Target 5, page 4
It was the Jewish problem which had aroused Papanin's suspicion of Winthrop, and the Jewish problem was another reason why Leonid Brezhnev was glad he had put Papanin inside Leningrad. On top of all his other duties it was now Papanin's responsibility to find out how finance was being smuggled in to help Jews emigrate to Israel.
As he stared at the chess board Papanin grunted to punctuate his thoughts. Winthrop could have been a courier, a contact man with the Jewish underground, so Winthrop -even though he was dead - was going to be investigated up to his eye teeth. Literally. The Siberian had already ordered an intimate examination of the naked corpse. He frowned, decided on his move, shifted a pawn. He was sure he was right: there was something very odd indeed about Mr Harvey J. Winthrop.
At eight o'clock on Saturday morning Papanin still had no idea that he was engaged in a race against time - to solve the Winthrop mystery before Michael Gorov fled from North Pole 17 at midnight on Sunday.
In Washington it was still only midnight, Friday. Beaumont was still inside the sleeping-car aboard the Florida Express. At the Soviet base North Pole 17 it was four in the morning and Michael Gorov had only recently arrived from Murmansk.
Michael Gorov, forty years old, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science and the Soviet Union's most distinguished oceanographer, was almost ill with the strain, sick with the tension of waiting, of counting away the hours to Sunday.
At four in the morning he stood in the moonlight at the edge of the recently-swept airstrip which bisected the ice island, North Pole 17. He was very carefully gazing towards the east, not to the west where the American research base, Target-5, lay twenty-five miles away. Beyond the island the tumbled pack glittered in the moonlight like a vast endless heap of frosted glass, smashed frosted glass. Behind him lay the huts which formed the base, their flat roofs deep with snow. It was from that direction that he heard the footsteps coining, the steps of Nikolai Marov, the security man. Marov came close, stopped and watched the stooped back of the oceanographer. 'Are you feeling all right, Academician Gorov?' he inquired.
'Never felt better.'
'You're up early,' the security man persisted.
'I'm always up early - you should know that by now.'
Gorov deliberately let his irritation show and the stratagem worked. Marov mumbled something and padded back towards the base. Inside his coat pocket Gorov's gloved hands clenched: Marov was going to be a problem - because Marov always came with him when he ventured out on the pack. And there was another reason why Gorov had allowed his irritation to show: he had reached the stage where he couldn't stand the sight of a security man. It was Col Papanin's Security Service which had killed Rachel Levitzer six months ago.
Gorov's eyes filled with tears as he thought of her. They had been unofficially engaged, but because she was Jewish, because he was an eminent Academician, they had kept their relationship secret. Then the news had come through in August 1971: Rachel had died in Leningrad.
The Security Service had come to her flat to arrest her: something to do with the Jewish underground - Gorov had never been clear on the details - but Rachel had attempted to escape, fleeing down a long staircase. A security man had tripped her and Rachel had gone down - down a flight of thirty stone steps. When they had reached her she was dead, her neck broken.
Gorov checked his watch. 4.10 am, local time. Twenty more hours to wait before he started out across the polar pack in his desperate bid to reach Target-5. Timing was everything: he had been warned by the Americans that he must fix his own departure date - and then stick to it. Gorov's plan was to leave North Pole 17 at exactly midnight and he wondered how he was going to get through the next twenty hours while he pretended to be absorbed in his depth-sounding experiments. But at least there was one consolation: his brother, Peter, would by now have passed on the message. The Americans knew already when he was coming.
The Locomotive was building up a head of steam. By eleven o'clock on Saturday morning all witnesses had been interrogated at security headquarters - interrogated by Papanin himself. He had seen the Intourist guide, Madame Vollin -a cow of a woman, Kramer. And she has bad breath. I don't know how Winthrop stood it . ..' He had spent far longer with the policeman who had seen Winthrop die. He had interviewed staff from the Hotel Europa and the airport official who had noted down Winthrop's arrival five days earlier from Helsinki. And he had found nothing remotely suspicious.
'I think we are looking down a large hole with nothing in it,' Kramer remarked as the airport official left. 'There is not one piece of evidence to connect this man Winthrop with the Jews.'
'Someone is bringing in money to them - we know that. And Winthrop still smells.' The Siberian bounded up from behind his desk and started striding round the room. 'For five days he behaves himself- he goes to the Hermitage and stares at the Rubens, always with his nursemaid, the Vollin woman. Then, what happens yesterday?' Papanin bent down, picked up a poker and began to attack the interior of the stove, stirring up the glowing coals the way he stirred up people.
'He dies in a street accident...'
'Before that! He breaks routine, Kramer - he tells the guide he is tired and will not be going out.' He rammed the poker in deep. 'The moment her back is turned he slips out again on his own - when it is nearly dark. Why, Kramer, why?'
'He is feeling better. He is going back to the Hermitage . . .'
'When the museum closes at four? He'd get there just in time to come back. Why did he go out on his own?'
'To meet someone . . .' Kramer made the reply casually, for something to say. The Siberian's grip tightened on the poker. He withdrew the weapon from the stove, straightened up slowly and stared at his assistant. 'I don't really believe that,' Kramer said quickly.
