Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [103]
Finally Peter said, “Right now, the only thing I’m certain of is that I can catch a Trabi.”
They returned by the same route Tommy had taken but at a different speed. Peter wound the BMW up to two hundred kilometers, as if he were driving on a familiar racetrack in the dark. He kept glancing at Arkady, who wished he would keep his eyes on the road.
“You never mentioned Radio Liberty at the bank,” Peter said.
“I didn’t know Liberty was involved. It may not be.”
“We don’t need a Russian civil war here. We’d rather you all went home and killed yourselves there.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“If Liberty’s involved, Americans are involved.”
“I hope not.”
“You’ve never worked with Americans?”
“You’ve worked with Americans,” Arkady assumed from Peter’s tone.
“I trained in Texas.”
“As a cowboy?”
“For the air force. Jet fighters.”
On a curve, a sign shot by. Arkady thought there was nothing like high speed to make a man appreciate the camber of a road. “For the German air force?”
“Some of us train there. There’s less to hit if we crash.”
“That makes sense.”
“Are you KGB?”
“No. Did Federov say I was?”
Peter produced a sardonic laugh. “Federov swore you weren’t KGB. God forbid. But if you aren’t, why are you interested in Radio Liberty?”
“Tommy sent a fax to Moscow.”
“Saying?” Peter demanded.”
‘Where is Red Square?’ ”
They drove in silence until a pink spot emerged ahead.
“We have to talk to Tommy,” Arkady said. He held up a cigarette. “Do you mind?”
“Roll down the window.”
Air whistled in and with it came an acrid smell that made his throat close.
Peter said, “Someone’s burning plastic.”
“And tires.”
The pink spot grew, vanished and reappeared, larger and deeper in color. It disappeared, then came into sight again at the abutment of a cross ramp, a torch at the base of thick, roiling smoke that leaned away from the wind. Closer, the torch was a meteor furiously trying to burrow its way into the earth.
“Trabi,” Peter said as they went by.
They walked back from the downwind side, hands covering their noses and mouths. The Trabant was a small car, now compacted even more by its impact with the base of the ramp. Yet the flames were enormous, red scalloped with chemical blue and green, and the smoke was black as oil. The Trabi didn’t just burn from the inside; it was all on fire at once, plastic walls, hood and roof melting as they burned so that flames rained onto the seats. The tires burned as spectral rings.
They circled the wreck as best they could in case Tommy had crawled free.
Arkady said, “I’ve seen this kind of fire before. If he isn’t out now, he’s dead.”
Peter retreated. Arkady tried to get closer, crawling on all fours below the smoke. The heat was too intense, a breath that made his jacket steam. When the wind shifted he saw in the car the kind of portrait a scissors artist cuts out of black paper. It was burning, too.
Peter returned in the BMW, backing up past the fire and searching the road with his spotlight until he found skid marks. He stopped, got out and set a blue flasher on the roof. He was probably a good policeman, Arkady thought.
Too late for Tommy. In violet hues, a plastic door peeled away. As the plastic roof curled back, a stronger updraft made flames swirl like a passionate flower folding and unfolding.
You know, in the old days we would have gassed you, tied you and shipped you home in a crate. We don’t do things that way anymore. Now that our relations with the Germans have improved, we don’t need to,” Vice-Consul Platonov said.
“No?” Arkady asked.
“The Germans do it for us. First I remove you from these premises.” Platonov pulled a shirt off the line strung across the room, surveyed a map of Munich spread on the table, the roll and juice by the sink, and then deposited the shirt in Federov’s hands. “Renko, I know it feels like home to you, but since the consulate rents this room, we can do what we want. Right now I want to report you as a vagrant, which is what you are because I have your passport and without