Krysalis: Krysalis (55 page)

“Oh, I don’t know. Unless that submarine actually comes up top, ready to ferry the Lescombes home to Moscow, we’re both going to be rather short of excuses for what we’ve come to do, aren’t we? Seems to me Vassili did his stuff: one dead German radio operator meant that nobody could milk him of his codes, send a decoy message, abort the Russian operation.”

“Vassili’s one of the good guys, yes. Deep down he’s anti-British and he’s got a lot more power than you think. A pity I didn’t get to him earlier; perhaps he’d have persuaded his government to withhold cooperation from you altogether.”

“But apart from that, all’s well that ends well.”

“Certainly. You can relax now, colonel.”

“One problem.”

“Namely?”

“I’m still holding this case.”

There was a moment of silence, of immobility. Then Hayes retreated a step, bringing his back against the rail, which was exactly where Albert wanted him. He heard a heavy click and knew that what Hayes held was a revolver, now cocked, not good,
don’t look at the sea, you fool,
not good news at all….

“Put down the case, colonel.”

“Going to have to make me, old boy.”

Albert’s brain was subconsciously counting seconds. The radio officer had been receiving when he left the bridge. So much time to decode. So much time to formulate tactics. So much time to brief. So much time to execute. Now it was D minus nothing. And if the orders said “No,” if the game had gone against him …

With a sudden surge of power the ship leapt forward, going from five to fifteen knots in exactly the flash of
time it took Albeit to swing his case up and knock the gun from Hayes’ hands. Then the case became a battering ram. It thudded into Hayes’ left side, below his breastbone, crushing the pancreas and rupturing his spleen, but before agony could transmit itself through the American’s brain, hands grasped his ankles and somersaulted him backward over the rail. Hayes was bleeding to death, internally. By the time he hit the water he had been immobilized beyond any possibility of salvation. He died slowly, in pain, at a great depth.

As Albert thrust his way onto the bridge Vassili turned to him and said, “A boat has already landed on the beach. We are late. What have you—”

“Power, please, make what speed you may. And
no light
until the end. Have you got that?”

“Yes.”

“No light at all!
I’ll be up top.”

Only then did Vassili notice what he was holding.

“Don’t move,” said a voice in David’s ear. He knew intuitively the voice belonged to Kleist and he raised his hands. “Anna?” he breathed.

She stared straight ahead. He could not tell if she recognized him. “Are you all right?” he asked, and on hearing that, she lifted her chin, but still she did not speak.

“Anna, it’s me. David.”

For a moment longer she continued to gaze at him in silence, then—“Go away,” she burst out. “Please go away. They’ll Kill you. There’s nothing you can do.”

David felt the hard object disappear from the small of his back and seconds later a man he’d never seen before walked into his field of vision. So this was Kleist, how strange; he’d imagined someone taller….

Now the three people on the beach stood at the points of an invisible, equilateral triangle, facing inward. David longed to go to Anna, but he felt sure Kleist had a gun. So he was destined to die here without ever holding his wife in his arms again, or telling her how much he loved her.

Anna raised her hands and David saw that they were bound with rope. So she had not gone willingly, then. Despite the peril, his spirits soared. The rope vindicated him. It meant that he’d been right to trust her in spite of everything. She wasn’t a traitor.

“Barzel will be back any minute,” Anna said. “He’s climbed up to the lighthouse, his radio works better there … Gerhard, can’t you help him hide?”

But then a new voice spoke from the edge of the moonlight, where sand met trees. “I don’t think so,” it said. “Your husband and I must have a talk, Anna.”

Barzel stepped forward far enough to let David see the weapon he was holding in his right hand. With the left he supported the strap of a cabin bag slung over his shoulder.

“Something’s wrong,” he muttered to Kleist. “Stange’s not answering.”

“Why?”

“How in hell would I know?”
Barzel turned back to David. “We’ll go up the beach,” he murmured. “Talk in private.”

When David stayed where he was, terrified by foreknowledge of what was going to happen, Barzel gestured with his Luger. “Please,” he said softly. “Not here.”

“Gerhard!” Anna’s shriek made David start, but its effect on Kleist was remarkable: a shudder seemed to
pass the whole length of his frame. “He’s going to kill David,” Anna cried. “Gerhard,
stop him!”

