Target 5 (6 page)

'Never felt better.'

'You're up early,' the security man persisted.

'I'm always up early - you should know that by now.'

Gorov deliberately let his irritation show and the stratagem worked. Marov mumbled something and padded back
towards the base. Inside his coat pocket Gorov's gloved
hands clenched: Marov was going to be a problem - because Marov always came with him when he ventured out on the pack. And there was another reason why Gorov had
allowed his irritation to show: he had reached the stage
where he couldn't stand the sight of a security man. It was
Col Papanin's Security Service which had killed Rachel
Levitzer six months ago.

Gorov's eyes filled with tears as he thought of her. They
had been unofficially engaged, but
because she was Jewish,
because he was an eminent Academician, they had kept
their relationship secret. Then the news had come through
in August 1971: Rachel had died in Leningrad.

The Security Service had come to her flat to arrest her:
something to do with the Jewish underground - Gorov had
never been clear on the details - but Rachel had attempted
to escape, fleeing down a long staircase. A security man had
tripped her and Rachel had gone down - down a flight of
thirty stone steps. When they had reached her she was dead,
her neck broken.

Gorov checked his watch. 4.10
am,
local time. Twenty
more hours to wait before he started out across the polar pack in his desperate bid to reach Target-5. Timing was everything: he had been warned by the Americans that he
must fix his own departure date - and then stick to it.
Gorov's plan was to leave North Pole 17 at exactly midnight
and he wondered how he was going to get through the next
twenty hours while he pretended to be absorbed in his
depth-sounding experiments. But at least there was one consolation: his brother, Peter, would by now have passed
on the message. The Americans knew already when he was
coming.

The Locomotive was building up a head of steam. By eleven
o'clock on Saturday morning all witnesses had been interrogated at security headquarters - interrogated by Papanin
himself. He had seen the Intourist guide, Madame Vollin -
a cow of a woman, Kramer. And she has bad breath. I
don't know how Winthrop stood it . ..' He had spent far
longer with the policeman who had seen Winthrop die. He
had interviewed staff from the Hotel Europa and the airport
official who had noted down Winthrop's arrival five days earlier from Helsinki. And he had found nothing remotely
suspicious.

'I think we are looking down a large hole with nothing in it,' Kramer remarked as the airport official left. 'There is not
one piece of evidence to connect this man Winthrop with the
Jews.'

'Someone is bringing in money to them - we know that. And Winthrop still smells.' The Siberian bounded up from
behind his desk and started striding round the room. 'For
five days he behaves himself- he goes to the Hermitage and
stares at the Rubens, always with his nursemaid, the Vollin
woman. Then, what happens yesterday?' Papanin bent
down, picked up a poker and began to attack the interior of
the stove, stirring up the glowing coals the way he stirred up
people.

'He dies in a street accident...'

'Before that! He breaks routine, Kramer - he tells the
guide he is tired and will not be going out.' He rammed the poker in deep. 'The moment her back is turned he slips out
again on his own - when it is nearly dark. Why, Kramer,
why?'

'He is feeling better. He is going back to the Her
mitage . . .'

'When the museum closes at four? He'd get there just in time to come back. Why did he go out on his own?'

'To meet someone . . .' Kramer made the reply casually, for something to say. The Siberian's grip tightened on the
poker. He withdrew the weapon from the stove, straightened
up slowly and stared at his assistant. 'I don't really believe
that,' Kramer said quickly.

'To meet someone?' Papanin repeated. 'You know, you could be right. But who? He didn't meet anyone - he didn't have time before he was killed.' Papanin prodded the poker in Kramer's direction. 'Let's use our heads - by which I mean let's use my head. The American goes out, walks to the park ...'

'Twists his ankle .. .'

'Appears to twist his ankle, Kramer.' Papanin had his
eyes closed as he tried to visualize the scene
the policeman
had described. 'He slips close to the seaman, then he starts
back again. I wonder who that seaman was, Kramer?'

'Could have been anyone.'

'No - we can narrow it down! The seaman was carrying
his duffle bag and was walking towards the docks .. .'
Papanin put the poker back on the stove and took a file out of a drawer. Each day he received a report on events in the
city, including a police report, but he was looking for the
docks report. 'The only ship which sailed yesterday was
the
Girolog, a
trawler, and the icebreaker which took it out.
He must have been going to embark on the
Girolog.'

'With a crew of about thirty . . .'

'True. So now I want you to drive immediately to the
docks to get me the list of all personnel who sailed on the
Girolog
last night. I want it by noon.'

'There isn't time .. .' Kramer protested.

'That's your problem!' Papanin sat down behind his desk
and waited until Kramer had reached the door. 'Incident
ally, while I was away in Moscow this week I see you signed
a movement order for Michael Gorov to go back to North Pole 17. I thought he'd finished his work there.'

'That is correct.' Kramer paused near the door, vaguely
worried by this sudden change of topic. 'He wanted to take
some final depth-soundings before we evacuate the base. He
gave me the impression that you knew about it.'

