Harry could see he was making an impression. 'Keys?' he grinned, however tightly. 'I have an entire door! Lots of doors!'
He was mad, surely. But he was different from the others here, totally different. 'I don't understand,' she said, still backing away. Her legs struck the edge of her bed and she flopped down on it again.
Running footsteps sounded, and the tight grin slipped from Harry's face. 'They're coming,' he said. 'Get up.' The sudden authority in his voice had her on her feet again in a moment.
There was shouting outside, the jangle of keys, Khuv's voice hoarsely commanding: 'Open it! Open it!'
Harry grabbed Tassi by the waist. 'Put your arms round my neck,' he said. 'Quickly, girl. No arguments, now!' She did it. She had no reason to trust him, but she had no reason not to. 'Close your eyes,' he said. 'And keep them closed.' Tightening one arm around her narrow waist, he grunted as he lifted her feet from the floor.
She heard the cell door grating open, then silence — but such absolute silence.
'Wha — ?' she commenced a question she couldn't finish, and shrank from the booming of her own voice. Startled, she opened her eyes for a moment — but only for a moment. Then she snapped them tightly shut again.
'There,' said Harry, and he lowered her feet to a solid floor. 'You can open your eyes now.'
She did, the merest slit… then opened them wide, wider — and sagged against him. Her eyes rolled up and she began to slide down his body.
Harry caught her up, lifted her, laid her on the Duty Officer's desk. Behind his newspaper, the DO had just this moment realized that he had visitors. Then the girl's arm and hand flopped into view under his open newspaper and he reared up and back with an inarticulate cry: 'G-yahhh!'
'It's OK,' said Harry, who was growing accustomed to excusing himself. 'It's only me, and the friend of a friend of mine.'
'Jesus! Jesus! — oh, sweet Jesus!' the DO clutched at his desk for support. Of all people, it was Darcy Clarke. Harry nodded the very briefest of greetings, began to massage the unconscious girl's hands…
It had been 1:15 a.m. when Harry arrived at E-Branch HQ, and it was almost an hour later when he left. In between times he passed on some information, told Clarke all he had learned, and in return received a little information from the other. His instructions for the welfare of Tassi Kirescu were these:
She was to be given refuge, comforted as best the staff of E-Branch knew how, offered permanent political asylum. A Russian interpreter was to be provided for her, and she should be debriefed (but with a great deal of care and sensitivity) with regard to the Perchorsk Projekt. For the present she was to keep a low profile: her presence here in the West should be kept secret, and when she was released it must be with a new identity. Lastly, E-Branch was to use such usual and paranormal means as were required to discover the whereabouts in the USSR of her mother. Harry had made Kazimir Kirescu a promise and it was one he intended to keep — eventually.
As for the information Darcy Clarke had for Harry:
'It's Zek Foener,' he had told the Necroscope.
'Zek? What about her?' The last time Harry had seen Zek was eight years ago. She had been a telepath at the Chateau Bronnitsy, the USSR's equivalent of E-Branch HQ, which had made her an enemy, but a reluctant one. Harry could have destroyed her, but he'd sensed a deep-rooted decency in her, a desire to be free of her KGB masters. All she had wanted was to return to Greece. He had suspected she would. But… he had warned her not to come up against him again.
'She may be part of this,' Clarke had told him.
'How do you mean? Part of Perchorsk?' Was Zek the one who'd betrayed his presence there? She would have known his mind at once, as soon as he materialized in the place. Of course, there was also Khuv's detachment of espers; they could have picked him up just as easily. For the moment Harry preferred to believe the latter. At least he hoped so.
'Part of Perchorsk, yes. A cog in the wheel of the place. We've kept an eye on her ever since the Bodescu affair.
She was doing time at a forced labour camp; not especially hard stuff, but not pleasant either. Then they sent her to Perchorsk. This was some months ago and we've just had news of it. We can only assume she's working for Soviet E-Branch again. And for the KGB…'
Harry's face soured. 'Again,' he said. 'I warned her not to. Well, if I have to mix it with them again…' He let the threat hang there.
Clarke stared hard at him. 'But isn't it more serious than that, Harry? At the end of the Bodescu affair, Zek Foener was working with Ivan Gerenko — '
'Had been working with him,' Harry cut in, correcting him. 'But she'd quit. I thought so, anyway.'
'But you know what I mean,' Clarke insisted. 'Gerenko had some crazy idea about using vampires. That's why he and Theo Dolgikh — and Zek — went back to that mountain pass east of the Carpathians: to see if, after all those centuries, anything remained of Faethor Ferenczy's buried creatures. Zek knows about vampires! It makes it that much more definite that the Russians have discovered a way to make the damned things, and that they're doing it there at Perchorsk!'
'So you're saying…?'
'Harry, you remember how you dealt with the Chateau Bronnitsy?'
After a moment, Harry had nodded. Oh yes, he remembered it well enough. Using the Mobius Continuum, he'd laid plastic explosive charges there. Gouting, shattering fire and lashing heat, and the Chateau reduced to smouldering rubble. And the Soviet E-Branch reduced along with it, for their sins. In the space of less than a minute, enough sheer destructive savagery to last any man a lifetime. 'I remember,' he had finally answered. 'Except — '
'Yes?'
'Darcy, if you're right, well, obviously the place has to go. But not until we're sure one way or the other, and not yet. I have this feeling that the answer to my one big problem is right there. It may be risky — I mean, I know what has escaped from that place, and what could presumably escape from it in future; indeed, I've seen and dealt with an example — but for the moment I can't, daren't, try to close it down. Not if I want to see Brenda and Harry Jnr again.'
For a moment it had seemed that Clarke understood, but then he'd said, 'Harry, it's not just a case of "risky" — it's deadly! Unthinkable! You must see that?'
And then it had been Harry's turn. Coldly he had answered: 'There are a couple of things you have to see, too, Darcy. Like old man Kirescu being dead — his death probably precipitated by your sending Jazz Simmons in there. And that poor girl having lost both her father and her brother. And her mother, probably in a forced labour camp by now, half out of her mind with grief and worry, no doubt. These are things you can't write off, Darcy, and you're certainly not going to write off Brenda and Harry Jnr. So for now we'll continue to play this my way.'
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.