Tundra (20 page)

‘Semyon Vladimirovich?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I hope to God you’ve got the balls for this.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The line went dead.

*

S
eventeen minutes later, Lenilko’s cell phone rang.

The conversation he’d had with General Tsarev had been followed, eight minutes later, by one Lenilko had never in his life expected to hold. He was aware of Anna’s eyes on him and fought his fear into submission, determined not to let her see the slightest trace of it, while at the same time struggling to keep a quaver out of his voice.

He took a little under two minutes to explain the situation.

The President’s reply took five seconds.

Lenilko handed the receiver back to Anna, allowing the tension to dissipate in a long exhalation through his nose. He glanced at her, nodded.

The triumph in her face reflected, he supposed, his own.

Now he thumbed the
receive
key on his cell phone.

‘Semyon Vladimirovich.’ It was General Tsarev. ‘I have the go-ahead from the President.’ His gravel tone was hard to read, but Lenilko thought he detected there a trace of admiration, even awe.

The General said: ‘The force is airborne.’

Lenilko closed his eyes.

P
urkiss blinked, shook his head, the double vision slowly resolving. His head felt as if it had been run over, and he felt stickiness in the hair above his right ear.

He was propped up in a high-backed chair in the mess, his hands secured behind with what felt like plastic ties. His body didn’t ache as though he’d been dragged, and he suspected he’d stumbled along the corridors half-conscious.

They were all there. Medievsky and Haglund stood directly before him, their rifles in their hands with the barrels lowered. Montrose was at Medievsky’s side.

Budian and Clement watched Purkiss from the sofa, further back. Only Avner wasn’t looking at him, slouched as he was in an armchair, his head tipped back so that the peak of his cap was aimed at the ceiling.

The details of what the Russian at the other end of the phone had told him swam in Purkiss’s consciousness. He grappled for them, trying to hold on to them before they escaped entirely.

‘Look at him,’ said Montrose. ‘Thinking of what the hell kind of bullshit story he can concoct to get himself out of this.’

Medievsky took a step forward. ‘Farmer. Can you hear me?’

Purkiss frowned, concentrating on the date he’d been given. Nineteen eighty-eight, yes. Was it April? Or was his mind filling in that particular detail because it fitted with his idea?’

‘Farmer.’
Medievsky was now six feet away. He lifted the barrel of the Ruger a fraction. ‘Pay attention. Can you hear me?’

‘Yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘I hear you.’

‘Look at me.’

Purkiss raised his head, triggering a roiling snake of pain through his neck. He wondered for a moment if he was going to vomit.

Medievsky’s face was impassive. ‘Who were you talking to?’

Purkiss stared at him, part of his mind cackling at the irony of it.
I don’t know.

‘An FSB operative in Moscow. He was warning me, before you forced me to drop the phone, about an imminent terrorist action here at Yarkovsky Station.’

Montrose strode forward, pushing past Medievsky, and slapped Purkiss’s face, a hard backhand swipe that cracked his head sideways and sent a flare of agony through his jaw.

Budian stood up, her fists clenched, her arms shaking.
‘Stop it. Don’t do that. Don’t hit him.’
Her voice rose with each imprecation.

Montrose turned. ‘Why? Why shouldn’t I? He deserves it. He deserves anything we decide to do to him, the murdering, lying scumbag.’

Medievsky said, his tone solid with authority: ‘Ryan, back off. Oleksandra, sit down.’

Montrose glared down at Purkiss, rubbing the hand he’d used to hit him. Medievsky shifted closer.

‘I said
back off
. Don’t make me tell you again.’

For the briefest instant Montrose’s glasses flashed at Medievsky. He moved a few paces away.

Medievsky squatted before Purkiss. Behind him, Haglund hefted his rifle as if to warn Purkiss:
don’t even think about making a move on him
.

Medievsky’s eyes searched Purkiss’s. ‘How would you come to have contact with the FSB? Are you working for them?’

‘No.’ Purkiss hadn’t had much time to decide on his approach, on what to tell them and what to leave out. ‘Frank Wyatt. He was an FSB agent, placed here to investigate some sort of threat. That’s why someone killed him. He -’

‘
You
killed him.’ This from Haglund.

