Fools

– Arbalet, this is the first time I’ve seen a fool like you.

Maybe so.

– What, didn’t they blindfold you? – I asked Jurgen, sitting next to me. We were being driven somewhere in a car. My eyes were bound and I couldn’t see a damned thing.

– They did. But the fact that you’re a rare blockhead can be seen through the blindfold too.

Aha. Jurgen’s field of view had been zeroed out as well. That was interesting. As interesting as the fact that the road from the dacha to NIIFarm, which took five minutes, had become several times longer. There was no point powdering my brains, I’d already been there. But Jurgen was being driven with his eyes covered. It looked as though they didn’t trust him.

I fell to thinking. It was clear that Jurgen was conducting negotiations with Mamon on Hans’s behalf and was angling to become his partner. At the same time Hans had, for some reason, instructed me to blow up the dacha. Why? And for what reason had Jurgen been spinning some nonsense about me half an hour ago, as though I were a loathsome monster of a competitor? Incomprehensible.

– Listen, Jurgen. Why wasn’t I given Mamon’s address straight away? I’d have blown up his house without any of these contortions.

– We still don’t know the address. We deal with the lads by mobile phone. You get taken to him blindfolded.

Aha.

The car braked. I was hauled out onto the street and led somewhere, with shoves in the back. In fact I knew where – to the workshop I had mined the previous evening. I hadn’t been joking when I warned Sergei about the mine under one of the installations. As expected, the lads had found it in the place indicated and reported the news to Mamon. He must have turned green with fury. I had told him about the mined workshop! I had warned him that in twenty-four hours the workshop would blow! A pity that, to my misfortune, Jurgen had turned up nearby. To all appearances he had had a talk with Mamon and volunteered to clear the workshop. Which is why they had brought him here, observing all the conspiratorial measures of the cinema.

The blindfold was taken off my eyes and my hands untied behind my back. Jurgen simply had his blindfold removed. Hmm. Magda was standing nearby, turning her head about. She had been delivered here for some reason too. Ah yes, the interpreter.

I looked around. We were standing in a long, half-lit corridor in front of a large metal lift door. The workshop was, if I’m not mistaken, right there. All the way down and a hundred metres of narrow damp passageway.

– Well then, Arbalet. Maybe you’ll clear it yourself?

– No.

Jurgen beckoned Magda over:

– Tell Sergei that I’ll try to get this swine talking, – a nod in my direction, – and try to find out some details about accomplices and the rest of the rubbish. In short, tell them any old shit these sheep will believe. And I’ll find out meanwhile what bug has bitten Arbalet.

Magda, diligently playing the interpreter, repeated almost word for word everything Jurgen had said, only leaving out the shit, the sheep and the bug.

Sergei agreed:

– Let him ask his questions, if it helps. But time is pressing.

– It won’t take long, a couple of minutes, – Magda threw a quick, predatory glance in my direction. Jurgen flapped his ears uncomprehendingly and, without waiting for the translation of Seryozha’s words, turned to me:

– Explain what you’ve started playing at.

– You explain first why the dacha has to be blown up when you’re negotiating with them? Is that the etiquette now?

– The explosion is needed so that the client, or whoever is left after him, becomes accommodating.

– And why was I lodged with Magda?

– She is, incidentally, my right hand and conducts the negotiations together with me. A very sensible woman, unlike you. You were supposed to be under our constant control. Better tell me what you’ve dreamed up.

– Nothing.

– So, so, – Jurgen glanced at Magda, then shifted his gaze to Sergei and nodded his head, as if to say, time to get to work. – Let’s go down to the workshop.

Out of the blue, Magda dug her heels in:

– I’m not going in there.

– What’s this? – Jurgen was surprised.

– If you want to – blow yourself up as much as you like. I have no intention of risking my life here.

– Why?

– You have no idea what a blockhead you sent here, – Magda shot a look at me. – When he’s nearby, anything at all can happen. It would cost him nothing to blow up himself and us with him.

– I see. Translate to the lads that I need two men to guard this idiot. And warn them that he’s capable of a great deal. By the way, how much explosive did you give him?

– Two kilos.

– I see. The demonstration two hundred grams the lads have already found. Another half kilo went on the garage. Wrecked everything there – and how. Arbalet, how many packs did you use in the garage – two or three?

– Don’t remember.

