
"Medicinal." He laughed. "Thank you." He flashed a look of triumph at Tyreen. A few minutes later, with the drink cuddled in his hands, he said to Tanner, "What do you want me to tell you?"
And when Tanner told him, Poliakov laughed again. "Oh, I see. You tried the computer. And your friend wasted his time on Chinese books. He could have been there till now, you realize that? Ma-Nang. No, Mr. Tanner, you won't find that listed anywhere."
Tyreen leaned forward, hiding her impatience. She could see that he had an answer and was holding back. Teasing them all. "Poliakov," she said, "what does it mean?"
"It means the Company of Saints. In Mongolian dialect." He leaned back and chuckled. "Your therapists aren't Chinese --- they're Mongolian. Ma-Nang. Didn't you learn about the Last Judgment, any of you? How the damned are dragged to hell by demons, and the Company of Saints surround the throne of God?"
"Good God!" Johnson exclaimed.
"Not in this case," Poliakov retorted. "A God surrounded by assassins. The wicked triumphant. Not the Christian concept at all." He sipped his brandy and looked smug.
Tyreen said, "Who would think up a thing like this? It is Soviet-directed, isn't it?"
"Of course it is." He showed impatience at the question. "It has the smell of the old anti-religious campaign of the twenties. Old Bolshevik stuff. Jewish-inspired in the beginning. They had little reason to love the Christian church with its persecutions. And there's nothing as savage as atheists with a deep religious consciousness behind them. Ma-Nang. Yes, Russian-inspired and controlled. But by a curious kind of Russian." He finished his brandy.
"Borisov?" Tyreen asked.
Poliakov shook his head. "I don't think so. He's a modern tyrant. This harks back to the old days. I don't think the Company of Saints is run by the KGB."
"Then you mean there's someone powerful enough to get an organization like this together and set it working independently of Borisov?"
He nodded at Tyreen. "I would think so. But I'll need to think more. In my own time." He turned to Tanner. "At your expense."
"You can write your own bill. How long will it take?"
"To do what? Tell you who I think is the most likely man in the hierarchy?" He shrugged and put down the empty glass. "I'll need access to your files. I'll make up a plan, like a family tree --- going back before the war. I don't know how long I'll need to reach a definite conclusion. I can put up ideas quickly enough, but they won't be backed up by research. And that's what you must have. What will you do if I have an answer for you?"
"I'll decide about that when the time comes," Tanner said. "You'll have every facility you need, and I hope you'll start here tomorrow."
"I shall be here," Poliakov announced. "And sober."
"He is a drunk," Johnson said. "Do you believe he'll spend days on end here without throwing the whole thing up and slipping round to the nearest pub? I'm afraid I don't. Poliakov can cope with an odd problem. He hasn't the stamina for anything as deep as this."
Tyreen mastered her irritation. Quite soon it would turn into real anger at his negative approach. "Then what else do you suggest, Tim?"
"Step up the interrogation of Helene Blondin. Put heavy pressure on her and don't give her any letup at all."
The man codenamed Ireland turned his television set over to the BBC news.
His mother looked up and said, "Why do you want to watch that stuff, Kieran? Your daddy goes mad when he finds you watching them over there!"
"Mammy," he said, "I like the world news. RTE doesn't tell us anything about what's going on. Who gives a fuck if they're having a strike in Cork? They're always having strikes!"
She said the same thing that she did every day. "Don't use that language, Kieran, not round the house. Your daddy'd go mad if he heard you."
Her son didn't answer. His daddy had been going mad at him and his brothers and sisters ever since he could remember. Should have been a priest, with a pot belly and the collection money in his pocket. Always going mad, he was, about doing this or not doing that, putting the fear of God into all of them. Mass and confession, family rosary, holy pictures and oil lamps in front of them in every child's room. "Don't do anything to make Our Lady blush," the crabbed old nun used to warm them at school. He'd made them all blush not long ago, when he pumped bullets into that old humbug of a Christ lookalike, bawling about peace and loving the Russians. Kiernan didn't love anyone. He hated the English as much as he hated his canting bully of a father. The poor witless woman nodding at the fireside, mouthing about Daddy this and Daddy that, while she let him make a child a year till she was too old to go on --- she didn't count. He didn't hate her. He despised her. He hadn't felt sorry for her, because she wasn't sorry for him, or the other children when they got the belt and the Bible.
There had been a memorial service in London for Father Marnie. The TV showed churchmen and politicians shuffling into a cathedral, eyeing the cameras in case they'd get noticed. And the announcer added that investigations were continuing into the murder. Kieran grinned. They didn't know where to look and they wouldn't ever find him. Daddy wouldn't be going mad about that.
He leaned forward and switched back to the Irish channel.
Igor Borisov went up in the private elevator to the top floor. He was met by Keremov's wife. She looked as if she had been crying. "Come in, Igor Igorovich," she said, and took him by the hand. He saw the three doctors who attended the ruler of Russia standing like white-coated phantoms in the background. He didn't speak to them. Madame Keremova led him by he hand into the bedroom. Side by side they approached the bed until Borisov stood looking down at his friend and protector.
He had shrunk, the flesh falling away from the skull, leaving the eyes hollowed and leaden. "My son," he voice cracked. "I'm finished. You must... make your move... your enemies... your enemy..."
Borisov clasped the chilly hand that lay on the cover. It was slack and lifeless. "I know my enemies," he said. "And I won't let them destroy what you have built for Russia." He felt a touch on his shoulder.
It was Keremov's wife. The tears were running down her cheeks. "That's what he wanted," she said. "Now he'll die in peace. Sit with me."
Three hours later Borisov came out of the bedroom. The senior doctor came toward him. "It's time we examined Comrade Keremov before his next medication."
Borisov stared at him and the man stepped back. "No medication is needed," he said. "The president is sleeping peacefully and is not to be disturbed. You will stay here until he wakes." He walked out and the elevator took him to Keremov's office. The staff on duty didn't dare refuse him its facilities. Within the hour the special military arm of the KGB was in control of the president's private apartments and the communications leading out of it. The doctors and nurses in attendance were not allowed to leave or to telephone. They were to wait, they were told in Borisov's words, for the president to wake from his sleep before they went into his room. For the next thirty-six hours, it was vital to Igor Borisov that no one in Russia outside his own organization should know that Keremov was dead.
Helene Blondin hadn't slept. Every night for the past week she had been tortured by the nightmare. The monitors showed her waking, switching the light on, sitting up, obviously distressed, and calming herself by deep breathing. But she didn't talk in her sleep or give a clue to what woke her night after night. In the day she battled with the gaunt interrogator, with his greenish skin and skull-like face, going on and on in a voice as maddening as a dripping tap.
