Program for a Puppet (28 page)

The icon flipped open in her hand like an oyster shell. Just discernible was a tiny spool of microfilm. She closed it, and placed it back in his hand. “You must not lose this,” she whispered, and kissed him warmly on both cheeks. Irena took him by the hand and led him to the front door. She gathered his overcoat and scarf. “I hope we meet again, when we have more time.” She opened the door.

Graham moved to the bottom of the stairs that led to a doorway out of the building and waved goodbye.

Outside, where the cold wind had subsided and light snow was falling, Igor and Menkelov waited. The Mongolian was asleep in the back of the truck while Menkelov sat vigilantly in the front
cabin. Both men wore thick overcoats and turtleneck sweaters to meet this early patch of Moscow winter.

The apartment block was surrounded by trees. There was only one way back to the road leading to Moscow city center. From the cabin of the truck, Menkelov had a good view of anyone entering or leaving the area. He had parked the truck about fifty yards from a taxi stand.

After a long stretch and a yawn, Menkelov turned the heaters in the truck down a little. He was beginning to feel drowsy. He tapped his feet to keep the blood circulating, and looked at the clock on the cabin dashboard. The foreigner had been in there three hours.

“Is he screwing her or something?” Menkelov asked himself. He was becoming impatient for the kill.

Snow was falling lightly outside as Graham walked between two tall apartment blocks. Only one street light shone weakly about fifty yards away near the small taxi stand. He walked quietly up to the only taxi. The driver was curled up in the front fast asleep. Graham looked around, opened the driver's door and shook him by the shoulder. It took several seconds to stir him awake. Graham leaned into the car, and turned the key in the ignition. The driver sat up as the car coughed to a start.

A second later, the sound of a truck lumbering out of the darkness caused the Australian to back away from the taxi. It stopped five yards from him and Menkelov began to climb from the cabin. Graham turned and ran toward the taxi. The driver had staggered out with the commotion around him. Graham pushed him to the ground, scrambled into the car and pulled the door closed. The car engine was running. He slammed it into first gear and planted his foot on the accelerator. The Mongolian reached the car and drove a fist hard down on the roof as it jerked away. Igor chased it for a few yards and gave up, cursing wildly. He ran back to the truck and hauled Menkelov back into the cabin, leaving the confused taxi driver remonstrating in the middle of the road.

Graham had grated the car through its four gears and put his foot evenly on the accelerator to build up to top speed. Snow on the windshield obscured his vision. He tried the windshield
wipers. They worked very slowly so that he couldn't remove the permanent build-up of snow.

The rearview mirror flashed the truck's headlights on high beam. It started to gain ground on a flat, almost straight, run of about five miles. Graham put his foot flat to the boards. The truck was gaining fast. When the taxi reached a winding section of the road, the truck was right on its tail and Graham was having to swerve to avoid being hit. But he couldn't. There was a bone-jarring thud which sent the taxi's back wheels off the ground. The car skidded to the right. Graham fought the steering wheel. He managed to straighten up and was bashed again, so hard this time, that the bumper bar was loosened. It unhinged and trailed along, leaving sparks, as Graham overcorrected to the left. The Mongolian eased the truck left in the third effort to crash the taxi. Both vehicles were almost on the wrong side of the road. There was a long turn ahead. Graham edged right when he saw the headlights of oncoming traffic. A large transport hauler, like a brightly lit monster, rounded the bend. Graham swung the car right and just squeezed away. The Mongolian's reactions were much slower. He seemed to panic and applied the brakes as he spun right, but it was too late and too much. There was a tremendous screech of brakes as the transport caught the side of the truck with a tearing sound of metal on metal. The truck was deflected into a skid for about 130 yards before it did a slow-motion tumble to end up on its roof.

Graham's taxi had gone into an uncontrollable skid on the slippery road surface, to end up harmlessly facing the wrong direction but on the correct side of the road about forty yards from the upturned truck. He could see the transport hauler driver pull his damaged vehicle to a halt, jump from his cabin and run toward the truck.

