The Doomsday Box (15 page)

“Danny—” Fuchsia gasped.

Danny pulled her back a step into the shade of the building. “Keep quiet
,”
he hissed. No way they could help Opal or Michael now. Their only hope was to stay out of sight, stay out of trouble, clock what was happening, and maybe be in a position to do something later. He tightened his grip on Fuchsia's arm in case she had different ideas.

The Russian civilians who'd been wandering near the church had all taken off, Danny noticed, probably as quick at spotting trouble as he was. The men manhandled Opal and Michael into the backseat of the waiting car, climbed in themselves, and slammed the door. The car's windows were as black as its paintwork. The vehicle drove away quickly across the empty square.

“What just happened?” Fuchsia whispered.

But Danny was less concerned with what had just happened than with what might be about to. He'd caught sight of a man in a hat standing directly underneath the scaffolding a short distance from the entrance on the side opposite to where Cobra had disappeared. He'd taken no part in the scuffle around Opal and Michael, but now he was looking directly at Danny and Fuchsia. Danny jerked her arm. “Let's get out of here!”

Maybe he should have moved casually, as if ambling innocently away, but all his instincts were screaming at him that if they didn't move fast, they'd be in at least as much trouble as Opal and Michael. Danny took off at top speed, dashing back around the cathedral, half dragging Fuchsia with him. Behind them, the man in the hat emerged from beneath the scaffolding and began to run too. He was smaller than the three who'd seized Opal and Michael and showed a disturbing turn of speed. Danny and Fuchsia raced across Red Square. Danny glanced behind him as their pursuer's hat fell off, but the man never hesitated. In fact he seemed to be gaining on them. Danny had a fleeting impression of a slim mustache and rimless glasses, before he turned back to redouble his efforts. “This way!” he called to Fuchsia, who'd slipped loose from his grip.

Fuchsia caught up with him, running fast and easily, as they turned onto one of the roads leading into Red Square, then turned again onto a side street. Despite his earlier show of speed, their pursuer was slowing now, and they quickly lost him in a maze of residential side streets. After a while they came to a cautious halt, listening.

They were in a narrow, empty back alley, neatly lined with refuse bins. “I think we've thrown him off,” Danny said breathlessly.

“Who do you think he was?”

Danny shrugged. “Dunno. Russian Mafia?” He kept what he was really thinking to himself. Whoever had taken Opal and Michael were obviously no friends of Cobra. That was very clear from what had happened. As an undercover CIA agent, Cobra was at the sharpest end of his profession, in constant danger of his cover being blown. But the men hadn't seemed to be after Cobra himself. They'd made directly for Opal and Michael, giving Cobra the opportunity to walk away. It looked for all the world like some sort of kidnapping. Maybe it was the Russian Mafia after all. Maybe they targeted people who looked like tourists and held them for ransom. They might have overheard Opal or Michael speaking English and made an impromptu plan. Cobra could not have interfered: not only was it three against one, but he could not afford to draw attention to himself.

Hard on the heels of the whole little mystery came an even more important question: where had the men taken Opal and Michael? And what could Danny do about it? He'd twisted and turned so often while they were running, he no longer had the slightest idea where they were. Except that they were in a strange city in a strange country where they didn't know the language.

“What are we going to do?” Fuchsia asked, echoing his thought.

That was the million-dollar question. They were on a secret mission, so they could hardly walk into the nearest police station and report a kidnapping, could do nothing that would draw attention to themselves and put their mission at risk. They couldn't even ask the embassy for help. The most urgent thing seemed to be to try to rescue their friends, then contact Mr. Stratford and see if he could arrange another meeting with Cobra. But what could they
do
to rescue their friends? “I don't know,” Danny said. “I don't even know where they've taken them.”

“I do,” Fuchsia said. “They've been taken to a big, rectangular, yellow brick building with a clock on top of it.”

“What?”

“They've taken them to a big, rectan—”

“How do you know that?” Danny interrupted her. Then he realized. “Oh.”

She smiled delightedly. “I think I'm getting the hang of it, Danny.”

Danny frowned. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Danny was experiencing a rising excitement. “Where was it? Did you see a street name or anything?”

But Fuchsia shook her head. “No, just the big yellow brick building.”

“What about a sign on the building itself?”

“Nothing. At least I didn't see anything. I mean, there were no obvious signs like ‘Harrods' or ‘Royal Liver Insurance.' Although it did look a bit like an insurance company, now I come to think of it.”

“Like offices?”

“Yes, like a big office building.”

“Was this, like, hidden away somewhere? In the country? Were there armed guards and stuff?”

Fuchsia shook her head again. “No, it's in a city square. Not as big as Red Square. No guards or anything like that. There were cars outside, and people just walked in and out. Like ordinary offices.”

Danny put a thoughtful arm around her shoulder, and they began to walk out of the alley. Why would the Mafia take Opal and Michael to an ordinary office building? A public place with people walking in and out. Why would criminals expose themselves openly like that? For Danny it was getting more bizarre the more he tried to think it through. An idea occurred to him. “Could you track the route the car took on a map?”

Fuchsia stopped walking. “I don't know, but it's worth a try. Do you have your Moscow map? I didn't bring mine.”

Danny pulled Mr. Stratford's pack from his pocket and extracted the map. Fuchsia stared at it for a long time without speaking. Eventually she said, “Lubyanka Square. Not too far from St. Basil's, really. I think it's a big yellow building in Lubyanka Square.”

