Lenins roller coaster, p.32
Lenin's Roller Coaster, page 32
McColl let that sink in. “And what do they mean to do with the stuff?” he asked, trying to sound like he didn’t much care.
“You’ll have to ask them that,” was Riberot’s reply. He looked at his watch. “I must be going. I have an engagement with an extremely beautiful woman.” He looked at them both for a moment, as if expecting applause, then abruptly reached for the door of his car.
Who are these people? McColl asked himself. And what the hell was he doing running their errands?
As he and Bowers lifted the crates into the back of the Russo-Balt, lightning bloomed in the western sky. “Twenty-seven seconds,” Bowers said after the ensuing low rumble of thunder. “Five and a half miles, give or take. We might beat it home.”
McColl had other concerns but wasn’t sure how much point there was in sharing them with his partner. “You heard what the Frenchman said?” he asked once they were back on the road.
“About the jams? Yes. Plum for rotting, cherry for poison. And this is where we turn off. Arkhangelskoye is about three miles down this road.”
“I don’t like it,” McColl said as they turned onto the smaller road. The skies above were rapidly darkening, the flashes of lightning more frequent.
“It’ll pass over.”
“Not the storm. The job.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose I can see your point. But if we didn’t do it, someone else would.”
Which was facile but probably true, McColl thought, steering the Russo-Balt through another somnambulant hamlet. He thought about going back to the inn and dumping the crates in the river but then realized that doing so might kill half the local population. What were their Russian allies intending to do with the contents? As Riberot had said, he would have to ask them. Try as he could, he found it hard to imagine an acceptable answer.
He said as much to his companion, who was busy trying to read the sketched map that Northcutt had supplied.
“This is probably one of those times when it’s better not to know,” Bowers replied.
His matter-of-factness gave McColl a moment of doubt—was he overreacting? He didn’t think so.
They were coming into Arkhangelskoye. High to their left, a mansion clung to the top of a hill, its white façade standing out against the dark gray sky. Ahead of them the lane wound slowly downhill, passing widely spaced cottages with lightless windows and smokeless chimneys. These dachas were the weekend retreats of Moscow’s middle and upper classes, most of whom had more pressing concerns in this particular summer.
The dacha they sought was right at the end of the lane, a neat white cottage almost engulfed by a long-neglected garden. The overgrown lawn sloped down to the river, which was here about thirty yards wide. Two weeping willows stood sentry on the bank, on either side of an exquisite summerhouse.
There were no waiting Russians.
“What time are they supposed to be here?” McColl asked Bowers as he drew the car to a halt.
“In twenty minutes,” Bowers said, looking at his watch. “We gave it an extra half hour in case the French were late.”
Lightning flickered through the trees to their right, and this time the thunder was more crack than rumble.
“I’ll take the red flag off the car,” Bowers said, opening his door. “No point alarming our friends.”
McColl sat there for a moment, then reached beneath the seat for the pistol. Sliding it under his belt and the hip-length Russian blouse, he got out of the car. “I’ll check the area,” he told Bowers, who was still unraveling the string with which the flag was fastened.
After walking around the cottage, McColl made his way to the edge of the river and watched a cluster of broken branches slowly drift downstream.
Was he overreacting? He didn’t think so. This was a step change, what the Americans called a whole new ball game. For almost five years, he’d done the jobs that Cumming and others had asked him to do, and though he’d often had his doubts about the politics, he’d never stopped believing that the war was worth winning.
But this was something else entirely. Delivering poisons to a warring group of Russians—and it hardly mattered which one—did nothing for King and Country, except perhaps tarnish them both. How could it help the British war effort? If these people succeeded in bringing down the Bolsheviks, it would take them months to reestablish an Eastern Front, assuming that they actually wanted to. And if Reilly was right, the war in the west would be over by then.
This was Russian business, and as far as McColl could see, neither Reds nor Whites posed any threat to Britain or its people. If forced to choose sides, he would probably have opted for the Reds, if only because Caitlin believed in their revolution. He didn’t share all her political opinions—far from it—but he had learned to trust her heart.
But what could he do? What if he went back to Bowers and told him he’d decided not to hand over the crates? If Bowers tried to stop him, was he prepared to hold off a colleague at gunpoint and if necessary put a bullet in one of his legs?
The storm was moving closer, raindrops stippling the surface of the river. One step at a time, he told himself. Maybe Bowers would listen.
He never got the opportunity. McColl was halfway back to the car when a moving light appeared in the distance, and it was only a matter of moments before he heard the trotting hooves. Now he had the Russians to deal with as well.
There were two of them in the horse-drawn carriage, one of around middle age, the other a good deal younger. Both were wearing blouses and army breeches, with guns in leather holsters hanging from their belts. As Bowers and the older Russian exchanged passwords and introduced themselves, McColl tried working his way through the possible consequences of pulling his gun on them all. Too many imponderables, he decided. Anything could happen.
The rain was falling faster, the older Russian producing a key from his pocket. “We should drink a toast,” he said, pulling a bottle from the back of the carriage and tucking it under his arm.