"Who were the other students you became friends with at the institute?"
"There weren't any I liked."
"Why didn't you tell your best friend, Louise Duvalier, about the place?"
"Why should I? She didn't need help."
"But she was your best friend?"
"Yes."
"You didn't hate her, did you?"
"No. I told you, she was my best friend."
"How did you feel when you heard she was dead?"
"Very upset."
"Her mother was very kind to you, wasn't she?"
A shrug. It annoyed him when she did that.
"How did you feel when you heard she was dead too."
"Upset."
"You didn't know the people who killed them, did you?" Without waiting for an answer, "You didn't slip down and let them in, Helene, and then run upstairs, while they went into the room and shot them?"
The scream was in her mouth when he repeated the question, over and over again.
No, I didn't let them in. There wasn't a "them." It was me! I went in and fired and fired until they were dead! She hadn't let the scream out and she wasn't going to say those words. He wasn't winning, but the stress was making her dream that terrible dream again, until she was torn between the longing to sleep and the dread of what would come when she did. And through it all she kept thinking of the tall Englishwoman who hadn't come to see her. The one who was too important to be bothered by Helene Blondin. Why do I care? she asked herself. Why do I chafe and fume because she isn't here? Because I feel her in the background; like knowing my mother was downstairs even when she wasn't coming up to punish me. She's there, and that's part of the fear and the rage that fills me. Like my mother, she can come whenever she feels like it and make me cringe with fear. But she can't. You've forgotten what they taught you, Helene. You are the one who can make other people afraid. You saw the terror in their faces that night when you came into the salon and pointed your gun?
And she decided what to do. She wanted to engage in conflict with this woman who had brought her mother back into her dreams. She wanted to defy her and mock her as she had done with the two men. Then she would feel in command of herself once more. Then she would think of making a deal for her safety by telling them a little more about Ma-Nang, about the people who had sent the car out to kill her when she went to them for help. And the beauty of it would be when she refused to talk to the Englishwoman and sent her away humiliated. She would talk to the first man, the younger one who tried to win her confidence. Helene thought about it, planned how the interviews would go, and became excited. She had a peaceful sleep and the next morning she told Tim Johnson that she wanted to see Tyreen Mackenzie. She refused to trust anyone else.
Igor Borisov made a series of visits. He made them unofficially. The minister for Communications. The minister for Agriculture. The new foreign minister who had replaced his rival Nikolaev. And the head of the Soviet navy. He took each one into his confidence. The president was desperately ill. He had given orders that nobody was to be told until Borisov had time to alert the men whom Keremov trusted. Borisov was not only his messenger but his preferred candidate for the chairmanship of the party, and the presidency. He didn't pretend modesty. He stated a fact and in each case he showed a letter. The letter came from Keremov and was addressed to each of them. He let them read it but he didn't leave it with them.
He asked for their support in the Politburo when the time came. And he named the likely contenders who would try to take power for themselves. The most dangerous, he said, was Marshal Yemetovsky. This found favor with the minister for Communications, who hated the marshal, and also with the head of the Soviet navy, who was a bitter rival. Second to the marshal was the minister for Internal Affairs, Mishkoyan, the Armenian. An old man with red hands; a ferocious oppressor of dissidents and Jews, who had maintained his position by destroying younger men who might have replaced him. A ruthless survivor from a past that should be set aside for the history books. The future of the great Soviet Union would be dark indeed if it were to been trusted to him. Without exception, the others agreed with that. They had reason to dislike Mishkoyan. Each had a different reason, but the result was the same. They hardened in opposition against him and were in favor of the man strong enough to shunt him aside. Igor Borisov presented himself as that man. It wasn't high politics or patriotic duty that moved the negotiations in his favor. There was serious bargaining on all sides. Promises were exchanged and undertakings of support given. By the end of the first thirty hours, Igor Borisov felt himself strong enough to go forward as an official candidate as soon as Keremov's death was announced.
The first rumors began inside the Kremlin. They spread to the departments and to the foreign embassies whose spies were operating in the city. At any moment, the Soviet Union would be without a leader. The reports went through to the Western capitals, and Igor Borisov reckoned that he would have to lift the embargo sooner than he intended. His work was mostly done, the ground as well prepared as he could make it.
Marshal Yemetovsky called a conference of his senior officers. Mishkoyan gathered his supporters for a meeting and outlined his plans. By consent the candidates remained in Moscow, waiting for what most of them believed had already happened. Like crows perched on the railings, they poised themselves for the gunshot that would announce Keremov's death and set them wheeling and swooping in their pursuit of his power. The rumors that he was dying were followed by rumors that he was dead and that the death had been concealed.
The intelligence services of the West also waited for confirmation. Diplomats and correspondents everywhere were drawing up their lists of candidates.
The Soviet marshal was favored by most, and his hard-line attitude produced despondency among the peace lobby. They had little hope of persuading their own governments to disarm unilaterally if a man who declared his belief in was came to power in the Kremlin. Mishkoyan, the Stalinist, was next; a brutal clampdown on the intellectuals and arts was forecast. His dark Armenian face appeared in newspapers and on television screens. He provoked alarm and echoes of the Cold War. There were the moderates, and they had their supporters. Two members of the Politburo who were known to favor détente and had no reputations for suppressing liberties at home. Their faces appeared too.
Nobody mentioned the name of Igor Borisov.
Serge Poliakov had set himself up in the filing section. He had been given a computer terminal, a trained operator, and Colin Lomax. For the first two days he unfolded a series of meaningless historical data, stretching back to the early days of the Bolshevik triumph. The counterrevolutionary war of 1919, its commanders on the Red side, the subsequent actions and counteractions of the two armies, the suppression of all religion throughout Russia and the architects of Soviet atheism... Poliakov dug deep and conjured old atrocities and tyrants out of the past, poring over them, making his notes, muttering away in Polish.
The computer was fed with questions that seemed to Lomax completely unrelated. So did the answers it gave. But there was an enthusiasm and a suppressed excitement in the old man that was infectious. Lomax and the operator felt they were nearing a discovery, although neither had the least idea what it could be. Poliakov was sleeping in the building. He hadn't asked for a drink or suggested going home. He seemed totally absorbed.
"What I'm looking for," Serge Poliakov announced, "is an ancestor."
"A what?" Colin Lomax stopped studying the last computer printout.
"An ancestor," he repeated. "Ma-Nang. The Company of Saints, in a Mongolian dialect, of all things. Now what kind of man would think of calling a group of trained assassins a name like that?"
"Someone with a bloody funny sense of humor."
Poliakov shook his head. "A sense of irony. A sense of blasphemy. Are you a Catholic, Major?"
