The Doomsday Box (23 page)

Far from it
, Opal thought. She realized she was going to be the spokesperson here for a little while—Michael was still concentrating on his sandwiches: poor boy must have been
starving.
“What did you hear about us?” she asked cautiously.

“The KGB arrest documentation said you had information on time travel and psychotronics. Time travel was a new one on me, but the Soviets have been experimenting with psychotronics for a while now and they've always been interested in offbeat stuff like time travel, even if it's nonsense. I figured whatever the KGB had heard about you was probably only half right at most, but half right or all right or not right, you'd still be in for a hard time while they checked it out. What I did to you was nothing, Michael, compared to what would have happened to the two of you if I hadn't taken on your case. And if you
did
know something, they would have gotten it out of you.”

“Okay,” Opal said. “You've made your point about that.” She still wasn't sure about him, but at least what he was telling them made sense.

Menshikov shrugged. “Like I said, you'd been reported to the KGB as CIA, and when I checked, my embassy contact confirmed it. But it still didn't smell right somehow, so I sent a message to Langley—took time, because it had to be secret and coded and all that jazz. Know what? Langley hasn't heard of you. No records of any of you. No records of a kids' mission to Moscow. So the KGB thinks you're CIA and the U.S. embassy thinks you're CIA, but the CIA doesn't think you're CIA. Weird or what? So I figured maybe you're in some supersecret department of the Company on some supersecret mission—you get a lot of that sort of stuff in the agency these days. Maybe the information the KGB got about your involvement with psychotronics was accurate. Who knows? The Russians believe in it. Heck, maybe you really were carrying secrets about the physics of time travel for all I know. Whatever it was, my bottom line was I needed to get you away from Lubyanka as fast as possible. So I took over your case, interrogated you thoroughly, pretended to have Michael tortured by the Krylovs—there's no evidence to show they
didn't
touch him, and those freaks never speak of their work to anybody—and wrote up a report saying you were innocent of everything. Then I signed the papers for your release, destroyed your arrest records, and brought you here.”

He leaned forward suddenly. “Thing is, I went out on a limb for you. I'm happy there'll be no repercussions for me if you lie low and keep quiet, or preferably disappear back where you came from. Which is what you need to do because now that the KGB is on your case, your chances of carrying out a successful mission, whatever it is, are zero. Officially freed or not, they'll pick you up the minute any of you show your faces in Moscow again, even without your arrest records. They'll put tails on you around the clock, and I won't be able to save your butts a second time if you get into trouble. But if you try to push ahead with your mission and you're found out, my Soviet friends won't just grab you so fast it'll make your head spin, they'll also start wondering why I let you go in the first place. I can't afford that sort of attention. So now I need to know what you're really up to, make sure it won't get me into trouble. And in case you're still wondering how much you should say, let me remind you of one thing. You owe me.”

Opal glanced at Michael, who was busily picking the last remaining crumbs from his plate. If this man was genuinely CIA, then they did owe him. But how could she be sure? How could she decide if this was anything other than an elaborate setup designed to fool them into telling him everything the KGB wanted to know? She opened her mouth without knowing what she was going to say, and in fact did say, “Colonel Menshikov—” She stopped, then went on, “I can't keep calling you Colonel Menshikov. What's your real name?”

He held up both hands. “Hey, no names! I've gone far enough out on a limb telling you as much as I already have. If you don't like Menshikov, you can use my code name—Agent Cobra.”

O
pal felt herself go cold. It was a setup. Their release . . . Menshikov's story . . . possibly this whole apartment—all designed to persuade them to open up. And all of it lies. Menshikov was nothing like Cobra, nothing like the photographs Mr. Stratford had sent, nothing like the man they'd seen outside St. Basil's Cathedral. But he could never have guessed they would know that, so he had made a fatal slipup.

What to do now?

She threw a quick glance toward Michael. He'd finished his food, but was still holding his glass of the Russian lemonade. His face was studiously blank, but there was no way he could have missed the reference to Cobra or its implications.