The door unlocked, they followed him in, McColl feeling strangely calm. The air was stale, the furniture covered in dust, but everything seemed to be there—this particular dacha was still awaiting its looters.
The older Russian found four porcelain teacups and poured out generous measures.
Toasting the czar was now a matter of toasting his memory, but the emotions kindled in some Russian breasts seemed stronger since his death.
There was no second glass, though—these two seemed more professional than Viktor and Vasily. Together they might be more than a match for McColl, in which case these might be his last few minutes. He rather hoped not.
The rain was making a racket on the roof. “Not the weather for an open carriage,” the elder Russian said. “We won’t be leaving until it stops. But there’s no point in you waiting. Give us the stuff and you can drive back to Moscow. Safe and dry in your Cheka car.”
“What’s the stuff for?” McColl asked abruptly. He could see that Bowers was wishing he hadn’t, but he wanted an answer.
And rather to his surprise, the Russian proved willing to give him one. “It will give us victory,” he said simply.
“How?” McColl persisted, trying to sound more curious than judgmental.
“If they cannot feed the people, the people will overthrow them—it’s as simple as that.”
“And the poisons?”
“Ah. We didn’t want to use them, but they left us no choice.” He leaned back against the windowsill and reached inside his pocket for a half-smoked cigarette and a match. “In the north all the food for Petrograd crosses one of two bridges to reach the city, and once we blow them up, the city will starve. Simple, eh?” He lit the cigarette stub. “But Moscow is different—there are too many ways in and out, too many bridges to destroy. We cannot stop the movement of food, so we have to stop the production. If you have brought the amount our expert asked for, we can do that. There will be nothing to harvest this autumn and no beasts to slaughter for two hundred miles. Moscow will starve.”
McColl took a deep breath. He’d had his answer, and it wasn’t one he could live with. This man, this oh-so-reasonable enemy of the Bolsheviks, was intent on depriving an entire city of its food. The city where Caitlin and Fedya lived.
This really was the end of the line. The war was virtually over, he’d done his duty by Jed, and a Service willing to condone such a thing was not one he wanted to work for.
He felt, for a few short moments, an overwhelming sense of relief.
“No,” he said, as much to himself as the others.
“No?” the Russian asked. He was about six feet away and partly shielding his partner.
“McColl . . .” Bowers said warningly.
The gun snagged in McColl’s belt and wouldn’t come loose. As he struggled to free it, the Russian’s expression shifted from bemusement to anger, his hand to the holster at his belt.
They fired at almost the same instant, but McColl took a step to the side as he did so. The Russian’s bullet embedded itself in the wall, his own in the Russian’s chest.
By this time the younger man’s gun was clearing its holster, and McColl shot him as well.
They fell across each other, like a cross marking the spot.
“Jesus Christ,” Bowers was saying, disbelief in his voice.
McColl ignored him. The elder Russian had taken a bullet to the heart and was definitely dead. The younger one’s wound was a little higher, and he would probably live. McColl knew he should finish him off and also knew that he wouldn’t. Even if he could bring himself to do it, what would be the point? Sooner or later the Trust would be out for his blood.
Bowers was just staring at him. “Why?”
“You heard them. They were going to starve a city to death.”
“It’s a war! People die.”
“It’s not my war. It never was.”
“I think you’ve made that clear enough. Northcutt will have your guts for garters.” Bowers sighed. “If I were you, I’d disappear for a while.”
“I wasn’t thinking of staying around,” McColl said mechanically as he tried to work out what he needed to do. “Help me carry the body to the car,” he said after a few moments.
“Why?”
“Just do it. We don’t have all night.”
For a moment he thought Bowers would refuse, but after one shake of the head his colleague took hold of the legs and the two of them carried the corpse to the car, where they wedged it on top of the crates. While Bowers was wiping the blood off his hands, McColl reached in and took his colleague’s gun from under the passenger seat.
“What are you—” Bowers began to object.
“You can have it back when we get to Moscow,” McColl told him. He handed Bowers the small red flag. “See if you can fix it back on.”
Bowers gave him an angry look but did as he was told.
The rain was slackening off, the rumbles of thunder fewer and further between. The Russians’ horse was shuffling this way and that in its traces, as if keen to get going.
“Time to leave,” McColl told Bowers once the flag was reattached.
“What about the other Russian?”
“We’ll have to leave him where he is. Someone will see the horse and carriage.” And if nobody did, it was hard to feel sorry for someone prepared to kill thousands of women and children.
The car started the first time—Northcutt’s mechanic was good at his job. As McColl steered it up the lane and out of the village, Bowers sat there shaking his head, seemingly more surprised than angry.
The other man’s silence suited McColl, who was trying to think ahead. He knew what to do when they got back to Moscow, but after that was a blank. The Trust people would be on his trail once they knew what he’d done, but they probably wouldn’t find out for a while. How would Northcutt react? He would see McColl’s action as a betrayal, but would he see it as treason? McColl had heard of one colleague in Russia who’d refused a direct order to kill the Bolshevik nationalities’ leader, Stalin, and who’d only been sent home as a punishment. Was his own crime worse? It probably was. Killing allies and wrecking their operations was a very active form of dissent.
