Apart from that, his features were fine, like porcelain and seeming equally fragile; his hands were slim, tapering; his shoulders drooped a little; his skin in general, apart from the freckles of his face, was pale and unblemished. But for the eyes, you probably wouldn’t look at him twice on the street. He was just … a young man. Or a young ghost. Or maybe a very old one.
‘No,’ said the object of Kyle’s scrutiny, his lips immobile, ‘I’m not any kind of ghost. Not in the classic sense of the word, anyway. But now, since you obviously accept me, can we begin?’
‘Begin? Er, of course!’ Kyle suddenly felt like laughing, hysterical as a schoolgirl. He controlled it with an effort.
‘Are you sure you’re ready?’
‘Yes, yes. Go right ahead. But – er – can I record this? For posterity or whatever, you know? There’s a tape recorder here, and I -‘
‘The machine won’t hear me,’ said the other, shaking his head again. ‘Sorry, but I’m only speaking to you -directly to you. I thought you understood that? But . . . take notes if you wish.’
‘Notes, yes . . .’ Kyle scrabbled in the desk drawers, found paper and a pencil. ‘Fine, I’m ready.’
The other slowly nodded. ‘The story I have to tell is . . . strange. But working in an organisation such as yours, you shouldn’t find it too unbelievable. If you do . . . there’ll be plenty for you to do afterwards; the truth of the things I’m going to tell you will come out then. As to any doubts you may have about the future of your branch – put them aside. Your work will go on, and it will go from strength to strength. Gormley was the head, but he’s dead. Now you will be head – for a little while. You’ll be up to it, I assure you. Anyway, nothing that Gormley knew has been lost; indeed, much has been gained. As for the Opposition – they’ve suffered losses from which they may never recover. At least, they’re about to.’
As the apparition spoke, so Kyle’s eyes opened even wider and he sat up straighter and straighter. It (he, dammit!) knew about the branch. About Gormley. About ‘the Opposition’, which was branch parlance for the Russian outfit. And what was this about them suffering heavy losses? Kyle knew nothing of that! Where did this – being – get its information? And just how much did it know anyway?
‘I know more than you can possibly imagine,’ said the other, smiling wanly. ‘And what I don’t know I can get to know – almost anything.’
‘See,’ said Kyle defensively, ‘it’s not that I doubt any of this – or even my sanity, for that matter – it’s just that I’m trying to adjust, and -‘
‘I understand,’ the other cut him off. ‘But, please, do your adjusting as we go, if you can. In what I’m about to tell you, time-zones may overlap a little, so you’ll need to adjust to that, too. But I’ll keep it as chronologically sound as I can. The important thing is the information itself. And its implications.’
‘I’m not sure I quite under – ‘
‘I know, I know. So just sit there and listen, and then maybe you will understand.’
Chapter One
Moscow, May 1971
Central in a densely wooded tract of land not far out of the city – where the Serpukhov road passed through a saddle between low hills and gazed for a moment across the tops of close-grown pines towards Podolsk, which showed as a hazy smudge on the southern horizon, brightly pricked here and. there with the first lights of evening – stood a house or mansion of debased heritage and mixed architectural antecedents. Several of its wings were of modern brick upon old stone foundations, while others were of cheap breeze blocks roughly painted over in green and grey, almost as if to camouflage their ill-matching construction. Bedded at their bases in steeply gabled end walls, twin towers or minarets decayed as rotten fangs and gaunt as watchtowers – whose sagging buttresses and parapets and flaking spiral decorations detracted nothing from a sense of dereliction – raised broken bulbous domes high over the tallest trees, their boarded windows glooming like hooded eyes.