Brian Freemantle - The Run Around

Zenin did not bother to respond and only sipped at his drink. He said: ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

‘I need a formal receipt,’ remembered Lyudin. He produced the form from his pocket and Zenin completed the bureaucratic necessity. As he did so Lyudin refilled his glass and made to top up that of Zenin, who covered the rim with his hand.

‘And something else?’ prompted Zenin.

From another pocket Lyudin withdrew the key to the corner apartment overlooking the Palais des Nations and said: ‘I hope you will be comfortable there.’

Zenin wondered what the fool imagined he would be using the place for. He said: ‘How long have you been on station?’

‘Here in Bern for two years,’ said Lyudin. ‘I am hopeful of getting Washington, upon reassignment.’

Hope in vain, thought Zenin. He said: ‘I wish you luck.’

‘There have been no other instructions from Moscow,’ said Lyudin, ‘but if there is any sort of assistance you require, I am, of course, at your disposal.’

The man spoke like an official report, thought Zenin. He said: ‘Nothing. Thank you.’

‘What is Moscow like under the new regime?’ asked Lyudin.

‘It has not affected us,’ said Zenin. ‘We are beyond government whims.’

‘Of course,’ accepted Lyudin, hurriedly. ‘I meant among the general public.’

‘I have no idea what happens among the general public,’ said Zenin. He was bored, wishing the time would pass. Lyudin proffered the bottle again and this time Zenin accepted.

‘Is there any communication you wish transmitted to Dzerzhinsky Square?’

‘You’ve been instructed to advise them of my being here?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s all.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘I would have told you if there were.’

‘Do you wish me to go with you from the building?’

‘Don’t be foolish,’ rejected Zenin, at once. ‘If Swiss counter-intelligence have identified you and we were observed leaving the embassy I would be linked by association, wouldn’t I? I want no KGB officer among the group at all.’

‘Do you want to establish any contact procedure between us?’

‘No,’ said Zenin.

‘It is almost time,’ said Lyudin.

Zenin sighed, relieved. He said: ‘There are to be no introductions or explanations.’

The diplomats and other normal embassy staff were already assembled when they reached the vestibule. As noon struck the group moved en bloc towards the exit and Zenin eased himself into the middle, not bothering with any farewell to the other KGB man. He carried the bag in his right hand, so it would be shielded by the people around him. The majority went to the left when they emerged on to Brunnadernain and Zenin stayed with them, not splitting away until he was about three hundred metres from the building. Having separated Zenin moved quickly to distance himself, cutting through side alleys and minor roads until he got to Marktgasse. There he caught a tram again because an attempt to follow any sort of stopping and starting public transport is more obvious than a continuously moving vehicle, like a taxi. Zenin positioned himself on a rear seat, convinced after the first hundred metres that he was not being pursued. Back at the garage he removed the tripod, the fixture screws, the harness and the handgun that he did not need for the test he intended, stacking them neatly in the corner, beneath a piece of canvas discarded by a previous occupant. The bag he put into the boot of the Peugeot, thrusting it as deeply as possible into the cavity created by the wheel arch.

Zenin drove hard but always within the legal limit towards the Oberland, the road running parallel with the river Aare. At Thun he skirted the lake to the south but at Interlaken swung north around the Brienzersee lake. At Brienz he put the car in a public park, took the bag from the boot and strode through the old, wooden-housed part of the town, knowing from the Kuchino instruction that it was the most direct route to the deepest of the forests.

At first the trails were wide and Zenin was concerned at the number of people who appeared to be using them. He cut once and then a second time on to smaller paths, pushing deeper among the trees, at times so tall and thick he had no sight at all of the towering Jungfrau mountain. He climbed steadily for over an hour, transferring the bag from hand to hand as the weight of the rifle began to tell, alert more to the possibility of climbers or hikers than to the sort of testing place he wanted. Zenin was high above Brienz before he found it, an abrupt clearing that overlooked a small, tree-surrounded valley.

Zenin crouched, his back against the trunk of a fir, making no immediate attempt to assemble the rifle at his feet, listening and looking for people. There was some noise from rarely seen birds and an occasional murmur of insects but that was all. Around him the forest was dark and thick and apparently empty and at last he switched his concentration.

The assassination was calculated for him undetectably to be able to fire a maximum of five shots and Zenin isolated a clump of trees ideal for the target. He carried the bag with him, unwilling to risk leaving it unattended while he set up the markers.

Throughout his long practice with the M21 at Balashikha it had been assembled and every part so perfectly aligned that over four hundred and fifty metres his bulls-eye accuracy ran consistently at ninety nine per cent but the dismantling of the rifle would have disturbed that alignment. Zenin was determined to restore it although such a high accuracy achievement was not strictly necessary: the hollow-nose bullets he intended using flattened upon impact with a body and tore huge exit holes so death was practically automatic from shock, even if the hit itself was no more than a wounding shot.

The largest of the trees was slightly apart from the group he had selected and Zenin chose this to be the target to re-align the weapon. About six feet from the ground he stuck a six-inch square of paper over a jutting twig, pressing it against the rough bark of the tree and then looking back between it and the spot high up in the clearing from which he intended to fire, gauging the sightlines. Satisfied, Zenin moved to the closer-together trees and arranged five more paper markers, at heights dictated by convenient twigs, the highest almost to that on the first tree, the lowest just over three feet from the ground.

Back up in the clearing Zenin squatted again, opening the bag at last and bringing out the parts in the order in which he wanted to rebuild the weapon. He slid the perfectly machined barrel into the modified stock, then connected the gas cylinder and after that the piston. He paused at the remaining fitments, gazing intently around to search for any people: at this moment, if someone stumbled upon him, Zenin could have been mistaken for a hunter, although a rather improperly dressed one. The adapted sight and the elongated sound suppressor identified the rifle as something altogether different and Zenin with it, which was why he had left in the locked security of the garage the most obvious pieces of sniper’s equipment. The forest remained dark and silent, but Zenin stayed motionless for a long time until he was sure. He screwed the power-increased sight on to the top of the M21 and finally twisted on the suppressor which extended the barrel practically half as much again, a reamed silencer that deadened the sound of the shot but in no way reduced or impaired the muzzle velocity. Zenin finally clipped in hard-nosed ammunition, not needing this time the shattering effect of the soft bullets.

Using the trunk of the tree against which he had rested as a support, Zenin focused the magnified sight on his first target, adjusting the two stadia to run either side of the paper, with the graticule at its bottom, and from the calibration was able to establish the distance precisely at three hundred and ninety metres. He took his time, snuggling the stock into his shoulder, his eyes unblinking against the magnification. The sound, when he fired, was hardly audible in the vastness of the forest, the merest phut, and Zenin was sure it would be even less in Geneva, masked by the sound of traffic on the Ferney highway. He missed the paper completely, by at least fifteen millimetres, frowning in irritation at the sideways pull. He readjusted the sight against the extension of the barrel and tightened by half a turn the suppressor’s linkage. The next shot was excellent, almost in the centre of the paper, re-establishing at once his ninety-nine per cent score. Cautious in everything, he fired again at the same target and again hit practically dead centre, the second shot actually enlarging the penetration of the first. Zenin smiled to himself, pleased at how quickly he had recovered. For the assassination itself the rifle would be further steadied by its mounting on the tripod and his physical attachment to it by the harness.