The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [117]
What to do now? Walking away from the phone booth, cutting down a side street, Gaddis tried to will within himself a determination not to fail. There was no time to feel sorry for himself, no time to panic. This was now a game of survival, a challenge which he had to face. Arriving at this conclusion did not feel like a particularly courageous act; it was simply that he had no choice.
It began to rain. A cab hissed by and Gaddis hailed it, instructing the driver to take him to the International Centre on the north side of the Danube. It was the address he should have given on his first journey, a landmark building in Vienna which was home to both the United Nations and to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The journey would take at least fifteen minutes and give him time to assess his options in the back of a car, away from prying eyes. He knew that the Russians had pinpointed either himself or Wilkinson to the Kleines Café. He also knew that Wilkinson’s death had been pre-meditated. But why had the assassin spared his life? Had he waited for Gaddis to go to the bathroom, or intended to kill both men, only to find Wilkinson sitting alone at the table? There was no way of knowing.
The rain was falling harder now. The driver slowed on approach to a bridge, stopping briefly at a set of traffic lights before crossing the Danube at speed. To the east, in the near-distance, Gaddis could see moored river boats and, beyond those, the dimmed lights of the Prater amusement park. He wondered what Tanya would do with the information he had given her. Tell Brennan, who would surely instruct her to abandon Gaddis to his fate, or keep her word and find some way of getting him out of Vienna? He remembered the word she had used on the phone. Exfiltration. It was as if he was some Cold War political renegade, a dissident or agent provocateur who needed to be spirited across the border. How had it come to this? For a moment he wondered if Tanya was over-reacting and thought of instructing the driver to turn around and take him back to the Goldene Spinne. Why couldn’t he just pick up his passport, pack his bags and take the first flight out of Vienna? But, of course, that was crazy. Every move he now made, every decision he took, was fraught with risk.
The cab raced south-east along a two-lane highway and, within minutes, had pulled up outside the UN building, a scifi compound of fountains and concrete walkways, drenched in rain. Now the obvious question arose. What the hell was he going to do for the next couple of hours? Get out and walk around?
‘Is there a bar near here?’ he asked the driver. ‘A nightclub?’
It was the option which made most sense: to disappear into a crowded after-hours club, to find a secluded corner and to bide his time until 5 a.m. But the driver merely grunted and shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t clear whether he had failed to understand the question or simply knew of nowhere suitable to suggest. Gaddis looked out of the window at the pouring rain, at the security guards in their strip-lit booths. He noticed a police car parked on the opposite side of the street, apparently unoccupied.
‘Sprechen Sie Englisch?’ he said, but again the driver merely grunted and shrugged. There was an odd kind of childishness in his behaviour. Gaddis tried again. ‘Ich bin ein club finden,’ he said, fudging the language and adding to his sense of embarrassment by miming a dance in the back seat. ‘Club? Dancing? Ist ein bar?’
‘Hier? Nein,’ the driver muttered, tapping the wheel. Gaddis felt foolish. The radio