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And we were going to hell in a haywagon.
We could just drive around in the bus, I thought. One bus, after all, looked rather like another. Or we could send the ten girls back to Riga – they might be safe there – and the rest of us could try to get out of the country in a stolen car. I didn’t see how it could work, but I didn’t see how anything else could work, either, and the longer I stayed where I was, the worse things were going to get. Sooner or later some bright-eyed cop would wonder why a bus was parked on a side street. I had to get back to the bus. I had to do something, anything.
So I retraced my steps, but not slowly now, not slowly at all, but hurriedly, scampering alongside the high wire fence, stumbling, regaining my balance, rushing onward, stumbling once more, brushing this time against the fence…
At which point all the sirens in the world began to wail hysterically.
Then everything happened. Searchlights mounted within the industrial complex suddenly sprang to life and focused upon me. Gates swung open, and a handful of armed men streamed forth from within, fa
The leader of the group, a heavy, thick-necked Estonian with a machine pistol in his hand, approached me with fury in his eyes. I stood with my hands held high and my brain turned momentarily off.
“You,” he shouted. “What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this? Do you know where you are?”
And, from some far-off corner of my mind, the words of the Chief rushed in to haunt me. You wouldn’t miss a chance at the Colombian job unless it were something very big indeed. There’s a missile center outside of Talli
“Fool, I’m talking to you! Do you not know where you are?”
I had a fairly good idea.
The bells had stopped ringing, the sirens had ceased to wail, the searchlights were dim once again. And I was inside the gates of the missile complex, inside a large, high-ceilinged building of concrete block. Oil drums and complicated machinery lined the sides of the building, tables and desks were arranged in neat rows at the far end. Overhead, a maze of cables and beams crisscrossed the ceiling.
The same group of men stood around me in the same sort of semicircle. They had holstered their guns now. A quick pat-down had revealed to them that I was not armed, and so they were free to relax.
I, however, was not.
“You say that you are from Latvia.”
“Yes.”
“But you have no papers.”
“No.”
“No means of identification.”
“No.”
“And what were you doing here? Spying?”
“No. Just walking. I did not know of this center, I thought it was merely a closed factory-”
“You were walking in the middle of the night?”
“I wanted to walk down by the water.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I was restless, I could not sleep.”
“You were perhaps spying?”
“No, never that.”
“Or pla
“Certainly not!”
“Or pla
“No.”
“It does not matter what you say to me,” my interrogator said. “My job is security here, that is all. If what you say is true, you have nothing to fear.”
I gave what was supposed to look like a nod of numb relief. The relief was false, the numbness true enough.
“The MVD has been informed. A detachment of their men will arrive shortly to take you away so that your story can be checked. If they release you for a fool or shoot you for a traitor, it is none of my affair. I have merely to guard you until they arrive.”
When the MVD checked me, they would find a smuggled manuscript taped to my body and two rolls of subversive microfilm in my shoes. I did not care to think about what they might do to me. It was like contemplating the various possible ma
I thought instead of fourteen passengers sitting in a darkened bus.
The twelve Lettish girls would have a hard time of it, probably drawing some prison time, possibly getting away with fines and such punishment. Milan Butec would be almost certainly returned to Yugoslavia, where, like Djilas, he would live out his days in prison.
And Mi
No punishment for Mi
I could resign myself to the fate of Milan and Sofija and Zenta and the other Lettish gymnasts. I could avoid thinking, at least for the moment, of what might lay in store for me. But I couldn’t put Mi
Until I heard a thin, birdlike voice from the far end of the huge room. “Papa? Papa?”
My guards turned toward the voice. And, stepping between two rows of stainless steel desks, her tiny hands clutching a rag doll tight to her chest, her little pink cheeks streaked with tears, came my little Mi
Chapter 15
“Papa!’
“It’s his daughter-”
“How did she get in?”
“Papa!”
“Who knows?”
“What a pretty thing she is! The poor child has been crying. Let her go to her father.”
“Papa…”
She ran full-speed at me, the little legs flying over the concrete floor. I stooped down and held out my arms, and she threw herself into them. I picked her up and held her close, and she sobbed madly.
“It’s all right, Mi
Between sobs she drew something from behind the rag doll and pressed it into my stomach. My hand closed around it. It was an automatic pistol.
“Hold me in your arms,” she whispered urgently. “When you hear a gunshot, get us out of the way as quickly as possible. And shoot as many guards as you can.”
“Where did you get this?”
“ Milan strangled a sentry.”
The guards were chattering as they watched this touching familial scene. “A beautiful child,” one said. “How she loves her father.”
“He can remember her love in his prison cell.”
“What is a child of that age doing awake at this hour? That is what I would like to know.”
“Perhaps the whole family was escaping.”
“The MVD will be here soon enough.”
“Be ready,” said Mi
And a shot rang out at the rear of the hall.
The guards, all but one, spun around toward the source of the noise. The one who did not turn reached for his pistol. I shot him in the chest, grabbed Mi
Milan was firing from behind a desk at the far end of the room. He had already done for two of the guards, but there were still almost a dozen of them left, and the odds seemed impossible. There were only two rounds left in my own pistol. I didn’t know whether to waste them now or wait until we were rushed.
It seemed hopeless. We were outnumbered and outarmed and outclassed, and our adversaries had help coming; the MVD were due to arrive at any moment. All the guards had to do was keep us pi