‘Yes, yes – I know who the GREPO are,’ Dragosani scowled. Then he nodded. ‘Good! They’re very efficient, I’m told. Right, these are my orders – on behalf of Gregor Borowitz. Keogh is to be taken, alive if possible. That was what I ordered last night, and I hate to repeat myself!’
‘But they had no holding charge, Comrade Dragosani,’
the DO explained. ‘He is not listed, this Keogh, and so far he has done nothing wrong.’
‘The charge is … murder,’ said Dragosani. ‘He murdered one of our agents, a sleeper, in England. Anyway, he will be taken. If that proves difficult, the orders are to shoot him! I ordered that, too, last night.’
The DO felt that he, personally, was being accused. He felt he had to make excuses: ‘But these are Germans, Comrade,’ he said. ‘Some of them like to believe that they still govern themselves, if you see what I mean.’
‘No,’ said Dragosani, ‘I don’t. Use the telephone next door. Get me the headquarters of the Grenzpolizei in Berlin. I’ll speak to them.’
The DO stood gaping at him.
‘Now!’ Dragosani snapped. And as the man scurried out he called after him: ‘And send in that dolt from outside.’
When Borowitz’s secretary entered Dragosani said, ‘Sit. And listen. Until the Comrade General returns I’ll be in charge. What do you know about the working of this place?’
‘Almost everything, Comrade Dragosani,’ answered the other, still pale and frightened and holding his face. ‘The Comrade General left many things to me.’
‘Manpower?’
‘What about it, Comrade Drag-‘
‘Cut that out!’ Dragosani snapped. ‘No more “Comrade”, it wastes time. Simply call me Dragosani.’
‘Yes, Dragosani.’
‘Manpower,’ Dragosani said again. ‘What do we have here right now?’
‘Here at the Chateau? Right now? A skeleton staff of ESPers, and maybe a dozen security men.’
‘Call-in system?’
‘Oh, yes, Dragosani.’
‘Good! I’ll want at least enough men to make our
numbers up to thirty. And I’ll want them by 5:00 p.m. – at the very latest. I want our best telepaths and forecasters, including Igor Vlady, to be among them. Can that be done? Can we muster these men by 5:00 p.m.?’
The other immediately nodded. ‘In more than three hours? Oh, yes, Dragosani. Definitely.’
‘Then get on with it.’
When he was alone Dragosani settled back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. He thought about what he was doing. If the East Germans took Keogh, especially if they killed him (in which case Dragosani must make sure that he, personally, got hold of the body) that must surely cancel out the possibility of Keogh’s being part of tonight’s disturbance. Mustn’t it? In any case it was difficult to see how Keogh could possibly make it here, from Leipzig, in just a few hours. So perhaps Dragosani should be concentrating on some other eventuality – but what? Sabotage? Was the cold ESP war finally starting to heat up? Had his murdering Sir Keenan Gormley lit some sort of slow fuse, laid perhaps a long time ago? But what could possibly harm the Chateau? The place was impregnable as a castle. Fifty Keoghs wouldn’t even make it over the outer wall!
Angry with himself, with the gradual build-up of tension inside him, Dragosani forced Keogh out of his mind. No, the threat must come from somewhere else. He gave a little more thought to the Chateau’s fortifications.
Dragosani had never fully understood the need to fortify the Chateau, but now he was glad indeed for its defences. Of course, old Borowitz had been a soldier long before he had started E-Branch; he was an expert strategist, and doubtless he’d had his reasons for insisting on this degree of security. But here, right next door to Moscow itself? What had he feared? Insurgency? Trouble from the KGB, perhaps? Or was it just one of the old man’s hangups from his political or military feuding days?
Not that this was the only fortified place in the USSR, far from it. The space centres, nuclear and plasma research stations, and the chemical and biological warfare labs at Berezov were all security hotspots, tight as proverbial drums.
Dragosani scowled. How he wished he had Borowitz here now, downstairs in his operating theatre, stretched out on a steel table with his guts hanging open and all the secrets of his soul laid bare. Ah, well, and that too would come to pass – when they finally found the old bastard’s body!