Snow Wolf (71 page)

When Lebel came around he started to cry.

The pain in his testicle was unbearable
and the sickening feeling of nausea still hadn't left him.

Suddenly a bucket of water was splashed
in his face and Romulka's voice roared, "Wake up, Jew! Wake up!"

Lebel spluttered behind the wet gag as
Romulka leaned over the table. He looked pale and in a savage mood. Lebel
noticed a bloodied bandage on his forearm.

"You're being stupid, Lebel, don't
you think? A simple question is all you have to answer. Who is helping your
friends in Moscow? You tell me how I find them and I release you, Not only
release you but do you a favor. I promise your friends won't be hurt. It's the
American I'm after. The American and his bitch friend. No one else concerns
me."

Sweat and water ran down Lebel's face and
he mumbled behind the gag. Romulka tore it off.

"You have something to say?"

"You bastard ... you're ... making
... a mistake ..

There was a murderous look in Romulka's
face. "Have it your way."

Lebel felt the implement being attached
to his scrotum again, tightened, and the pain again shot through his spine,
only this time more intensely. His screams rang around the walls and tears
flooded his eyes.

It was too much ... Too much to bear. His
tortured cry rang around the cell.

"NO ... !"

Romulka shouted to one of the men,
"Get the scopolamine."

The man came back from the table with a
syringe filled with a yellowish liquid and Romulka said to Lebel, "The truth
drug. Either way you're going to talk, Lebel, but let's just see how much more
pain you can stand, shall we?"

Romulka turned the screw more tightly and
the pain increased until it flooded Lebel's body from head to toe.

He screamed again.

Too much.

He couldn't bear it. It felt as if his
testicle was about to burst. He tried to tell Romulka he would talk, tell him
everything anything to stop the pain, and then he passed out again.

It was 11:30 when they reached the
street.

There was no street lighting and Massey
had to strain his eyes to see the van parked at the end of the road. The glass
was iced but he saw that patches had been scraped away so that the driver could
see out. The Ukrainian tapped on the side window.

"Open up, Sergei, it's me."

The driver's door opened and a young man
peered out, his icy breath fogging the air. He looked almost frozen to death,
despite the fact that he was wearing a heavy coat and hat and a scarf covering
the lower half of his face.

"About fucking time, Kapitan."

Massey and the Ukrainian slid into the
freezing cab. When he had got over the shock, he said to Massey, "You
going to tell me what's happening?"

"Later. What's the situation?"

"They're still in there. They
haven't moved so far as I can tell. The dacha's the third on the left."

Massey rubbed a patch in the icy window.
He saw the dark outline of houses across the street and counted off the third
one, a bank of trees in front. He turned to the driver and explained everything
he had told his companion. Massey would go in alone first. If he wasn't out in
half an hour or the men heard shooting they were to enter the house back and
front and finish the job.

As the driver checked the action of his
weapon and screwed on the silencer, Massey said, "I want you to cover the
rear."

The young man grinned. "No problem.
Anything to get out of Moscow."

Massey looked at the red-haired man.
"You stay out front and keep under cover in the front garden. If anyone
other than me comes out you both know what to do."

"You're sure you don't need help
inside?"

Massey shook his head. "Just
understand one thing. The man will be armed and he's dangerous, very dangerous.
So be careful."

The red-haired man grinned.
"Whatever you say, Americanski. But we were SS, remember? We know how to
handle ourselves. Right, Sergei?"

"As the Kapitan says."

"For your sakes I hope you,re
right," said Massey.

He looked back toward the dacha. There
was no way out for Stanski if he tried to leave. And if Massey himself failed,
then the two men would finish the job.

He checked the silenced Tokarev. His
hands were shaking and nausea in the pit of his stomach made him want to vomit.

The driver said, "Hey, are you OK,
Americanski?"

Massey nodded and took a deep breath.

They synchronized their watches and
Massey said, "OK, let's go."

The three of them stepped from the car.

Lukin sat in the operations room leafing
through the lists of car registrations. He had been stupid to do what he did to
Romulka. the driver recognized Massey he said, "What the devil ... But .
his rage had been so overpowering he couldn't help him self. He tried to
concentrate on the papers in front of him.

By law and for internal security, all
public and private transport vehicles in the Soviet Union were registered with
the militia and the KGB 2nd Directorate. Vehicle licenses and ownership were
strictly controlled and both were automatically refused to those convicted of
serious criminal and political crimes, so Lukin had disregarded the lists of
dissidents.

He had gone to the registrations office
and showed the officer in charge his letter from Beria, and ten minutes later
the man had come back with a ten-page list of Skoda owner registrations for
Moscow.

It had taken Lukin another fifteen
minutes to find a couple of likely suspects. There were a dozen gray Skodas
registered to women owners. Lukin considered that it was also likely the car
could be registered in the woman's husband's name if she was married, but two
female owners stood out on the lists.

One was named Olga Prinatin. Lukin knew
she was a famous ballerina with the Boishoi and her description was nothing
like the one Rizov had given him.

Another woman, named Irena Dezov, also
had a gray Skoda registered in her name. Her address was in the Ramenki district,
southwest of Moscow. He knew the area. It was a place where many senior army
officers had weekend dachas. The kind of place Nadia could have been held. As
Lukin noted all the other brief details in the file, he felt his pulse quicken.
A widow, frena Dezov was aged thirty-eight, and there was a photograph that
showed a handsome dark-haired woman. He could check further on her background
in the 2nd Directorate records office and see if he could come up with anything
that suggested her motive. But some instinct told him he was on the right
track. As he scrambled to his feet, the door opened. Pasha came in. His face
still looked gaunt and pale.