Graham was hesitant for a moment and then made a quick decision. He jumped out of the taxi, wrenched off the trailing bumper bar and got back in. Slamming the taxi into gear, he drove in an arc and sped off. Through the rearview mirror he saw a flash as the upturned truck burst into flames. The hauler driver was driven back by the heat as he made a vain attempt to extricate the two KGB thugs trapped inside. Within seconds they were roasted alive.

Graham drove straight back to the center of Moscow, but not directly to the National. Instead, he parked in Gorky Street about four hundred yards from the hotel. Finding a telephone booth, he rang Irena.

After about fifteen rings, she answered.

“Yes?” she said drowsily.

“Someone tried to kill me when I left your apartment.”

“Kill you?”

“Yes. Two bastards in a truck. They tried to run me off the road.”

“You are not hurt?”

“I'm still shaking, that's about all, but it was a near thing.”

“I do not understand,” Irena said incredulously.

“Neither do I. All I want to do is get out of this damn country in one piece. Could you find out what's going on? If there is a plan to get me?”

“I'm sure there can't be.”

“Should I go back to the hotel? Or hide? Perhaps I should head for the airport now and wait for the tour?”

“Let me make a call. Call me back in five minutes.”

The telephone clicked dead at the other end while Graham was putting the receiver down. He lit a cigarette. The snow was drifting down lightly and had covered the whole street. About forty yards away, a fire flickered from a camp where workmen were repairing the road.

After seven minutes, he phoned her again.

“It's safe to go back to the hotel.” Irena had checked by telephone with her contact at KGB HQ who had managed to get her assigned to Graham.

“You're sure?”

“Yes. The official surveillance on you is tight. But that's all, unless you're wanted for something I don't know about.”

“Okay,” Graham said, sighing deeply. “Thank you, Irena. ‘Bye.”

He left the telephone and hurried down the street, but instead of going directly to the front of the hotel, he waited on the corner and watched the entrance for about ten minutes. No one came near it. There wasn't an occupied car within sight. He walked cautiously to the entrance and had to knock on the glass
doors to arouse a guard, not at all pleased at being awakened at such an ungodly hour.

Graham took the elevator to his floor and moved quickly to his room. He unlocked the door cautiously, switched on the light and then locked the door securely behind him. It was 5:10
A.M
. The tour group going early to the airport would be having breakfast at 5:30. He turned off the light, sat in a chair and waited.

After breakfast, Graham collected his luggage from Bob Halliday and joined the bus that was to take them to the airport.

They arrived at the airport at 6:15 and went through currency and customs checks. Graham looked around for Victor and found him preoccupied with some of the tourists, who had discovered the airport officials would not change their surplus rubles back into their own currencies.

When Victor saw the Australian he broke away and went over to him.

“You've managed to come early, Doctor,” Victor said with a trace of cynicism. “I'm afraid you will have to be patient and wait to see if there is a seat on the seven
A.M
. flight.”

Graham's hopes sank. Uppermost in his mind now was the strong possibility that someone had learned of his cover or his impersonation of Radford. There seemed no other explanation for the attempt on his life. If he had to wait another six hours for a flight it might be too late.

“Just see what you can do, Victor,” the Australian said, forcing a smile.

At 6:40 the departure call for the 7:00
A.M
. flight to London—810—caused the tour group to make their way to the plane.

Graham was about to speak to Victor again, when he approached him. “You are in luck, Doctor,” the tour guide said with a sly smile. “Here is your boarding pass and seat number.”

Graham refused to allow himself to relax as he sauntered out to the airplane at the rear of the tour group. He braced himself when he saw there were four armed militiamen at the foot of the gangway. Two were collecting visa cards. The others eyed the passengers.

The Australian was last to reach the gangway. A guard collected his visa, looked at him for a second and then pointed to
the door of the plane. Graham didn't need a second invitation as he moved briskly up the steps and into the cabin.

