The brotherhood, p.21
The Brotherhood, page 21
They had turned off the main track round the lake. About half a mile ahead Magnus saw a windsock fluttering from a pole. Here airfields were obviously as common as railway stations in other countries. Novak was lighting another cigarette. Smoking and boozing before breakfast, thought Magnus: Whatever would John Cane say?
He focused on the hands of his watch: five minutes to eight. There was a hangar no bigger than a cowshed, with three silver planes in front of it, looking like toys. Novak parked outside a hut at the end of the hangar and pulled his rucksack off the back seat. Magnus shouted, ‘That’s right, mustn’t forget old Johnnie Walker!’
Novak had stuffed the bottle back into the rucksack, and now took it out again and handed it to Magnus, smiling: ‘I won’t join you for the moment, Magnus.’
‘You’re a good fellow, George!’ He took a deep swig from the bottle, and his ears sang and his throat burned; he did not even feel the cold as he stepped out, examining his three scuffed shoes. He looked up grinning, trying to balance on three feet. A car was approaching up the road from Helfoss. It was a black Beetle Volkswagen and there were two men in it. He stared, with a curious stiffening in his legs.
The car drew up almost beside them. From the driving seat a thickset man got out carrying a briefcase, followed by a younger man with a little moustache. They nodded at Novak as they passed him; the thickset man unlocked the door of the hut and led the way in. Novak introduced the younger man: ‘This is Mr Olsen, Magnus. He’s our pilot.’ Olsen shook hands, while the thickset man sat down at a desk and opened his briefcase. Magnus hung back by the door, holding on to the Johnnie Walker.
The thickset man said something to Novak and picked up a telephone. Magnus smiled at the pilot and offered him the whisky. Olsen shook his head and turned away; he did not look pleased. Novak said softly: ‘Please don’t embarrass him, Magnus. He has to fly.’
The thickset man was talking quietly at the telephone. Magnus opened the door and peered outside. Clouds still on the horizon; but the road back to Helfoss was empty. The man on the telephone hung up, and spoke to Olsen, who nodded and strutted through the door. Novak smiled at Magnus: ‘O.K. — we’re off!’
Magnus hiccupped and grinned. Novak was counting out money to the thickset man, who began to write him a receipt. ‘You can pay me back in Reykjavik,’ he said to Magnus, leading him outside.
The plane still looked like a toy. Magnus felt the floor rock as he climbed in, and was at first afraid to move in case he put his elbow through the side. The whole thing seemed as flimsy as silver paper. He looked up wonderingly at Olsen sitting beside him, fitting the earphones over his head, flicking a couple of switches. The control panel looked no more complicated than the dashboard of a family car. Olsen said: ‘Fasten your belt.’ Novak leant forward in the seat behind and helped him find the straps. It was then that Magnus began to feel that the whole thing was a trick: they could not possibly cross those mountains and glaciers in this frail machine. He crouched forward against the belt, holding the whisky bottle between his legs.
Olsen pulled out the choke; the engine coughed a couple of times, like an animal, then woke up with a shrill roar, and the plane began to shudder and sway, with smoke drifting past the windows. Olsen had removed the earphones, there was a crackle of voices, his hands moved over the controls like a blind man feeling in the dark, and the plane began to taxi forward. The engine howled, the whisky bottle fell over and rolled under Magnus’ seat, there was a lurch and they were off the ground in less than eighty yards. The little town of Helfoss tipped on its side and was gone. Through the Perspex Magnus watched the lake slide away into that ashen waste which Cane had beheld with such stricken ecstasy.
He groped under his seat and retrieved the Johnnie Walker, turned and shouted at Novak: ‘Like a drink, George?’
Novak put a cigarette in his mouth and smiled. Magnus took the hint and drank. Olsen was intent on the controls: the altimeter creeping round the dial towards 4,000 feet, air speed 95 knots. Fast as a sports car as the crow flies: faster than that poor old minibus. He peered out at the rolling sky, at a range of sugar-loaf mountains, trying to trace the route he had taken during the night, but it was lost in the vastness of the view, as anonymous as a black and white reconnaissance photograph.
