(1980) The Second Lady (49 page)

Now, with the passengers sure to be leaving the plane any second, Baginov turned around fully for the first time. Wiping his broad countenance with a dirty hand, he had a glimpse of the tall man at the terminal window and the Soviet guards at the exit. Turning further, he saw the two crewmen who had left the portable ramp and several other Soviet workmen assembling beyond to look over the plane. Unobtrusively, he dismounted from the platform, laid his flashlight in the tool cart, and began to push the cart away from the helicopter. He was on the wrong side of the just arrived Antonov. But he had known it would be that way, and he was prepared. Rolling his cart at a snail’s pace toward the front of the Antonov, he advanced in the direction of the repair shed attached to the side of the terminal.

As he passed under the nose of the big plane, Baginov raised his eyes. The portable ramp was in view from bottom to top. He could see that the door of the plane above was wide open. There was no one leaving through the doorway, and no one visible inside the opened door. Perfect, Baginov told himself, perfect timing. He continued to push his cart ahead. At a distance midway between the foot of the portable ramp and the tool shed, he brought his cart to a stop. Casually,, he reached into the cart for a small box inside. He opened the top of the box, then set the box atop the cart as he rubbed the palm of his right hand against his cover-alls to be certain it was dry.

He faced the portable stairs, his eyes intent on the opening above.

He waited.

Vera Vavilova had come breathlessly through the plane door, turned and hastened towards the empty interior, expecting to be met by Alex Razin. At the edge of the main cabin, she stood bewildered. Alex was not there. No member of the crew was there. The section was empty.

That instant she heard footsteps and spun around. Alex Razin, who had opened the plane door and remained partially behind it, was coming toward her. Seeing him again, her knees felt like jelly. It seemed ages since she and Alex had been together, and here he was so handsome, so masculine, so comforting — and yet, surprisingly, so strangely grim.

Arms out, she rushed to him. ‘Oh, Alex!’ She was in his arms, her own arms hugging him tightly. She wanted to cry with relief.

‘Vera,’ he whispered, ‘I love you.’

Their lips pressed together as she clung to him. But soon she became aware that his hand was against her shoulder, and that he was making an effort to push her away. She let go, and stepped back, puzzled. ‘Vera, there’s something -‘ he began to say. ‘Alex,’ she interrupted, ‘you are here, you are safe. Everything will be arranged. You will stay. I’ve worked it out.’ She paused. ‘The photographs. You have them? I must see them before —’

‘There are no photographs,’ he said flatly. ‘There is something else.’ He half turned, and beckoned to someone in the rear of the plane.

From out of the unlighted section of the plane, someone was emerging, someone was coming forward. A woman was coming forward.

Vera’s eyes widened, her mouth fell open, and involuntarily she let out a strangled cry of disbelief.

The woman in front of her, facing her, was Billie Bradford.

Vera stared. She stared at her own hair, her own eyes, nose, lips, chin, bosom, even her own fur coat. For spinning seconds she thought that she was seeing herself in a full-length mirror. Vera looking at Vera. But, no - she was looking at Billie Bradford in the flesh, and she struggled to hold on to her senses, to realize that this was the real thing and she, herself, was the counterfeit.

Then the implications of this terrible encounter struck her. Frightened, her wild eyes sought Alex. He had come between them. ‘You know about each other,’ he said quickly.

Vera, chilled to the marrow, began to tremble. ‘Alex, I -I don’t understand —’

‘I had to do it,’ said Alex. T had no choice. I did it for you, for us, believe me.’

Vera’s fear tripped her anger. ‘No, you stupid fool! It could have been worked without this. But now — you’ve destroyed me - sold out our people - ruined everything.’

‘Stop it!’ Razin commanded, grabbing Vera by the shoulders. ‘It had to be this way. We are not murderers.’ ‘You’ve murdered me,’ said Vera, her voice going hollow. For the first time, Billie Bradford spoke. ‘You will be safe, Vera, I promise that. Don’t blame Alex. He is a man of conscience. He did not want to see me die, and he did not want to lose you. No matter what was done to me, I still owe my life to Alex. In return, I will help you both. We have it planned —’

Vera felt her self-control slipping from her. ‘No — no, no, no — nothing can help.’

