Оливер Блик - Protocol for a Kidnapping

He shook his head. “Mr. St. Ives, if the information that is contained in those documents that I gave your ambassador is revealed to anyone else, I will be dead before night.” I looked at him. His face was still grumpy and mean, but it was also serious.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Your ambassador, Mr. Killingsworth, does not have the background to assess their true significance.”

“He told me that it was hot stuff.”

“He was speaking as a newspaperman, not as a diplomat. The information that he possesses could destroy this government.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

Tavro looked away and then returned his gaze to me. It contained as much sincerity as he was capable of displaying, perhaps more. “Not if it would take Russian tanks, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Like Czechoslovakia, huh?”

“You do not believe me?”

“No.”

Tavro shook his head and then smiled as if he felt sorry for my stupidity — which he may have. “Think about this, Mr. St. Ives. If I were not telling the truth, I certainly would not be here.”

I nodded as he rose. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll go first tomorrow. The others can come out later.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, as if he were not at all sure that there would be such a thing. Then he rose and walked to the far end of the fireplace where he stood and looked into the flames for a long time. I watched him for a while and then I tried to go to sleep, and almost succeeded until something warm and wet started licking my ear.

“What’re you doing?” It was Arrie, of course.

“Trying to sleep,” I said. “Doesn’t the sandman stop by your place anymore?”

“I was cold.”

I put my arm around her. She snuggled against my chest. “I bet they have rooms upstairs,” she said.

“We’d freeze before we got there.”

“What did Tavro want?”

“Out.”

“You still going to help him?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Probably.”

“None of it’s gone right, has it?”

I looked down at her, but she had turned her face away from me. “None of what?” I said.

“None of what you thought you were supposed to do.”

“No, it’s all gone wrong.”

“It could get worse,” she said.

“I don’t see how.”

She sighed and snuggled closer. “You will if you try to get him out.”

The cold awakened me. Thin gray light was coming through the tall windows. The fire had died down. I gently lifted Arrie’s head from my chest and made her a pillow of my topcoat. She curled into it without waking. I rose and went over to the fireplace, put three large logs on, and waited until they caught. I squatted down and warmed my hands before the flames. And then I thought for a long time, until the thinking threatened to become the end itself rather than the method by which the end is reached.

I rose and walked over to the windows. Before me stretched a broad, snow-covered meadow that was lined by thick forests of fir and pine. Beyond the meadow was more forest that rose until it thinned out into snow and rocks and became the peak of a mountain whose name I would like to have known.

Below the castle near the edge of the forest, two deer, a buck and a doe, took small, delicate, tentative steps into the deep snow. They stopped, looked around suspiciously, and then bounded across the meadow, hurrying into the safety of the forest on the other side.

I turned from the window and went back to the fireplace. Tavro was propped up against the stone wall, his overcoat drawn up to his chin. I bent down and shook his arm. He opened his eyes and then opened and closed his mouth several times as if he tasted something bad.

“It’s time we started,” I said and moved over to where Gordana sat sleeping with her head on Wisdom’s shoulder. I shook her gently and she stirred, but didn’t open her eyes, and I had to shake her again. She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at me. It was a child’s smile that contained a child’s faith and I didn’t feel that I deserved it.

“It’s time,” I said and she nodded and stretched. Wisdom also awakened.

“What time is it?” he said.

I looked at my watch. “Nearly seven thirty.”

The rest of them began to stir. Killingsworth rose and stretched and looked around as if he felt he should say something, something wise perhaps, like telling the rest of us where the toilet was. He didn’t. Knight was up looking rumpled but ruggedly handsome. I envied him. Arrie was the last to awaken. She got up quickly, clutching her purse to her as though she thought someone might snatch it away.

“I think I found some coffee,” Wisdom said, poking around in a box of canned goods.

“Make some in that pot that I used for snow,” I said. “There should be enough water left in it.”

He nodded, opened the paper sack of coffee, and threw a couple of handfuls of the grounds into the pot and hung it over the fire with a metal hook that swung from the wall. I don’t think Wisdom did much cooking for himself.

One by one they trooped downstairs and out into the snow to relieve themselves and when they came back they dipped tin cups into the coffee and drank it gratefully even though it was indescribably bad. They turned toward me instinctively, it seemed, even Killingsworth, as though waiting for me to tell them what to do next now that they’d gone to the toilet. I took another sip of coffee and lit a cigarette.

“I’m going to borrow your car, Killingsworth,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to borrow your car. I need it. Tavro and Gordana are going with me. I want you to give us an hour’s start. When you get down to the village Arrie can tell someone who you are and they’ll call the authorities. I don’t care what you tell them about me.”

We were all standing. Tavro, with his coat on, was slightly behind Wisdom. I was next to Gordana, and Knight and Killingsworth were near the fireplace. Arrie was by herself near the table.

“All right,” I said, looking at Gordana. “Let’s go.”

“Tavro’s not going.” It was Arrie’s voice. I turned to look at her. She held a small automatic in her right hand. It was aimed at Tavro. “He’s not going anyplace, Phil. I’m sorry.”

“Aw, come on,” I said and started toward her. She kept her eyes on Tavro. He looked at me and then at the pistol. His face started working, as if he were trying to think of something to say. Instead, he shoved Wisdom violently at Arrie. The gun went off. Tavro ran toward the open door and through it and I could hear his leather heels clatter down the stairs.

Wisdom stumbled against the table, tried to catch it, but failed, and fell to the floor on his back. There was a small black and red hole under the pocket of his white shirt. Arrie stood frozen, the gun in her hand, staring at Wisdom, her mouth silently forming the word “No” over and over.

I ran to the window and forced it open. Tavro was in the meadow, trying to run through the deep snow. He floundered, fell, picked himself up, and tried to run again. I yelled at him. “Don’t try it, Tavro!”

He may have heard me because he stopped, looked back, and then tried to run again. They cut him down before he got three steps. It sounded like a submachine gun.

I turned from the window and ran back to Arrie who stood motionless, staring down at the fallen Wisdom, the gun still in her hand. I took the gun, ran back to the window, and tossed it into a snow bank. Then I went back to Wisdom. Knight had ripped open Wisdom’s shirt and was trying to stop the blood with his handkerchief. I handed him mine as I knelt down beside them.

Wisdom’s breath came in harsh wheezes. His eyes were closed. He opened them and looked at Knight. He smiled and shook his head slightly. He turned his eyes and found mine. Once more he shook his head, but only a little. “Don’t blame the kid, Phil.”