Lomax shook his head. "I was brought up Presbyterian."
"Then you wouldn't understand what I mean," the Pole said. "This is a subtle blasphemy, not the hell and brimstone kind. An insult. You have to be a Jew or Orthodox or Roman Catholic to hate the God of your forefathers in that way. It's a sort of compliment, if you think of it. Remember Chesterton's detective, Father Brown? He proved that the atheist was really a believer because he wouldn't spit out a consecrated host. The man who thought of Ma-Nang would spit on it. You don't hate what doesn't exist, as Father Brown said. Do you like Chesterton, Major?"
"I haven't read him since I was a boy," Lomax admitted. He wondered if he dared remind Poliakov of his original point. "But why an ancestor?"
"Because the attitude is pure 1920s," the Pole retorted. "The malice toward Christianity is so old-fashioned. First they suppressed religion. Prison, confiscation, even death. Then they derided it. They blasphemed, if you like, to make people laugh at it and feel fools if they believe anything. But that was sixty years ago. So whoever our man is, he has inherited this feeling. That's what I mean by an ancestor. If I can find someone with this attitude who has left a mark on the history of the times in Russia, then I can trace forward, through his family, even the families of his associates. I have several people already. Not Arkaniev. He was an idealist as well as a persecutor. He wanted to tear out organized religion the way doctors want to exterminate plague. He'd have said they were the same thing. Arkaniev was a fanatic and a butcher. His methods were abandoned because Stalin realized that all they were doing by shooting priests was making martyrs. So they mocked and derided and for a long time they were successful. The Church died. And then, like its founder, it rose again. Religion is alive in Russia, and I don't mean the Baptists, who are so brave and are suffering so much. I mean in the secret souls of the Russian people. Only children and old women go to church, they say. The man we are looking for has a background somewhere in religion. He mocks it for his own benefit. He doesn't believe in God, Major, but he certainly believes in evil. Now --- let me think again. There was an incident in the Ukraine in '24. Here --- here it is. Look at it and see what you make of it."
Lomax read the closely printed page. He found the printouts difficult to read. Christ, he thought suddenly, don't tell me I need glasses.
There had been a farming community that was suspected of continuing Easter observances and of harboring a priest. The commissar for the district decided to make a example of them. He had drafted a dozen members of the secret police, known then as the Cheka, into the nearest town. On what was known as Holy Thursday they filtered into the suspect village. Each was wearing a medal around his neck. The medal had particular significance in the district, because it was associated with a local pope, or monk in czarist times, who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary with her heart exposed and pierced by an arrow, symbolizing the sins of the world. Lomax was focusing carefully now as he read. The story was brief and horrible. The false Christians had been accepted into the community and invited to the secret ceremonies in a barn. Inside they had produced guns and opened fire on the little congregation and the priest, killing and wounding children and adults. The barn had been bolted shut and set on fire. That was the end of Christianity in the district, and the commissar responsible had been commended and given a more responsible posting.
"Well," Poliakov demanded. "What would you look for, Major? I know it's not your province, but out of curiosity."
Lomax put down the sheet of paper. "This heart with the arrow through it," he said. "Is it common? I thought it was something connected with love --- Cupid..."
"Not in Russia," the Pole said. "In the Ukraine it was a very holy symbol. I've found the name of the commissar. Do you know what it is?"
Lomax didn't hear the excitement in his voice. He wasn't aware that Poliakov, with his love of drama, had stage-managed the moment of revelation for him. A heart pierced by an arrow. A Western symbol of unrequited love. Yes, of course it was. He could think of poems, love songs, Valentines... the medal worn by the butchers of the Cheka.
"Major Lomax?" Poliakov sounded piqued. "Didn't you hear what I said? Don't you want to know the name of the commissar?"
"Yes, in a minute. Tell me something. if you gave that to a Russian --- that medal with the heart and the arrow --- what would it mean to him?"
"To most Russians, nothing. To a Ukrainian --- the massacre of the people of Lukina. That has gone into folklore, you know. Major, I have made a very important discovery. Don't you want to know what it is?"
"There's a book I read, a book of short stories..." Lomax was talking to himself more than to Poliakov. "Years ago, when I was a boy. It frightened the hell out of me. It was an Edgar Allan Poe story. 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.' Just a minute." He sprang up and buzzed Tyreen Mackenzie's office on the intercom. "Get me Ms. Mackenzie."
A male voice answered, "I'm sorry, Major Lomax, she's out of the office. She won't be back today. Shall I take a message in case she phones in?"
"Where has she gone?" Lomax demanded. "This is urgent, where is she?"
"She went down to Welton with Mr. Tanner."
He rang off and turned to Poliakov. "A bracelet," Lomax exploded. "A bloody bracelet! Like the victims in that story --- Jesus Christ. She's gone down to Welton --- where that girl is."
Before Poliakov could ask what he was talking about, Lomax had rushed out of the room. The old man turned to the computer operator. "Did you understand any of that?" he asked. "What was the matter with him?"
"I don't know, sir, I wasn't really listening."
"Well, what were the murders in the Rue Morgue, then?" Poliakov all but shouted.
"Never heard of them, sir. I've got some more printouts for you."
Poliakov snatched them. He was very angry, he felt cheated. He hated not knowing what was going on. One moment he had a brilliant revelation to make, the possible answer to the question set to him by the chief of staff, and the next he was brushed aside by that lunatic yelling about Edgar Allan Poe. He took a deep breath and said, "I'll look at these later. I have to go out for a while."
"I understand you requested to see me," Tyreen Mackenzie stated. In spite of what Bill Tanner had said, she was shocked by the girl's ghastly pallor and hollow eyes. She was standing by the window in the private office, with the bright summer sunshine forming a nimbus around her. She held herself like a caged animal getting ready to spring.
"Yes. I won't be bullied by him anymore."
Tyreen glanced sideways at Johnson. "I don't believe he bullied you," she said quietly. "I know Monsieur Johnson has been very patient indeed. I must warn you that I am not a patient person."
The challenge was thrown down so quickly that it took Helene completely by surprise. She had expected the soft approach, the preliminary tact that the two men had shown. The woman didn't give her that respect. She declared herself an adversary in the first few minutes. She was hateful, Helene thought, glaring at her. Hateful. The dominant female with the cane held behind her back.
"I am going to ask you some questions, Helene," Tyreen said. "If you don't answer them to my satisfaction, I shan't repeat them, and I shall leave. You will be taken to the airport after we have alerted the French authorities and told them to pick you up. Do you understand that?"
"I understand that you are a worse bully than he is," she said calmly, and made a contemptuous little gesture toward Johnson. There was a box on the table; she opened it and took a cigarette.