The engines droned dully; his head slipped to one side, vibrating against the aluminium door. The bottle nudged his leg and he felt for it again and showed it to Novak: ‘You’re making me feel lonely, Georgy Porgy! Remember, I rescued you from loneliness.’
The face behind the green lenses said nothing. Magnus turned to Olsen. No drink for him. Olsen had a job to do. Olsen was going to get him across those mountains to a town called Reykjavik. Magnus took another sip and relapsed uncomfortably against the thunder of the door.
He slept for a moment and saw jets landing at London Airport and a big blond Pole urinating at a press conference and heard an awful thud as he brought down the heavy varnished rosewood stick on Skliros’ head. A hand was tapping his knee. The man was no longer wearing earphones and the sides of his hair stuck out like straw. His hands were still on the controls, but he was looking at Magnus with a strange frozen expression, trying to nod over his shoulder.
Novak sat behind with the mouthpiece of the radio in one hand, a heavy automatic pistol in the other. ‘He’s changed course. Nothing to worry about — better go back to sleep.’
Magnus laughed crazily: ‘Oh I’m an old timer, don’t worry! Where are we going — the Haëli?’
‘Sit back and relax.’
‘Supposing I don’t relax?’
‘You just drink some more whisky, Magnus.’
‘You will be in serious trouble,’ Olsen said. ‘This is a criminal act.’
‘The responsibility is no longer yours. Providing the weather reports are correct, you have no problems.’
Magnus grinned: ‘Some crazy bird-watcher!’
‘Why don’t you go back to sleep?’
‘Why don’t you have a drink?’
‘You drink it all, Magnus.’
Magnus looked at Olsen, and Olsen was looking straight ahead at the clouds. A professional pilot doing his job. ‘George, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you blow Mr Olsen’s head off and be done with it? Then we’ll all be laughing.’
‘Mr Olsen will do as I say.’
‘Supposing he doesn’t? You got a parachute?’
Novak squashed out his cigarette on the floor, but the gun in his hand did not flinch.
‘Magnus, for three years I flew with your Royal Air Force during the war. I could fly this plane on my head with one arm tied behind me.’ Olsen flushed, but said nothing.
Magnus lifted the bottle carefully in one hand. ‘Well that seems to clinch it, Georgy Porgy. There’s only one thing — supposing I make trouble?’
Novak shook his head. ‘Why don’t you have another drink?’
‘I’ve nothing to lose, up in it to my neck already, you know that?’
‘I know.’
‘Are you going to help me, George?’
‘Go to sleep, Magnus.’
‘Go to hell! I’m not a bloody child.’
‘Of course you’re not.’
Magnus looked at Olsen. He had the real solution: dutiful silence in the face of a gun. A serious gun this time, a .45, and Magnus noticed that in contrast to his sickly pallor, Novak’s hand was broad and steady, resisting even the vibration of the plane. A real heavy, this time, shades and all. Perhaps even better than Skliros.
‘Can I have a drink?’ he shouted.
‘Finish the bottle,’ Novak said, in his smooth Seaboard accent.
They had landed on a hard black beach. The sea was held off behind a barrier of rocks under a bleak sky. Magnus screwed up his eyes and looked at Olsen, then at Novak. Olsen seemed calm. The landing place must have been well selected. Novak was undoing his safety belt with one hand, holding the gun in the other.
‘Where are we?’ Magnus said wearily: a question it seemed would never be answered.
‘We’re in the north,’ Novak said. ‘We get out here.’
All Magnus wanted to do was to go back to sleep. He said, without moving: ‘Go ahead and shoot me Mr Novak — you damned bird-watching engineer!’
‘If I don’t, somebody else will,’ Novak said gently: ‘And I mean that, Magnus. I only want to ask you some questions.’
‘I’m too drunk to answer questions.’ But Novak had opened the door and pushed him through. He landed on all fours, and Novak’s gun was in his back as he started up. ‘If you play the fool, Magnus, I’ll kill you — believe me.’
‘You damned bird-watcher.’ From somewhere close he could hear the sound of the sea, as he began to stumble across the sand, seeing Olsen standing beside the plane. Novak called something to him, and the pilot jumped back in, and a moment later the engine roared. ‘Lucky old Olsen,’ Magnus muttered.
