Wolfhound Century: Radiant State Part 24

Lom considered. 'Thank you,' he said. 'Yes. That would be good.'

Konnie turned to Elena.

'You're welcome to stay here,' she said. 'You'll be safe. You won't be found. Someone will bring you food. It won't be more than a week.'

Elena Cornelius bridled. 'I'm coming. I'm tired of hiding. I've got a job to finish and none of you can do what I can do. Get me a rifle and I will come.'

5.

Every day in the first pale pink and violet flush of another new morning Vasilisk the bodyguard runs in the hills above Dacha Number Nine. Ten easy miles on yellow earth tracks before breakfast, taking the slopes through fragrant th.o.r.n.y shrub with cardiovascular efficiency, the early warmth of the sun on his shoulders. He sees the soft mist in the valleys. Sees the black beetles crossing the paths and the boar pus.h.i.+ng through thickets. Watches the big hunting birds, high on stiff wings against the pale dusty blue, circling up on the thermals. Miles of rise and fall unrolling smoothly and effortlessly.

No words. No thoughts.

He knows the routes of the security patrols and the places they watch from and he does not go there; he prefers to drink the mountain solitude in, like cool sweet water. The watcher doesn't like to be watched. Doesn't like the feel of a long lens on his back. Ten miles of n.o.body in the morning sets him up for the day.

Two hundred push-ups, breathing steady and slow, two sets of fifty per arm, and a downhill sprint between pine treesjumping tussocks and stony glittering streamsand Vasilisk the bodyguard steps out onto the road, corn-yellow hair slick with sweat. Sweat patches darkening his singlet.

The guards at the gatehouse phone him in through the gate, as they do every morning. He glances at them lazily, indifferent small blue eyes blank and pale behind pale-straw eyelashes. He goes to his room, picks up a towel and heads for the pool.

6.

The streets of Anaklion on the Karima coast were wide and shaded by trees. Many of the houses were modern, every fifth building a guest house or hotel. Women at the roadside and in the squares sold figs and watermelons and clouded-purple grapes. Warm air off the sea disturbed the palms and casuarina trees.

Konnie, Lom and Elena took the funicular up to the Park of Culture and Rest. Gravel paths between long plots of enamel-bright flowers. Statues of dogs and soldiers. Wrought-iron benches for the weary and the convalescent. At the Tea-Garden-Restaurant Palmovye Derevya they took a table some way from the other customers, at the edge of the cliff, shaded by waxy dark green leaves against the low morning sun. A hundred feet sheer below them youths swam in the river, and across the gorge balconied houses recuperated: quiet lawns, striped awnings.

A waiter materialised at their table. Tight high-waisted trousers, a pouch at his hip for coin.

'Tea,' said Konnie. 'With lemon. For four. And some pastries.' Her long fine hair was burnished copper in the flickering splashes of sunlight between leaves. Her eyes flashed green at the waiter. A hint of a conspiratorial smile. 'You decide which ones.' A beautiful young woman with friends, on vacation. A husband or boyfriend would join them soon.

They'd arrived the night before. Lom used the last of Kistler's roubles for rooms at the guest house Black Cypress. Maksim hadn't appeared at breakfast.

'He went up the mountain before dawn,' said Konnie. 'He wanted to have a look for himself.'

Lom said nothing. Since they had left Mirgorod, Maksim had changed subtly. His face cleared. No longer pent-up and clouded with frustration, he was self-contained, competent and direct. Back in the military again, he was a man at his best with a mission. A simple purpose. Lom liked him. He'd started to trust him too.

'We can do this,' said Maksim when he arrived. 'It is possible. There is a way. But it's all about timing. Everything has to work precisely right. Absolute discipline.'

'OK,' said Lom. 'Go on.'

Maksim glanced at him. The two men had never quite resolved the unspoken question of who was in charge.

'The dacha is a fortress,' Maksim began. 'A compound surrounded by steep hills. The only way in is a tunnel through the mountain. There's a gate at the entrance from the road: wooden but three inches thick and reinforced with iron. There's a gatehousealways two guards, with binoculars and a view for miles down the mountain. They'd see any vehicle coming ten minutes before it reached them. The gate is kept closed and barred from within. It's opened at a signal from the gatehouse, when they're expecting company. But n.o.body comes and n.o.body goes, except the domestics make a shopping trip once a week. A couple of guards go with them.'

'And inside?' said Lom.

'VKBD security. Plus Rond is there, and he's got Parallel Sector personnel with him. And Rizhin has his own personal security. Two bodyguards. Part of the family. Very dangerous. Say, twenty in all.'

'Not so much,' said Lom.

'There's a militia company in the town, an armoured train five miles away, a cruiser in the bay. They think they're safe enough.'

'Patrols in the hills?'

'No information,' said Maksim. 'But a.s.sume so. Yes.'

'So what's the plan?' said Lom.

'We must have the gate open at eleven tomorrow morning. Eleven o'clock exactly, to the second. No sooner and no later. Kistler will be coming out in a car.'

'A car?' said Konnie.

'Rizhin's personal limousine. It's the most powerful and heavily armoured they have. Bullet-proof gla.s.s in the windows. Thick steel panels underneath too. h.e.l.l, even the tyres are bullet-proof.'

'And all we have to do,' said Lom, 'is open the gate tomorrow?'

'Yes.'

'How?' said Konnie.

Maksim's face clouded. 'It can't be unbarred from outside, so we'll need explosives.'

Konnie looked around at the Park of Culture and Rest, at the teenage boys and girls in the river and stretched out on flat slabs of rock, lazy under the sun.

'Where do you get explosives in a place like this?' she said.

'Every construction project here has to start with blasting rock,' said Maksim. 'There's got to be a supply somewhere. A builder's merchant. An engineering yard.'