Lukin said, "Why aren't you at home?
I want you to keep out of this. You're in enough trouble as it is."

"I wanted to see if you were
OK." He hesitated. "And I need to talk. Something's come up." He
saw the notebook in Lukin's hand. "What have you got there?"

When Lukin explained about the woman,
Pasha smiled. "Maybe you've struck gold. You think Alex Stanski could be
using her place as a safe house?"

"It's all I've got, Pasha."

"There's something you ought to
know. I just saw Romulka getting into a Zil out in the courtyard. He seemed in
a hurry and there was another Car following behind with some nasty looking
heavies, armed to the teeth. I phoned the cellars. Apparently, the Frenchman's
in a bad state and the prison doctor had to give him a shot of morphine,"
Lukin whitened.

Pasha said, "Looks like maybe
Romulka was right and Lebel's cracked or been drugged up to the eyeballs with
scopolamine to make him talk. What are you going to do?"

Lukin reached for his belt and holster
and hurriedly buckled it on. "Follow them and see what direction they're
going in. If it's toward Ramenki, as I suspect, I'll try and get to the woman's
address before Romulka does. If it's not, I'm in trouble. There's no time to
check her background further. Give me those car keys, man, quick!"

"You're going alone?"

"I'm going to take a couple of men
along," Lukin lied.

"And what happens if Anna Khorev's
there? How do you explain that?"

"That's my problem. But you're out
of it, Pasha. That's an order."

"You forget, I'm on sick leave. I
don't have to take orders."

"Pasha, for once do as you're
told."

"I wouldn't miss this for
anything." Pasha hesitated, his face suddenly bleak. "What do we do
if we find Stanski?"

"God knows."

"If Romulka gets his hands on him
and the woman, they're finished. So are we."

Lukin was suddenly gripped by a terrible
feeling of confusion and panic. The whole business was a mess and he didn't
know exactly what he was going to do once he reached the woman's address, if
she was the right one. He didn't want Pasha to come with him, but he knew it
was pointless arguing and he didn't have the time. The man was disobeying him
more out of loyalty than any disrespect.

Lukin said, "I've got a better idea.
Where's Lebel now?"

"In the prison surgery. The doctor's
still patching him up."

"Get Lebel and bring him up to the
courtyard. We're taking him with us. I could be wrong about Irena Dezov. Let's
see if he can tell us what he told Romulka."

"According to one of the guards he's
barely able to walk."

"Then get him some more morphine
from the doctor. Do whatever you have to, but just get the Frenchman." He
handed Pasha Beria's letter. "And if anyone questions you show them
that."

He picked up his car keys from the desk
and was already moving toward the door. "Let's get going. Romulka's got a
head start."

It took Massey five minutes to thread his
way through the Woods to the rear of the dacha, and when he came out of the
trees he found himself at the end of a large garden with withered fruit trees
covered in snow.

The shutters on the dacha's windows were
open, but all the windows were closed, and no light showed behind the curtains.
He could make out what looked like an open woodshed off to the left with a car
parked in it.

He moved forward, staying in the shadows,
and made his way to a small stone-flagged patio at the rear. He tried the back
door, turning the handle gently. It was unlocked. He pushed. The door creaked a
little, then opened quietly on its hinges.

The room inside was in pitch darkness.
Massey stood there for several moments, tensed for a reaction, aware of the
sweat on his face as he listened for any sound within the house or for
something to happen.

Nothing.

The silence rang like thunder in his
ears.

He stepped inside. There was a strong
smell of rancid food. From the location of the room and the smell he guessed he
was in the kitchen.

He flicked on his flashlight. The room
was large and basic; a table and some chairs and some pots and kitchen
utensils. He saw a hallway ahead, a door halfway down. A yellow crack of light
spilled out from under the door. He moved carefully toward the light, his heart
beating in his ribs. When he reached the door, he hesitated and listened again.
Silence. He cocked the Tokarev. Click. In the stillness the faint noise sounded
like an explosion. Jesus. Again, he waited for a reaction.

Nothing.

He took a deep breath, then pushed in the
door and stepped quickly into the room. As he sought a target, he felt the cold
tip of a gun against his neck.

He froze, then tried to look around as
someone stepped from behind the door.

Stanski's voice said, "I wouldn't,
Jake. Now how about you drop the gun. I think we need to talk."

As the BMW drove over Lutznikovski Bridge
toward October Square, Lukin wiped the perspiration from his face and checked
his watch.

Eleven-thirty.

There was a groan in the back seat from
Lebel, The Frenchman was out of it, his eyes closed. Lukin had put handcuffs on
him but the man was going nowhere, still drowsy after the drugs. The doctor had
given them some extra morphine, but by the look of it Lebel was already drugged
up to the eyeballs. According to the doctor, the combination of the scopolamine
and morphine acted as a strong painkiller but caused drowsiness, and Lukin
wondered if taking the Frenchman along had been a waste of time.

Now Pasha looked out beyond the
windshield. "At this rate we'll be lucky to make Ramenki before
sunrise."

For some reason the late-night traffic
was slow and thick over the bridge. Suddenly it had ground to a halt in both
directions.

"Something's wrong up ahead."

at the far end of the bridge. There
seemed to be a pileup of traffic, and drivers were climbing out of their cars.
Lukin had no siren and Romulka already had a five-minute head start, He hit the
brakes and Pasha went to step out of the car but Lukin beat him to it.