The Berkut (75 page)

"We'll have to go down to see," Bailov said.

Ezdovo considered the remark. He was measuring how long it would take to explore this lead against the time they would lose if it was a false one. The scar on the rock was just subtle enough to be real; if it had been any more obvious he would have ignored it. In the end he agreed with Bailov; they had to take the time to see what was below.

Rigging a harness for Bailov, they lowered him. In seconds he reported back: "Pitons down here. Let me down some more." They played out more rope, feeling Bailov's weight at the end. "Up," he shouted from below after a few more minutes, and they strained to get him back to the top.

"There's a body down there," Bailov reported calmly. "The pitons lead to a ledge thirty meters down. From there it looks as if we can
descend, but it's a long way; it will take us all day." He poked an elbow at the doctor. "You think you've had some bad climbs? Wait till you get over the side of this one. It even made me dizzy for a moment."

Ezdovo leaned over the lip with his field glasses. He could see the feet of a body. He considered following his instincts, but duty required that they descend; Petrov did not like loose ends. "We'll go down," he said grudgingly. The others could tell it was not what he wanted to do.

Bailov had been right; it took them most of the day to reach the bottom. At one point on the descent, they found a splotch of dried blood on an outcropping. "He must have hit here," Gnedin observed.

They squatted around the corpse like hunters examining a dead stag. There was a small hole in its forehead just over the right eye, and the back of the head had been blown away.

Bailov spoke first. "Bullet. No gear." There was no need for debate or discussion. They all understood what the body meant; the SS colonel had murdered his sergeant to delay them, and they had fallen for it.

They tried climbing back up and reached the ledge the next morning, but they could not get up the last thirty meters. "A blind spot," Bailov said. "You can get down, but not up unless somebody's on top with a line. The bastards."

"He must have seen us from one of the ridges," Ezdovo said. "This wasn't panic; it was artfully done. By the time we get back up there by another route, they'll have days on us. They're gone." His voice sounded tired. "He knows what we are now; he'll be looking for a place to fight. We have to back off."

Gnedin interrupted. "Petrov told me to report to Genoa if they didn't show up at the farm."

"Italy it is," Bailov said. "Petrov will need us."

After an uncomfortable night on the ledge they descended again, then traveled east before they found a crossing near where the Rhine narrowed on the Swiss border. There they presented diplomatic credentials to the border guards and were waved through; two hours later they caught a train south.

122 – April 23, 1946, 3:00 P.M.

They did not leave the house for five days. For Pogrebenoi it was a difficult time. Whereas earlier Giacomo-if that was really his name
had been a source of comfort, now he was an object of intense suspicion. He had an easy, disarming manner about him, but there was also a darker side, a deep, hidden intensity that made him as alert as an animal. Why and how did he know Petrov's name? It was a question she asked herself over and over. Even though her leader had made the arrangements that had put her under Giacomo's protection, it would have been unusual for him to have used his own name. She didn't like it, and her soldier's instinct kept reminding her not to let down her guard. At night she kept a chair jammed under the door, and she slept in a corner with her pistol in her lap. So far the man had not hindered her mission. She considered eliminating him, but that would mean killing the old woman, too. It was not a matter of conscience or squeamishness but a practical concern: two bodies would be more difficult to dispose of than one. Besides, she told herself, this Giacomo-whatever his game-might still be of use to them.

Above all, it was imperative that she get her information to Petrov.
Without it, all might be lost. The ship would arrive tomorrow and depart on the twenty-eighth. He had given her instructions for the rendezvous. When the signal came, she was to go to a certain piazza at 4:00 P.M. and wait five minutes, no more. If the pickup failed, she was to leave and try again the next day, an hour earlier than the first attempt. She was to repeat the cycle seven times; then, if no contact had been made, she was to make her way as quickly as possible to Trieste and get in touch with Soviet officials there. Petrov had explained to her how to do this.

The main newspaper in Genoa was published in the early afternoon-when the printers weren't on strike, as they had been all week in a dispute over union status. Every day the old woman from the house went out to get a paper, coming back each time empty-handed, complaining that the
Comunisti
were godless troublemakers who didn't know how to do anything else. Today she was gone longer than usual, and when she returned, she stopped at the end of the walk and talked animatedly with a younger woman and a child, who danced around the adults, trying to amuse herself.

Eventually the old woman hobbled inside with her shopping net bulging with hard rolls and shiny brown packages of uncooked noodles. Pogrebenoi stood anxiously beside the counter waiting for her to unpack; the newspaper was the last item to be dropped on the table and she pounced on it immediately, bringing a sour look to the old woman's craggy face.

The single-column advertisement ran several inches deep and dealt with political turmoil in the Italian Communist party; a splinter group calling itself the Red Left was attempting to dislodge the established party leadership. The ad listed several political goals, the foremost being the elimination of Fascist remnants still serving in the Genoan city government.
In
each corner of the display ad there was a line drawing of a clenched fist. Beside the symbol on the bottom right there were three small stars, Petrov's signal to her.

She had to act fast. Talia immediately phoned the newspaper. At first nobody seemed to be able to help her, but eventually, using a combination of charm and persistence, she got a man on the line who claimed to have some modest knowledge of the paper's advertising. The ad, she learned, originally had been scheduled to run on the twenty-first, so it was the fourth day of the sequence. The next attempt would be at
1:00 P.M. on the twenty-fourth. She felt a sense of relief until it occurred to her that she couldn't let Giacomo out of her sight. This meant that he would have to come with her to the rendezvous. This was against Petrov's instructions, but it was important that he learn that Giacomo somehow knew his name and decide for himself what was to be done about the man.

