‘Yes?’
Tomorrow night one of your lines terminates . . .’
Half of me will die! thought Dragosani. But which half? Out loud he asked, ‘The red or the blue?’
‘The red line terminates,’ said Vlady.
The vampire – dead! Dragosani’s spirits soared but he controlled the laughter he felt welling inside. ‘What of the other line?’
Vlady shook his head, patently at a loss for any reasonable explanation. Finally he said, ‘That is the oddest thing of all. It’s something I simply cannot explain. The other line loses its red tinge and forms a loop, bends back on itself, rejoins the other where the division first occurred!’
Dragosani sat down again and took up his drink. What Vlady had given him wasn’t satisfactory but it was better than nothing. ‘I’ve been hard on you, Igor,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry for that. I can see you’ve tried to do your best for me and I thank you. But you’ve said that this thing tomorrow will be big, which tells me that you’ve probably
done readings for the others who’ll be at the Chateau. So now I want to know just how big it will be?’
Vlady bit his lip. ‘You won’t like the answer, Comrade,’ he warned at last.
Tell me anyway.’
‘It will be very nearly total! A force – a power – will visit itself upon the Chateau Bronnitsy, and it will bring devastation.’
Keogh! It could only be Harry Keogh! No other threat existed . . . Dragosani stood up, grabbed his coat, headed for the door. ‘I have to go now, Igor,’ he said. ‘But again I thank you. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me tonight, believe me. And if you should see anything new, I’d be obliged if-‘
‘Of course,’ said Vlady, breathing a sigh of relief, following him to the door; and, as Dragosani went out into the night: ‘Comrade . . . what happened to Max Batu?’ It was a dangerous question, but he must ask it.
Dragosani paused just beyond the threshold, glanced back. ‘Max? Ah, you know about him, do you? Well, it was an accident.’
‘Oh,’ said Vlady with a nod. ‘Of course . . .’
When he was alone again, Vlady finished off the vodka and then sat deep into the night, wrapped in his own thoughts. But as a clock tolled midnight somewhere out in the cold city he started up and shivered, and finally decided to break his own rule. Quickly he cast his mind into the future, followed his own life-line to its inevitable end. Which came in just three days’ time, and with a violent, wrenching terminal squiggle!
Automatically then, Vlady began to pack a few things and prepare to flee. And uppermost in his mind was the thought that with Borowitz gone Dragosani would be the head of E-Branch, or head of what survived. Whatever else Gregor Borowitz was, at least he was human! But Dragosani . . .? Vlady knew he could never serve under
him. Oh, it could well be that Dragosani would die tomorrow night – but what if he didn’t? His line was so very confusing, so very alien. No, there was only one course for Vlady now. He must try – at least try – to avoid the unavoidable.
And almost a thousand miles away, where a dark watchtower overlooked the wall in East Berlin, a Kalashnikov machine-gun waited for Igor Vlady. He didn’t know it, but even now his and the weapon’s futures were bending towards each other. They would meet at exactly 10:32 p.m. – in just three days’ time.
Dragosani drove straight back to his flat. From there he phoned the Chateau and got hold of the Duty Officer. He passed on Harry Keogh’s name and description for immediate transmission to border crossing points and incoming airports within the USSR, along with the information that Keogh was a spy for the West who should be arrested on sight or, if that should prove difficult, shot dead without delay. The KGB would get to know about it, of course, but Dragosani didn’t mind. If they took Keogh alive they wouldn’t know what to do with him, and one way or the other Dragosani would get his hands on him. And if they killed him . . . that would be the end of that.