"Then you have understood," Tyreen remarked. "And you can put that away. There will be no cigarettes. This is not a social call. I am here to ask you questions and you are going to answer them."
Helene didn't hesitate. She put the cigarette in her mouth.
Tyreen didn't hesitate either. She stepped forward and knocked the cigarette to the floor. Helene began to tremble. "I told you, no cigarettes."
Helene did not move. She was staring at the gleaming circle of gold on the tall woman's wrist. And at the bright red heart with the arrow. "I don't feel well," she said suddenly. The room was beginning to recede and she felt icy cold. "Sit down then," she heard the voice, and it sounded muffled and far away. There was a chair and Helene groped for it. She sat down heavily and dropped her head to bring back the blood supply. Her pulse rate was galloping and there was a thudding in her ears. With her eyes shut she could see that crimson symbol of all that she hated most in the world.
"Tim," Tyreen murmured, "get her a glass of water." And lower still, "I think she's cracked..."
Helene felt the woman touch her on the shoulder. She went stiff all over her body. As stiff as the little girl who flinched before the blows to come. "Drink some of this. You'll feel better." She took the glass, sipped at it. It was good; her mouth and throat were dust-dry. She saw the heart swinging backward and forward like a little metronome on the woman's wrist. Her pulse and breathing steadied. A deadly calm came over her, very different from the horrible panic of a few moments before. She looked up at Tyreen Mackenzie. Strength was coming back, coming on a tide. She had been prepared for this moment. She needn't feel helpless. She wasn't a child any longer. Everything was clear to her now.
"I will answer anything you want," she said. She saw the triumph on the woman's face, saw the hard mouth soften into a smile. Oh, yes, you always smiled like that after you'd done it. You'd look at me and smile and say, that will teach you... you won't be naughty again...
"That's very sensible of you," Tyreen said. "Tell me about this institute. You were part of a special group, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"And who were the other members?"
She wasn't going to tell her that. But she wanted to see her relax; she wanted to lull her so that she wouldn't be expecting anything but obedience. Obedience and fear. Take off your dress, Helene. I'm going to punish you. She made up four names. Not made up, because they were the names of two teachers who came to mind, her aunt's dentist, and his partner.
"And what did they teach you in this special group?"
Helene had begun to feel strange again. Not faint and weak, but filling up inside, as if the tension was building to explosion point. She knew the time was getting nearer. The blood-red heart gleamed as the woman moved her hand when she talked. "I want to see you alone," Helene said. "I don't want anyone else here if I'm going to tell you about it." And then she added, because she used to say it so often until in the end it was a scream. "Please."
Tyreen nodded. "Tim, do you mind?"
He hesitated. The scene disturbed him. There was a mixture of servility and antagonism in the girl. "Mac --- there's a small inner office; you could go in there and leave the door open." He spoke rapidly in English. "I don't like the look of her. I don't think you should be alone with her."
"She's just coming apart, that's all," Tyreen replied. "And that's what we wanted. Nothing else was going to work. Don't worry about me, Tim. I'll go very gently."
"All right," he said after a moment. "I'll look in after a few minutes."
"No," Tyreen said quickly. "No, don't; I'll give you a buzz in the colonel's office when I'm ready. I don't want to interrupt anything at this stage."
He went out reluctantly. As he closed the door he glanced back. Tyreen was sitting near Helene. He heard her say in a gentle voice, "Monsieur Johnson has gone. Now we are alone and you can talk to me. What did they teach you, Helene?"
Tim Johnson went to the colonel's office. "I think we're home and dry," he said. "She suddenly went to pieces. Ms. Mackenzie is with her now. Could I have some coffee?"
The colonel said, "Of course." He was curious about Helene Blondin. "That's great news. There's something pretty cold about her, isn't there? She's so full of aggression; that's the feeling she gave me. And it's so controlled. You feel it ought to burst out but it never does."
Johnson looked up, frowning. "I really didn't want to leave Mac alone with her."
"Don't worry, you can keep tabs on her with the monitor. You can always go in if you're not happy with the way it's progressing."
"She doesn't want to be interrupted," Johnson said. "And of course she's right. When the crisis comes you've got to take the fullest advantage of it and not let them have time to recover themselves. I'll keep a watch --- but I'd better leave it till she rings through. I don't know." He hunched his thin shoulders, looking rather like a grasshopper, the colonel thought. "I don't know, maybe I'm getting old. I don't like this sort of thing anymore."
"None of us does," the soldier answered. "Especially when a woman is involved. But they're as deadly as the men these days. In fact, some of them are worse. Make yourself comfortable. Ring for my orderly if you want anything."
"What did they teach you, Helene?" Tyreen Mackenzie asked again. The girl was so white that she wondered if she was going to faint.
"To kill." The answer was given in a flat tone of voice. There was a tiny gleam in the girl's eye, and her mouth was slightly open.
Tyreen did not react. "I see," she said. To kill. My God, she thought, what have we got here... "Why did they teach you that?
Helene Blondin smiled. She sat straighter, clasping her hands in her lap. "Why don't you ask me who I killed?" she asked.
Tyreen felt it then. she felt the hatred coming to her, like waves of heat. And she began to feel afraid. She couldn't get up and call for Bill Tanner until she'd gotten that question answered. He would be watching and listening. She rested her hands on the arm of the chair.
"All right," Tyreen said. Whatever happened she mustn't show that she was alarmed or shaken. She had to seem totally calm and unmoved. "All right, who did you kill?"
Helene inched forward on her chair. "The Duvaliers," she said. Her pulse was starting to race again. But don't hurry, she told herself. Don't hurry this moment when you've waited for it so long. Last time you were cheated. She got cancer and died in the hospital. Now she's here and you can spin it out, France, you can watch her face and see her learn to be afraid of you. "It was funny," she went on. "Those stupid fools asking me if I let them in to do the shooting? I nearly burst out laughing. I'll tell you what happened. You'd like to know all the details, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Tyreen answered quietly. "Tell me how you killed them, Helene." It isn't true, she said to herself. She's lying, it's all a hysterical fantasy. She looks quite unhinged. But I'll know in a minute, as soon as she starts telling how she did it.
"I pretended to have a headache," Helene said. "They were all playing bridge. I left my bag in the salon, so I could get the maid to come up to my room and find me asleep. I wasn't asleep. I waited, and then I went down to the salon and opened the door. There they were, sitting there, playing cards." She gave a throaty laugh. "They were so surprised to see me standing there in my dressing gown. And with the gun in my hand. I shot Isabelle Duvalier in the chest. Then the two men, and Irena Duvalier got hers in the gullet. I did it so quickly. Louise was dead in a second; it was so easy, they were all sitting so close."
