A Matter of Honour (34 page)

“We can’t be far away from Scott. Think of
the Motherland.”

“To hell with the Motherland,” said Valchek.
“Just let me die in peace.” Romanov looked across again and realised that he
could be stuck with a dead body within a few minutes. Despite Valchek’s efforts
the blood was now seeping on to the floor like a tap that wouldn’t stop
dripping.

Romanov noticed a gap in the trees ahead of
him. He switched his lights on to full beam and swung off the road on to a dirt
track and drove as far as he could until the thicket became too dense. He
switched off the headlights and ran round the car to open the door.

Valchek could only manage two or three steps
before he slumped to the ground, still holding on to his intestines. Romanov
bent down and helped him ease himself up against the trunk of a large tree.

“Leave me to die, Comrade Major. Do not
waste any more of your time on me.”

Romanov frowned.

“How do you wish to die, Comrade?” he asked.
“Slowly and in agony, or quickly and peacefully?”

“Leave me, Comrade. Let me die slowly, but
you should go while you still have Scott in your sights.”

“But if the Americans were to find you, they
might force you to talk.”

“You know better than that, Comrade.”
Romanov accepted the rebuke, then rose and after a moment’s thought, ran back
to the car.

Valchek began to pray that once the bastard
had left someone might find him. He’d never wanted this assignment in the first
place, but Zaborski needed two extra eyes on Romanov and Zaborski was not a man
to cross. Valchek wouldn’t talk, but he still wanted to live.

The bullet from the 9mm Makarov went
straight through the back of Valchek’s temple and blew away one side of his
head. Valchek slumped to the ground and for several seconds his body trembled
and spasmed, subsiding into twitches as he emptied his bowels and bladder on to
the brown earth.

Romanov stood over him until he was certain
he was dead. Valchek would probably not have talked, but this was not a time
for taking unnecessary risks.

When he woke the next morning he felt the
same familiar guilt. Once again he swore it would be the last time. It was
never as good as he had anticipated, and the regret always lingered on for
several hours.

The expense of keeping up an extra flat, the
taxi fares and the club bills nearly made it prohibitive. But he always
returned, like a salmon to its breeding ground. “A queer fish,” he murmured out
loud, and then groaned at his own pun.

Piers began to wake, and for the next twenty
minutes he made his companion forget those regrets. After a moment of
lying
in exhausted silence the older man slipped out of bed,
took ten pounds out of his wallet and left it on the dresser before going to
run himself a bath. He anticipated that by the time he returned the boy and the
money would have gone.

He soaked himself in the bath wondering
about Scott. He knevy he should feel guilty about his death. A death that, like
so many others before him, had been caused by his picking up a young Pole who
he had thought was safe. It was now so many years ago that he couldn’t even
remember his name.

But Mentor had never been allowed to forget
the name of the young aristocratic KGB officer he had found sitting on the end
of their bed when he woke the next morning, or the look of disgust he showed
for them both.

Adam lay flat on his stomach in the bottom
of the empty barge. His head propped on one side, he remained alert to the
slightest unfamiliar sound.

The bargee stood behind the wheel counting
the three hundred Swiss francs for a second time. It was more than he could
normally hope to earn in a month. A woman standing on tiptoes was eyeing the
notes happily over his shoulder.

The barge progressed at a stately pace down
the canal and Adam could no longer see the crashed plane.

Suddenly, far off in the distance, he heard
distinctly the report of what sounded like a gunshot. Even as he listened the
woman turned and scuttled down the hatch like a frightened rat. The barge
ploughed its course on slowly through the night while Adam listened anxiously
for any other unnatural noises, but all he could hear was the gentle splash of
the water against the barge’s hull. The clouds had moved on and full moon once
again lit up the bank on both sides of the river. It became abundantly clear to
Adam as he watched the towpath that they were not moving very fast. He could
have run quicker. But even if it had cost him the remainder of his money, he
was grateful to be escaping. He lowered himself again and curled up in the bow
of the boat. He touched the icon, something he found himself doing every few
minutes since he had discovered its secret. He did not move for another half
hour, although he doubted that the barge had covered more than five miles.

Although everything appeared absolutely
serene, he still remained alert. The river was far wider now than when he had
first leapt on the barge.

The bargee’s eyes never left him for long.
He stood gripping the wheel, his oil-covered face not much cleaner than the old
dungarees he wore – which looked as if they were never taken off. Occasionally
he took a hand from the wheel, but only to remove the smokeless pipe from his
mouth, cough,
spit
and put it back again.

The man smiled, took both hands off the
wheel and placed them by the side of his head to indicate that Adam should
sleep. But Adam shook his head. He checked his watch. Midnight had passed and
he wanted to be off the barge and away long before first light.

He stood up, stretched, and wobbled a
little. His shoulder, although healing slowly, still ached relentlessly. He
walked up the centre of the barge and took his place next to the wheel.

“La Seine?” he asked, pointing at the water.

The bargee shook his head, no. “Canal de
Bourgogne,” he grunted.

Adam then pointed in the direction they were
moving.
“Quelle ville?”

The bargee removed his pipe.
“Ville?
Ce n’estpas une ville, c’est Sombernon”
he
said, and put the stem back between his teeth.

Adam returned to his place in the bow. He
tried to find a more comfortable position to relax and, curling up against the
side of the boat, rested his head on some old rope and allowed his eyes to
close.

“You know Scott better than any of us,” said
Sir Morris, “and you still have no feel as to where he might be
now,
or what he might do next, do you?”