Even during takeoff he didn't allow himself the luxury of a thankful cheer along with the other passengers. Until he was out of the aircraft and on English soil he would still be officially inside Soviet territory.

Bromovitch arrived at KGB HQ before 9:00
A.M
. on Saturday and waited patiently for the call that never came. He tried several times to contact Menkelov and Igor and learned that two men answering their description had been burned to death in a road accident. He moved quickly to have Graham hauled in.

Twenty militia and KGB personnel were ordered to the National Hotel. Bromovitch found a tour guide who informed him that Dr. Boulter had gone to the airport with a tour leaving earlier in the hope of catching the 7:00
A.M
. flight to England.

The assassin was furious. He grabbed a telephone in the hotel lobby and got through to Victor, who was at the airport preparing for Graham's original tour group's departure at 2:00
P.M
.

The distressed tour guide confirmed that Dr. Boulter had been cleared by the Intourist central computer and allowed to go on an earlier flight.

“Put me through to the traffic controller,” Bromovitch ordered angrily as he looked at his watch. It was 10:10
A.M
. Seconds later a voice came on the line: “Sheremetyevo traffic control here.”

“Comrade, this is the deputy chief of Department Four, state security. I want you to order Flight 810 to return to Moscow immediately. There is a foreign criminal on board.”

Bromovitch heard the crackle of a radio transmission as the controller contacted the 810 Flight captain. Seconds later the assassin was told, “Comrade, 810's passengers have just disembarked.…”

Once down the steps of the gangway from the Aeroflot jet Graham hurried across the tarmac ahead of members of the tour group.

Near the entrance to the hallway which would take him through to Immigration, he stole a glance over his shoulder at the
airplane and noticed two, three, then four men in overcoats close behind him, none recognizable as members of the tour.

“Keep moving!” one of them ordered as the Australian slipped through the doors and headed toward Immigration. Within yards of the desks one of the men moved next to him.

“Follow me, Mr. Graham, please,” he said with a quick glance.

The Australian looked back. The other three had fallen behind at different intervals along the hallway. Each was facing the jet, hands in pockets.

Graham was led past Immigration and through to the luggage area. He waited patiently for his suitcase while the man who had spoken to him stood nearby. When the suitcase arrived Graham grabbed it from the conveyor belt and turning to the man said, “I take it you're with Commander Gould.”

The man nodded, smiled again and led Graham to an office where the commander was waiting. He was beaming and Graham reflected it was the first time he had seen the Intelligence man smile.

“Have a great holiday?” he said, shaking the Australian's hand.

“Terrific.” Graham grimaced. “Can't wait to get back.”

“Anything to declare?”

“Yes. One shattered human being.”

The Australian felt in his coat pocket and handed Gould the icon containing the microfilm.

“When you feel ready for the debriefing, call me.” He handed Graham a card. “That's a hotel in Hampstead. All your belongings at Strand-on-the-Green have been transferred there. Hope you don't mind.”

Graham shook his head. “No,” he said wearily. “I suppose you'll have someone watching the new place?”

Gould nodded.

“I'm going away tomorrow for about five days. I must have a break. A friend of mine has a flat at Brighton.…”

“I would appreciate knowing where we could contact you…

Graham nodded and picked up his case. “I'll let you know.” He left the office.

Rounding the customs barrier, he was suddenly conscious of the hundreds of people waiting to greet arrivals. He thought of Françoise.

“Ed, darling,” he heard an excited voice say, and then felt those familiar long arms around his neck as she embraced him.

“What the mind can perceive,
the mind controlling the computer can achieve.”

President Rickard was furious about the leak of a top-secret decision to supply the Chinese with ten billion dollars' worth of arms for its potentially dangerous confrontation with the Soviet Union. Less than a week after he and his National Security Council made the decision, the story was plastered over the front pages of America's daily papers.

After the earlier leak of the confrontation note to the Soviet administration, Rickard had called in the FBI to investigate the holes in information security in Washington. Then his orders had been, “I don't care how the hell you do it, but find out the leak.”