‘Which,’ Quint grimly added, ‘with any luck, is just about to terminate a mite ingloriously. But I wouldn’t be too sure he’s small fry, if I were you. After all, he was big enough to show up on Brown’s firm’s computer.’
* * *
Carl Quint was right: Theo Dolgikh was not small fry, not in any sense of the word. Indeed, it was a measure of Yuri Andropov’s ‘respect’ for the Soviet E-Branch that he’d put Dolgikh on the job. For Leonid Brezhnev would likely give Andropov a hard time if Krakovitch were to report to him that the KGB were interfering again.
Dolgikh was in his early thirties, a native Siberian bred of a long line of Komsomol lumberjacks. He was the complete communist for whom little else existed but Party and State. He had trained, and later done some teaching, in Berlin, Bulgaria, Palestine and Libya. He was an expert in weapons (especially Western Bloc weapons), also in terrorism, sabotage, interrogation and surveillance; as well as Russian, he could speak a broken Italian, decent German and English. But his real forte — indeed his penchant — lay in the field of murder. For Theo Dolgikh was a cold-blooded killer.
Because of his compressed build, Dolgikh might seem at a distance short and stubby. In fact he was five-ten and weighed in at almost sixteen stone. Heavy-boned, heavjowled under a moon face that supported a mop of uneven jet-black hair, Dolgikh was ‘heavy’ in all departments. His Japanese instructor at the KGB School of Martial Arts in Moscow used to say:
‘Comrade, you are too heavy for this game. Because of your bulk, you lack speed and agility. Sumo wrestling would be more your style. On the other hand, very little of your weight is fat, and muscle is most useful. Since teaching you the disciplines of self-defence is probably a great waste of time, I shall therefore concentrate my instruction on ways of killing, for which I am assured you are not only physically but mentally best suited.’
Now, closing in on his quarry as they entered the winding, labyrinthine streets and alleys close to the docks, Dolgikh felt his blood rising and wished this were that sort of job. After last night’s run-around he could happily murder this pair! And it would be so easy. They seemed utterly obsessed with this most seamy side of the city.
Thirty yards ahead of him, Kyle and Quint made a sudden sharp turn into a cobbled alley where the buildings loomed high, shutting out the light. Dolgikh put on a little speed, arrived at the alley’s entrance, passed from grey drizzle into a steamy gloom where the refuse of four or five days stood uncollected. In many places overhead the opposing buildings were arched over. Following a frantic Friday night, this district wasn’t even awake yet. If Dolgikh had been after the lives of these two, this would have been the place to do it.
Footsteps echoed back to him. The Russian agent narrowed small round eyes to gaze through the gloom of the alley at a pair of shadowy figures as they rounded a bend. He paused for a second, then started after them. But, sensing movement close by, a silent presence, he at once skidded to a halt.
From the shadows of a recessed doorway a gravelly voice said, ‘Hello, Theo. You don’t know me, but I know you!’
Dolgikh’s Japanese instructor had been right: he wasn’t fast enough. At times like this his bulk got in the way. Gritting his teeth in anticipation of the dull smack of the suspected cosh and its pain, or maybe the blue glint of a silencer on the end of a gun barrel, he whirled towards the voice in the darkness, hurled his heavy bag of tools. A tall, shadowy figure caught the bag full in the chest, grunted, and lobbed it aside to clatter on the cobbles. Dolgikh’s eyes were getting used to the gloom. It was still dark, but he’d seen no sign of a weapon. This was just the way he liked it.
Head down, like a human torpedo, he hurled himself into the doorway’s shadows.
‘Mr Brown’ hit him twice, two expertly delivered blows, not calculated to kill but simply stun. And to be doubly sure, before Dolgikh could fall, Brown slammed the Russian’s head into the stout panels of the door, splintering one of them.