'To meet someone?' Papanin repeated. 'You know, you could be right. But who? He didn't meet anyone - he didn't have time before he was killed.' Papanin prodded the poker in Kramer's direction. 'Let's use our heads - by which I mean let's use my head. The American goes out, walks to the park ...'
'Twists his ankle .. .'
'Appears to twist his ankle, Kramer.' Papanin had his eyes closed as he tried to visualize the scene the policeman had described. 'He slips close to the seaman, then he starts back again. I wonder who that seaman was, Kramer?'
'Could have been anyone.'
'No - we can narrow it down! The seaman was carrying his duffle bag and was walking towards the docks .. .' Papanin put the poker back on the stove and took a file out of a drawer. Each day he received a report on events in the city, including a police report, but he was looking for the docks report. 'The only ship which sailed yesterday was the Girolog, a trawler, and the icebreaker which took it out. He must have been going to embark on the Girolog.'
'With a crew of about thirty . . .'
'True. So now I want you to drive immediately to the docks to get me the list of all personnel who sailed on the Girolog last night. I want it by noon.'
'There isn't time .. .' Kramer protested.
'That's your problem!' Papanin sat down behind his desk and waited until Kramer had reached the door. 'Incidentally, while I was away in Moscow this week I see you signed a movement order for Michael Gorov to go back to North Pole 17. I thought he'd finished his work there.'
'That is correct.' Kramer paused near the door, vaguely worried by this sudden change of topic. 'He wanted to take some final depth-soundings before we evacuate the base. He gave me the impression that you knew about it.'
'That's all right, Kramer. It just struck me that he hadn't planned to go there again. And get me the Girolog list by noon!'
Alone in his room, Papanin put one booted leg on top of his desk and stared moodily at the green-tiled stove which was now emanating great waves of heat. Without knowing it, he now had exactly seventeen hours to find out why Winthrop had come to Leningrad before Michael Gorov started his run to Target-5.
It was a six-hour flight at forty thousand feet from Washington to Thule, Greenland, and it was eleven o'clock on Saturday morning when Beaumont woke up and saw the huge runway coming up to meet the Boeing 707. It didn't feel like Saturday - by now Beaumont was so bemused that he had to think to remember the day of the week. And it didn't look like eleven o'clock in the morning as the Boeing dropped out of a, moonlit night towards the wilderness of snow and ice below.
'Seems like only five minutes since we left Washington,' he called out to Callard, the FBI man who sat across the gangway from him.
The man in the neat blue suit, freshly shaven, looked back at the big Englishman as though wondering whether to reply. 'Seems more like five years to me,' he said eventually. He turned away and looked out of the window on his side.
Beaumont smiled to himself. At five in the morning Callard had jumped aboard the plane at Washington minutes before its departure for Greenland; obviously he had been driving the plane every mile of the way while Beaumont had slept. He looked out of his own window, staring down at the desolate snowbound plain of the Greenland icecap. In the distance the thousand-foot high radar mast sheered up into the moonlit sky, the warning light at the summit flashing red. The tallest mast in the world, it had a range of three thousand miles over the roof of the world, It was the key station in the Distant Early Warning system.
'I'll see you in Vandenberg's office,' Callard suddenly called out. 'Sometime this evening, maybe.'
Beaumont nodded and he thought the suggestion significant. As the Boeing continued its decent he was certain that Callard had cracked the case, that he now knew the identity of Crocodile, that he was on his way to arrest the Soviet agent. They went down below the level of the radar mast tip and the grim panorama of the icecap slid up closer. Beaumont had a tilted view of flat-topped buildings on either side of Main Street, the snow-covered road which ran down the middle of the camp, then they were landing.
Tillotson was waiting for Beaumont when he disembarked from the plane, wrapped in a fur parka they had supplied before he left Washington. It was forty below and the still air hit him like a physical blow, taking his breath away as he stood at the foot of the steps. Tillotson, a tall, tough-looking man with a face like one of the heads carved out of Mount Rushmore, shook Beaumont's gloved hand with his own. 'I have everything ready for this trip of yours . . .'
He stopped speaking and stared at Callard who had come down the steps behind Beaumont, brushed past the two men and walked quickly across to Colonel Vandenberg, the camp commander. 'Who was that?' he asked.
'No idea,' Beaumont said instantly. 'He wasn't very talkative and I slept most of the way. Maybe there's been a complaint about the hamburgers.'
Tillotson looked back at the plane where the chief pilot was coming down the steps. 'Excuse me,' he said and intercepted the pilot. 'That second passenger - who is he? Only Beaumont was reported as coming on this flight.'
The pilot, carrying his flying helmet, pulled the hood of his parka over his head. 'Every time I make this trip it gets colder up here. The guy jumped aboard at the last minute just before we left Washington. He came in a government car
'I'll check him later.5 Tillotson led Beaumont to a covered jeep and started talking as he turned on the ignition. 'As I said, everything is ready for your trip. Two Sikorskys have been sent to Curtis Field on the east Greenland coast, Grayson and Langer are waiting for you at headquarters - Grayson was here but we had to scoop up Langer from Ellesmere Island.' He drove the jeep slowly along a track towards the camp, keeping well behind the car which was taking Col Vandenberg and Callard ahead of them. 'Two Norwegian-type sleds are being sent on to Curtis...'
