Derek Lambert: The Red Dove

‘…so you have a wonderful future ahead of you.’

True, if they let me return to space. And how could they not if they portray me as a gladiator who has sent the forces of corruption packing?

‘…a beautiful wife, children perhaps… The best thing I ever did was arrange that meeting between you and Sonya.’

Arrange?

The first bullet on target. Into his soul.

Talin tried to discipline his voice. Casually, almost nonchalantly, he said: ‘You mean at the Bolshoi that day?’

‘Where else?’ Space had dispersed Sedov’s reserves of caution. ‘You were made for each other.’

But surely that had been for us to decide. ‘I knew I was one of a troop of trainee cosmonauts invited back stage; I didn’t realise you had anything to do with it.’

A warning was sounding in Sedov’s mind. Too late. ‘I suppose arrange is a strong word—’

‘Perfectly apt,’ voice miraculously controlled. ‘And was it arranged that I should stay behind when all the others had left? And that Sonya should stay as well?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And that meeting in the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad two days later, was that arranged? I knew a touring company of the Bolshoi was playing there but I never quite understood why six of us were suddenly selected to tour the landmarks of the Siege of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War.’

‘Does it matter?’ Sedov was pleading now. ‘You fell in love, you’re happy together.’

‘I might have been happier if I had been allowed to choose my own destiny. Did Sonya know that it was all set up?’

‘Stop it, Nicolay. Don’t throw away what you’ve got.’

‘Did she?’ The night he had proposed he had wondered if their romance had been arranged but had rejected such a preposterous notion.

‘She didn’t care, she loved you.’

Talin turned his head and smiled, actually smiled, at Sedov. ‘How can she have loved a man she had never met?’

Behind them the two passengers paused in their work, sensing dissension.

Sedov said: ‘I meant after the first meeting.’ Then, rallying: ‘Not now, Nicolay. We’ll talk about it when we get back to Russia.’

Talin said: ‘I suppose I should have known. That day in the bar when you told me that the First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Force thought it was about time we were man and wife. Time we met, time we got engaged, time we got married. Time we slept together, Oleg?’

‘I’m Commander of this ship and I’m ordering you to stop this talk.’

From behind them came Genin’s voice: ‘What’s wrong, Comrade Sedov?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Sedov snapped. ‘I suggest you get back to your instruments.’

‘I’m entitled to know…’

‘You’re not entitled to eavesdrop on conversations between commander and pilot.’

‘I shall make a report about your attitude when we return.’

‘As it’s my last trip,’ Sedov said, ‘I’ll dictate it for you.’

Talin said: ‘I remember that day in the bar you said, “Our lives have always been arranged.”’

‘And I said that it wasn’t so different in the West.’

And it was then that Talin knew what he had to do. They had arranged his father’s death, they had arranged to transform Dove from an ambassador of peace into an instrument of destruction, they had arranged his marriage and now was the time to find out if it was different in the West.

Odd that it was the last, least important, revelation that had finally decided him. Perhaps it was because it had been perpetrated by Sedov, the one man he had trusted.

Calmly he pointed at the digital clock among the flickering dials and said: ‘I’m going to have some lunch if that’s all right with you?’

Sedov began: ‘You’re not…’ but Talin interrupted him: ‘I’m not going to do anything rash. I just want to think a little,’ he lied.

As he made his way to the galley in the middle deck of the crew compartment he saw below them a river, its tributaries like tendrils. The Ob. To the west the Urals separating European from Asian Russia. From Siberia.

In the galley he went through the motions of injecting a meal with water to re-hydrate it – vegetable soup, steak and rice, followed by apricots, washed down with orange juice – and heating it up. That way he would avoid arousing suspicions. Then he dropped the powder that Massey had given him, a concentrated barbiturate named amylobarbitone, into the water supply. To eat, Sedov and the two passengers would have to inject their food with the water.

Then, because he had no appetite, he washed most of his own food down the closet, the slowness of his weightless movements giving the performance a macabre quality.

Ten minutes later he returned to the flight deck.

Sedov looked at him questioningly. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine. Why don’t you three have your meal now?’

Supposing they weren’t hungry!

‘Okay,’ Sedov said, ‘you take over.’ And to Genin and Vinnikov: ‘Follow me.’

Then Talin was alone.

They had been in orbit for less than three hours. Below them was Japan. He planned to land at Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast at dawn.

The radio bleeped. Talin put on his headset. The voice from Yevpatoriya was unfamiliar, a nasal twang to it. ‘Is Comrade Sedov there?’

‘No,’ Talin told the voice, ‘he’s in the cabin.’

‘Get him and put him on.’

‘You can talk to me.’

‘I’m ordering you to get Sedov.’

Could they know by now?

‘And I’m refusing.’

Silence followed by the voice of the Mission Controller placating: ‘Please co-operate, Nicolay, this is a private matter between Comrade Kovalenko and Oleg.’

‘And who the hell is Comrade Kovalenko?’

He was tasting freedom already and there wasn’t a damn thing Comrade Kovalenko could do about it because, if he succeeded in defecting in Dove, they would never be able to reach him and, if he failed, then he would kill himself before they got to him.

The Controller, his voice far too calm, said: ‘Comrade Kovalenko works for the Ministry of Defence.’ KGB?

‘Tell Comrade Kovalenko that Comrade Sedov is indisposed at the moment’ – in the bathroom, comrade – ‘and will be in touch as soon as he returns to the flight deck.’

‘Thank you, Nicolay,’ the Mission Controller said.

If they knew what he intended to do what action could they take other than enlist the help of Sedov and the meteorologist who so far had evinced no interest whatsoever in the weather patterns below? Through the computers they could manoeuvre Dove in orbit but he could cancel any attempts to make her re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. So they would have to rely on assistance from within Dove. Hopefully that would shortly be impossible.

Sedov returned with Vinnikov and Genin.

Vinnikov said: ‘Better food than you get at the Metropole.’

Genin said: ‘I thought it tasted bitter.’

They all sat down.

Sedov said to Talin: ‘Well, did you have a good think over your meal?’

‘I calmed down a bit.’

‘And you don’t have any plans for revenge?’

‘You mentioned a plan before. What plan could I possibly have 160 miles above the earth?’

‘Only one thing. You could plan… you could plan…’ His voice was losing direction. Talin looked behind him: the two specialists were unconscious. ‘Could plan…’

‘Don’t try to talk,’ Talin said.

Sedov’s eyes pleaded with him. Suddenly his voice strengthened and Talin thought: ‘He was acting, he didn’t inject the water.’

‘Because,’ Sedov said in a strange, forced voice, ‘I have news for you. Why do you think we’ve got Genin on board? Because,’ voice fading again, ‘…because,’ picking up once more, ‘this is a dummy run,’ fading ‘…they had to test the weight factor, angle, reaction to lack of atmospheric pressure…’