The Presidium – Prologue
The train was nearly two hours late. He detested having to wait. For anything. It was a bad character trait for someone in his profession.
He was on his fourth cheroot. It tasted rancid as he drew the smoke into his lungs. That did nothing to improve his disposition. Twenty-two hard-earned American dollars apiece on the black market and he was almost choking on the damned things. Where was that bloody train?
“Nothing in this god-forsaken country is ever on time.”
He was venting out loud. Two elderly women and a young child shifted uncomfortably on the bench opposite him. The two women began speaking to each other in that infuriating language that made him cringe. He blew a lungful of the foul-smelling smoke in their faces and they turned their heads in disgust. He felt in his coat pocket. The butt of his gun was icy, despite the protection of the heavy coat. God, it was cold!
The two elderly women kept looking at him and gibbering to each other, constantly fanning his smoke away from their faces with mittened hands. It amused him for a few moments to torment them, but then he grew irritated again with the delay. He fleetingly thought of popping the two old sows to put everyone out of their misery, when he heard the tired whistle of the ancient locomotive.
As he rose to go outside, he spat on the floor between the two women and sneered as they flew into a tirade of what he imagined was Bolshevik invective. He couldn’t stand the sight of them, any of them. The sooner this was over and he could get out of this hell-hole the better he would like it.
The freezing air hit him like a bullet as he pushed open the door of the shack serving as the station waiting room. He hurried to the late model Volvo and started it up to wait for his contact to arrive. Had he returned to the waiting room he would have been surprised to see one of the women speaking on a cell phone.
The train took what seemed an eternity to roll the last couple of hundred yards into the excuse for a station. He waited with increasing impatience for his man to alight.
After several minutes the disembarking passengers stopped coming. His man was not among them. What had happened? His information had seemed impeccable. He was about to leave his car running and check the three carriages for his contact when the door to the waiting room opened and the two women emerged. The young girl remained in the doorway.
He watched the women board the train and decided to wait to see what they would do. It was obvious that they were not travelling, for they would not be leaving such a young girl on her own in this wilderness.
After several minutes the women emerged from the train supporting a staggering man between them. He took the photo from his coat pocket and compared it to the man between the two women. It was him.
“Drunk as a bloody skunk. Probably downed a crate of vodka.” He looked disgusted. This might require a modification of his plans.
The young girl, on seeing the man emerge from the train, ran to him, crying out with delight. She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him. The drunken man pushed her away violently and sent her crashing to the ground. In the car the man’s hand again went to the gun in his pocket. He watched as the girl lay looking up at the man, bewildered. One of the women helped her to her feet and the four of them made their way painfully slowly to a wreck of a truck that stood at the far end of the station.
He fleetingly considered carrying out his assignment right there, then thought better of it. He put his car into gear and drove away. He knew where he was going.
Boris Nabokov was irritated. The girl lying beside him was long past being of any interest to him. She had been flying higher than a kite and for the best part of the afternoon they had partied like there was no tomorrow. But now the girl was barely able to open her eyes and he was not one to indulge in intimacies with a near stiff. He padded, naked, onto the balcony and watched the sun worshippers grabbing the last of the evening rays.
Walking back into the room he looked at the girl who was now passed out on the bed. He checked for her pulse and found it to be beating weakly. It would not be well received by his superiors if she was to expire in his room. He was trying to decide what to do with her when his phone rang.
“The Ferret missed his target.”
“What happened?”
“There were complications at the rendezvous.”
“Where is the target now?”
“The last I heard they were trying to cut the body out of the wreckage.” There was a momentary silence.
“What about the Ferret?”
“He’s disappeared. It looks like he’s gone into hiding.”
“This is not good. We may have a major problem on our hands.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get in touch with Chekov. Tell him to put a gag on the accident report.”
“There were others in the vehicle.”
“Any details?”
“Two old women and a girl.”
Nabokov grew pale. “You’re not going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, are you?”
“It was the granddaughter.
“Katya?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Damn it! Is she dead, too?”
“It’s looking that way.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Their truck went off the road. It was a bucket of bolts, apparently. It should never have been driven.”
“We have to keep this quiet. Chekov will know what to do. You know the procedure. This has to be kept from the Presidium, otherwise the whole plan’s as good as dead.”
“How do you think you’re going to keep this from them? They probably know about it already.”
“Talk to Chekov. It’s imperative that we get the bodies of Ivanski and the girl. Without them we’re sunk.”
“I’ll talk to Chekov right away.”
“Keep me informed. This whole thing could blow up in our faces.
Nabokov hung up and looked at the girl on the bed. She seemed less of a concern to him now. He checked her pulse again. Nothing. He would dispose of her when it was dark.
“Three years of planning and a bloody truck goes off the road. Unbelievable! Wait till I get my hands on that bastard!”
