Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

“And that’s all?” she asked once he had fallen silent.

“No,” he admitted. “It isn’t. I want revenge—justice—for Fedya. And for all the others: that mounted cop in Paterson, the constables in Hampshire, the night watchman at the quarry. Not to mention all the people he’s killed in the last three months.”

“And revenge for what he did to you?”

“For trying to kill me in Dublin and Moscow? No, I don’t hold a grudge over that— I wasn’t an innocent bystander.”

She twisted onto her back, eyes on the slow-moving fan. “This is all about Brady. What about Sergei?”

“I don’t know him,” McColl said simply. “But they all have to be stopped.”

She turned to look at him, her head supported on one arm. “You don’t resent him for what he meant to me?”

“Not enough to kill him. What about you? Are you only here to save him from himself?”

She ignored the flicker of anger. “I’d like to, but it’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want to stop them, too. I don’t know about Gandhi—maybe he’s what you say; maybe he’s the Menshevik that Sergei thinks he is. But assassinating anyone is just plain wrong. It’s the opposite of politics, a way of avoiding the necessary work, a lazy thinker’s shortcut. And this particular assassination would give the revolution a bad name here in India and all over the world. It would demean us and make us think less of ourselves. Komarov was right—without the rule of law, everything else will turn to dust.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“There has to be something better. Brady’s small-fry compared to the bastards who run countries, but they both think stepping over corpses is the only way to get anywhere. Komarov stepped over them, too, but at least he noticed what was under his feet. He knew that killing should hurt the killer and that, when it didn’t, no good would come of it. Which is Gandhi’s philosophy in a nutshell. The world can’t afford to lose him.”

She moved her head back onto his shoulder, feeling a sudden surge of love. They lay there for a minute and more, the sounds of their breathing underlining the silence.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked at last.

“There are things we need to know before can we make one.”

“The first being where they are. We’re not even sure they’re in Delhi.”

“No, but it’s a very good bet. According to Komarov it was the only Indian city that Brady researched in the Moscow library.”

“How are we going to find them?”

“I don’t know yet. First I want to know who authorized the whole business. If this is some lunatic scheme thought up by a small group of mid-ranking hotheads, then all we need to do is alert their superiors. Either with the help of my old boss in London or more directly.” He smiled. “I could climb in through the viceroy’s bedroom window and tell him in person.”

Caitlin tried to ignore the mental picture his suggestion evoked—the viceroy and his wife in matching nightcaps, spluttering indignation. “But you don’t believe this is some small cabal.”

“No, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“So how do we find out?” she asked, idly stroking his belly.

“That’s easy. I ask someone who’ll know. At gunpoint.”

“And if that person tells you it goes right to the top?”

“Then it’s up to us.”

Her hand came to rest. “How long do we have?”

“According to the newspaper I read today, Gandhi arrives in Delhi a week from tomorrow.”

The morning sun was still peering through the mist above the Yamuna River as they drove south through the half-completed new city. The road, never good, rapidly deteriorated as they headed out into open country, causing Sergei Piatakov to bounce up and down on the leather-upholstered back seat.

The Ford belonged to their absentee Indian landlord, and the three of them—ostensibly two Europeans and an Indian acquaintance interested in tiger hunting—were being chauffeured to a suitable spot for testing the three modern German rifles that their British hosts had supplied.

The guns weren’t the only thing they’d found waiting for them at Sayid Hassan’s luxurious villa. The four servants’ eagerness to please their foreign visitors had done nothing to allay Brady’s suspicions, and he had instructed Piatakov and Chatterji to search their quarters while he lectured the servants on their duties. Copies of the same neatly typed instructions had been hidden under three of the mattresses.

As Aram had said more than once, if it occurs to you, it has probably also occurred to them.

In the seat beside the driver, Brady turned to ask Chatterji if he’d ever been on a tiger hunt.

“Yes, many times when I was a boy.” The Indian began recounting a long anecdote, the obvious purpose of which was to distance himself from his privileged upbringing. Piatakov’s attention soon wavered. He had once had a Siberian tiger in his sights but hadn’t been able to pull the trigger—the animal had seemed so full of life and grace.

He allowed himself a rueful smile. After the last three years, he no longer had that problem where humans were concerned.

They motored on through several villages and stretches of semijungle, the day warming, dust rising in a long cloud behind them. Almost two hours after leaving the city, the car turned in through a ruined stone gateway, drove down a tree-shaded avenue, and emerged at the top of a large open space. The slope before them was littered with pieces of brick.

They all got out and walked a short distance, the servant-chauffeur carrying the three rifles, Brady their box of shells.

“Must have been a temple,” the American said, stopping to pick up a lump of brick that showed traces of faded red paint. He looked up. “How about down there?” he suggested, indicating a group of strange-looking trees some two hundred yards away. “That’s farther than we’ll have to shoot.”

The servant walked off down the slope to place the targets. He looked somewhat nervous, Piatakov thought. A premonition, perhaps.

Brady was helping Chatterji with the loading. The two of them had grown closer since the gunfight at Kerki, the American teaching the young Indian all the gun tricks he’d learned in his years as a rebel. Piatakov wasn’t sure he believed even half of Brady’s stories, but there was no doubting the man’s love affair with the fabled American West or his proficiency with the heavy Colt revolver. The Indian seemed enthralled, and probably was. Like a child who’d found a more suitable father.

Piatakov had been fond of Brady himself in the early days, and could understand the attraction. But he and the American had been drifting apart for quite a while. They were still allies, still comrades in the way that soldiers often were, but it no longer felt like a friendship. Perhaps it never had been. Perhaps Aram had been the glue that held the two of them together. Or perhaps they’d been more like people falling in love, seduced by the thought of a fresh beginning, the prospect of a new and better life.

As with lovers, the excitement had slowly worn off.

He thought of Caitlin thousands of miles away in Moscow, banging heads together, getting her work done. He smiled, just at the moment the first shot crashed out, pulling silence down across the jungle in the wake of its echo.

After searching in vain forany Russian news, Caitlin put aside the Eastern Mail , which a servant had brought with breakfast. She stared at the ceiling for a minute or so, then abruptly swung herself off the bed and started pacing to and fro. It couldn’t have been more than an hour since Jack had left, which meant it was only midmorning. Lunch, the next item on her sparse agenda, was still a long time ahead.