It had been Harvey Newton’s first choice to take the Al north, but in the end he’d settled for the motorway. What he lost in actual distance he’d get back in speed, comfort, three-lane running, and the Ml’s ruler-straight road.
At Leicester Forest East he stopped for a coffee break, answered the call of nature, picked up a can of Coke and a wrapped sandwich. And breathing the cool, moist night air he turned up his coat collar and made his way back across the almost deserted car park to his car. He had left the door open but had taken his keys with him. The whole stop had taken no more than ten minutes. Now he’d top up with petrol and get on his way again.
But as he approached his car he slowed down, stopped. His footsteps, echoing back to him, seemed to pause just a moment too late. Something niggled at the back of Newton’s mind. He turned, looked back towards the friendly lights of the all-night eater. For some reason he was holding his breath, and maybe it was a very good reason. He turned in a slow circle, took in the entire car park, the squat, hulking snail-shapes of parked cars. A heavy vehicle, turning off the motorway, lit him up in the glare of its thousand watt eyes. He was dazzled, and after the lorry angled away the night was that much darker.
Then he remembered the upright, forward-leaning dog-thing he thought he’d seen — no, which he had seen — at Harkley House, and that brought his mission back into focus. He shook off his nameless fears, got into his car and started the engine.
Something closed on Newton’s brain like a clamp, a mind warped and powerful and growing ever more powerful! He knew it was reading him like a stolen book, reading his identity, divining his purpose. ‘Good evening,’ said a voice like hot tar in Newton’s ear. He gave a gasp of shock and terror combined, an inarticulate cry, and turning looked into the back of the car. Feral eyes fixed him in a glare far more penetrating, far worse than the lorry’s lamps. Beneath them, the darkness was agleam with twin rows of white daggers.
‘Wha — !?‘ Newton started to say. But there was no need even to ask. He knew that his vendetta with the monster had run its course.
Yulian Bodescu lifted Newton’s crossbow, aimed it directly into his gaping, gasping mouth — and pulled the trigger.
It had been Felix Krakovitch’s plan to stay overnight in Chernovtsy; in the event, however, he had ordered Sergei Gulharov to drive straight on to Kolomyya. Since Ivan Gerenko had known that Krakovitch’s party was scheduled to stop over in Chernovtsy, it had seemed a very good idea not to. Thus, after Theo Dolgikh got into Chernovtsy at about 5.00 A.M. it had taken him a futile and frustrating two hours simply to discover that the men he sought were not there. After another delay while he contacted the Château Bronnitsy, Gerenko had finally suggested that he go on to Kolomyya and try again.
Dolgikh had been flown from Moscow to a military airport in Skala-podolskaya where he’d been required to sign for a KGB Fiat. Now, in the somewhat battered but unobtrusive car, he drove to Kolomyya and arrived there just before 8.00 A.M. Discreetly checking out the hotels, it was a case of third time lucky — and also unlucky. They had put up at the Hotel Carpatii, but they had been up and on their way again by 7.30. He had missed them by half an hour. The proprietor was only able to tell him that before leaving they’d inquired the address of the town’s library and museum.
Dolgikh obtained the same address and followed after them. At the museum he found the curator, a bustling, beaming little Russian in thick-lensed spectacles, in the act of opening the place up. Following him inside the old cupolaed building, where their footsteps echoed in musty air, Dolgikh said, ‘Might I enquire if you’ve had three men in to see you this morning? I was supposed to meet them here, but as you see I’m late.’