Even if Northcutt was sympathetic—which McColl very much doubted—the Whites and the French would be demanding some sort of reparation. He couldn’t see Northcutt killing one of his own, but he could see him looking the other way after pointing his allies in the right direction.
All of which would take some time. McColl had to leave Moscow—had to leave Russia—but not like a panicky thief in the night, and not without saying good-bye to Fedya. The thought of seeing Caitlin one last time was tempting, but she had made it crystal clear that she didn’t want another meeting.
So that was it. He would go to the orphanage early next morning and then get out of the city. In which direction? Not north—Northcutt had several agents with the British troops in Murmansk and Archangel. Not east, where the Czechs and their French paymasters blocked the way, nor west, where the Central Powers were still in control. So south it had to be. Another journey across occupied Ukraine, or perhaps farther east, through the Caucasus and down into Persia. One last adventure, at no one’s behest but his own.
They were back on the highway by this time, and as they drove past the abandoned inn, Bowers stirred in his seat. “So what’s your plan?” he asked.
“I plan to drop you off when we get to the city.”
“And after that?”
“I’m going home. If there’s music to face, I’ll face it there.”
Bowers thought about that for a moment. “I’ve heard worse ideas,” he admitted.
Twenty minutes later they were approaching the Cheka checkpoint. This time it was manned.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Bowers muttered as McColl brought the car to a halt and carefully placed the gun where his hand could easily reach it. A shoot-out with the Cheka might end badly, but surrender certainly would.
There were two Chekists, both armed with pistols. They looked surprised not to recognize McColl or Bowers. “Comrades, where are you from?” the first one asked.
“Yauzskaya,” McColl answered, handing over his identification. That was the Cheka unit that their papers said they belonged to, but the area in question was on the other side of the city.
The Chekist noticed the discrepancy. “Then what are you doing so far from home?”
“Look in the back,” McColl told him. “There’s a dead White who we chased all the way to Tushino. And some poisons he and his bourgeois friends were planning to put in the city’s water supply. We need to report this, comrades. To the director.”
The Chekist took a quick glance at the corpse, then waved them on.
“Very clever,” Bowers conceded. “You’ve lived up to your reputation.”
“My reputation?” McColl echoed.
“As one of Cumming’s favorites. That’s what Northcutt told me when he knew you were coming.”
But not after this, McColl thought, feeling a twinge of regret for the first time that evening. It had been fun while it lasted. Most of the time.
After they’d passed the Brest Station and crossed Sadovaya, McColl looked around for somewhere to stop. Rather to his surprise, people were still out in numbers. It was, he realized, earlier than he’d thought—this particular day seemed virtually endless.
He found an empty stretch of pavement and pulled over. “You can get a tram from here,” he told Bowers. “Once you’re on the pavement, I’ll drop your gun out of my window—you can pick it up after I’m gone.”
Bowers reached the door handle. “Any last message for Northcutt?” he asked.
“Tell him we should be better than that,” McColl said shortly.
Bowers climbed out and put his head back in the window. “Don’t tell anyone I said so, but good luck.”
Not a bad man, McColl thought as he drove on toward the center. But not a very good one either.
Where to leave the car? Although the idea of parking it outside the Cheka headquarters on Bolshaya Lubyanka had a certain appeal, that was probably pushing his luck. He had wanted to leave an explanatory message, but he had neither paper nor pencil and saw no obvious place to acquire them. He assumed that the stuff in the jars wouldn’t actually look like food, and if anything shouted “handle with care,” it was a corpse wedged in on top. The Cheka would work it out.
Approaching the inner ring, he noticed the Pushkin Monument off to his right and decided that was the spot. He parked the car close up against the plinth, where no one could look inside it without actually crossing the road, and strode off down Tverskoy Boulevard. The shop was about a mile away and should be safe for a few hours at least—more than enough time to pack what he needed and find somewhere safe to spend the night.
The streets were still full of puddles, but the sky was rapidly clearing, and by the time he turned onto Bolshaya Nikitskaya, the moon was dimly glowing behind the thinning clouds. As he neared the antique shop, he noticed a figure standing in the shadows on the opposite side of the street and abruptly slowed his pace. How could Northcutt have gotten someone here so quickly?
Whoever it was took a step toward him, and he realized it was a woman. One step more and he knew it was her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, meeting Caitlin in the middle of the empty street.
“Can we talk inside?” she said, with no attempt to hide the anger in her voice.
“Of course.” McColl unlocked the door and ushered her in. “The back room’s better,” he said, opening the connecting door. Once he’d closed it behind them, he struck a match and lit the kerosene lamp.
“I won’t stay long,” she said coldly. “I came to warn you, that’s all. The Cheka are looking for you.”
“How do you know?”