Novak was smiling as he caught up with him, putting the gun away inside his hunting jacket, producing instead the now almost empty whisky bottle. ‘You almost forgot this, Magnus. And don’t worry about the plane. You’re with us now.’
‘Oh Jesus wept!’ He began to feel the cold for the first time since leaving Helfoss: he was back to square one, with only Novak to lean on — George Novak with a .45 instead of Peter Skliros with a .22.
‘Are you too drunk to listen, Magnus? This is the last act. After this, you can go home.’
‘Who are you?’
Still holding the bottle in one hand Novak pulled out a buff card in a celluloid frame. At the top was a black spider, the rest in writing, full of long words made up of y’s and z’s. Magnus pushed it back and grinned. ‘I’m pissed, George. Gassed out of my mind. That old eagle there doesn’t mean a thing to me.’
Novak put the folder back in his pocket. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll have a sleep and then we’ll talk.’ He put his hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently. From behind them the little plane skimmed over their heads banking steeply back towards the hinterland. ‘He’s got a radio,’ Magnus said.
‘Not any more,’ said Novak, ‘I broke the connection.’
Magnus shook his head: ‘Naughty, George.’ They rounded some high rocks along the shore and he saw a ship about a quarter of a mile out to sea. Below them two men sat in a rowing boat, pulled up at the edge of the surf. Magnus looked at them, then bent down and began to laugh: ‘Oh George, you’re marvellous. I thought Cane and his boys were pretty smart, but you’ve got them beat all the way. Where did you whistle up this lot?’
‘On the radio. I sent the last message while you were asleep.’ He took Magnus’ arm and together they clambered down the rocks to the boat. The men wore oilskins and flat leather caps, and Novak spoke to them in the language of Krok and Maya — a memory confused with pain now, as Magnus stumbled to the back of the boat and sat down, hunching his shoulders against the wind.
The two men began to pull away from the beach, with the waves smacking against the sides and an icy spray cutting into their faces, while the shoreline tilted like a seesaw. Magnus cupped his hands and shouted: ‘All right, Georgy, I’m game. I’ve got no family, no next of kin. Just throw me over the side.’
Novak clutched his hunting jacket round him and said nothing. Even in the wind his face was the same paper-white mask. Only once did he move, bending to light a cigarette under the flap of his jacket, and when he brought his head up again, the smoke reached Magnus, sweet and sickly. He put his head between his knees, saw the whisky bottle lying in an inch of bilge water, picked it up and flung it into the waves, then hung over the side, trying to measure the distance between the shore and the ship.
He had no clear idea of how long he sat in that rowing boat; but suddenly the wooden sides were bumping against a black wall; somewhere high above a man was lowering a rope ladder. Novak stood up and grabbed the end of it, and Magnus looked at him and shook his head: ‘You’re not really expecting me to get up that, are you?’ He was no longer frightened, even angry; all he wanted now was to be left alone. His arms felt as weak as string, and Novak said, ‘Come on now, you can do it.’ One of the seamen hooked his left shoe into the bottom rung, and there were two more men above waiting with arms down to grab him as he came level with the deck.
They pulled him aboard like a sack and laid him down on some slimy planking that smelt of fish and tar. There were cranes and coils of rusted wire, and a red and white flag with the spider-black eagle in the middle, flapping from the stern. The name of the ship was painted in dirty white letters below the windows of the bridge: Syrena Gdansk.
After a time they picked him up, and Novak held him under the arm and led him down a steep flight of steps into a gangway that was full of Polish voices shouting above the wind. Novak opened a door, pushed him through into a hot dark cabin full of kerosene fumes. He sat down on a bunk, clasping his shoulders and trying to lock his jaws shut, his mouth sour with whisky vomit. After a time the nausea and shuddering passed. Somewhere in the ship a noise started up like a pneumatic drill. It seemed to go on for a long time, making conversation impossible. Novak was on the bunk opposite, lighting another cigarette.
The noise stopped; Magnus guessed it was the anchor chain. They weren’t wasting time. Novak said: ‘Feeling better?’
‘Crackerjack.’