Billie stepped nearer to Vera, taking her arm. ‘You have my word, Vera, I can help you and I will. As First Lady —’ ‘First Lady,’ Vera echoed, horrified, shaking her head. ‘I’ve suffered, and survived,’ said Billie. ‘Now you are suffering - but will survive.’

As if hypnotized, Vera could not take her eyes off Billie, trying to understand the reassurance being offered. In the long silent seconds that followed, Vera sought to take hold of herself, tried to consider her mirror image more objectively. Realization of what had been done to this other

woman, realization of her own fall from power and her sudden helplessness, gradually made her abject. ‘I — I am sorry,’ she murmured, ‘deeply sorry about what was done to you —’

‘I know what you had to do,’ Billie interrupted. ‘I forgive you. Alex had to do what he did today — for you — for me. Everything will work out.’

‘Can it?’

‘It’s happening right now,’ said Billie. ‘One thing. If I can be objective, as your severest critic —’ She summoned up a wan smile. ‘— you have undoubtedly given the single greatest performance ever given by any actress in history.’

Vera’s mingled hostility and fear began to melt. She felt a touch of respect for this woman.

Billie was addressing her again. ‘You will have another role to perform now.’ Billie paused. ‘Since what happened had to be, let me add something that may sound strange. Thank you for deceiving my husband and - and caring for him and living out my image, so that I can resume as of today. And — thank you for Alex — and his ultimate decency.’

Razin had found his voice. ‘All right, now we must move. There is much to do.’ He stepped between them, linking one of his arms in Vera’s and the other in Billie’s. ‘We will leave the plane now. To prevent rumours and gossip, both of you bring your collars up, hide your faces. We will leave quickly. You have a car, Vera?’

Vera nodded. Willis would be at the wheel, waiting. He would not know there would be two of them. But considering his own position, he would never dare to speak of it.

‘After we’re on our way,’ said Razin, ‘Billie will take over. Now, let’s go. Which of you wants to go first?’

Guy Parker stood rigidly at the picture window, his gaze focused on the portable staircase standing at the open doorway of the Soviet plane. No one had emerged yet. Parker held his breath and watched.

He knew the numbers, and he knew what the totals would

mean.

If one, and only one, First Lady emerged, it would have to be Vera, it would mean Billie was dead and the Russians had their victory.

If two First Ladies emerged, it would mean Billie was alive and the Russians had suffered defeat.

Parker kept his eyes on the empty doorway.

Suddenly, a beautiful woman in a mink coat, face partially concealed by her collar, materialized, framed by the open doorway of the aircraft. Gracefully, holding one rail, she began to descend the portable steps. Seconds later, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man, wearing a leather jacket, came through the doorway and started down the steps. This was Razin, Parker’s distant collaborator.

Parker kept his gaze fastened on the open doorway, hoping for another to appear.

He realized that his heart was beating harder and faster.

A short distance from the foot of the portable staircase, Baginov busied himself with his tool cart as he kept the staircase in view. Baginov’s eyes followed the woman down the steps as she descended with the Soviet agent, Razin, right behind her.

Baginov watched her foot touch the last metal step, with Razin at her heels. Now one foot came off the metal step, then the other. Having reached the ground, she hesitated to allow Razin to draw up alongside her.

Holding them in sight, Baginov’s hand snaked across the top of the tool cart, dipped into the open box, clutched the light metal fragmentation bomb. Encased in the metal was deadly gelignite. As he swiftly brought the bomb to his side, Baginov remembered the first time he had seen it tested on a range thirty kilometres from Moscow. The Red Army had used a live political prisoner, a Czech. The device had exploded at his feet, and when the dust had cleared the Czech was gone. The largest piece of him found had been a two-inch patch of skin.

Baginov saw them — the woman in the mink, the man

named Razin - resume walking away from the bottom of the portable staircase.

Now, he told himself.