“Okay,” Danny murmured, “let's see if there's anything about it in the book of words.” He pulled out the little guidebook Stratford had included and flicked through its listings. He wasn't really expecting to find Lubyanka, but there it was. He skimmed through the list of important facts about the square and felt himself go chill. “Are you sure? Are you sure it was Lubyanka?”

“No, I'm not,” Fuchsia said. “But couldn't we go there and find out? I mean, the building will either be there or it won't.”

Danny thought for a moment, then decided not to worry her until he was absolutely sure. “Good idea,” he muttered.

It took them some time to find their bearings after they left the alley. Moscow street names were posted only in Cyrillic, which didn't tally with their map and meant as little to them as Egyptian hieroglyphs. They tried twice asking directions in English, but received only blank, suspicious looks. Eventually they found their way to the river, and a distinctive church enabled them to locate exactly where they were. Another three-quarters of an hour and they were in Lubyanka Square. It was dominated by a huge, rectangular yellow brick structure that might have been a massive office building. It even had the clock on its façade that Fuchsia had mentioned.

“That's the building I saw,” Fuchsia said quietly. “What do we do now? Go in and ask for our friends?”

Danny shook his head soberly. “I don't think so, Fuchsia. That's secret-police territory. Your yellow building is the Moscow headquarters of the KGB.”

O
pal was afraid. The men had separated her from Michael and bundled her unceremoniously into a room furnished only with an ancient desk, two chairs, and a wooden filing cabinet. The single window was shuttered, padlocked, and lacking curtains. There was linoleum on the floor, stained brown in places, worn in others. Above her head, the room was lit by a cold neon tube. When she tried the door after the men left, she discovered—not altogether to her surprise—that it was locked.

She stood for a moment, wondering what to do. The men had handled her roughly—she was bruised on her left arm—but given no indication of who they were or what they wanted from her. She had no idea where she was, why she was here, or what was going to happen to her.

She walked over to the filing cabinet and tried each of the four drawers in turn. All of them were locked. She moved behind the desk and tried its drawers, but they were locked too. The chair behind the desk was worn old leather, but more comfortable than the straight-backed wooden chair in front, and she sat down in it heavily to gather her thoughts.

“
Nyet!
” screamed a raucous voice out of the air.

Opal jumped to her feet, her heart pounding. She looked around fearfully, but could see nothing of the hidden speaker. Or the hidden camera, for it was now obvious her every move was being watched. Where
was
this place? She walked to the other side of the desk and stared at the wooden chair, wondering if she would be allowed to sit on it. But for the moment she decided not to try. She returned to the door and tried it again. It was still locked. She stood staring at the wall. It was painted a dull, uniform brown, chipped and scratched in places. She strained her ears to listen, but there were no sounds beyond the door or anywhere outside the room.

After a long while she returned to the wooden chair and placed a tentative hand on its back. She had grown tired of standing, but she was still afraid to sit down in case the voice shouted at her again. She hesitated.

There was a rattle behind her, the sound of a key in the lock. As she turned, the door opened to admit a thick-set man in his forties, wearing an ill-fitting suit. He nodded at her briefly, locked the door again, then walked behind the desk to sit in the worn leather chair. No hidden voice screamed at him. “Please take a seat, Miss Harrington,” he said in flawless English, with a distinct Russian accent. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting.”

He knew her name!
He watched as she sat down on the edge of the wooden chair, grateful to relieve the ache in her legs, but still wary. She said nothing. Some instinct warned her to wait. It was disturbing that he knew her name. It was particularly disturbing that she had no idea how: she had not been searched, questioned, or asked for identification before they shoved her in here.

“Let me introduce myself,” he said pleasantly. “My name is Menshikov. And you, I believe, are Miss Opal Harrington, a young lady who has come a long way to visit us in the Soviet Union?”

Opal took a deep breath. Part of her Shadow Project training was designed to help her stand up under interrogation (although everyone had insisted she would never need it), and a prime rule was to find out as much as possible from your interrogators before answering any questions. Starting with who they were. “Mr. Menshikov,” she said firmly, “I demand to know where I am and why I have been forcibly abducted and brought here against my will.”

“Actually, it's
Colonel
Menshikov, Miss Harrington. They called me in on my day off, so I am not wearing my uniform.” He held up a hand in mock protest. “I know, you are thinking this man has not the bearing of a military colonel, and I suspect you are right. But I am a colonel in the KGB—that is the
Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti
, which is our country's national security organization—and here there are perhaps more opportunities for promotion if one does not look the part.” He smiled at her, showing less than perfect teeth.

Opal felt herself go cold. Colonel Menshikov had no need to explain what
KGB
stood for: she'd seen enough spy movies to know exactly. And what it stood for at the height of the Cold War was terrifying. For now, the colonel was obviously playing with her, and not very subtly. The soft approach to find out how naive she was could be followed at any time by stronger measures. But the real mystery was why she was here. How did the KGB know her name? Why were they interested in her at all? An even more disturbing thought occurred. Although she never felt like one, her work with the Shadow Project made her a spy. Spies were tortured and shot in the Soviet Union.

Except that she'd never spied on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union no longer existed in her time.

Abruptly, Opal decided to play along with Menshikov's ingratiating approach for as long as it lasted. She desperately needed to know what had happened to bring her into this room. Only then would it be possible to find a way out of it. She forced her body to relax and even managed a small smile. “I can't begin to imagine why the KGB would be interested in me.”

Menshikov stood up, pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket, and used one to unlock the top drawer of the filing cabinet. He extracted a manila folder, which he threw onto the desk as he sat down again. “Your file,” he said conversationally. “Slim at the moment, but perhaps with your cooperation we can flesh it out a little.”