Tyreen held herself together. The truth, she's telling the truth. One more question to make sure. "What gun did you use?"
"A Walther XP 45, with a six-inch silencer. Then I went up to bed and took my sleeping pills. What do you think of that?"
Slowly Tyreen got up. "I think we should take a break," she said.
Helene rose to her feet. "You didn't think I'd have the courage, did you? You thought I was frightened of you, like I always was. Remember how I used to cry and beg? Now it's your turn."
And with a low cry she leaped.
The telephone was ringing in the colonel's office. It shrilled and shrilled, getting on Tim Johnson's nerves. The monitor showed Tyreen Mackenzie and Helene Blondin talking. "What gun did you use?" Tyreen asked the girl. Johnson wondered why the orderly hadn't come in and taken the call. Never there when they should be. In the end he couldn't stand it. He turned away from the little TV screen and picked up the phone. The operator on the internal exchange said, "This is an urgent call for Ms. Mackenzie. Major Lomax on the line."
"Ms. Mackenzie can't be disturbed. Put Major Lomax through." He heard the click and said, "Tim Johnson here --- I'm afraid Mac's busy at the moment, can I help?"
"Where is she?" Lomax was almost shouting.
"She's interrogating Helene Blondin. What's wrong?" He could hear the panic at the other end.
"She's not alone with her, is she?" Lomax didn't wait for an answer. "For Christ's sake get her out of there! I'm on my way down now..."
Johnson swung around. What he saw on the monitor made him drop the receiver. He moved with amazing speed out of the office and raced down the passage toward the little room.
"Mama," Helene was saying, over and over, saliva dripping from her mouth. "Mama. Mama."
She didn't hear the door crash open, she didn't hear the thud of Johnson's feet across the floor behind her. She was aware of nothing but the face of the woman she was choking to death. He tore at her hair; she didn't feel it. He rabbit-punched her to break that merciless grip, and she fell heavily on top of Tyreen.
Johnson bent down and started to pull Tyreen clear. The colonel's orderly, having heard him shout as he ran out of the office, was just joining him when Tyreen moved. One arm swept the two men aside, the other flung Helene across the room.
"My dear, you really shouldn't have come out of hospital so soon." Sir Miles Messervy shook his head reprovingly at her.
"I didn't want to go there in the first place," she said. Her voice was hoarse. It still hurt her to speak. "I'm quite all right, I just can't shout, that's all."
"Mac's being very difficult," Colin Lomax said. "Wants to go into the office, won't stay off the phone. I've told her, she could lose her voice completely unless she rests that throat, but she won't listen."
"My dear," Sir Miles said after a pause. "I think you're strong enough to hear. Poliakov has been found. He's dead."
She reached for Colin and he took her hand. "When?" she whispered. "What happened to him?"
"Nothing dramatic," he said in his bland way. "He just poisoned himself with alcohol. Literally. He was discovered sitting on a bench in a public park --- Battersea, wasn't it, Lomax? With two empty vodka bottles in a bag beside him"
"Oh, God," she croaked out. "Oh, God, what a disaster... Poor old thing."
"Yes, it is a pity," Sir Miles agreed. "However, Johnson hasn't been idle. He's following up that Lukina clue and he'll come up with the answer. An extraordinary thing, that tie-up with the Cheka killing all those years ago. And the conditioning of that girl to kill anybody wearing that symbol. What a lucky think you read Poe, Lomax! It was a gorilla, wasn't it, in the story?"
"Yes," Lomax said. "The poor brute was beaten and tortured to the sound of a tinkling bell. Then these women were given bracelets that they couldn't get off, with a bell on the end. And the brute was set on them. Anyway, don't let's talk about it. I'm going to get you something to eat, Mac, and make you put your feet up." He got out of his chair and Sir Miles took the hint.
He shook hands with her and said, "Mary and I were worried to death about you. So no more scares like that, if you don't mind. Bless you, and see you soon."
When he had gone, she caught hold of Lomax. "My throat hurts like mad," she whispered. "But I've got to talk to you. Sit down a minute, please."
He did so, holding her hand and lightly stroking it. She looked very pale and thin. Whatever she said he wasn't going to upset her by arguing.
"We've got to find out who used that device at Lukina," she said. "We can't wait for Johnson."
"No, darling," he agreed. "We can't. So what shall we do? You tell me and I'll do it, so you can stop worrying."
"They'll kill again," she murmured. "It must be time for another attempt."
"No, it isn't," he said gently. "Don't you see why? You were the next on the list."
"But why? I've been thinking. It isn't Borisov. I was wrong about that. It's a Russian but it isn't him."
"Why don't you put the mind to bed?" he asked her. "And the voice. Come on, I'm switching the box on in the bedroom and you're going to lie and have supper on a tray." And that was how they heard the news flash that Alexander Keremov had died of heart failure at two o'clock the previous morning.
The state funeral was scheduled for the eleventh. Moscow was already full of visitors. Now the hotels and houses were packed with people who had converged on the city. Heads of governments and their representatives from the East European bloc, a delegation from China itself, and the wary emissaries from the West, who felt no grief at seeing the last of Keremov, but considerable anxiety about who would take his place on the Kremlin walls. Whoever stood central was the likely successor. Whoever approached the open coffin first to pay his tribute was the man to watch. It was as rigid as the protocol surrounding any czarist funeral.
Behind the preparations, the political lobbying went on at a furious rate. One contender was already sliding out of view. Yemetovsky, the famous marshal, the hard military man with his thunderbolt reputation. He was stepping aside. The cynics argued that he realized he wouldn't win, and than an open rejection would mean a loss of face. And a subsequent loss of power. The army wouldn't be allowed to take control. They never had, and the memory of Stalin's suspicions of his generals, even after the Great Patriotic War, was still alive in many influential Party members' minds.
The Armenian was fighting hard. He made no pretense about his ambitions. He was gathering support, making promises, rallying factions.
Igor Borisov stared calm. Too calm, in his friends' view. He seemed to think his succession was assured, that Keremov's wishes were some kind of kingly will, to be obeyed. Dead men had no influence upon the living. Only the determination to take power guaranteed it. His friends began to worry about their support for him. He had only begun to worry about it himself that day before the procession left the Kremlin with the body of Keremov on a flower-decked open bier. He was so preoccupied that he refused to see the doctor from the Moscow Institute of Psychiatric Medicine. He snapped at his aide when he came and told him that the young scientist was waiting in his outer office and would not leave. "He hasn't an appointment and why should I make time for him?"