'That won't be necessary,' said Lom. 'You can leave the gate to me. I'll take care of it. And the guards in the gatehouse too.'

Maksim looked at him doubtfully.

'How?' he said.

Lom hesitated. Maksim's expression was soldierly. Sceptical. He couldn't begin to explain. Explaining would make it worse.

'It'll be fine,' said Lom. 'Please. I know what I'm doing. Leave it to me. If you can get Kistler to the gate at eleven, it'll be open.'

Maksim bridled.

'I must know what you intend,' he said. 'I will not lead my people blind. Lives depend on me.'

Lom shrugged. 'Stay here then. I'm grateful for what you've done, and from here I will go on alone.'

'Maksim,' said Elena Cornelius quietly, 'I think we should trust Vissarion. He has brought us this far. Without him we would be nowhere. We owe the chance we have to him.'

'Chance!' Maksim began, but thought better of it. 'OK,' he said. 'But I'll be at the gatehouse with you.'

'Good,' said Lom. 'Thank you.'

He took a long draught of hot sweet tea and considered the plan. It was terrible. A really s.h.i.+t plan. But it would be fine.

Just keep blundering on. Plough through the obstacles as they come. Way too late to back off now.

7.

Weary after weeks of frustrating traveldelays over paperwork, failed and diverted trains, fuel shortages, their carriage attacked by a hungry mobthe Philosophy League arrived at the Wieland Station. Pennilessall their money spent on unexpected expenses along the waybut back in Mirgorod at last.

They'd hoped for more of a reception. Fors.h.i.+n had wired ahead to Pinocharsky to warn him of their arrival. They'd expected journalists and prepared the lines they would take: Fors.h.i.+n had the text of a speech in his pocket, and Brutskoi had written an article for the Lamp, a manifesto of sorts, a call to intellectual arms. But there was no one to meet them. The League stood together in a disgruntled huddle on the platform, surrounded by their suitcases and chests of books, their luggage much battered and repaired. They all looked to Fors.h.i.+n for answers.

'Well?' said Yudifa Yudifovna. 'So what are we to do?'

Eligiya Kamilova stood somewhat apart from the rest with Yeva and Galina Cornelius. The girls were restless and unhappy.

'Do we have to stay with these people any more?' said Yeva. 'Can't we go home now?'

Home? thought Kamilova. What is home?

'Ha!' said Fors.h.i.+n, visibly relieved. 'Here's Pinocharsky at last.' He waved. 'Pinocharsky! I say, Pinocharsky! Here!'

Pinocharsky came towards them, arms open in a mime of embrace. He was wreathed in smiles but looked hara.s.sed, his wiry red hair wisping.

'Well then!' he said. 'Here you are; you have come at last! But you're late. I was expecting you two hours ago. You have to hurry. Your train is waiting on the next platform.' He gestured for porters. 'What a lot of luggage you have. But no matter, there's no doubt plenty of room.'

The members of the League were looking at one another in dismay. Fors.h.i.+n took Pinocharsky by the arm.

'Train?' he said. 'What train? We've only just arrived, man. We need a hotel. We need a meeting. Editors. Publishers. We need a plan. We have much to say to the people.'

'Ah,' said Pinocharsky. 'Well, no, not exactly. Not yet. There's been a change of plan. Unfortunately I wasn't able to contact you.' He was looking s.h.i.+fty.

'A change of plan?'

Yes. The House of Enlightened Arts... Rizhin decided Mirgorod wasn't the place for it after all. He has a new plan, a better plan. You'll see the advantages when you understand.'

'What?' said Fors.h.i.+n. 'No. This is unacceptable.'

'I'm to take you there directly,' said Pinocharsky. 'The train's waiting-'

'This is outrageous,' said Fors.h.i.+n. 'I protest. On behalf of the League. There must be consultation.'

'These are the instructions of Rizhin himself,' said Pinocharsky stonily.

'At least let us have some time to rest and recover from the journey. The ladies-'

'I'm sorry, that won't be possible.'

'Then tell us where we are going, man,' said Olga-Marya Rapp. 'At least tell us that.'

'A new town in the east,' said Pinocharsky. 'A pioneering place. Leading edge. A city of the future. A place called Vitigorsk. There's a great project under way there. I don't know much about it yet myself.'

The League muttered and grumbled and cursed under their breath but there was no rebellion. They were too weary, too inured to disappointment; they knew in their hearts the limits of their true worth. Porters picked up their baggage and moved along the platform, and they followed in a subdued huddle.

Eligiya Kamilova caught up with Fors.h.i.+n.

'Nikolai...'

Fors.h.i.+n looked at her, puzzled. She and the girls had slipped his mind in all the fuss.

'Oh, Eligiya, of course...'

'I wanted to thank you, Nikolai. You've been very kind to the girls and me. You've done more than we had any right to hope for.'

'Oh. You're not coming with us? No, of course not. But do. Come with us to this Vitigorsk place, Eligiya. See where all this excitement leads. The future is opening for us, I feel sure of it.'

'I can't, Nikolai. I must take Galina and Yeva to look for their mother.'

'Of course you must do that.' He held out his hand and she took it. 'Well, goodbye then.'

'Thank you, Nikolai. And good luck.'

Eligiya Kamilova watched Fors.h.i.+n walk away purposefully, hurrying to catch up with Pinocharsky. She never saw or heard of him, nor any other member of the Philosophy League, ever again.

'Eligiya,' said Yeva, 'can we go now, please? We have to go and find our mother.'

Two hours later they were standing in the street where their aunt's apartment building had stood, the place where the Archipelago bomb had fallen: six years before in Mirgorod time, but for them it was a matter of months.