Borowitz had turned back to Dragosani, had clasped his neck where it joined his shoulder. The naked man was merely pale now, neither leaden grey nor fleshy pink but pale. He shivered as Borowitz asked him: ‘Boris, did you get his name? Think now, for it’s very important.’
‘His name?’ Dragosani looked up, looked sick.
‘You said he was close to me, the man who plotted my assassination with that gutted dog in there. Who is he, Boris? Who?’
Dragosani nodded, narrowed his eyes, said: ‘Close to you, yes. His name is … Ustinov!’
‘Wha-?’ Borowitz straightened up, realisation dawning.
‘Ustinov?’ Mikhail Gerkhov gasped. ‘Andrei Ustinov? Is that possible?’
‘Very possible,’ said a familiar voice from the doorway. Ustinov stepped through it, his thin face lined and drawn, a submachine-gun cradled in his arms. He directed the weapon’s muzzle ahead of him, carelessly aimed it at the other three. ‘Definitely possible.’
‘But why?’ said Borowitz.
“But isn’t that obvious, “Comrade General”? Wouldn’t any man who’d been with you as long as I have, want to see you dead? Too many long years, Gregor, I’ve suffered your tantrums and rages, all your petty little intrigues and stupid bullying. Yes, and I served you loyally – until now. But you never liked me, never let me in on anything. What have I been – what am I even now but a cipher of J yourself, a despised appendage? Well, you’ll be pleased to note that I am, after all, an apt pupil. But your deputy? No, I was never that. And I should step aside for this upstart?’ he nodded sneeringly towards Gerkhov.
Borowitz’s face clearly showed his disgust. ‘And you were the one I would have chosen!’ he snorted. ‘Hah! No fool like an old fool. . .’
Dragosani groaned and lifted a hand to his head. He made as if to stand, fell out of the chair on to his knees, sprawled face down on the glass-littered floor. Borowitz made to kneel beside him.
‘Stay where you are!’ Ustinov snapped. ‘You can’t help him now. He’s a dead man. You’re all dead men.’
‘You’ll never carry it off,’ Borowitz said, but the colour was draining from his face and his voice was little more than a dry rustle.
‘Of course I will,’ Ustinov sneered. ‘In all this mayhem, this madness? Oh, I’ll tell a good tale, be sure – of you, a raving lunatic, and of the worse than crazy people you employ – and who will there be to say any different?’ He stepped forward, the ugly weapon in his hands making a harsh ch-ching as he cocked it.
On the floor at his feet, Boris Dragosani was not unconscious. His collapse had simply been a ploy to put him within reach of a weapon. Now his fingers closed on the bone handle of the small, scythe-like surgical knife where it had fallen. Ustinov stepped closer, grinned as he quickly reversed his weapon, slamming its butt into Borowitz’s unsuspecting face. As the Head of ESP Branch flew backwards, blood smearing his crushed mouth, so Ustinov adjusted his grip on the gun and squeezed the trigger.
The first burst caught Borowitz high on the right shoulder, spun him like a top and tossed him down. It also lifted Gerkhov off his feet, drove him across the room and slammed him into the wall. He hung there for a second like a man crucified, then took a single step forward, spat out a stream of blood and fell face down. The wall was scarlet where his back had pressed against it.
Borowitz scrambled backwards, trailing his right arm along the floor, until his shoulders brought up against the wall. Unable to go any farther, he hunched himself up and sat there, waiting for it to happen. Ustinov drew his lips back from his teeth like a great shark before it strikes. He aimed at Borowitz’s belly, closing his finger on the trigger. At the same time Dragosani lunged upward, his knife not quite hamstringing Ustinov behind his left knee. Ustinov screamed, Borowitz too, as bullets chewed up the wall just over his head.
Hanging onto Ustinov’s coat, Dragosani hauled himself to his knees, sliced blindly upward a second time. His sickle blade cut through overcoat, jacket, shirt and flesh. It carved Ustinov’s upper right arm to the bone and his useless fingers dropped the gun. Almost as a reflex action, he kneed Dragosani in the face.