His thumb triggered the near instantaneous timing device. Eight seconds to detonation. He raised the bomb above his shoulder, reared back and whipped his arm forward, flinging it in a high arc toward the pair. As the bomb left his fingers, and he followed its trajectory, ticking off the seconds in his head, he caught the flash of movement in the doorway at the top of the portable staircase. Another woman was emerging from the plane, ready to step down on the platform of the staircase. She was identical, as far as he could make out, to the woman before him on the ground - same hair, eyes, mink coat. For an instant he was immobilized and numbed by confusion.

But the count in his head had just reached six seconds. Instinctively, he spun away and threw himself to the ground beside his cart.

Seven … eight … and the gelignite blew sky-high with a deafening roar.

The earth beneath him heaved, and the smoke choked him, and the debris showered down upon him.

Ears ringing, momentarily blinded, Baginov found strength to rise to his knees. He began to crawl, faster and faster, toward his pre-arranged escape hatch, the Soviet repair shed. He reached the broken door, pushed it inward, started to crawl inside. But before disappearing, he wanted to be sure he could report success.

He glanced over his shoulder, trying to pierce the screen of dense grey-black smoke. Something was burning. He could make out the damaged belly of the plane, the void where the staircase had once been, the other woman above thrown against the side of the doorway. As the smoke lifted, thinned, in the place where the mink-clad lady and Razin had been walking — there was no one, there was nothing. The pair had been totally obliterated, wiped off the face of the earth.

Baginov had seen all he needed to see. He offered himself a grimy, congratulatory smile. Then the smile left him. The

other woman. She had not been part of the plan. Something had gone wrong, he sensed. He had done his job precisely and well. But there was something wrong.

He ceased crawling, staggered to his feet inside the dark shed, and stumbled to the exit that would lead him to safety.

Guy Parker lay stunned and bleeding on the floor of the air terminal.

The tremendous explosion had completely shattered the window at which he had been standing. The force of the detonation had knocked him flat on his back. The blood on his right cheek and neck had come from shards of flying glass.

He sat up, groggily trying to recover his senses, and understand what he had seen.

The first thing that he recalled was that there had been two of them, two women, just before the blast. He was positive he was not mistaken. There had been one woman at the foot of the portable staircase, and another coming out of the plane door at the top, and at least from a quick look they had appeared to be the same. This meant that Razin had managed to save Billie and had escaped from Moscow with her. This meant that Billie and Vera had confronted each other inside the plane, before leaving it.

Rising to a knee, Parker took a snap survey of the air terminal. The two Russian guards at the exit to the airfield were still down, dazed, one lying on his side, the other sitting up. At the entrance, the two British immigration officers had left their posts, one heading for the field, the other going to a telephone. Beyond them, Fred Willis had left his parked car and was running to the terminal entrance.

With effort, Parker brought himself to his feet. Tentatively, he took several steps. His legs were wobbly, but he remained upright. He attempted a few more steps. He could walk. He turned to the shattered window. He found a large gaping hole. He started for it, hesitated, then stepped through it onto the cement area of the airfield.

Stopping, he tried to make order out of the disaster. Off

to one side, a number of Russian ground crewmen were aimlessly wandering about in shock. Nearby, a dazed Russian in military uniform was staring at the twisted pieces of metal of the portable staircase that had been blown away and widely scattered. One British immigration officer had just come breathlessly through the exit shouting in English that the assassin must be found.

Ignoring them all, Parker had eyes for only one object. Through the thinning smoke rising from the bomb’s crater, he squinted up toward the scarred fuselage of the airplane, concentrating on the doorway. There was a woman there and he recognized her. The First Lady had survived and was struggling to her feet and limping back to the plane’s doorway. She stared down at the empty space beneath her and then off at the shredded remnants of the portable staircase that littered the field below. In those fleeting seconds, Parker could discern other human figures above, two, now three, members of the Soviet plane crew materializing behind her.

The First Lady, Parker told himself with relief, alive and unharmed. .

He knew he must act. Someone must help her.

Bringing his handkerchief to his nose and mouth, Parker ducked his head and raced into the smoke, side-stepping the huge crater, trying to ignore the small strips of charred mink and the grisly portion of a human ear.

He burst out of the column of smoke, coughing, and stumbled across the cement until he was directly below the plane’s doorway and the First Lady.