Medievsky didn’t turn. ‘Gunnar,’ he said sharply. To Purkiss, ‘Can we use the satellite phone?’

‘To summon help? You can try, but I doubt you’ll have any luck. It’ll probably be network-specific, and the FSB will have its own network. The only connections you’ll be able to make will be with the Lubyanka.’ Purkiss coughed, tasting blood in his mouth, and wondered if one of his back teeth was loose.

‘Ah, for God’s
sake
.’ Avner sprang up from the armchair, his fists clenched in his hair, his cap knocked askew. He stalked over to Purkiss in the chair, ignoring Haglund’s warning growl, and crouched down beside Medievsky. ‘What does it
mean
, man? Imminent terrorist action, the fuckin’ FSB... what the hell is going on? I mean, are we all about to be
killed
?’ He leaned in close. Purkiss saw that his eyes were grey-rimmed and bloodshot, his beard unkempt. ‘Listen to this guy, man. He knows stuff. Let him talk.’ He stood erect, grabbed his hair again. ‘Damn. Shit.’

Behind him, Clement said quietly, ‘Efraim. Come.’

Avner whirled. ‘What?’

‘Come over here. Listen to me.’ Her voice was as low and as calm as a windless lake.

Avner muttered, ‘Shit,’ again, but walked over to her. She didn’t get up, didn’t make physical contact, but began talking to him in tones too quiet to be heard.

Montrose had advanced a few paces again so he was standing at Medievsky’s left shoulder. He said, ‘Let’s call, Oleg. Let’s make contact with whoever it is on the other end, FSB or whatever. They’ll send troops. Meantime, we sit tight right here, keeping this asshole covered.’

‘Yes, you could do that,’ said Purkiss. ‘But there’d be little point. Troops are already on their way. They’re headed here. But the place they should really be aiming for is the mammoth graveyard, the
Nekropolis
.’

That got the attention of everyone in the room. Even Avner, murmuring to Clement over at the couch, turned his head, snagged by the word.

Purkiss said: ‘In April 1988 a bomber jet went down over this region. It was eventually located near the site of the
Nekropolis
. The research work there was shut down in short order. Because although the cost of salvaging the aircraft was prohibitive, there was a problem. It was loaded with six nuclear-armed missiles. And there was a real danger of somebody from the research team stumbling across the wreckage, and the missiles. Anything might have happened. Ice-breaking equipment could have triggered a nuclear detonation, a new Chernobyl at precisely the time when the moribund Soviet Union could least afford the embarrassment, when its relations with the West were improving dramatically. So they pulled the plug on the
Nekropolis
project, and the site has lain abandoned ever since.’

He paused, not for effect so much as because his voice was faltering, his mouth as parched as dry wood. Nobody said anything, all of them staring at him, rapt.

‘Some terrorist cell has been looking for the plane, and the missiles. One of you in this room is working with this outfit, and was planted here to pinpoint the exact location. For the last few months, that person has been searching for it, under the guise of conducting scientific research. I believe whoever it is has confirmed the location, possibly in the last few days. And somehow, the missiles are about to be extracted. The person in question has got word out to the rest of the cell, and they’re moving in on the plane. Which explains the sabotaging of our communications with the outside. It’s a temporary measure, intended to buy time while the missiles are removed.’

Purkiss had been talking to the room in general, but now he focused on Medievsky who crouched before him. ‘You have to cut me loose,’ he said. ‘Keep your guns on me if you must, but give me the phone. I’ve spoken to the FSB man before, he knows my voice. It’ll save time if I do it. I need to let him know to send manpower to the
Nekropolis
.’

He’d spoken quietly, but Haglund and Montrose had clearly overheard him. Haglund said, ‘No chance. You stay where you are.’

Purkiss stared into Medievsky’s eyes. ‘Oleg. What have you got to lose? You keep a gun aimed at my head while I make the call. What could I possibly say that would make things worse?’

He saw no change in Medievsky’s face. No hint of wavering.