– Judging by the quality of the explosion, two, though you could have been more economical, Arbalet. One pack would have been more than enough. All right. Let’s take it that three packs were used in all. That means about a kilo and a half is left. Hmm, Arbalet, if you’ve stuffed all that in here, you’ve definitely gone mad. It’ll be such an explosion it will wreck everything for miles.

– Don’t worry, it won’t.

– I’ll take your word for it, heh, the specialist. Magda, how many detonators did he get?

– Six.

– Four left. Clear. And what weapons did he get?

I bit my lip. Damn it, the meticulous German, he won’t miss a thing.

– A Colt and five loaded magazines for it.

– That’s all?

I tensed.

– That’s all, – Magda confirmed calmly, looking off to one side.

– I see. The standard set, – Jurgen fingered the lobe of his right ear. Thinking, that means.

Then he glanced at Sergei and said:

– Let’s go and clear it. And don’t take your eyes off this scoundrel.

Magda translated. Jurgen, Sergei, myself and my two escorts went to the lift. Magda and one minder stayed in the hall.

The lift lowered us underground. Then we walked along a narrow, half-lit corridor and found ourselves in front of massive metal doors.

Jurgen scratched his earlobe again:

– How many metres to the surface of the earth?

Idiot. Magda had stayed upstairs and there was nobody to answer his very clever question, asked in German.

– How deep tram-nyam-nyam-wow-wow, – the parasite wasn’t at a loss and switched to English, which is known to me only within the limits sufficient for dealing with hotel staff.

Sergei mumbled something. Jurgen jabbed a finger in my direction and barked something. Sergei nodded his head in confirmation. Jurgen came over to me and once more – for about the tenth time today, probably – searched me thoroughly. Naturally he found nothing and turned to Sergei.

They discussed something in English, then Jurgen addressed me:

– If the door is mined, you’ll be blown up with me. Agreed?

– Open it. It’s been dragged back and forth about three times today.

Jurgen nodded his head and yelped something at Sergei. He took a key out of his pocket, poked it about in the massive innards, then turned with effort the round handle, like the ones in submarine films. The door slowly, with a creak, slid aside.

Amateur. Mefody had opened that door with a picklock three times faster.

We found ourselves inside a long, low-vaulted barn, dug out either for a bomb shelter or for an underground store of radioactive waste. Or perhaps it had been assumed at the design stage that an explosion-hazardous production would be housed here which the deft Arbalet would mine in classic style.

A pity that sly Jurgen guessed immediately about the ten metres of concrete and rock overhead which would never, not for anything, let any signal through here.

– So, Arbalet, you say your friends are ready to blow up this cellar? – he addressed me with a spiteful smile. – Maybe they’re sitting right here? What signal is supposed to set off the detonators? The time signal on the radio?

Jurgen exchanged a couple of words with Sergei again. He nodded his head towards the distribution board.

– Right then, Arbalet, – Jurgen addressed me again. – Do you believe that I too went through training in demolition work?

– Anything is possible.

– What is the explosive supposed to be detonated by?

– Work it out yourself. I worked it out yesterday.

– I’ve solved that problem too. – Jurgen went over to the board, opened it and looked at Sergei. He pointed to the switch furthest to the right. Pointed correctly. That one switches on the standby lighting.

Jurgen, screwing up his eyes slightly, threw it. Then he talked to Sergei again and glanced at me:

– Which circuit did you run the contacts to?

I shrugged.

– Hey, clever boy. I’m about to put the lights on full, and there won’t be a living scrap of you left.

– Nor of you.

Jurgen ground his teeth.

– Oh, brace yourself.

Then he threw switch number two.

Clear enough that that one had been thrown today too. Seryozha must have informed. All right, let’s see what comes next.

Jurgen closed the board and walked through to the installations. I, shoved in the back by my escorts, stood by the wall. Sergei stationed himself beside me.

Jurgen meanwhile went round the perimeter of the workshop, sniffed critically at all the supports, looked under a couple of the installations, poked at something with his finger. Then he climbed a steep ladder to the ceiling, worked a little magic up there and jumped back down, cheerful and pleased.

– Arbalet, tell me honestly, did you have electrolytics and resistors?

– I didn’t.

– So if a signal comes in, all the charges go off simultaneously?

– Maybe.

– All right. I only need to find the first two, and after that I’ll work out the principle you laid your mines out on.

Jurgen turned his head about and went up to one of the two most massive supports, load-bearing of course and, of course, mined by me the previous day. Casting about a little around the support, he – the meticulous dog – discovered under a metal tub my greeting number one: two packs of sulphurous plastic, capable of bringing down any structure you like.