While her mind was still racing, Michael said, “Any chance of another sandwich, Agent Cobra?”

Menshikov pushed himself back to his feet. “My, you really
were
hungry.”

As he disappeared into the kitchen again, Michael grabbed Opal's hand. “Come on.”

Opal stared, fascinated, at the pistol Menshikov had left behind a second time. “Gun or door?” she whispered.

“Door!” Michael whispered back urgently. “I'd rather leave the cowboy stuff to Danny Lipman.”

They ran quickly to the door, and Michael carefully released the security chain. Despite the urgency, he moved cautiously so that there was no noise, then, equally quietly, released the lock. In seconds they were in the corridor outside. Without a word, they ran together to the elevator. To Opal's relief, it was already waiting at their floor. “Are you all right?” Opal asked. Although he had moved fast enough, she was still worried about his condition.

Michael pulled open the elevator door. “I'm fine,” he said. Then, “Actually, I'm still sore, but I won't slow you down. Come on—he's bound to find we're gone any minute.” He pressed the down button on the elevator.

Nothing happened. He pressed it sharply again, then several more times in quick succession. “What's the matter with this thing?”

Opal leaned across him and pressed the button herself. The elevator still did not move. “Are you sure the door's closed properly?”

“Yes.” Michael tested the door anyway. Even from where she was standing, Opal could see it was definitely shut. She struck the button again with her closed fist.

“There's something wrong with the stupid thing!” Michael slammed the doors open impatiently. “Come on—there must be stairs.”

They came out of the elevator and ran the length of the corridor. It stopped at a dead end. Michael turned. “We can't go back that way,” Opal hissed urgently. “He must know we're missing by now.”

“The stairs are probably near the elevator,” Michael said. “Besides, we don't have any choice.”

They ran back, with Opal expecting to meet Menshikov, brandishing his gun, at any second now. There was no sign of a stairwell, but Michael suddenly pushed a door marked lestnyca in Cyrillic, and there it was. “How did you know?” Opal asked in admiration.

Michael shrugged. “Lucky guess. I thought it looked different from the apartment doors.”

Together they began to run down the stairs. Menshikov's apartment was on the fourth floor, but they met no one on the stairway until they reached the ground floor and emerged to find a uniformed guard between them and the entrance doors. Fortunately he was turned away from them, and they pulled quickly back out of sight. Michael indicated they should go back up. Opal followed with some trepidation. Once Menshikov discovered the elevator was broken, the staircase was the next place he would try. But Michael stopped at the first landing. “Let's see if we can find somewhere to hide,” he told her quietly. “We can try to get out later when the guard moves on.”

“
If
the guard moves on,” Opal said.

“I didn't notice him when we were coming in.”

It was a good point. Maybe the guard did his rounds of the ground floor, or even the entire building. Maybe it was just bad luck they'd found him between them and their escape route.

There were footsteps on the stairs below them. “Oh God!” Michael murmured. He grabbed her hand, pushed the door, and pulled her out into the second-floor corridor. Opal noticed he had begun to sweat quite badly and wondered if he was feeling as fully recovered as he pretended. But there was nothing she could do about that now. They began to run along the corridor, with Michael pushing every door he came to. None opened. Behind them, someone shouted.

“Here!” Opal said a little breathlessly, and pulled him into a side corridor. Someone was definitely running after them now: she could hear the footsteps clearly.

They got lucky almost right away. The third door Michael tried opened at once. She had the briefest glimpse beyond it before he pulled her inside and slammed it behind them, leaving them in darkness. Opal felt his arms slide around her protectively and held her breath, listening. They were in some sort of storage space for cleaning equipment and supplies. The harsh smell of bleach and chemicals was all around them.

