The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [115]
In some obscure, still-functioning recess of his mind, he began to act decisively. A survival instinct kicked in. He noticed that people were running away from the bar, jogging into side streets, dragging their friends with them against a background of distant sirens. Gaddis followed, realizing that to get away from the scene of the attack was his best option. He turned south-east out of the square, moving swiftly downhill as part of a group of perhaps ten or twelve people. He passed between a shop selling English-language books and, on the opposite side of the street, what looked like a brothel or lap-dancing club. Ahead, Gaddis could see the traffic on Schubertring and the low trees of the Stadtpark. The street was no more than a few hundred metres from the Radisson and, for a moment, he toyed with the idea of going inside. But it was surely crazy to think that he could talk his way past a night porter who might later turn him over to the police.
He took out his mobile. He dialled Tanya’s number because there was nowhere else to turn. She picked up almost immediately, her voice groggy and disorientated.
‘Hello?’
He was convinced that she had betrayed him, yet there was a strange kind of reassurance in hearing her voice.
‘Why did you do it, Tanya?’
‘Sam?’
‘Bob Wilkinson has been shot.’
‘Shot? What?’ She sounded genuinely appalled, repeating what Gaddis had told her as if to absorb the full implications of what he was saying. ‘Where are you?’
A siren blasted in the near-distance, matched instantly by a second vehicle, tearing towards the Kleines Café.
‘Why did you do it?’ he asked her again. ‘Company orders?’
‘I don’t know why you think I had anything to do with this. Where are you? Tell me what’s going on.’
He could almost believe in her innocence. He wanted to believe in it. But there was no trust left between them. He said: ‘How am I supposed to know? I went to the bathroom, I left Wilkinson sitting at a table, next thing I know he’s been killed. You tell me what happened. You’re probably in fucking Vienna. You tell me how the hell they found out where he was.’
‘Sam. Listen to me.’ Tanya had composed herself. She was suddenly preternaturally calm. ‘This is what I was worried about. I thought you were still in Spain. What is this number you’re calling from? Is it a new mobile?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Hang up. Switch it off and take out the battery. Get at least a mile away from where you are, find a public phone and call me back. Do that.’
‘What?’
But she had already broken the connection. Gaddis spoke against the dead line, but Tanya was gone. He concealed himself in the recess of an apartment block entrance and stared at the screen. She was obviously worried that the Russians had a fix on his mobile. But was she genuinely trying to protect him, or just buying time in which to call John Brennan? Either way, he knew that he had no option other than to do as Tanya had instructed. He turned off the phone, his nail digging hard into the power switch, slid back the casing and removed the battery. He then placed the battery in his pocket, jogged down on to Schubertring and hailed a cab.
He fell into the back seat, unbalanced as a drunk, the driver staring at him in the rear-view mirror, waiting to be told where to go. Gaddis realized that he knew of no address, no destination in Vienna beyond the Goldene Spinne Hotel and the Ferris Wheel at the Prater. It was surely madness to go to the hotel and the Prater would be closed at this time of night. On an instinct, he blurted out ‘Hotel Sacher’ because it was the only other landmark in Vienna that he could think of. The driver made a noise at the base of his throat