‘If we had the time, and the access to forensic equipment and expertise, you’d see how things really were. You’d discover that the bullets that killed Wyatt didn’t come from the gun you found me holding, and that they were fired through the window of the generator building. You might even find evidence that I fired the gun back through the window at the attacker. You’d learn whose DNA was on the most recently worn snowsuit, apart from yours and mine and Haglund’s, hanging there on the pegs next to the door. And speaking of DNA, there’ll be plenty of it under Keys’s fingernails, by the way. None of it mine.’

Was that the slightest flicker in Medievsky’s eyes, a twitch of the surrounding muscles? Purkiss pressed on.

‘The satellite phone was Wyatt’s. Call his FSB handler if you have to. Ask him. He’ll probably confirm it. But it all fits with what you told me. Don’t you see? You were tasked with protecting a secret, and were ordered to report suspicious activity here at the station. The secret is the crashed bomber with its nuclear arms. The suspicious activity is the operation of a terrorist cell under your nose.’

Yes. A definite shift, a sense of calculation behind Medievsky’s eyes.

‘And the snowmobile, Oleg. You
know
it was sabotaged. Do you really believe I’d go so far as to blow up my own vehicle in order to direct suspicion towards somebody else?’ Purkiss dropped his voice even further so that the words came out in a hiss. ‘There isn’t much time. You don’t have the luxury of mulling this over. Cut me loose now. Let me make the call.’

Medievsky straightened. He reached inside the pocket of his trousers, pulled out a Swiss Army knife.

He moved behind Purkiss. For an instant, Purkiss wondered if he’d misjudged the man, was about to feel the press of sharpened steel against his throat, the awful sense of violation as his carotid artery was sliced open.

A tugging at his hands behind the back of the chair gave way to release, and his arms were free. He rubbed at the grooves the plastic had imprinted on his wrists. Haglund and Montrose burned him with their stares.

Medievsky handed him the phone.

‘Do it.’

Purkiss hit the key, listened to the distant whirr and whisper as the connection was sought.

Then: a single, continuous, fluting note.

He cancelled, tried again.

The same.

And a third time.

Purkiss lowered the handset.

‘The link’s dead,’ he said. ‘It’s not the satellite connection. The phone at the other end has been switched off, or taken out of service.’

Through the silence, Purkiss made out the faint screaming of the wind beyond the walls.

A
ll Lenilko could do for the moment was wait, at a time when keeping busy was what he desperately needed. Waiting opened up even the most disciplined of minds to invasion by the demons of regret, of doubt, of fear.

He’d set Anna to work drafting the report he would be required to produce after this was over, in which he justified the course of action he had chosen. Now he wondered if he might have been better served writing it himself, to keep his thoughts and his hands occupied. Alone in his office, gazing out as he was so accustomed to doing over the square, he had no option  but to face what he’d done.

It wasn’t so much the fact that he’d disobeyed the orders of his superior, Rokva, and had gone over the head of even the Director of the FSB, that tormented him. It was the understanding that he’d lied to the President of the Russian Federation. It had been a lie of omission rather than commission, but the distinction was of no relevance.

In his summary of the situation to the President, Lenilko hadn’t mentioned the presence of a British agent at Yarkovsky Station. More significantly, he hadn’t mentioned the name of John Purkiss.

Purkiss.
The man who’d saved the President’s life. The untouchable.

Lenilko had no doubt that if he’d used Purkiss’s name, his request would have been refused. The President would have notified the FSB Director immediately, and Lenilko would have been suspended if not summarily dismissed. Thereafter, Eshman or whoever was assigned to take over the operation would have sent in the troops. But they’d have been under strict instruction not to harm Purkiss, and this would have caused them to pull their punches. To handle the situation with more delicacy than it required.

And the mission would be lost. The missiles would be extracted by the opposition, and the world would become an infinitely more dangerous place.

Lenilko clenched his fists at his sides so hard that the nails bit into the palms.
No.
He’d done the right thing, regardless of what the outcome for him personally would be. His way, the deceitful, lying, taboo-violating way, was the correct one.

The FSB had its own special forces centre, the CSN, comprising three divisions of around four thousand operatives in total. If the Counter-Terrorism Directorate were to get involved, it would be
Spetsnaz
troops from the CSN whom they’d send in. That was why Lenilko had approached General Tsarev. He was chief of a military
Spetsnaz
unit, distinct from the FSB’s divisions and coming instead under the control of the military.