White-faced, Clarke could only agree. ‘So … what’s your way going to be? What’s your next step, Harry?’
‘Well, there are questions I need answered. It looks like I’ll have to go right to the top to get them answered.’
The top?’
Harry had nodded. ‘The Perchorsk Projekt. If I’m right and it’s not about breeding vampires, then what is it about? Someone in that place knows and is going to tell me. There has to be a boss, a controller. Not Khuv but someone above him.’
‘Of course there is,’ Clarke had answered at once. ‘Khuv’s in charge of security, that’s all. The man you want is Viktor Luchov.’ And he’d gone on to fill Harry in on Luchov’s background.
When he was done Harry had nodded grimly. Then he’s the man I need to talk to. If anyone has the answers, Viktor Luchov has to be the one.’
‘When will you try to see him?’
‘Now.’
‘Now?’ Clarke had been taken aback. ‘But the place will still be on top alert!’
‘I know. I’ll create a smoke screen.’
‘A what?’
‘A diversion. Let me worry about it. You just look after that girl.’
Clarke had nodded, stuck out his hand. ‘Best of luck, Harry.’
The Necroscope wasn’t one for holding grudges. He shook hands, conjured a Mobius door. Clarke watched him take his departure, thought: I was there once! Pray God he’d never be there again . . .
Viktor Luchov was back in his own executive quarters (which meant that they were slightly less austere than anyone else’s at Perchorsk) and he was furious. Quite apart from this latest incident – this ‘intrusion’, if such it had been – the Projekt Direktor had chosen the period of the alert to approach and challenge Khuv in respect of certain rumours which were beginning to circulate through the Projekt, rumours alleging brutality and murder. They concerned the KGB officer’s prisoners, Kazimir and Taschenka Kirescu.
Perhaps Luchov’s approach had been a little too liverish (he had after all been shocked awake in the middle of the night, with klaxons sounding all around like wailing demons out of hell) but that could not excuse Khuv’s response, which had been brusque to put it mildly.
Namely, he had told Luchov that he should get off his back and let him attend to the Projekt’s security with a minimum of interference. Or better still, with no interference at all. This confrontation had taken place not in private but in the detention area, where Khuv’s espers had been crowding one of the cells in their search for something or other. ‘Sniffing the ether!’ as one of them had put it.
Appalled at the apparent chaos and confusion, Luchov had demanded to see the prisoners, which was when Khuv had rounded on him.
‘Listen, Comrade Direktor,’ the KGB Major had hissed. ‘I would be delighted if I could show you the girl Tassi Kirescu. This was her cell. A little over one hour ago she was here, and a guard on duty in the corridor outside. Then – ‘ he had thrown up his hands, ‘ – she was no longer here, and the door still locked! Now, I know you hold E-Branch in small regard, and the KGB in no regard at all, but surely it must be amply apparent even to your oh-so-scientific mind that something quite exceptional – something, indeed, entirely metaphysical – has occurred here? My espers are attempting to discover what that something was. And I, who have no ESP talent of my own, am trying to make sense of what they’re telling me. So … now is not the ideal moment for you to come interfering!’
‘You go too far, Major!’ Luchov had shouted.
‘And I shall go further,’ Khuv had shouted back. ‘If you do not get out of my way I shall have you escorted back to your quarters and locked in!’
‘What? You dare -!/’
‘Listen, you damned scientist!’ Khuv had then snarled at him. ‘In my capacity as the Projekt’s security supervisor I dare almost anything! Now I’ll tell you one more time: the creature from the Gate is dead, destroyed by some unknown person or thing; the Kirescu girl, formerly my prisoner, is missing; her father is … dead: an unfortunate accident. I shall ensure that you get a copy of the report. And finally, the Projekt has had an intruder. Our security has been breached in the worst possible way. I repeat: our security. My sphere of work, Direktor, not yours. So go back to bed. Go back to your mathematics and your physics and what all. Go study your magmass and your grey holes and your particle beam acceleration – only leave me alonef