Borisov had met him several times, attending conferences concerning the suppression of dissidents. A flimsy figure of a man, convinced of his own genius. Effective, but uncongenial. Then Borisov restrained himself. His nerves were taut, and that was affecting his judgement. The doctor was a senior member of that notorious institute and its attendant prison hospitals. He must have an urgent reason for making a nuisance of himself at such a time. "Send him in," he said wearily.
The doctor came in like a bird, with his precise little steps, and even when Borisov invited him to sit down, he remained perched, his feet shuffling nervously.
He regarded Borisov with his disconcerting stare. He wasn't aware of how he set people against him with that unwinking look. His life and freedom were at stake. If he failed now, he knew his fate would be the same as that he had devised for many others. Imprisonment in one of his own dreaded mental hospitals. There, like the men and women of conscience, he would be tortured with hallucinatory drugs and electric shock treatments with the minimum of anesthetic. If he proved too resistant they would operate and make him a vegetable who lay in his own filth until he died.
"Comrade Borisov," he said. "I came here to kill you. With this." He held out his hand, palm uppermost. There was nothing in it that Borisov could see. Borisov had already pressed a button under the desk with his knee. Before the doctor had finished speaking, the doors had opened and there were armed men in the room. He looked over his shoulder, and then said, "Let me tell you about it first. Then they can arrest me if you like. I have a ring on my finger. A wedding ring."
Borisov leaned toward him. One move and his bodyguards would blow the doctor's head off. "I see it," he said.
The doctor gave a little smile, weak and wintry. "But you don't see the tiny pinhead that comes out when I apply pressure. There is a poison that enters the bloodstream from a scratch so small you wouldn't even feel it. Within twenty-four hours you would have become ill and died. We've used it before, but it wasn't so quick or sophisticated then."
"I know we have," Borisov said. "Why are you telling me this, Doctor?"
"Because I want to save my life," he said simply. "I will tell you who sent me here if you will promise I can go free and continue my work."
Borisov didn't answer at once. He took out his cigarettes and lit one, taking his time. The stare didn't waver. What was the matter with the man? he thought. Didn't he need to blink like other human beings? "I promise," Borisov said calmly, "that if you don't tell me, you'll wish you had by the end of the afternoon. My men are not scientists or psychiatrists, but they know just as much about the human body as you do about the mind. So take off your ring and after you have been searched for other dirty tricks, you can sit down and tell me everything you know."
It was a magnificent funeral. The Moscow skies were a dazzling blue and the procession started out from the Kremlin to the deep melodious tolling of the city's bells. A phalanx of men who had been Keremov's friends, colleagues, and enemies all at the same time followed the coffin. Igor Borisov was in the second line; Mishkoyan and one of the detentists, as they were called, headed the mourners. Nobody worried about the man who wanted closer cooperation with the West. He was window dressing for the real successor. Marshal Yemetovsky walked behind Borisov. The troops marched to the beat of the Dead March from Saul. Crowds lined the route, openly weeping. The bells tolled again as they neared the final place of rest.
Flowers were laid against the walls of the tomb, including handmade tributes from the Russian people who had never known his tyranny. Each member of the Politburo approached the open coffin, and bent to kiss the putty-colored face of the embalmed corpse. When Borisov kissed him tears dripped onto the icy face.
After the ceremony, there was a reception at the Kremlin for the members of the Politburo, the senior members of the Communist party, and delegates from all over the Soviet Union. The gathering was subdued; people talked in hushed voices, but already eyes were probing the candidates, whispers were circulating about who was going to be elected.
Borisov made a slow progress around the party delegates, then to the senior party members. He spoke quietly to them, and they listened. He had planned a tribute to the dead president; and they were all invited to the headquarters on Dzerjinsky Square to watch a special film of his life and achievements after the official reception ended. Everybody was suspicious, but nobody liked to refuse. It would seem lacking in respect. And Borisov was not only a candidate, but could still remain the second-most powerful man in the Soviet Union after the election. Unless, of course, Mishkoyan had him replaced...
Borisov went ahead of them. He had arranged the auditorium in the building. A portrait of Keremov draped in black had been hung over the screen.
At seven o'clock the room began to fill up. By seven-thirty everone had arrived. Vodka was passed, and cigarettes. Borisov's men were also in the room, stationed near the doors. He called for silence and the lights were lowered. "Comrades," he said, taking position in front of the screen, "this is my personal tribute to a great patriot and a great leader. I believe it will affect us very deeply." He sat down.
There was a brief passage of solemn music and the screen came to life. But it was not Keremov's face that came into focus. The music suddenly died away, and there were murmurs from the audience.
Borisov said aloud, "The man you see here is one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the Soviet Union, deputy head of the Semenov Institute. I would like you all to listen carefully to what he is going to say."
At first the audience was inattentive; they imagined they were about to hear a long, tedious tribute to the genius and humanity of their dead leader. His main contribution to human welfare in the field of medicine had been the authorization of the infamous psychiatric hospitals. But the words were not what they expected. Words like treason, and murder, and betrayal of the people of the Soviet Union. Words like ambition and insane impulses toward power.
There was not a sound in the packed room. Borisov sat like a statue, arms folded, listening to the doctor's monotonous, high-pitched voice.
Suddenly the silence was shattered. There were exclamations, and shouting from the auditorium. Then, without warning, the screen went blank. And once again there was silence. Heads turned toward one man.
Slowly the man rose to his feet. "You have accused me, Comrade General," he said. "By trickery, you have accused me publicly before our comrades. Bring that liar before us, and let him repeat his lies to my face! I challenge you! Bring him here now!"
He had presence and courage, Borisov had to admit that. "This is not the time or the place," he answered calmly. "The doctor will give his evidence before the Central Committee. If your plan had succeeded, I would be dead like Nikolaev, and Comrade Mishkoyan with me. All your rivals would have been murdered by an army of assassins, trained to further your political ends." He turned to face the audience. "Which is why, comrades, I called you here to listen to a tribute to our dead leader, Alexander Keremov. A tribute to his patriotism and his judgment. His dying wish was to stop this man taking control of the Soviet Union."
They asked for help from the Moscow embassy, and they were waiting impatiently for more than the usual rather pained acknowledgement of their request for information. Tyreen Mackenzie had added a note of her own to the ambassador, stressing that this could provide vital information needed to break an organization known as the Company of Saints. In the meantime, Russia was without an elected leader. Keremov's deputy stayed on as caretaker. He was an old man in his late seventies, a puppet who had done what Keremov wanted, someone who would be glad to step down and retire from public life. It was a time of hiatus, and ideal for Tyreen to take the rest she needed. Only for a few days, a long weekend at the most, she insisted. She couldn't be out of the office when the new leader of Russia was elected. It seemed certain now that Mishkoyan would be chosen. And that meant a new and even more ruthless phase would begin in the Intelligence war between East and West.
