The frost was getting harder, and I was insolently hammering on the gates – good, handsome gates, clad in copper:
– Hey, open up, damn your eyes!
A little window in the gates flew open and a red-faced Caucasian guard squeezed out through frozen lips:
– What do you want?
The dzhigit was frozen. By my observations he had been standing here twenty minutes or so, and until his relief came he had a good deal more chattering of the «Lezginka» with his teeth ahead of him.
– I want one of the bosses for a man’s conversation. I’ll wait five minutes, then your troubles begin.
– What?
– I told you clearly. I’ll wait five minutes. Time is running. You can feel my face out afterwards. First fetch one of the big men.
The little window slammed shut. Good, the soldier turned out to be quick on the uptake and rushed off to carry out my request. He might have cracked me on the head, or somewhere else. In that case, however, I wouldn’t have answered for myself, and everything that subsequently occurred would have been one great bloody improvisation. I had had no time to prepare for such a turn of events. The half hour that had passed since Mikha pointed out the good high fence had gone not on calculating variants but on precise, skilful actions along one single plan, which had settled in my head the previous evening.
Exactly thirty-two minutes ago I had sent Mikha packing and climbed, binoculars in hand, up a nearby maple, or maybe an oak. I’m no expert on the makes of trees. In any case, up the thick trunk of this plant I removed myself about ten metres from the earth’s surface, made myself comfortable on a spreading branch and studied the layout of the dacha and its guards thoughtfully. Having rubbed my eyes raw with the binoculars, I discovered the following. The dacha settlement was small, some thirty households. Mamon’s plot lay at the edge and occupied twenty sotkas. On the plot there were three outbuildings, half a dozen greenhouses and – the main target! – a four-storey great house with insolent red-brick flourishes and curlicues. Nothing less than the castle of the Prince of Liechtenstein. The guards’ disposition was uncomplicated. One shuffled about by the gates, the second walked up and down the yard by the house, the third ran along the fence behind the house from time to time. It was this last post that struck me as the weakest spot. Under the guard and defence of watchman number three were two buildings, moreover set a considerable distance from one another – rather a lot for one sentry. True, two wolfhounds were supposed to be running about there as well, but the frost had driven them into their kennel. Only wet noses looked out of it, with light steam pouring off them. Everything was working out very, very well. I marked a smallish little building resembling a garage, worked out from which point it would be handier to reach it, and glanced at the kennel through the binoculars once more. The dogs were in such a hoarfrosted state that any violator of the border could have walked past them marching and bawling parade songs. The dogs couldn’t care less, Dzhulbars and Mukhtar were frozen through.
I was chilled to the marrow myself, sitting up my poplar. Ugh.
As soon as the guards changed, I climbed down and ran to Vovka. There I chucked the binoculars into the cabin, got out a pack of explosive with a detonator and, describing a wide arc, made my way from the rear to the long high fence with no gaps or projections. How exactly does one storm an obstacle two and a half metres high?
I looked around.
I looked around again.
No result.
If I went back to Vovka, found something serviceable there and then returned here, there was a chance one of the locals would notice Arbalet patrolling round the dacha and start reflecting on the subject. Where such reflections might lead, I don’t know, but I certainly had no need of it. What was to be done?
Ah. I threw off the sheepskin coat that was restricting my movements and stamped about a little. Hearing the crunch of snow underfoot on the far side of the fence, I took a run-up, flew onto the fence and dropped like a hawk onto the guard trotting past. He didn’t even have time to cry out, and collapsed onto the snow with his head wrenched a hundred and eighty degrees round. One down.
Without losing a second, I darted to the little building, flung open the door and ran straight into some bloke. Who’s this? Why don’t I know about him? Chaos! I dropped him to the ground with a straight right and thumped his ribs a couple of times with a crowbar that turned out to be very conveniently to hand. Thumped him with a crunch. There was nobody else in the garage. I looked around. It really was a garage I had ended up in. They wouldn’t park these three cars in the bathhouse, would they? I glanced out of the little window. Had they missed watchman number three? Had a commotion and a panic broken out?
No, everything was quiet.
I took the explosive out from inside my coat and giggled nervously. What a laugh it would be if somebody happened to shoot me in the belly here and the infernal little package detonated – there would be nothing left of the little goat but horns and hooves, and even that’s doubtful. I fitted a bit of sulphurous plastic to the explosive. Stuck a detonator into the plastic. Admired the construction. The radio-controlled detonator produces a small spark, from which the sulphurous plastic explodes, just a little, which in its turn detonates the explosive proper. Afterwards you can walk about the neighbourhood collecting small charred pieces of car. I looked around, hunting with my eyes for somewhere to fit the mine. Aha, found it.
In the corner stood a drum smelling richly of petrol. Behind it, of course, behind the dear thing. The bang will be worth five points. I settled the mine under a heap of rags behind the drum, judged how unnoticeable the spot was, rejoiced at the happy conjunction of circumstances – it’ll blow half the sky away! – and shot out into the yard. Twenty paces to the fence, six seconds… Oop!
A minute later I had scrambled like a monkey back up my observation palm, but not right to the top, just a little way, only enough height to see the bustle in the yard.
Astonishingly, I had to wait a long time, a very long time. Russian sloppiness and universal couldn’t-care-less lasted fifteen minutes. Only after that time had passed did the people in the yard start bustling and running about. The dogs, driven out of their kennel, began barking. And I had thought the lads would miss the third watchman in two or three minutes. Alas. He had to lie about on the snow with a broken neck for a quarter of an hour before his comrades-in-arms noticed that the pose was somehow unnatural for a thirty-degree frost.
And since the people had started running about and twitching, it was time for me to climb down from the tree and approach the front gates. Which is what I did.
– Hey, open up, damn your eyes!
So far everything was going according to plan. My own plan.