‘No!’ Borowitz boomed, his bullfrog voice loud with terror in the confines of the small room. ‘No, Boris, you’re mistaken. You’re not poisoned, man!’
‘Liar! I read it in his dead brain. I felt his pain as he died. And now that stuff is in me!’ Dragosani leapt on to Borowitz where he fought to struggle to his feet, bore him down again, raised high the sickle shape of silver in his clenched fist.
The man called Mikhail had been flapping in the background like a wind-torn scarecrow, but now he came forward, his hand reaching inside his overcoat. He caught Dragosani’s wrist just as it commenced its downward sweep. Expert with a cosh, Mikhail applied it at precisely the correct point, just hard enough to stun. The bright steel flew from Dragosani’s nerveless fingers and he fell face down across Borowitz, who managed to roll half out of the way. Then Mikhail was helping the older man to his feet, while Borowitz cursed and raved, kicking once or twice at the naked man where he lay groaning. Up on his feet, he pushed his junior away and began to dust himself down – but in the next moment he saw the cosh in Mikhail’s hand and understood what had happened. His eyes flew open in shock and sudden anxiety.
‘What?’ he said, his mouth falling open. ‘You struck him? You used that on him? Fool!’
‘But Comrade Borowitz, General, he – ‘
Borowitz cut him off with a snarl, pushed with both hands at Mikhail’s chest and sent him staggering. ‘Dolt! Idiot! Pray he is unharmed. If there’s any god you believe in, just pray you haven’t permanently damaged this man. Didn’t I tell you he’s unique?’ He went down on one knee, grunting as he turned the stunned man over on to his back. Colour was returning to Dragosani’s face, the normal colour of a man, but a large lump was growing where the back of his skull met his neck. His eyelids fluttered as Borowitz anxiously scanned his face.
‘Lights!’ the old General snapped then. ‘Let’s have them up full. Andrei, don’t just stand there like – ‘ he paused, stared about the room as Mikhail turned up the lights. Andrei was not to be seen and the door of the room stood ajar. ‘Cowardly dog!’ Borowitz growled.
‘Perhaps he has gone for help,’ Mikhail gulped. And continued: ‘Comrade General, if I had not hit Dragosani he would have – ‘
‘I know, I know,’ Borowitz growled impatiently. ‘Never mind that now. Help me get him into a chair.’
As they lifted Dragosani up and lowered him into a chair he shook his head, groaned loudly and opened his eyes. They focused on Borowitz’s face, narrowing in accusation. ‘You!’ he hissed, trying to straighten up but failing.
, ‘Take it easy,’ said Borowitz. ‘And don’t be a fool, if you’re not poisoned. Man, do you think I would so readily dispose of my most valuable asset?’ ‘But he was poisoned!’ Dragosani rasped. ‘Only four days ago. It burned his brain out and he died in agony, thinking his head was melting. And now the same stuff is tin me! I need to be sick, quickly! I have to be sick!’ He struggled frantically to get up.
Borowitz nodded, held him down with a heavy hand, grinned like a Siberian wolf. He brushed back his central Streak of jet-black hair and said, ‘Yes, that is how he died – but not you, Boris, not you. The poison was something special, a Bulgarian brew. It acts rapidly . . . and disperses just as rapidly. It voids itself in a few hours, leaves no trace, becomes undetectable. Like a dagger of ice, it strikes then melts away.’
Mikhail was staring, gaping like a man who hears something he can’t believe. ‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘How can he possibly know that we poisoned the Second in Command of the – ‘
‘Be quiet again Borowitz rounded on him. ‘That loose tongue of yours will choke you yet, Mikhail Gerkhov!’
‘But -‘
‘Man, are you blind? Have you learned nothing?’
The other shrugged, fell silent. It was all beyond him, completely over his head. He had seen many strange things since he’d been transferred into the branch three years ago – seen and heard things he would never have believed possible – but this was so far removed from anything else he’d experienced that it defied reason.