Derek Lambert - The Red Dove

Radiation sickness, cobalt miners. Bastards.

But how – and why – had they persuaded his mother to suppress the truth about her husband’s death? Talin could hear their voices: ‘Your son’s bright, he has a great future, don’t blight his chances. Keep quiet and we’ll look after you both in Novosibirsk.’ When she was old they had given her an apartment back in Khabarovsk. ‘There’s no point in telling him the truth now. You don’t want to lose that comfortable home of yours, do you?’

Could the authorities really have predicted that I was destined for the stars when I was only thirteen? According to Sedov, yes: they could spot a winner at ten.

But none of this is true. I am flying to Khabarovsk to see my mother and she will tell me it’s all lies and then I shall go back to Leninsk, face the music and return to Dove.

‘I’m afraid,’ Oleg Sedov said, sitting beside him, ‘that I’m going to be that notorious travel pest, the talker.’

It was from Sonya Bragina that Robert Massey heard that Talin was missing. Not missing exactly, she said over the telephone, but not where he should be – in bed recovering from the accident.

Massey guessed immediately where Talin had gone and he wondered if the story Reynolds had supplied about his father had been wholly true. Or whether, having discovered that he had worked in a cobalt mine, CIA Dirty Tricks had improvised, inventing his crime and his punishment.

Surely not everyone who worked in a cobalt mine was a miscreant sentenced to slow death?

If Talin discovers the story is false then Reynolds’ spectacular is a flop. Talin will denounce me, the computer deception will grind to a halt and I will be sentenced to death.

In a cobalt mine?

‘How did you find me?’ Talin asked dully.

‘You were under surveillance,’ Sedov said. ‘For your own good.’

‘Did you think I might be kidnapped?’

‘You’re a valuable property.’ Sedov’s tone was light but his dark, Slav features were even tighter than usual; his eyes looked tired and he needed a shave. ‘I didn’t authorise the surveillance. The order came from the top.’

‘And you found out about it?’

‘Of course, cosmonauts are my business.’

‘And you took over?’

‘I wouldn’t dare to do that. But one of the failings of the KGB is that it’s so over-staffed that authority is confused. I merely told your surveillance team to keep in touch with me.’

‘Which doesn’t explain how you got on this plane.’

‘It wasn’t difficult. Your shadow at Sheremetyevo didn’t intend to board it anyway: he was merely going to tell headquarters to advise Omsk and Irkutsk.’

‘But he’ll report my departure.’

‘I told him not to hurry because I was going to be on the plane. There’s great scope for pulling rank in the KGB.’

‘And when he does report?’

Sedov shrugged. ‘I can handle that. Why shouldn’t we fly together? We go into orbit together.’

‘Why should we fly together to Khabarovsk when we’re both supposed to be at Leninsk tomorrow?’

Sedov said quietly: ‘I’m not flying to Khabarovsk,’ and added: ‘Nor are you.’

‘You can stop me, of course.’ Talin touched the sleeve of Sedov’s shabby jacket. ‘But I’m asking you, Oleg, not to; I can’t explain why.’

‘I know why.’

Then it was true! ‘How can you possibly know?’

‘Because there’s only one possible explanation – your father. Which is why I didn’t take the easy way and just stop you boarding the plane. I wanted time to talk to you alone. Peacefully, without a scene at the airport.’

Words shrivelled in Talin’s mouth. Sedov beckoned the hovering stewardess who knew that they both carried red passbooks and ordered a coffee and brandy. Talin asked for a vodka.

‘You should have told your wife,’ Sedov remarked.

‘She would have tried to stop me. Just as you’re going to. You can use physical force but there’s nothing you can say that will change anything.’

But there was. Sedov had brought with him a surprise. The Truth. It couldn’t be anything else, Talin decided as he listened.

It was true, Sedov confirmed, that Talin’s father had been convicted of embezzling State property, true that he had been sentenced to death, true that the sentence had been commuted to hard labour in a cobalt mine, the double-talk for slow death.

‘Listen to me, Nicolay,’ Sedov said. ‘Listen!’ Half command, half plea. ‘That was a long time ago. It was a terrible injustice, it can never be put right. Your father should be alive today…’

Remember those fish we caught and the other times in the taiga.

Talin’s eyes stung.

‘But things have got better since then. There is still injustice, true. Everywhere in the world there is injustice. But the Soviet people have never known such good times. For the first time in their history they have sufficient. That’s what the West doesn’t understand: for us sufficiency is a miracle.’

Talin was silent: he hadn’t expected a confession. The aircraft bucked in turbulence; they were over the Urals, the portals of Siberia.

The drinks brought by the stewardess had spilled on to her tray; she apologised. As she departed, swaying expertly with the turbulence, Sedov said: ‘And we have peace.’

‘Through force. Nasdarovya.’ Talin tossed back the vodka.

‘Through strength. Peace has never been won through weakness.’ Sedov was painstakingly carving out his words. ‘And you are one of the men who will project it into space. You’ll be in command of its flagship. Dove.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your sentiments,’ Talin said as the aircraft bucked again. ‘But I’m still flying to Khabarovsk.’

A new note of urgency entered Sedov’s voice. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the car crash was bad enough but Aerospace has accepted your explanation – black ice, a motorcyclist without lights… If they get the idea that you’re emotionally unbalanced then you can forget the launch. Fly to Khabarovsk and you’ll never see space again. In any case,’ voice softening, ‘you’d only upset your mother. Why don’t you leave it till you come back? Then fly out there with Sonya.’

He was right, of course. Sonya… Talin remembered the man in the fawn suit who kept materialising during their honeymoon.

Surveillance!

He said: ‘Tell me one thing, Oleg. Why the hell have you gone to all this trouble?’

‘I think you know. My wife and I should have had a son…’ Sedov stared through the window at the blackness outside. Then he said abruptly: ‘Anyway, I’ve told you the truth.’

Belatedly, the stewardess told them over the PA to fasten their safety belts because of the turbulence. As she spoke the aircraft dipped like a plunging elevator.

Sedov said: ‘Who told you about your father?’

Remembering that Massey had also told him the truth, Talin said: ‘I received a letter from Khabarovsk.’

The stewardess returned to the PA: ‘We are now beginning our descent to Omsk…’

Apparently satisfied by the explanation, Sedov said: ‘Which is where we shall spend the night with Andrei Dyomin, the retired cosmonaut we’ve always been intending to visit. Then we’ll take the early morning flight to Tashkent where there’s a connection to Leninsk.’

Talin said: ‘But I’ve got a ticket to Ulan Bator.’

‘Yet another computer error,’ Sedov said, taking another ticket from his pocket and handing it to Talin.

In his mind Nicolay Vlasov had worked out a timetable.

Today, New Year’s Eve, party with the President; possible showdown with Tarkovsky.

1 Jan. Critical Vandenberg penetration.