Target 5 (11 page)
Authors: Colin Forbes
Tags: #English Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Fiction
The quarrel subsided suddenly and the pilots made it up
with each other with a bottle of vodka. But their considera
tion for their honoured guest stopped short of offering him a
drink; instead they emptied the bottle themselves. Gorov
watched with growing horror as the effect of the vodka made
itself felt in their flying performance. The machine was
thrown all over the sky as they fell like a lift into air pockets,
then shot upwards at an almost vertical angle. 'The met
report was terrible,' Serge explained in .a slurred voice. 'If
you hadn't been so important we wouldn't have flown.'
'Important to who?' asked the bewildered seaman.
'Maybe the First Secretary. How the hell would I know?'
Twice Gorov had to move swiftly to the small, cramped
toilet where he was violently ill, but when he returned to his
seat after the second visit his head was clearer for a few minutes. He calculated roughly that wherever they were
taking him to in Leningrad he would arrive about three in
the morning. It would then be eleven in the evening at
North Pole 17, which was four hours behind Leningrad time.
He was sure now that they had found out about the
American, that they were going to question him. He had to
hold out until after midnight, North Pole 17 time, which
was four in the morning in Leningrad. He would have to
hold out for over an hour.
As they came in to land at Leningrad his stomach muscles felt tighter than the strap which Serge ordered him to fasten. They were gliding down through the snow when the first motor cut out. Seconds later the second engine failed. Could they land on only two engines? Gorov had no idea. The pilot spoke to airport control with a note of hysteria. 'Emergency situation, emergency situation ...'
Gorov closed his eyes, felt his head starting to spin,
opened them and saw the glare of the landing lights coming
up. The plane wobbled badly. The co-pilot cursed, waved the empty vodka bottle at Serge. 'You're coming in too fast .. . you're going to kill us...' Gorov sat in his seat bathed in
sweat, unable to take his eyes off the incoming lights which tilted as the plane wobbled. His clothes were soaked but his
mouth was parched, his throat constricted. They were
drunk, both of them, the
criminals. He was going to burn to
death, horribly.
At the last moment the two dead motors burst into action,
the wheels bumped the runway, the machine cruised between the lights, made a perfect landing. The pilots waited
until Gorov had disembarked without speaking to them,
then Serge burst into laughter as he waved the empty bottle.
'I don't like mineral water - next time ask them to put the
real stuff in it . . .'
Gorov would never know it, but he had been flown to Leningrad by the two most experienced pilots in the Baltic Command. They were probably the only men who could
have handled the plane in such an appalling manner and
survived. It was Papanin himself who had phoned the airport controller at Tallinn and given him the instructions. 'I want you to play a little game with your passenger - scare the guts out of him. When he lands he must be a jelly.'
The man in the chair was sweating and the spotlight shining
on his face reflected off the sweat globules. Fear - and the green-tiled stove - were responsible. Papanin sat behind his desk in the gloom. The other men were shadows behind the
chair, unnerving presences Peter Gorov couldn't see. One of
them coughed - to remind Gorov he was there. The watch
on Gorov's left wrist registered 3.20
am.
Papanin, who was completely on the wrong track, who
still believed he was close to identifying the money courier
financing the Jewish underground - whereas Michael
Gorov had never had the slightest connection with that
shadowy organization - had exactly forty minutes left to break Gorov. In forty minutes it would be 4
am
in Leningrad and only midnight at North Pole 17. In forty minutes
Michael Gorov would have disappeared on to the polar
pack.
'We'll go over it again,
5
Papanin said. 'Just to make sure
I've got it right. Start with when you went into the park.'
Go over it again ... Gorov's head was reeling. He had been driven from the airport in a battered old Volga. Kramer had made him travel without his coat and with the windows open, so during the drive Gorov had become steadily frozen. It was a detail which Papanin had planned: sudden violent changes of temperature reduce a man's resistance. He had visualized the overheated control cabin in the plane, had frozen Gorov during the journey from the airport, now he was roasting him again. Gorov's stomach was empty, his nerves shattered, and he could hardly think straight as Papanin repeated, 'Go over it again.'
Gorov had lost count of how many times he had explained
it. He tried to repeat it as a catechism as the heat of the stove
burned his back. 'I went into the park . . .'
'Why?'
'I was on my way to the docks.'
'So you went straight along the Nevsky Prospekt - it's the
direct route.'
'I went along the Nevsky Prospekt.. .' The voice was a
monotone, like a child repeating its rote.
'You didn't - you went into the park. Why?'
They came to the part where the pedestrian had tripped
on the ice, and Papanin went on asking the same questions he had asked ever since Gorov had come in. 'We want to
know his name,' the Siberian repeated. 'That's what it's all
about. We want to know his name.'
'I don't know the American's name ...'