'That's all right, Kramer. It just struck me that he hadn't
planned to go there again. And get me the
Girolog
list by
noon!'

Alone in his room, Papanin put one booted leg on top of
his desk and stared moodily at the green-tiled stove which
was now emanating great waves of heat. Without knowing
it, he now had exactly seventeen hours to find out why
Winthrop had come to Leningrad before Michael Gorov started his run to Target-5.

It was a six-hour flight at forty thousand feet from Washing
ton to Thule, Greenland, and it was eleven o'clock on Saturday morning when Beaumont woke up and saw the huge runway coming up to meet the Boeing 707. It didn't
feel like Saturday - by now Beaumont was so bemused that
he had to think to remember the day of the week. And it
didn't look like eleven o'clock in the morning as the Boeing
dropped out of a, moonlit night towards the wilderness of
snow and ice below.

'Seems like only five minutes since we left Washington,' he
called out to Callard, the FBI man who sat across the gang
way from him.

The man in the neat blue suit, freshly shaven, looked back
at the big Englishman as though wondering whether to
reply. 'Seems more like five years to me,' he said eventually.
He turned away and looked out of the window on his side.

Beaumont smiled to himself. At five in the morning
Callard had jumped aboard the plane at
Washington
minutes before its departure for Greenland; obviously he
had been driving the plane every mile of the way while
Beaumont had slept. He looked out of his own window,
staring down at the desolate snowbound plain of the Green
land icecap. In the distance the thousand-foot high radar
mast sheered up into the moonlit sky, the warning light at
the summit flashing red. The tallest mast in the world, it had
a range of three thousand miles over the roof of the world, It was the key station in the Distant Early Warning system.

'I'll see you in Vandenberg's office,' Callard suddenly called out. 'Sometime this evening, maybe.'

Beaumont nodded and he thought the suggestion signifi
cant. As the Boeing continued its decent he was certain that Callard had cracked the case, that he now knew the identity
of Crocodile, that he was on his way to arrest the Soviet
agent. They went down below the level of the radar mast
tip and the grim panorama of the icecap slid up closer.
Beaumont had a tilted view of flat-topped buildings on
either side of Main Street, the snow-covered road which ran
down the middle of the camp, then they were landing.

Tillotson was waiting for Beaumont when he dis
embarked from the plane, wrapped in a fur parka they had supplied before he left Washington. It was forty below and the still air hit him like a physical blow, taking his breath away as he stood at the foot of the steps. Tillotson, a tall,
tough-looking man with a face like one of the heads carved
out of Mount Rushmore, shook Beaumont's gloved hand
with his own. 'I have everything ready for this trip of
yours . . .'

He stopped speaking and stared at Callard who had come
down the steps behind Beaumont, brushed past the two men
and walked quickly across to Colonel Vandenberg, the camp commander. 'Who was that?' he asked.

'No idea,' Beaumont said instantly. 'He wasn't very
talkative and I slept most of the way. Maybe there's been a
complaint about the hamburgers.'

Tillotson looked back at the plane where the chief pilot was coming down the steps. 'Excuse me,' he said and intercepted the pilot. 'That second passenger - who is he? Only Beaumont was reported as coming on this flight.'

The pilot, carrying his flying helmet, pulled the hood of his parka over his head. 'Every time I make this trip it gets
colder up here. The guy jumped aboard at the last minute
just before we left Washington. He came in a government
car

'I'll check him later.5 Tillotson led Beaumont to a covered jeep and started talking as he turned on the ignition. 'As I said, everything is ready for your trip. Two Sikorskys have been sent to Curtis Field on the east Greenland coast, Grayson and Langer are waiting for you at headquarters - Grayson was here but we had to scoop up Langer from Ellesmere Island.' He drove the jeep slowly along a track towards the camp, keeping well behind the car which was taking Col Vandenberg and Callard ahead of them. 'Two Norwegian-type sleds are being sent on to Curtis...'

'They're useless,' Beaumont interjected. 'I specified
Eskimo sleds - they're heavier and won't break up on rough
ice. Your sleds will.'

Tillotson looked surprised. 'We use Norwegian-type sleds
ourselves. We haven't any Eskimo sleds . . .'

'I think you have. When I was last here you had two of
them stowed away at the back of the big helicopter hangar.'

'Like to check now? I could turn off and we could go straight over.'

'Now?'

'No time like the present. And I gather that for you every
thing is hurry-hurry.'

Tillotson changed direction as they came to a fork in the beaten snow-track, heading away from the encampment of huts as he drove towards a large hangar in the distance. A quarter of a mile ahead the wire surrounding the military airfield glittered in the moonlight - it was sheathed in solid ice. Beyond the wire a stationary orange snow-plough stood close to the hangar. Tillotson pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Beaumont. 'Met reports on the whole area - I don't know which area you're interested in. Rough ice, you said?'