“No, sir,” admitted Lawrence. “The only
thing we know for certain is that he has an appointment for a medical on Monday
afternoon, but somehow I don’t think he’ll make it.”

Sir Morris ignored the comment. “But someone
was able to get to Scott, even though we didn’t call D4,” he continued. “That
icon must hold a secret that we haven’t begun to appreciate.”

“And if Scott is still alive,” said
Lawrence, “nothing is going to convince him now that we’re not to blame.”

“And if we’re not, who is?” asked Sir
Morris.
“Because someone was so desperate to discover our
next move that they must have taken one hell of a risk during the last
twenty-four hours.
Unless, of course, it was you,” said Sir Morris. The
Permanent Secretary rose from his desk and turned around to look out of his
window on to Horse Guards Parade.

“Even if it was me,” said Lawrence, his eyes
resting on a picture of the young Queen which stood on the corner of his master’s
desk, “it doesn’t explain how the Americans got there as well.”

“Oh, that’s simple,” said Sir Morris. “Busch
has been briefing them direct. I never doubted he would from the moment he
joined us. What I hadn’t anticipated was how far the Americans would go without
keeping us informed.”

“So it was you who told Busch,” said
Lawrence.

“No,” said Sir Morris. “You don’t end up
sitting behind this desk risking your own skin. I told the Prime Minister, and
politicians can always be relied on to pass on your information if they
consider it will score them a point. To be fair, I knew the Prime Minister
would tell the President. Otherwise I wouldn’t have told him in the first
place. More important: do you think Scott can still be alive?”

“Yes, I do,” said Lawrence. “I have every
reason to believe that the man who ran across the tarmac to our waiting plane
was Scott. The French police, who incidentally have been far more co-operative
than the Swiss, have informed us that our plane crashed in a field twelve miles
north of Dijon but neither Scott nor the pilot were to be found at the scene of
the crash.”

“And if the French reports on what took
place at the airport are accurate,” said Sir Morris, “Romanov escaped and they
must have had a couple of hours’ start on us.”

“Possibly,” said Lawrence.

“And do you think it equally possible,”
asked Sir Morris, “that they have caught up with Scott and are now in
possession of the icon?”

“Yes, sir, I fear that is quite possible,”
Lawrence said. “But I can’t pretend it’s conclusive. However, the BBC
monitoring service at Caversham Park picked up extra signals traffic to all
Soviet embassies during the night.”

“That could mean anything,” said Sir Morris,
removing his spectacles.

“I agree, sir. But NATO reports that Russian
strategic forces have been placed at a state of readiness and several Soviet
Ambassadors across Europe have requested formal audiences with their Foreign
Secretaries, ours included.”

“That
is
more worrying,” said Sir Morris. “They don’t do that unless they are hoping
for our support.”

“Agreed, sir.
But most revealing of all is that the
Active Measures section of the KGB, First Chief Directorate, has booked pages
of advertising space in newspapers right across Europe and, I suspect, America.”

“Next you’ll be telling me they hired J.
Walter Thompson to write the copy,” growled Sir Morris.

“They won’t need them,” said Lawrence. “I
suspect it’s a story that will make every front page.”

If it hadn’t been for the ceaseless
throbbing in his shoulder, Adam might not have woken so quickly. The barge had
suddenly swung at 90° and started heading east when Adam woke up with a start.
He looked at the bargee and indicated that as the river was far wider now could
he ease them nearer to the bank so he could jump off. The old man shrugged his
shoulders pretending not to understand as the barge drifted aimlessly on.

Adam looked over the side and despite the
lateness of the hour could see the bed of the river quite clearly. He tossed a
stone over the side and watched it drop quickly to the bottom. It looked almost
as if he could reach down and touch it. He looked up helplessly at the bargee
who continued to stare over his head into the distance.

“Damn,” said Adam, and taking the icon out
of his blazer pocket held it high above his head. He stood on the edge of the
barge feeling like a football manager asking the referee for permission to
substitute a player. Permission was granted and Adam leaped into the water. His
feet hit the canal bed with a thud and knocked the breath out of his body
despite the fact that the water only came up to his waist.

Adam stood in the
canal,
the icon still held high above his head as the barge sailed past him. He waded
to the nearest bank and clambered up on to the tow-path, turning slowly round
as he tried to get some feel for direction. He was soon able to distinguish the
Plough again and plot a course due west. After an hour of soggy jogging he
began to make out a light in the distance which he estimated to be under a mile
away. His legs were soaking and cold as he started to squelch his way across a
field towards the first rays of the morning sun.

Whenever he came to a hedge or gate he
climbed over or under like a Roman centurion determined to hold a straight line
with his final destination. He could now see the outline of a house, which as
he got nearer he realised was no more than a large cottage. He remembered the
expression ‘peasant farmer’ from his school geography lessons. A little cobbled
path led up to a half-open wooden door that looked as if it didn’t need a lock.
Adam tapped gently on the knocker and stood directly below the light above the
doorway so that whoever answered would see him immediately.

The door was pulled back by a woman of
perhaps thirty, who wore a plain black dress and a spotless white apron. Her
rosy cheeks and ample waist confirmed her husband’s profession.

When she saw Adam standing under the light
she couldn’t mask her surprise – she had been expecting the postman, but he
didn’t often appear in a neat navy blue blazer and soaking grey trousers.

Adam smiled.
“Anglais,”
he told her, and added, “I fell in the canal.”

The lady burst out laughing and beckoned
Adam into her kitchen. He walked in to find a man evidently dressed for
milking. The farmer looked up and when he saw Adam he joined in the laughter – a
warm, friendly laugh more with Adam than against him.