Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

The man was taking an embroidered purse from the table that held most of the candles. “How much?” he asked.

“All of it, comrade.”

“But…”

“You won’t be needing it.”

The man’s eyes widened in understanding; his mouth opened to cry out, but the sound was choked off by the knife sliding up through the ribs and into the heart. “Allahu akbar,” Brady murmured, wiping the blade on a chair.

Piatakov was watching the girl, whose eyes were no longer devoid of expression. She took a quick step forward and spat in the dead man’s face.

Brady eyed her with what might have been amusement, then went back to examining the contents of the purse. “Good enough,” he said finally. “This should get us to Afghanistan.”

“We must kill the girl, too,” Chatterji interjected.

Piatakov was outraged. “No!” he almost shouted with a violence that surprised even him.

Brady gave him a hard look, then turned to the Indian. “She’s his enemy,” Brady said, gesturing toward the dead man on the floor, “not ours.”

“But what if she runs to the Cheka the moment we’re gone? We must at least take her with us,” Chatterji insisted.

“That seems sensible,” Brady said quietly, looking at Piatakov. “We can leave her in a village.”

“Dressed like that?” Piatakov asked.

“She’ll be fine,” Brady said. “It’s not that cold.”

Piatakov took the sash from the dead man’s robe and passed it to her, indicating that she should use it to tie up the one she was wearing. She smiled faintly and did as he suggested.

The three of them retraced their steps across the inner courtyard, the girl walking with them unconcernedly. No one had thought to gag her, Piatakov realized, but apparently there wasn’t any need—she showed no sign of making a fuss. They stood in the yard for what seemed an eternity until Brady led out three saddled ponies, their hooves muffled with sacking.

Piatakov mounted his, and Brady hoisted the girl up in front of the Russian, muttering, “Your baby, I believe.” Piatakov was acutely conscious of her perfumed hair just beneath his face and of the warmth of her body through the thin robe.

“What’s your name?” he asked in Russian, not really expecting an answer.

“Haruka,” she said.

The other two mounted, the Indian looking slightly uneasy, though the ponies were docile enough. They walked them down the dark alley, the dust and muffles reducing the sound of their passage to almost nothing. At the crossroads they turned southeast and continued along past the foot of the avenue of mausoleums. The moon was high now, the blue domes shining in its glow. The girl’s hair shifted in the breeze.

They walked the ponies for an hour, drawing a wide circle around the southern edge of the town. When they struck the dirt track that ran westward alongside the railway, they stopped, got down, and took off the muffles. According to Brady’s watch, it was almost two in the morning.

Once they had all remounted, the American started down the track, Chatterji close behind him. Piatakov held the reins loose for several moments, then put his hands on either side of the girl’s narrow waist and gently lowered her to the ground. When she gave him a questioning look, he pointed her toward the town.

She turned to see what he meant, then looked back up and raised her hand to touch his leg.

He watched her walk off with a sharp sense of loss and then wheeled his pony to follow the others.

The clock in the lobbyclaimed it was half past midnight. Komarov paused at the foot of the stairway to yawn, then slowly began to climb, marveling at the survival of the rich carpet, heedless for the moment of the vital role it was playing in silencing his approach. Maslov was a few steps behind him.

As his eyes came level with the floor above, Komarov brought himself to a halt. At the end of the dimly lit corridor, a man was opening a door with the kind of elaborate caution that suggested it wasn’t his room. After a cursory glance around, he disappeared inside.

“Wait here,” Komarov whispered to Maslov. Taking his gun from its holster, Komarov advanced down the corridor on the balls of his feet.

He reached the door, which was standing slightly ajar. Inside the room it seemed dark. There was no sound.

Komarov pushed the door back slowly, and there was the man, standing over the bed in a pale wash of moonlight. A knife gleamed in his hand.

He seemed at a loss.

“Put it down,” Komarov said softly.

The man’s head jerked up in surprise, but his shoulders sagged when he saw the gun. He placed the knife down on the empty bed.

“Now come with me.” Komarov backed into the corridor, turning so the would-be assassin would come out of the room between himself and Maslov.

The man emerged, his features clearer in the kerosene glow. He was a Russian, probably in his early twenties, with fair hair and a flat, slightly Mongoloid face. Komarov pointed him down the corridor toward Maslov. The three of them descended the stairs in silence.

“Take him into the dining room,” Komarov said. He checked the room number on the register, and a smile flickered on his face.

Maslov had sat the man down. Komarov took a chair and sat astride it, his arms crossed on the backrest, facing his captive. Maslov remained standing just behind the man’s right shoulder.

“What’s your name?” Komarov asked.

“Aleksandr Polyansky,” the man said sorrowfully. He looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

“Why did you want to kill Nikolai Davydov?”

Polyansky wrung his hands. “I…” His face brightened suddenly. “But he’s not really Davydov. He’s an English spy, an enemy of the revolution!”

“We know,” Komarov said, wiping the incredulous smile off Maslov’s face. “I have known since Moscow, Pavel Tasarovich,” Komarov told the young Ukrainian. “I decided it would be easier for you to behave naturally if you remained in ignorance.” He turned back to Polyansky. “Why did you want to kill this man? And don’t pretend it had anything to do with him being an English spy.”

Polyansky searched the ceiling for inspiration but found none.

“Who hired you?”

The look of defeat returned. “A man in Samarkand,” he mumbled.

“His name?” Komarov persisted.

“He never told me his name. An Indian. He came to me, gave me this man’s description, said that I would find him here in Tashkent. He told me the man was an English spy. But I didn’t do it for the money, you understand… It wasn’t…”

“What did you do it for?”

Another silence. Maslov moved behind Polyansky and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, as if about to offer a massage.

“You must tell us, citizen,” Komarov said.

The words came out in a sudden rush: “Passports, English passports for my family… We were branded as bourgeois… I can get no work… I…”

“Enough. Describe the Indian.”

“Just an Indian.” He shrugged helplessly. “About forty, maybe. Quite small. An Indian.”

So it wasn’t Durga Chatterji. “Did the Indian tell you where the English passports were coming from?”

Polyansky gave him a disbelieving look. “From the English.”

“Telephone for someone to come and collect him,” Komarov told Maslov. The whole business made less and less sense. Komarov tried to think coherently but thought only of how tired he was. He got to his feet and started pacing up and down between the lines of tables.

There was a quarrel between Englishmen—that seemed certain. A quarrel that had something to do with the American and his renegade friends. Was it possible that one group of Englishmen opposed their endeavor—whatever it might be—while another group supported it?