Novak chuckled: ‘I must say, I’ve never seen anybody hit Johnnie Walker so hard!’
‘Don’t talk about him,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m through with Johnnie Walker.’
‘I’m having some strong tea sent up, and then you can have a sleep.’
‘Cuppa tea and a lie down, eh? What the hell is this, Novak — a luxury Polish cruise?’
‘Just a trawler.’
‘Carting about a few million roubles’ worth of the latest anti-submarine equipment?’
‘No, no, it’s legitimate.’
‘And you call it up, just like that, from a hijacked plane over foreign airspace? You seem to have got it made, Georgy! Except that Olsen will have seen the ship.’
Novak gave a delicate shrug — an almost feminine movement in the oily darkness of the cabin. ‘We’ll be out of territorial waters in an hour.’ He began opening a fresh packet of Salems — his third that morning.
‘And then where? Poland?’
‘That’s right — Gdansk. It takes four days.’
A sailor came in carrying two mugs of black tea. Magnus reached up for one and heard the thump of engines, thinking again, My God, they’re not wasting time. Four days to go, then Poland. He sat up rocking on the edge of the bunk. ‘It was the girl, wasn’t it?’ he said at last.
‘The girl?’
‘She put you on to me? Where is she?’
Novak shook his head: ‘You’re a journalist, Magnus — you don’t reveal your sources, do you?’
Magnus looked at his dark reflection in the tea and laughed: ‘Oh I’ve got nothing to hide. No job, no passport — pissed out of my mind, and probably wanted for murder back in London. By the way, where were you really going this morning when I walked in?’
‘Reykjavik — like I said.’
‘Pulling out?’
‘Oh no. Getting ready to move in. Only I didn’t expect you to turn up so quickly. That drive over the mountains was quite an achievement!’
‘And what were you doing in Helfoss?’
‘Watching. We’ve had our eyes on the house for some time.’
‘You? Polish secret agents got up as Yankee bird-watchers? Too many movies, George.’
‘I worked for ten years in the States,’ Novak said quietly. ‘Polish Trade Mission. Drink your tea.’
‘That give you the right to kidnap foreigners at gunpoint?’
‘I don’t have to ask your permission. Not when you’re involved with a gang of screwballs who go around knocking off my fellow countrymen.’
Magnus eyed him gloomily: ‘So that’s it? You’re out to avenge Bogdan Krok. Well, I didn’t do it.’
‘I’m not out to avenge anyone, Magnus. I just want the organisation destroyed.’
‘Good luck to you!’ He raised his mug in a toast: ‘Bunch of arch-poops!’
‘Arch-poops?’ Novak’s cigarette paused in mid-air.
‘Soul-buggers! Self-righteous moralists with their private telephone lines up to St. Paul and their retinue of healthy virgin thugs who want to clean up the world — cut out the cancer, the green sickness of Sodom — and build the new Jerusalem! You go ahead and destroy them, Georgy!’ He drew in his breath, nauseated by the kerosene fumes. ‘Squeeze me for all the information I’ve got — although I doubt it’s worth a hijacked plane and a whole trawler to Poland, I warn you — and then you can put a bullet in my head. I don’t suppose you boys are too particular, are you?’ He laughed again: ‘Georgy Novak — their man in Reykjavik!’
Novak was looking at his cigarette with a slightly pained expression. ‘You got me wrong, Magnus. I don’t want to harm you. When this is all over, you’ll be looked after I promise you.’
‘You mean, you’ll offer me political asylum?’ And he had a chilly vision of finishing his days pensioned off in the company of a few seedy compatriots — drunks and misfits who had stumbled somewhere up the diplomatic ladder and chosen the dark way out, through the Curtain.
Novak watched him through a coil of smoke. ‘There’ll be no need to offer you asylum, not after the organisation’s been smashed. And I can tell you, you’re a lot safer at the moment on this ship than you would be in London — let alone Iceland. Now drink your tea.’
Magnus drank his tea, and this time there was no need for drugs. Novak’s whisky had seen to that. His head slipped back on to the canvas pillow, and instead of the chiming of clocks in a Kent farmhouse, it was now engines pounding through the Arctic Ocean.