'They're useless,' Beaumont interjected. 'I specified Eskimo sleds - they're heavier and won't break up on rough ice. Your sleds will.'
Tillotson looked surprised. 'We use Norwegian-type sleds ourselves. We haven't any Eskimo sleds . . .'
'I think you have. When I was last here you had two of them stowed away at the back of the big helicopter hangar.'
'Like to check now? I could turn off and we could go straight over.'
'Now?'
'No time like the present. And I gather that for you everything is hurry-hurry.'
Tillotson changed direction as they came to a fork in the beaten snow-track, heading away from the encampment of huts as he drove towards a large hangar in the distance. A quarter of a mile ahead the wire surrounding the military airfield glittered in the moonlight - it was sheathed in solid ice. Beyond the wire a stationary orange snow-plough stood close to the hangar. Tillotson pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Beaumont. 'Met reports on the whole area - I don't know which area you're interested in. Rough ice, you said?'
'Rough ice, I said.'
Beaumont hadn't yet acclimatized to the bitter Arctic air which was streaming inside the jeep, freezing his face and making him feel short of breath. The car carrying Vandenberg and Callard was disappearing along the main track, its red light growing smaller as another jeep came tearing in the opposite direction, driving towards the Boeing 707.
'Any fog about?' Beaumont asked casually as he began reading the report.
'No fog anywhere, thank God. According to the latest report - and that's what you're reading - there's clear weather all the way from here to Norway.'
'You mean you've had it and it's cleared recently?' Beaumont pressed. He was thinking of the report Dawes had shown him in Washington concerning weather conditions round Target-5- Dense fog ... visibility nil.
'We just haven't had any fog, period. Not for the past three weeks.'
Tillotson slowed down, glanced at Beaumont who was still reading the report while the anger grew inside him. Dawes had fooled him, had shown him a faked weather report to get him to Greenland. Tillotson pulled up, left the engine ticking over. 'Mitten's slipped inside my glove,' he explained. 'I'll just fix it.' He fiddled with the glove, took it off, put it inside his coat pocket. When he withdrew his hand it was holding a .38 Smith & Wesson. He turned sideways and with one swift movement smashed the barrel against Beaumont's temple. Instinctively Beaumont shifted a second before the gun hit him and the barrel grazed rather than clubbed him, but he was hurt. He grabbed at the ignition key, tore it loose, threw it sideways out of the window into the snow. Tillotson smashed the revolver down a second time. A flash of light exploded inside Beaumont's head, a blinding flash, then a horrible wave of blackness engulfed him.
Saturday, 19 February
Beaumont lay half-conscious in the snow, fighting to get a grip on himself as Sam Grayson's cheerful face bent over him, but there was anxiety in the American's expression as he eased the brandy flask close to Beaumont's lips. 'Take it easy, Keith ...'
Beaumont forced himself up on his elbows, took the flask in one hand, helped himself to a drink. His head was pounding, his vision was blurred, then the strong spirit reached his stomach and he could see clearly. He took a slow, deep breath of the bitter night air. That seemed more potent than the brandy. 'Get me on my feet,' he said between his teeth.
'Better wait a bit .. .'
Beaumont swore, clambered unsteadily to his feet, swayed, nearly fell over as Grayson grabbed for his arm. Tillotson's jeep stood a few yards away and Beaumont remembered he had thrown the ignition key into the snow. Another jeep stood a few yards away, its windscreen shattered, the front right tyre flat. 'Tillotson shot at you?'
'Tillotson...?'
'Yes, Tillotson,' Beaumont rasped impatiently. 'He's Crocodile - the security leak. But you wouldn't know about that. We've got to get after him - where's he gone?' Beaumont looked towards the airfield and there was nothing in sight - only the guard-post by the gate in the wire, the orange snow-plough in the distance and the hangar beyond. Where the hell had Tillotson vanished to? 'Which way did he go?' Beaumont snapped.
Grayson, a short, wiry man of thirty-five with sand-coloured hair, was still recovering from the shock: he had thought Beaumont was dead. 'We've heard rumours about a security leak. I was late coming out to meet you off the plane and the pilot said you'd driven off in a jeep. I couldn't believe it was Tillotson when he started shooting. He ran off towards the airfield . ..' Grayson was talking to himself -Beaumont had started running towards the guard-post.
'He can't get away,' Grayson shouted as he followed Beaumont. 'Vandenberg declared a state of alert just before your plane came in. The base is sealed off...'
'I think Tillotson can fly a helicopter,' Beaumont shouted back. He was getting into his stride now, his legs carrying him over the snow with surprising speed for so large a man. It was willpower which kept him going; his head was aching horribly, the blood at the side of his face had congealed in the bitter cold, his stomach was on the verge of nausea. The bitter air helped his recovery as he ran and took in great gulps of it. Close to the strangely deserted guard-post he stopped and waited for Grayson to catch him up.