123 – April 23, 1946, 9:15 P.M.

After arriving in Genoa the three Russians proceeded to the wharf. Stopping at a cafe, Gnedin made a telephone call. Half an hour later an automobile pulled up outside. Rivitsky looked at his comrades and gave them a big smile. Bailov and the doctor got into the backseat, Ezdovo in front.

"Good news?" Rivitsky asked.

"I saw them," Gnedin announced.

"We lost them in the mountains," Ezdovo added glumly. He was wondering where T alia was, and if she was safe.

124 – April 24, 1946, 1:02 P.M.

This morning she had gotten up early, dressed and found Giacomo in the kitchen nursing a small glass of Chianti. He whistled when she entered and flashed his teeth. "We're going out?" he asked, reading her mind.

"Yes," she said coldly.

They walked several blocks side by side before she flagged down a cab into the city. It dropped them near the piazza and they strolled through a small garden with a dry fountain. Pigeons were gathered around a collection of old men on benches. At the far end of the block she paused at the curb and checked her watch.

"Pickup?" Giacomo asked. "Stay close."

Two minutes after the hour a black sedan veered out of traffic from the far side of the boulevard and squealed its tires on the hot pavement as it lurched to a stop at the curb in front of them. Pogrebenoi
opened the back door and got in, Giacomo following closely with a smile on his face.

The automobile surged forward before the door was closed. Rivitsky looked back at her, his expression letting her know that her companion's presence was not according to the plan.

"Perhaps I should make other arrangements for myself," Giacomo said quickly, again showing an uncanny sense of knowing what others were thinking.

"Stay," Talia said. "I'll take care of it."

Giacomo sat back, amused. "The Italians call Genoa the city of surprises-a reputation with historical antecedents," he chirped happily. "It's said that the Genovese made Pisa's tower lean more precariously."

"Be quiet," Pogrebenoi commanded with a scowl.

Rivitsky inspected his passengers through the rearview mirror. The change in the woman was profound. She was tanned and her dark brown hair had bleached in the sun, so that it seemed to radiate light. Her fingernails were painted, her lips looked full and red, and there was a soft hue of gray on her eyelids. Standing on the curb she had looked stunning, elegant in silk, with an aristocratic air about her. As a rule, Rivitsky preferred his women thick of waist and leg, with large breasts to fill a man's hand and give him something to grab on to, but Pogrebenoi's appearance gave him pause. Originally he had assessed the woman as a peasant; now he felt he had been wrong.

Her companion was another matter. His mindless banter was only a thin mask. This man with dark eyes like polished onyx was dangerous. Pogrebenoi had better have a good reason for bringing him along. Petrov loathed surprises when they were at his expense. It wasn't clear what she intended, but Rivitsky resolved to take no risks; if the man made the slightest move, he would kill him. He drove with his left hand on the steering column, leaving his right hand free; if he had to shoot, it would be over his left shoulder. Just as he repositioned his body to gain some leverage, Giacomo said, "I won't be any trouble." He held his hands high for Rivitsky to see, and they made eye contact in the mirror. There was an instant and mutual understanding, one professional to another.

In the maze of soot-covered warehouses, Rivitsky drove a winding route, doubling back occasionally to be sure that they were not being followed. At their destination he jerked to a halt before a bank of green garage doors. The one before them opened and he drove in, then parked the automobile out of sight.

Bailov came out of the shadows and greeted them, walking past Rivitsky and the stranger to hug Pogrebenoi, who hugged back, and then led them underground through a series of damp, narrow tunnels, lighting their way with a single flashlight.

The place was empty. Pogrebenoi sat down, carefully crossed her long legs and tugged at her skirt to keep it down. Rivitsky had gone to fetch Petrov. She was disappointed that she had not yet seen Ezdovo, and immediately began to worry about him. Their night together had been a momentary lapse, but a bond so powerful had formed that it made her as nervous as a maiden, and she was sure that he felt it, too. Ezdovo was a self-contained man. She admired this in him, but there was also in his quiet a sense that he had endured great pain, and she felt a stirring to soothe him. At first her feeling had been more fascination than anything else-that and lust; it had been a long while since she'd found a man she had wanted to bed. Eventually, after she realized that she was thinking about him more and more, she knew that her feelings had gone far beyond simple fascination. When she had been in bed with Bettini, it had been Ezdovo she fantasized about, and while the Italian sweated over her, she had come to realize that she loved the Siberian. More important, she had reached a decision; she would tell him how she felt. Where was he?

Petrov came down the stairs slowly, stopping partway down to look at Pogrebenoi, and she felt a chill under his gaze. The penalty for failure in this mission was well understood. They had gone their separate ways and done their jobs; now it remained for them to be reunited and for their leader to process the information and decide how successful they had been.

When Petrov's eyes fell on Giacomo, he stiffened visibly on the stairs and gripped the iron railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"Petrov!" Giacomo boomed. "I hoped you would be glad to see your fellow conspirator."

"Grigory," Petrov said. A smile worked its way across his face. The two men embraced at the bottom of the stairs while Rivitsky and Pogrebenoi looked on, baffled.

"When you came to the Archangel, I thought it was odd. Your interest in the Church was-well, let's say it was unusual. Your parting line gave me great amusement; I haven't laughed as hard in years. But after you left, I couldn't get you out of my mind. What is the old warbird up to this time, I wondered. I had my own ideas, but no way to confirm them. What the hell, I needed to get out of Moscow."