At first no one moved or said anything. David tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. Then Kleist put his hands in his pockets and stepped to one side, as if conceding a point. Barzel gripped David’s shoulder. “Walk,” he muttered.

“Jürgen.”

But Barzel paid no heed to Gerhard. He continued to march David back along the beach, toward the rocks.

“Jürgen, stay away from him. It’s not necessary. We’ll be gone in half an hour.”

When Barzel did not so much as break stride, Gerhard took his right hand from his pocket. He was holding a pistol.
“Barzel!”

At that the other man faltered and began to turn, releasing his grip on his prisoner. David’s knees gave way and he fell over. Barzel was nearly facing Gerhard, not quite, when suddenly he clasped his hands, bringing the Luger up to horizontal. A shot exploded through the darkness in a spiral of flame, missing its target; then, almost simultaneously, Gerhard returned fire.

Barzel stared at him, not accepting that the reality of his fate could ever be death. He dropped onto his knees and fell forward in two distinct movements, as if at exercise. When David rolled him over, his face had left an impression in the sand, like a mold for a death mask.

The Luger had fallen to the ground. Next to it, something lay half concealed by Barzel’s body. His cabin bag. The zipper was undone, so that when David picked it up awkwardly the contents fell out: books, mostly, and another object, also of paper, rectangular and white. David stared at it, scarcely daring to believe what he held. But yes—in the top left-hand corner, by
the light of the moon, he could just make out a handwritten number amongst typescript, and, centered upon the page, a single word in black capitals.

Krysalis.

Suddenly Anna came to life. “I’m not dreaming,” she cried. “Tell me I’m not dreaming, oh
David!”

As he rushed to take her in his arms, no longer afraid, Gerhard rapped, “Listen! Can you hear it?”

At first neither of the Lescombes understood. Then David caught the sound of a muted engine, still far offshore. He could not see the boat, only its mother ship, visible as a silhouette still far out to sea but already careering toward them. A coastal patrol craft …

He swung around to face Gerhard. “What happens now?”

Kleist allowed the gun to slip from his fingers, sinking down to join it on the sand. “The submarine …”

“Submarine …?” David struggled to make sense of what Gerhard was saying. Suddenly it all came together. “That boat we heard …” He spun around, only to be faced by the impenetrability of night. “It’s from a sub …
Anna! Run!”

But then from out of the darkness by the water’s edge a hoarse voice shouted,
“Barzel!”

Perched on top of the bridge, the sling of the FR-F
1
tight around his arm, Albert knew that even for this, the greatest sniper rifle ever made, it would be an impossible shot at the best of times, without morbid aqua-phobia and an injured hand to worry about. But just as he had to take risks, so it was part of his job to put the bullet where it mattered.

He hugged the Sopelem night-sight nearer to his eye.
Range five hundred, closing. He evaluated the ship’s movements, counting seconds between troughs and highs and wishing he were dead. Four hundred … feed it into the computer along with everything else, let the brain do its own calculations, don’t disturb it, trust your instincts … how long before Vassili switches on the spotlight, speed, range, movements …

The ship lurched into the trough of a wave, and—“Montgomery,” he choked out in a last-ditch attempt to distract himself, “the things I do for you …”

First the woman, stop the disease from spreading, then the man, that was what “Gandergoose GQEQ” meant, sauce for German quarry, sauce for English quarry….

Closing, closing … tight group of three, one of them sitting down, that would be David, a prisoner, of course, thirty thousand pounds’ worth of target but he can wait,
what was that beside him, ignore,
what would she do, what would Anna the twenty-grand target do next …?

The Soviet landing party had seen the
Lindos
by now. Some were taking cover behind their own boat. Lights dotted the luminous blue circle into which Albert was peering, automatic fire … hold it, Vassili, don’t panic, hold your fire while Anna works out what to do.

Albert knew. He had lived with this woman until she’d become a part of him and he of her. He was inside Anna Lescombe’s head now. Besotted with Kleist, she would accompany him aboard the submarine; but first she would want to kneel down and hold her husband and bid him look after Juliet….

Range three hundred … no light, not yet, not yet, ignore the bullets, Soviet Ping-Pong balls, they never
hurt anyone …
don’t throw up now, don’t think about the sea!