Twenty-four people were arrested in the Semenov Institute of Psychiatric Medicine. Eight officers in the External Affairs section and three in the Internal Security division of the KGB were taken in to the Lubyanka for questioning. And in Moscow and Leningrad, a number of men and women were removed from their offices and homes and sent to the main prison hospital outside Moscow. It was done with speed and without attracting attention. The disciples of Ma-Nang were gathered in, and Igor Borisov reckoned at last that Mother Russia was safe.
He was curious to know exactly how they had recruited his bodyguard, Alexei. He himself had called him a killing machine. And innocently given him the opportunity to murder Nikolaev by sending him to Poland. The Company of Saints. It was typical of the sinister cast of the founder's mind. A sick, cruel mind, poisoned in its contempt for the values that even Borisov considered essential to a civilized world. He would hold the trial in private, as soon as the election was over and the political situation stabilized. There would be no public exposure, no leaks to the outside world. Borisov was a student of Roman history. He knew what penalty to impose. The destroyer would be forced to destroy himself. But there was one serious problem that had to be resolved. Thinking about it angered Borisov more than anything else he had discovered. And it had to be rectified, or there would be terrible repercussions. He had an idea that appealed to him. A very unorthodox idea, but it wouldn't be possible to implement it later. Also a chance to satisfy an old curiosity.
For a long time now, he had wondered what Sir Miles Messervy was really like.
"It's unheard of," Tyreen Mackenzie exclaimed. "You can't possibly go."
"I have to agree with her," Bill Tanner said. "The foreign secretary may not be our favorite man at times, but I think he's right about this."
"Just because it's never been done before doesn't mean it shouldn't at least be considered, Sir Miles retorted. "Look, I know what's getting to both of you. What happened at Welton isn't going to hem me in for the rest of my life. If they wanted to have a go at me again, they could do it any time. On my way here, at Quarterdeck --- anywhere. I'm not going to give up on this. As for Hilton, he's so anti-Soviet he's practically paranoid. I've made up my mind. But I'll leave the final decision to the Prime Minister. If Number 10 says 'No,' then I can't argue. If they give me discretion, which I think they will, them I'm going to Stockholm to meet him. I shall try and get an appointment with him. Now let's get on with the dull routine, shall we?"
It was an extraordinary proposal. Unprecedented, as Tyreen had pointed out. an invitation, passed through the British Embassy in Moscow and relayed direct to SIS, for Sir Miles Messervy to meet Igor Borisov in Stockholm. To discuss matters of mutual concern to their countries and their own organizations. He had offered full guarantees for Sir Miles's safety and asked for the same for himself.
"There is no way," Sir Miles maintained, "short of a direct order from the Prime Minister, that I can refuse to go. And besides, I want to. I want to meet Igor Borisov face to face. And I have a feeling he feels the same about me. For the same reason."
"And what is your reason?" Tanner demanded. "What possible good can it do you to compromise yourself with our NATO allies to make personal contact with the head of the KGB, a man who could even be the boss of the whole Soviet world in two days' time!"
"I've fought him in the dark for half my career. Now I want to see him, just as I see you. Don't try and stop me, Bill, because you can't. You can come with me, but that's as far as I'll go."
Tanner knew when he was beaten. But he was not giving up the fight completely. "I'm going to do more than that," he told his boss. "I'm sending Mackenzie with you."
They caught the nine-o'clock flight from Heathrow. Another pair of SIS agents --- both men --- traveled with them. They went tourist on Sir Miles's insistence. No VIP treatment, nothing to draw attention. Ordinary passengers on a scheduled flight to Stockholm. The meeting had been arranged on neutral ground. The headquarters of the Red Cross.
The flight took just over two hours. They were met by an embassy car; not an official car but the privately owned Simka of the assistant to the second secretary. "Welcome to Stockholm," he said. He had been told he was escorting a group of officials from the British Red Cross. He thought they were unenthusiastic about the sights of the city that he pointed out. Glum and boring. He enjoyed his posting and liked Stockholm. The drinking laws were a nuisance but there were compensations. Like the Swedish girls. Beautiful was an understatement. And he wasn't a drinking man, as it happened.
"Well," he said, and he didn't hide his relief at getting rid of them. "Here we are. I'll leave you at the entrance if you don't mind. Parking is such a problem at this time of day."
Inside the building, they were met by a member of the British embassy staff. Trade councilor was his official position. He was in fact the head of "C" --- and responsible for Intelligence inside the embassy. Sir Miles introduced him to Tyreen Mackenzie and the two men. He summed up all three with a look. The Chief had brought protection. So had his Russian counterpart. Though he wasn't quite sure about the decorative young woman. A secretary? The Russian hadn't brought one of those.
"They're in through here," he said quietly. "Everything's been checked. If you'll follow me, Sir Miles."
They had set aside a pleasant ground-floor room that overlooked a garden. There were three men inside; one sitting, two standing close. When they came in the seated man got up. There had been photograph of him on file, taken many years ago when he was attaché at a foreign embassy. Tyreen, like her chief, had studied it for some feature that would distinguish him from other Soviet diplomat-spies, and found nothing. A round, unremarkable face with nondescript features. Nothing to fix in the memory.
He was taller than she had expected. Quite burly, as if his middle years were telling. Hair that had been fair and turning gray. Brown eyes, a wide mouth, and a short nose. And wearing an over-padded Russian jacket and too-wide trousers.
For a long, silent interval, the two top intelligence chiefs looked at each other.
"I am Igor Borisov," one of them said finally. He had a deep voice and his English came easily.
"And you know who I am," the other replied.
Borisov nodded. "I am pleased you decided to come. I will send my companions away. It is better that we talk alone."
"I'll do the same," Sir Miles answered. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and Borisov lit it for him with a heavy American lighter.
"I have seen photographs of you," Borisov said. "But they are not like you."
"I've only seen one of you," Sir Miles remarked. "A very old one, when you were in Cairo. It's not like you, either. General, I can't stay in Sweden more than a few hours. What is the purpose of our meeting?"
To his surprise, Borisov smiled slightly. "If I said curiosity about you, would you believe that?"
"No. You wouldn't waste your time, or mine."
"But I have been curious to meet you," Borisov said. "Shall we sit down? People in our positions work against each other for years and never speak face to face."
"Perhaps it's just as well," Sir Miles answered. "We can't afford to see the other side in personal terms."
"I don't agree with you. But I have had to see you in that way ever since the attempt to kill you. I have been very disturbed by it."