Gorov stopped speaking. He knew instantly that he had
made a fatal blunder. Papanin let him sweat it out for a
minute. They hadn't said anything to Gorov about
Winthrop being American, and Winthrop had worn clothes which made him look like a Russian. And Winthrop hadn't
spoken to the
seaman: Gorov had stated this time and
again. 'Take him downstairs,' Papanin said, and then
waited until he was alone with Kramer. 'Find out what he knows - quickly.'
Because their suspect was a seaman, and because a seaman's nightmare is drowning, they used the water treat
ment.
In the basement cellar - which was as Gold as Papanin's
room had been torrid - they strapped Gorov to an adjust
able couch and blindfolded him. He was stretched prone on
his back, strapped by his neck and his wrists and his legs to
the couch. Somewhere out of sight water slopped in a container. 'What message did the American pass you?' Kramer asked.
'No message ...'
One man gripped Gorov's jaw, another man thrust a huge
rubber funnel into Gorov's mouth, the third man started
pouring water down the funnel. The choking sensation
began immediately, the drowning sensation came later. On
a stool beside his patient, a doctor sat with a stethoscope
pressed against Gorov's naked chest.
For Gorov, flat on his back, blindfolded and unable to move, the world was water - water flooding into his mouth,
water pouring down his throat, water surging into his lungs.
Desperately he tried to lift his arms, his chest, to hold his
breath, and then he was spluttering, choking, retching painfully, and his whole body seemed to swell up, to be on the point of bursting. His eyes bulged, his neck muscles taut
ened, collapsed. He tried to scream and the scream was strangled and he knew he was dying, drowning. They kept
on pouring in water until the doctor looked quickly at Kramer. The Bait nodded. A foot pedal under the couch
was pressed and hands lifted the rear of the couch swiftly,
elevating Gorov to a sitting position. The seaman choked,
spewed, gasped for air. Then he lolled, head down, panting
irregularly. Kramer pulled up the blindfold, lifted Gorov's
head under the chin.
'What message did the American pass to you?' Blurred eyes stared back at Kramer, eyes full of hate. He tried to speak twice, looked down at his left wrist, and twice only a hoarse crackle emerged, a hardly human sound. They had taken away his wristwatch. For Gorov this was the worst ordeal: now he had no idea of the time, nothing to tell him how long he must hold out. The third time he managed to get the words out, glaring at Kramer. 'No message . ..' Eyes full of hate, the Bait noted, so resistance was high. It would take half an hour, he estimated, maybe less. When the hate vanished, was replaced by agony, they would be getting somewhere. He nodded and they renewed the treatment. Gorov guessed that a good twenty minutes had gone. In fact, it was less than five minutes since they had brought him to the cellar.
The Locomotive moved into action, driving people as
though he had only got up an hour ago - whereas in fact he had been twenty-two hours without sleep. It was not the in
formation which Kramer burst into his room with which
generated this explosive activity, and once again he deflated
the fat Bait.
'Michael Gorov is defecting to the Americans . . .'
'It took you two hours, Kramer.' Papanin looked at the
clock on the wall which registered 5.30
am.
'That deputy mate is a courageous man - and you're too late with your
news - this signal has just come in from North Pole 17.' He
handed the signal form to the Bait who was already sweating
from the temperature change as he read it.
Michael Gorov left
North Pole 17 with dog team midnight. Security man Marov found
dead on the ice. Search parties have been sent out. Please advise.
Minsky.
It took Papanin less than a minute to scribble a reply in his own hand which Petrov rushed to the signals room.
Send all available helicopters further west than Gorov can have gone. Then sweep back towards North Pole if. Report immediately any signs of American activity near Target-5. Papanin.
He ordered Kramer to contact Murmansk, to check that
the Bison bomber was ready for instant departure, to con
firm with Leningrad airport that a plane was standing by,
to signal trawler fleet k49 and the
Revolution,
requesting information on any American activity in the area, to signal the
helicopter carrier
Gorki
asking for an immediate check on the present position of the American icebreaker
Elroy.
He phoned General Boris Syrtov, chief of Special Security in Moscow, not caring whether he dragged him from his bed at 5.30
am,
but Syrtov had been on the verge of calling the Siberian and the conversation opened with a battle.
'Papanin!' Syrtov's tone was sharp. 'Murmansk tells me you have ordered an Arctic alert. It isn't true, of course?'
'It is true, General ...'
'Without my authority?'
'It was a precaution .. .'
'Brezhnev has heard about it -I have to go to the Kremlin at once.'
'Good...'
'What did you say?' Syrtov roared.
'The precaution was justified,' Papanin snapped. He fired his big gun. 'Michael Gorov has fled across the ice ... He's taking more than his brains to the Americans. I've just found out he spent two hours inside the security room while
I was away in Moscow - I think he photographed the Catherine charts. He's taking them a blueprint of our entire underwater system.'
Syrtov's anger collapsed, was replaced by chronic anxiety.
He asked what resources Papanin needed - and the answer staggered him.
'Personal control of the carrier
Gorki,
trawler fleet k49, and the research ship
Revolution . ..'