By now the strain of trying to hold an accurate aim was injecting savage bolts of pain through his injured hand. Albert cursed the Japanese man’s dogs through gritted teeth, and momentarily relaxed his muscles before realigning the rifle.

She’d hold David, wait, get it right, get it right, three bursts of two, “double-tap,” first the woman, then the man, last the husband for Redman, “two for joy,” David and Anna, that was the deal … don’t roll over the side, hold on, Albert, hold it, Vassili,
hold it!
Wait for the Greeks to return fire, make it look like a stray round, there mustn’t be any witnesses,
no traces,
Shorrocks had said,
accidental death, act of God, no traces or no deal …
what’s that on the beach, looks like another man, lying down, ignore, ignore, shoot before the light,
take the first pressure,
range two hundred,
fuck those bloody dogs!
Wave trough, rising, rising, wind gust, second pressure …

That’s not David sitting on the beach!

Freeze!

Albert nursed the trigger home.

The Soviet marines had beached their boat, but even when David pulled Anna’s arm she refused to move. She was staring at Kleist, who sat resting his head on his forearms. Suddenly all the feelings that had warred inside her for so long coalesced into a single emotion, and that was pity.

“Quick, Gerhard!” she cried. “Into the trees.”

“Anna!”

David tugged her sleeve, but she shook him off. “No! Help him! He tried to save me.”

Oblivious of the danger, she bent down to grab Gerhard by the shoulders. At that moment the first fusillade of automatic fire rang out, and David flung himself on top of his wife, dragging her to the ground.

As they fell, a single, tiny, hard object ploughed into Gerhard’s left eye, spattering the Lescombes with blood.

Shafts of light burst from the
Lindos,
swiftly raking the beach. David hugged Anna to him and rolled away from Gerhard’s corpse. As the Soviet landing party answered a volley of fire from the Greek patrol craft, David grabbed her hand, leapt up and sped toward the nearest trees.

To the Lescombes, lying in the brushwood, the fight seemed to go on forever. In truth, the exchange was a short one, lasting less than a minute. The Soviet contingent, six of them, were both outgunned and pinned to the beach by the
Lindos’
searchlight. They made a last stand behind their upturned dinghy but it did not take the Greek machine gunners more than a few seconds to find the range, and then streams of bullets sliced up the flimsy cover like so many chainsaws.

The firing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. From his perch atop the bridge of the
Lindos,
Albert scanned the deserted beach, now as dazzlingly illuminated as a football stadium ready for an evening match, and he sighed. Hearing footsteps on the metal-runged ladder behind him, he turned to see Vassili’s head come into view.

“All right?” the Greek inquired.

“Yes, thanks. Any survivors?”

“Unlikely. We’re sending men to look.”

“What are you going to do about the bodies?”

“Lose them.” Vassili’s smile was friendly, but it did
nothing to dilute the quiet authority in his next words. “You can stand down now. You’ve won.”

“Yes.” Not
we’ve
won, Albert noticed. He dismantled his rifle and replaced it in its carrying case, out of sight of curious eyes. The task, which called for meticulousness, came as a welcome diversion from the sea below.

“Where’s Hayes?” Vassili asked.

“Haven’t seen him for a while. Sorry.”

While they spoke, the crew of the
Lindos
had been unshipping her inflatable rubber dinghy. Albert and Vassili stood together on the roof of the bridge, watching its progress toward the shore.

“So much trouble,” Vassili said, “for a worthless file.”

“Worthless?” Albert’s voice was noncommittal.

“Hayes told me many things.” The Greek looked at Albert, and for an instant dropped his mask, letting the other man see his resentment at the way he’d been used. “So I say again, yes, worthless to you, to both of you. There will be no further opportunities to carry out your, your ‘contract,’ do you call it, while on this ship. Understood?”

“Certainly, my dear chap.”

“That goes for Hayes, too.”

Yes, thought Albert; it certainly goes for Hayes.

On the whole, he agreed with Vassili. It had turned out a pretty worthless operation, one way and another. Shorrocks’ orders were very precise: Albert had to make everything look like an accident. With the
Lindos
now lit up brighter than the brashest floating gin palace, there was no longer any scope for an “accident.” And besides, the lady had not, in the end, gone over. Nor had her husband. So no Caribbean hideaway this year,
Montgomery, old bean … waste of time all round, really.