George Bartram - Under the Freeze

“His was the body in Red Square.”

Falomin scowled. The flippant answer made him angry; he wanted admittance to the circle of those who had caught Maxudov. The circle of the blessed . Tarp smiled. Some blessing .

“And he did it for this medicine?”

“He did it so he could live a little longer, yes.”

“Madness. Just madness. It proves what I have been saying for years. We don’t retire these men early enough. Well, it’s a lesson to us. Eh? A lesson. Too much sympathy for the sick can be dangerous to one’s health!” He laughed. Repin stared at him. Repin owed him nothing now. Repin owed nobody in Moscow anything anymore; he had wiped out any errors he had ever committed. He had become their creditor, in fact.

But Falomin could not let it go. He wanted them to share it with him, somehow, anyhow. “So, how do you feel now?” he said.

Tarp looked up at him. “Dirty,” he said. “Dirty. This is the dirtiest business I was ever in.”

Seconds later Falomin shook their hands and went out, and the two men went out after him. Now Falomin’s turn would come — the interrogation in the country about his mistress and his child.

There were papers to sign and two junior officers to talk to briefly, and then they sat mindlessly in a waiting room for twenty minutes, and then they were allowed to go. They were led along corridors into a comfortable sitting room, and minutes later they were standing in the sunshine of the early morning with Strisz.

“You are going directly to the airport,” Repin said. “Me, too.”

“They can’t wait to get rid of us.”

“We are an embarrassment.” Repin laughed and slapped his hands together. “It is very satisfying, being an embarrassment!”

Strisz managed to look both official and friendly. “Your money is to be paid over in London.”

“I’m counting on it.”

They walked toward three waiting cars. Tarp saw a spear of green tipped with dark red the color of a fire-darkened brick, thrusting out of the dark wetness of a flower bed. Beyond it an old man was slowly raking the winter’s detritus from the earth.

“You did well,” Tarp said, shaking hands with Repin.

The old man narrowed his eyes. “ You did well,” he said. “I enjoyed our fishing trip. We must go fishing again sometime. Now, I am going home to Tiflis, where I am going to sleep for three days, and then I am going to wake up to the smell of French bread and fresh coffee and brioche.” Tired as he was, he strutted like a rooster. “My Frenchwoman is only waiting for the word.”

When he was gone, Strisz and Tarp stood together, both a little embarrassed. “Thank Gorchakov for me,” Tarp said. “I never saw him after the shooting stopped.”

“The general secretary is very grateful for what you’ve done,” Strisz said awkwardly. “He wished me to say that if there is anything else you would like, he would certainly be happy to oblige you.”

Tarp smiled, but not very pleasantly. He was tired. “Tell him I’d like to meet Raoul Wallenberg.”

Strisz was shocked. “Not funny!” he said.

Tarp touched his arm by way of good-bye. “Not meant to be.”

Tarp flew to Paris and slept for twelve hours and then went to the farm. The place was empty and lifeless, although spring had touched the earth around it. A weed was sprouting in the rotted hay where the old man had lain drunk, and there was a film of green in the trees. His was the only car in the rutted yard now; he slept in the kitchen because it was warm and ate out of cans.

He spoke twice to Juana by telephone and once to Kinsella, and then when he had arranged matters in Buenos Aires he talked to Johnnie Carrington. His last day at the farm Laforet flew in, and Tarp told him everything and gave him four of the phials from the habitat. “Your people may find something there. It may be useful.”

“We are very interested in the habitat itself,” Laforet said almost languidly.

“So are ‘Mr. Smith’s’ people. You’d better hurry.”

“And this Pope-Ginna, and this Schneider — what of them?”

“That’s what I do next.”

He flew to London. Johnnie Carrington met him at Heathrow and walked him to one of the VIP lounges.

“We’ve booked him a seat on a flight that goes in forty minutes. Mexico City nonstop, then Buenos Aires.”

“Was he pleased?”

“He seemed delighted.”

“He didn’t want to stay in England?”

“He seems to feel that he belongs in Argentina. He hasn’t much patriotism, you know.”

“He hasn’t much of anything, except self-serving.”

They chatted for a few minutes, and then Pope-Ginna was led in by two MI-5 men. He looked very chipper — quite as Tarp had first seen him, Dickensian and merry, clearly happy to be heading again for Argentina. Tarp excused himself and went out of the lounge to speak to somebody waiting there, then went back in in time to hear Pope-Ginna saying, “Never again, my young friend — never again!” He put his brown-flecked hand over his chest. “I shall never delve in international intrigue again!”

“You never know,” Tarp said, coming behind him.

“Aha, there you are! There, there, there you are!” Pope-Ginna’s tic had vanished and he seemed able to face Tarp squarely. “I believe, you know, Mr. Tarp, I probably owe you an apology — and perhaps a hearty thank-you — now that it’s over.”

“Is it over?” Tarp said.

Pope-Ginna laughed; the laugh was boisterous, but the tic appeared, only for an instant. Over his shoulder Tarp was watching three people who had entered the lounge.

“There’s somebody I want you to meet,” Tarp said. He took Pope-Ginna’s arm and turned him around and started to walk him down the long, narrow room. Partway along, Pope-Ginna moved as if he wanted to escape the grip and not go with him, but Tarp would not let him go.

“I think you know Juaquin Schneider,” Tarp said, standing before a man in a wheelchair. Behind the chair was a beautiful woman who might have been the invalid’s nurse. “Juana Marino,” Tarp said easily. He nodded at the man with her. “Jaime Kinsella, of the Argentine air force.”

Pope-Ginna needed a moment to try to pull it off, but he made a good effort. “Well, Jock!” he said very loudly, his voice going up too much in pitch. “What a hell of a coincidence!”

“Don’t touch me,” Schneider said. He pulled back a little as Pope-Ginna’s hand came toward him.

“Well, you needn’t take the high-and-mighty with me, Jock!” Pope-Ginna bellowed. He laughed. He swung about to Tarp and said, “I told you how our millionaire friend behaves, Mr. Tarp!” He looked a little wildly at Tarp, then back at Juana and Kinsella. “I don’t know these people, Jock! Where are, uh — Fleming, and — Voerdreck — and…”

Schneider fixed him with a look of sheer hatred. His small face, which Tarp had found effeminate before, looked demonic. “Your boys won’t be here, for once.”

“M-my…” The laughter faded in Pope-Ginna’s throat. “See here,” he said to Tarp, “I demand to know what the hell’s going on!”

“Why, this is your farewell delegation, Admiral — seeing you off to Argentina. Señor Schneider and Señor Kinsella want you to know how welcome you’ll be when you get back there. Now that Señ or Schneider is no longer surrounded by the mercenaries you used to guard him, he has some very strong ideas of what sort of welcome you ought to have.”

A terrible smile lighted Schneider’s face. “Yes! And Mr. Tarp himself — Monsieur Selous, as I know him — said it best: Is the death squad the purpose of wealth ?”

“I don’t understand this at all,” Pope-Ginna said in a strangled, small voice.