– Listen, Arbalet. A pity to spoil the suit, it cost six hundred marks. Maybe you’ll defuse your own creation yourself?

I shrugged:

– A nice suit. Really, a pity.

– Help me out, do me the kindness, – Jurgen smiled and said something to Sergei. He tossed to his lads:

– Take the handcuffs off him and don’t take your eyes off him.

That order gladdened me.

Rubbing my numb wrists, I went over to the tub, squatted down and disconnected the detonator contacts.

– Good man, – Jurgen praised me.

I stepped aside, and he took hold of the wire and jerked it. The wire soared up like a nervous snake, twitched and hung helplessly. Jurgen immediately spotted the point where it joined the local electrical wiring.

– That’s what I thought, – said Jurgen.

– Me too.

– So you calculated that nobody would put the lights on full over the weekend?

– Possibly.

– The second mine is laid under that support?

– It is.

– Logical. If you’re bringing everything down here, the first thing is to drop the supports. Will you defuse the second charge as well?

– By all means.

I went over to my greeting number two and broke the contacts. Jurgen monitored my confident movements with an approving eye. When I had finished, he eased me away from the mine, carefully placed another two packs of plastic in a bag and weighed it in his hands:

– Eight hundred grams. Where are the other three packs wandering about?

– Look for them.

– You weren’t planning to damp one explosion with another?

– I wasn’t.

– On the contrary, you were planning to amplify?

– Correct.

– So, so, – Jurgen took out a calculator and began pressing buttons.

After a minute of feverish calculation he looked around, went up to the support and, pushing off from it with his back, counted off eighteen paces away from the door. He was one out!

– Here?

– Anything is possible.

He looked around, as if sniffing at the sour local air, and – a man without imagination! – discovered nothing suspicious. Then he glanced at me in surprise, shifted his gaze upwards and broke into a smile. Found it! Though it was my own fault. Two thin little wires ran to the ventilation grille, covered by nothing at all. I couldn’t be bothered to disguise them, and time was pressing.

– Shall I snip them, or will you handle your own work yourself?

– I’ll handle it, – I shrugged.

– Go on then, get on with it, – Jurgen yielded the place under the ventilation grille. I climbed onto some installation standing nearby and performed in reverse order what I had done the previous night.

Having received the plastic from my hands, Jurgen glanced at me:

– The fourth mine you laid further off still?

– Don’t remember.

– We’ll remind you. – He counted off eighteen paces again, looked around, sniffed at everything, twisted his head about till his neck vertebrae crunched, but discovered nothing suspicious.

A minute later he came back to the support from which he had begun the search for surprises three and four and tried to count off eighteen paces in the opposite direction. Bad luck – on the thirteenth pace he ran into the wall.

Ha-ha-ha! Nat Pinkerton!

He looked at me and smiled:

– You’ll turn out to be a very clever lad, Arbalet, if I find the fourth charge where it ought to be by the science. I didn’t think you’d take account of the reflection of the blast wave off this wall. There’s about two metres of concrete here, judging by the antechamber?

He turned round, walked off five paces, slid his gaze along the wall, along the ceiling, along the wall again, along the wiring, and did spot – because he’s very sharp-eyed – two thin little wires running, running, running under a massive machine unit. Jurgen squatted down, peered under the unit and, naturally, tracked nothing down there. When I was setting the very last, the most cunning mine, I had spent about five minutes flattened under that unit and got as filthy as a miner.

– Maybe you’ll get this one out too?

– I’ll get it. Four–nil in your favour, – I agreed, and slowly, with a sigh, lowered myself to my knees, then lay on my back and slid under the installation as far as my waist.

– That fourth charge, now, floored me completely. A master! An ace! – the invisible Jurgen was declaiming while I poked about in the dark at the yellow-topped jerrycan fitted under the unit. – You calculated it all masterfully. What should have gone strolling round this barn was one blast wave amplified fourfold. I shall certainly tell Hans about your praiseworthy skill at mining industrial floor space. Good man. Are you nearly there?

– Can’t see a damn thing here. Let those halfwits turn the light on. I’ve disconnected the contacts, but I can’t get the plastic out. It’s dark.

Jurgen yelped something to Sergei about total light. The hollow slap of footsteps told me it was time to slot the magazine neatly into place, take off the safety, chamber a round and… first distant click, attention… second distant click, get ready… third – go!

There came an insane roar.