With a wildly thumping heart, Opal heard the running footsteps approach, peak, then fade as their pursuer passed their door. She stifled a sigh of relief, but felt her body relax, and sank gratefully a little more deeply into Michael's arms. He was right. If this was the guard chasing after them, they should be able to retrace their steps and get out of the building before he realized his mistake. She was turning her head to whisper to Michael when the door jerked open.

An involuntary scream died in Opal's throat as Menshikov said, “It's okay to come out now.” He glanced around them to take in the storage area and grinned. “Unless you plan to join the cleaning staff.” Opal stared at him in horror. He hadn't taken time to put on his uniform jacket or tie, but his pistol was stuck carelessly into the belt of his trousers. Michael gasped something into her ear, and she realized from the sudden trembling of his body that despite his bravado, his reserves of strength had all but given out.

“What is it you want from us, Colonel Menshikov?” she spat, suddenly more angry than afraid. But she already knew. He wanted them back in his apartment where, she thought, he would drop the charade of being an American agent and return to the methods he'd used at Lubyanka. Except this time, she doubted Michael would be the only one tortured. But they had no choice now except to go with him. Even if Michael was able to run again, Menshikov could cripple him with a single shot.

“Was it something I said?” Menshikov asked as he closed his apartment door behind them. This time he did lock it, using a bunch of keys from his trouser pocket, before he put on the security chain. Then he turned toward them, smiling slightly, one eyebrow raised. When neither of them replied, his expression sobered. “Don't run again until we've sorted things out. This is a high-security building. It wasn't built by the KGB, but it
was
built
for
the KGB. Top brass live here, for the most part. You can't just walk in or out. The elevator won't work unless you do a particular pattern of presses on the start button. There are guards on every floor. They're discreet for the most part, but they're there. The front doors won't open unless you use a key, and they're reinforced bulletproof glass, so you'd need a tank to smash through them. What I'm saying is, you had no chance of getting out on your own and every chance of getting arrested again if I hadn't found you.”

Opal said, sullenly, “What happens now, Colonel Menshikov?”

“What happens is I have to figure a way to persuade you to trust me,” Menshikov said. “I really thought I was winning until you made a break for it. You going to tell me what spooked you?”

Opal shrugged. There was no reason now why she shouldn't tell him. “You claimed to be Agent Cobra. We know you're not.”

Menshikov stared at her for a long time. “How?”

Opal opened her mouth to tell him, then closed it again. The KGB might know all about Cobra, but if they didn't, she certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell them. It occurred to her suddenly that perhaps she shouldn't even have said the little she did say. But it was too late now. “We just know.”

“So,” Menshikov said, “you're not going to talk.” He reached down and withdrew the firearm from his belt. “Maybe this will persuade you.”

Opal took an involuntary step toward Michael, instinctively trying to protect him with her body. But Menshikov did not shoot. Instead, he did something entirely unexpected. With a jerk of his wrist he reversed the gun so that he was holding it by the barrel, and pushed it toward Opal. “Okay,” he said. “Shoot me.”

W
hat are we going to do?” Fuchsia asked as soon as they were alone together. “We can't just not do anything.”

Danny shook his head. “We won't just not do anything.” Ambassador Thompson had done his best to be reassuring, trying to tell them he was certain their friends would turn up eventually, that it was great news they were no longer in KGB hands, and that the embassy staff were doing everything in their power, yada yada yada, and Danny had bought none of it. He wasn't at all sure the KGB had let Opal and Michael go. Why should they? And he knew the business of the embassy doing everything in its power was so much bull. There were all sorts of diplomatic implications here, and Danny would have bet a pound to a penny Ambassador Thompson wouldn't want to rock the boat too much. After all, as far as he was concerned, the four of them had been foisted on him by the CIA, and he'd no idea what they were really up to. If they got themselves into trouble, he might even want to distance the embassy from the whole business. Despite all the promises of help and cooperation, Danny had the sneaking suspicion they could be on their own. If something was going to be done to help Opal and Michael, they would probably have to do it themselves.