The two women and the girl huddled under a heavy blanket in the woods above the road. The midnight air was frigid and the women sheltered the girl between them. The truck had been driven into a tree and steam was pouring from the radiator. The man had made a pile of small branches and leaves a few yards from the truck and had covered it carefully with another, smaller blanket. He then walked some thirty yards to a bend in the road and waited.
After several minutes he saw headlights flashing through the trees. He signalled to the women and ran back to the truck. The women left the girl tightly wrapped in the blanket and took their positions, one by the covered pile of branches and the other lying half out of the truck. The man hid himself in the woods by the girl. He had a clear view of the women and the truck as he waited for the car to arrive.
The Volvo was being driven carefully. The driver was watching the road intently. He had anticipated what had happened to the truck and his quarry and he did not want to miss where it had gone off the road. As he rounded the bend and saw the truck, steam still hissing from the radiator, he drove to the side of the road, his headlights illuminating the scene before him.
Slowly opening the door of the car, the driver of the Volvo drew his gun and cautiously approached the truck. When the woman by the blanket saw him, she began screaming hysterically and hugged the pile of branches under the blanket. The man approached her, glancing briefly at the woman lying in the truck before returning his attention to the hysterical woman. He levelled his gun at her.
The sound of the shot was deafening in the frigid air.
Pavel Pudovkin was a worried man and he had every reason to worry. It was Pudovkin who had convinced Comrade Nikonov to trust the German to bring Ivanski in.
“What do Germans know of Russian conditions?” Nikonov argued. “It was our winter that put an end to Hitler. Get a Russian to do the job.”
But Pudovkin argued that the German had the background and the contacts. They knew he was also on the Consortium’s payroll and that Chekov had provided him with enough information to locate and identify Ivanski. And he had no compunctions about taking a fee from both sides or taking out anyone who got in his way. He was, Pudovkin insisted, the logical man to intercept Ivanski.
The plan had been meticulously plotted. The German would wait for Ivanski at the station and ‘persuade’ him to accept the generous offer of a free ride in an almost new Volvo. If there were any complications, he was to shoot first and ask no questions. But he was to do everything he could to bring Ivanski in alive. If that was impossible, he was to bring in the body. Nothing could be simpler.
But several hours had passed and there was no word from the German. Pudovkin hated silence. If anything had gone wrong he would have to answer to Nikonov.
Pavel Pudovkin was a worried man. He began making calls.
The German dropped his revolver and staggered back, holding his stomach. The woman who had been lying in the truck ran to him and hit him over the head with a tire lever. He slumped to the ground, motionless.
The man in the woods left the girl and strode purposefully to the fallen man. Keeping his gun pointed at the German’s head he checked his pulse and found it to be still beating. Picking up the dropped gun, he signalled to the two women to help him. One produced a tarpaulin from the back of the truck. The man and the two women wrapped the driver of the Volvo in the tarp, carefully checking to make sure he had not bled on the ground. While one woman helped the man bundle the body into the back seat of the truck the other woman removed the blanket from the pile of branches and signalled to the girl to help her throw the branches and leaves into the woods, far enough from the road that they would not be seen without a thorough search.
When the site had been carefully cleared, the man turned the Volvo around and signalled to the women and the girl to get in the car. He then backed the truck away from the tree and drove it down the road in the direction from which the Volvo had approached. The women in the car followed him.
About five miles from the previous site, as he approached a sharp bend, the man sped up, then hit the brakes and skidded the truck to a halt, inches from the edge of the road. He looked down the steep ravine. This would be the ideal spot. The Volvo came to a slow stop some distance behind the truck.
The driver of the truck got out and removed the tarp from the man lying in the back seat. The tarp was slightly stained with blood. Being careful not to let any blood touch the ground he then checked the man’s pulse. He was still alive.
“Good,” the man said, and withdrew his gun and shot the unconscious man in the throat. Blood spurted from his jugular all over the back seat of the truck and on the floor. When he was satisfied that enough blood had been shed, he climbed into the front of the truck and pulled the body over the back of the seat and let it bleed for several minutes until the flow of blood reduced to a trickle. Laying the tarp on the ground, making sure it extended under the truck, he dragged the man’s body onto the canvas sheet. After wrapping the body once again he called to the women to help him carry it to the side of the road.
When all the preparations had been made, the man went back to the Volvo and drove it at high speed at the truck, swerving slightly before he hit it, sending it crashing into the ravine. Braking hard after the crash the man then backed up to the point of impact with the truck.
After placing the dead man’s wrapped body in the trunk of the Volvo the man signalled to the women and the girl to get into the car. He then made numerous sets of footprints in the road and then, very carefully, down the ravine to the truck. When he was satisfied that everything looked in order he returned to the car and made his way to his destination.