My eardrums nearly burst from the close explosion – about ten metres. A mighty shock wave rolled between the installations, crumpling everything in its path, knocking off their feet Sergei and Jurgen, who had carelessly been standing in the aisle and were now falling to the floor with bulging eyes. Greeting number five, which only I knew about! There remained to me in total, my little brothers, not six and not seven little packs but eight, and it was a pity to pair them all up, and pointless besides. I had calculated that four hundred grams under one support and four hundred under the other would be more than enough, and the remaining four little packs would lie very neatly across the whole area of the hangar. Never mind that for four packs there were two detonators. To two charges I ran wires directly from the mains and, without racking my brains for long, shorted them out in the immediate vicinity of the plastic. They turn on the light, a short circuit occurs and a hell of a spark detonates the explosive. And now you can write letters to your nearest and dearest from the Mamon and Co. factory. In short, it went off a treat and the lads went down on the floor. Whereas I, prepared in advance for such a turn of events, on the contrary slid out from under the unit and sprang to my feet. And in my hands was – guess what! My Kalashnikov, dear to the point of tears! With a magazine loaded with thirty rounds, which should suffice for:

– burst one, short – for the guard with the pistol in his hand. Done.

– burst two, a continuation of the first, longer – for Sergei and Jurgen. They had fallen right next to each other, and one burst was quite enough for the pair of them.

Whizz. Whizz. Ping, – came the sounds past my ear.

What’s this?

Ah, yes. The guard who had gone to turn on the light had come to his senses and started blazing away at the wide world like it was a kopeck target. Aiming at me, presumably. This needs dealing with.

I dropped into a half-crouch, shifted nimbly about five metres to the right and, taking cover behind some crate, stuck my head out a little. Aha. Spotted a close-cropped crown near the exit. I’m going that way anyway, so let’s close the distance. I crawled commando-style towards the guard. He was firing away for nothing in the direction where three naive little fools were writhing, first concussed by the blast and then shot at point-blank range by the cunning prisoner. I covered about five metres, peered out a little from behind some machine tool and… The guard had cleared off somewhere. Run away from the field of battle, had he? Not fair. No – the slapping of very close footsteps told me the lad was making his way somewhere… Aha, he’d decided to come round me from the rear. A praiseworthy decision. I picked a bolt up off the floor, a twelve, I think. Though what does it matter. I threw the little bolt in the direction of the footsteps. A shot, a shot, a click… Eh, the boy hasn’t been taught to count his rounds. Never mind, life will teach him, perhaps, later. While he takes the empty clip out with shaking hands, while he fumbles feverishly through his pockets, while he tries to get the loaded clip into – bastard, damn it, mother of God! – the very narrow slot in the grip, while he… No, he won’t manage anything more in his life. I had been on my feet for a while, had spotted the target, had reckoned up the number of rounds remaining – twelve to fifteen, half a magazine – and pulled the trigger without even aiming. From ten metres I always shoot in show-off style, from the hip. The lad went down like a felled tree. I hope the last thing he understood in his life was: fighting a professional is not the same as shaking your bollocks. That’s how it is. I went back to the three I had struck down in the first place, switched the rifle to single and fired three control shots.

That’s it. Time to go. I ran for the door. Before dashing out into the corridor, I looked around and saw that there had been only one explosion. The second charge had not gone off for some reason. Perhaps it was just as well that it hadn’t. If it had gone off too, there’s no telling what would have happened to the workshop and to me. Maybe the beams would have started collapsing on my head and all the chemical filth poured out into the vats would have started flaring up and spreading stinking miasmas. As it was, there had been one small explosion which had caused a tiny little fire, and that would soon be put out. Although today is Saturday. The fire chiefs are sleeping in the arms of their hoses and… to hell with the lot of them. Time to clear off.

I got the door open with difficulty, ran into some bloke, armed, pistol in hand, and pulled the trigger. Bang. The bloke collapsed to the floor, clutching his belly with one hand and firing, firing, firing at his own feet with the other. I was simultaneously glad and put out.

Glad that I had at last shaken off the habit, on suddenly colliding nose to nose with an enemy, of throwing a straight right to the jaw. This time I had acted very rationally: brought up the rifle and with a burst… And I was put out because there was no burst. The rifle was on single, I had forgotten to switch it. Lucky it worked out.

I glanced at the bloke, at the pistol in his hand – well now! my own little Colt! Time to expropriate the expropriator. I returned my piece to its lawful place – under the left armpit – and ran on. Business would not wait.