Sir Miles said coolly, "It disturbed me too. I had believed you were responsible for these people until it happened. Afterward I wasn't sure."
"That is why I asked you to meet me," the Russian said. "I want to tell you that I had no knowledge of it, and I would never have allowed it to happen. The people concerned have been arrested and will be punished. What have you done with the girl --- 'France' was her code name, was it not?"
You have arrested them, Sir Miles thought. And broken them, if you know that. "She went mad," he answered. "Completely lost her mind. Apparently she thought she was strangling her mother. You also know how it was arranged? About the brace?"
"Yes. An ingenious idea, but not new. And not infallible, either, I am glad to say. The principle is quite sound. The activities of all these people were based on one premise: a proportion of men and women are potential killers. Like human bombs they have a detonating mechanism that a skilled operator can identify and activate. In each case, the assassins were selected because they had the right kind of personality disturbance. There had to be a hate object, you understand, and preferably one associated with extreme guilt, like a parent or a loved one. The aggression could be harnessed, like all energy, and directed against specific targets. With this so-called fail-safe ---the programmed urge to kill anyone associated with the symbol. It was a mistake to choose the heart and the arrow, but then," Borisov shrugged slightly, "it was part of what you Christians call the cardinal sin of pride. Do you understand what it means?"
"I understand what it meant to the village of Lukina in the Ukraine. The heart and the arrow were used for murder. I felt we were getting near the answer before I saw the girl. And we'll have it soon."
"The least I can do is to prove my good faith by giving you the answer. The Company of Saints was a private army of assassins, recruited to bring one man to power. A man as sick as the people who were sent to kill him. He saw himself like your Christian Lucifer, taking the throne from God. He parodied the Christian hierarchy in this organization. He even called the Soviet doctor who perfected the idea St. Peter. But like Lucifer, he fell. He will not be the next ruler of Russia."
"Can you tell me his name?" Sir Miles asked. "I'd like to close the file."
"Marshal Yemetovsky," Borisov said. "A great hero in the Patriotic War. A loyal servant of Stalin. And lucky enough to outlive him. Perhaps Stalin's instincts were not so crazy as people said at the end. Perhaps he recognized the danger of Yemotovsky. Do you want to know the significance of the heart and the arrow?"
Sir Miles nodded. He should have felt the excitement, but he didn't. There was one question yet to be asked. He wondered whether Borisov expected it. "What connected it with Yemetovsky? We couldn't find anything. Not through Commissar Rudkin or his relatives. We were trying to get the names of the Cheka squad."
Borisov shook his head. "That would have taken a long time. Perhaps nobody would know. But it wouldn't have told you anything if you did learn who they were. Yemetovsky's grandparents came from Lukina. They were among the people killed. It was their own son who denounced the village. Yemetovsky's father."
"Thank you," Sir Miles said after a moment. "Thank you for the information, General Borisov. But how did he think that killing all those people was going to help him?"
"He wanted to test his method," Borisov explained. "So his doctor protégé assures me. He wanted to divert attention from the murder of Nikolaev and from my murder, and from the death of his rival Mishkoyan, by letting both East and West think they were at the mercy of a terrorist group who struck down indiscriminately. A situation like that allows the army its chance to take power."
"And did they try to kill you?"
"No. The assassin decided to save himself instead. He hadn't been programmed like the others. I hope that you have accepted my explanation, and my sincerest apologies."
Sir Miles stood up. "I have," he said. "It wouldn't do, would it, General, if we started loosing off at each other?"
"No, it wouldn't," Borisov said firmly. "That was my concern. I didn't want British reprisals coming to Moscow."
"But it doesn't matter if the underlings get killed?" Sir Miles's tone was deceptive. It sounded innocent. Too innocent.
"I am sorry about the attack on your agent. I assure it, it was an accident. Somehow she received a charm with the correct --- or incorrect --- symbol."
Sir Miles didn't say anything. I wonder if he knows that the agent is just outside.
Borisov opened a platinum cigarette case. "Would you like to try one of these? They are a little strong."
"I got used to them once," Sir Miles replied. "During the war."
Borisov took one for himself, held out his lighter for the Englishman, and then inhaled deeply. "Again, I apologize for what happened to you. But it couldn't be avoided." He drew on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "You are going straight back to London?"
"Yes."
Borisov nodded. "I would like to see London again. It is a very charming city."
"I didn't know you had been there," Sir Miles remarked. Somehow the meeting had been dominated by his Soviet counterpart from start to finish.
"I learned to speak English there. When I was a very junior filing clerk in our embassy. I'm surprised you didn't know about that! Ah --- everyone comes back. Goodbye. I wish you a safe journey."
Again, they didn't shake hands.
"Goodbye," Sir Miles said. Borisov stood back, and Sir Miles walked out of the room first. Tyreen and the two men joined him outside.
The man from "C" hurried toward them. "I've laid on some lunch," he said in a rapid whisper. "Let's get them out of the way first."
"I don't want anything to eat, thank you," Sir Miles said. "I want to get to the airport and away as soon as possible."
By the evening of the following day, it had been announced in Moscow that Igor Borisov had been elected Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist party. The title of president was only a formality after that. It was a historic moment. The KGB chief was the new ruler of the Soviet bloc. The media in the rest of the world poured out accounts of his career, mostly erroneous. Political assessments by people who claimed that he had been a vicious oppressor in his early days and others who called him a moderate with cultural leanings toward the West. His proficiency in western languages was cited as an example. He would be for peace and disarmament. He would be for an arms race and confrontation. He was cunning and heartless. Consumed by ambition. A fond husband and father in his private life. He had a sense of humor.
Nobody in the West knew anything about him compared with Sir Miles Messervy after only half an hour in the Red Cross building in Stockholm. He spent a long day putting down his impressions. They would provide a useful guideline for future dealings with this man. He did not yet know who his successor would be at Dzerjinsky Square.
Two days after her return from Stockholm, Tyreen Mackenzie was informed that she had a new assignment beginning the next morning, if she wanted it. It took her about half a second to accept.
This wouldn't be the first time she'd had to play the part of a nurse, tending to a patient while at the same time protecting him. Or else simply gathering information.
But it would be different this time. It would be personal. It might even be fun.
The doctors had finally agreed to release John Bannon from hospital, though it would still be some time before they would clear him to return to duty, even behind a desk.
Tyreen's mother had offered her home for his convalescence, away from London. She wasn't sure whether she'd accept the offer; it would be up to John. Perhaps they would spend a few days in her flat, then go down to her mother's.
In any case, she was looking forward to caring for him. And once he was recovered sufficiently, she would be certain to make sure he got his exercise.
Oh yes, she'd definitely see to that.