Alex hadn’t thought about that, but the man answered his own question. ‘Helsinki will be your best bet,’ he said. ‘They’re more likely to be checking flights heading west. Your Russian is good, but my guess is it’s a long time since you were last in Leningrad.’
‘Then Helsinki it is,’ said Alex as the ambulance sped on towards the airport. ‘But how will I get a ticket?’
‘Leave that to me,’ said the paramedic. The open palm appeared once again, as did another hundred dollars. ‘Do you have any roubles?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself.’
Alex smiled and emptied his wallet of all the roubles Miss Robbins had supplied, which elicited an even wider smile. Not another word was said until they reached the airport, when the ambulance drew into the kerb, but the driver left the engine running.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said the paramedic, before opening the back door and leaping out. It felt like an hour to Alex, although it was no more than a few minutes before the door was opened again. ‘I’ve got you on a flight to Helsinki,’ he said, waving the ticket in triumph. ‘I even know which gate the plane’s departing from.’ He turned to Leonid and said, ‘Head for the emergency entrance, and keep your lights flashing.’
The ambulance shot off again, but Alex had no way of knowing where they were going. It was only a couple of minutes before they stopped when the back door was opened by a guard in a shiny grey uniform. He peered inside, nodded, then closed the door. Another guard raised the barrier, allowing the ambulance to proceed.
‘Head for the Aeroflot plane parked at gate forty-two,’ the paramedic instructed his colleague.
Alex didn’t like the sound of the word Aeroflot, and wondered if he was being led into a trap, but didn’t move until the back door opened once again. He sat up, fearful, anxious, alert, but the paramedic just grinned and handed him a pair of crutches.
‘I’ll have to replace them,’ he said, and only released the crutches after he received another hundred-dollar bill, almost as if he knew how much Alex had left.
The paramedic accompanied his patient up the steps and onto the aircraft. He handed over the ticket and a wad of cash to a steward, who counted the folded roubles before he even looked at the ticket. The steward pointed to a seat in the front row.
The paramedic helped Alex into his seat, bent down and offered one final piece of advice, and then left the aircraft before Alex had a chance to thank him. He watched from the cabin window as the ambulance headed slowly back towards the private entrance, no flashing lights, no siren. He stared at the plane’s open door, willing it to be closed. But it wasn’t until the aircraft took off that Alex finally breathed a sigh of relief.
*
By the time the plane landed in Helsinki, Alex’s heartbeat was almost back to normal, and he even had a plan.
He had taken the paramedic’s advice, so that when he reached the front of the queue and handed over his passport there was a hundred-dollar bill enclosed where a visa should have been. The officer remained poker-faced as he removed Benjamin Franklin and stamped the empty page.
Once Alex was through customs he headed for the nearest washroom, where he removed his bandages and disposed of them in a bin. He shaved, washed as best he could, and once he was dry, reluctantly put the young man’s clothes back on and went in search of a shop that would solve that particular problem. He emerged from a clothes store thirty minutes later wearing slacks, white shirt and a blazer. His loafers were the only thing that had survived.
An hour later Alex boarded an American Airlines flight to New York and was enjoying a vodka and tonic by the time the shop assistant came across an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt and some crutches that had been left in the changing room.
When the plane took off, the steward didn’t ask the first-class passenger what he would like for dinner, or which movie he would be watching, because Alex was already fast asleep. The steward gently lowered the passenger’s seat and covered him with a blanket.
*
When Alex landed at JFK the following morning, he called Miss Robbins and asked her to have his car and driver ready to pick him up the moment he arrived at Logan.
During the short flight to Boston, he decided he would go straight home and explain to Anna and Konstantin why he would never be going back to the Soviet Union again.
After he’d disembarked, he was pleased to see Miss Robbins standing outside the arrivals gate waiting for him, a perplexed look on her face.
‘It’s wonderful to be home,’ he said as he sank down into the back seat of his limousine. ‘You’ll never believe what I’ve been through, Pamela, and how lucky I was to escape.’
‘I’ve heard part of the story, chairman, but I can’t wait to hear your version.’
‘So you’ve been told about Major Polyakov and his KGB thugs waiting for me in the hotel restaurant?’
‘Would that be the same Colonel Polyakov who died a year ago?’ asked Miss Robbins innocently.
‘Polyakov is dead?’ said Alex in disbelief. ‘Then who was the man in the restaurant with the two KGB minders?’
‘A blind man, his brother and a friend. They were attending a conference in Leningrad. Jake was just about to tell you he’d spotted his white stick, but by then you were already on the run.’
‘But the scar? It was unmistakable.’
‘A birthmark.’
‘But they broke into my room . . . I heard him shouting “There he is!”’
‘That was the night porter. And he didn’t break into your room, because he had a pass key. Jake was standing just behind him and was able to identify you.’
‘But someone was chasing me, and I only just managed to jump onto the tram in time.’
‘Dick Barrett said he had no idea you could run that fast . . .’
‘And the ambulance, the road block, not to mention—’
‘I can’t wait to hear all about the ambulance, the road block and why you didn’t get on your own plane, chairman, where you would have found a message from Jake explaining everything,’ said Miss Robbins as the limousine swung off the road and drove through a gate marked ‘Private’. ‘But that will have to wait until you get back.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Not we, chairman, just you. Jake called earlier this morning to say he’s closed the deal with Mr Pushkin, but a problem has arisen because you told the chairman of the Commercial Bank in Leningrad that the contract wouldn’t be valid without your signature.’
The limousine drew up next to the steps of the bank’s private jet awaiting its only passenger.
‘Have a good flight, chairman,’ said Miss Robbins.
BOOK FIVE
41
SASHA
London, 1994
‘Order! Order!’ said the Speaker. ‘Questions to the Foreign Secretary. Mr Sasha Karpenko.’
Sasha rose slowly from his place on the opposition front bench, and asked, ‘Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that Britain will finally be signing the Fifth Protocol of the Geneva Convention, as we are the only European country that has so far failed to do so?’
Mr Douglas Hurd rose to answer the question, as a badge messenger appeared by the Speaker’s chair, and handed a slip of paper to the Labour whip on duty. He read the name before passing it down the front bench to the shadow minister. Sasha unfolded it, read the message, and immediately stood and walked uneasily along the opposition front bench, stepping over and sometimes on his colleagues’ toes, not unlike someone who has to leave a crowded theatre in the middle of a performance. He stopped to have a word with the Speaker to explain his actions. The Speaker smiled.
‘On a point of order, Mr Speaker,’ said the Foreign Secretary, leaping up, ‘shouldn’t the honourable member at least have the courtesy to stay and hear the answer to his own question?’
‘Hear, hear,’ shouted several members from the government benches.
‘Not on this occasion,’ said Mr Speaker without explanation. Members on both sides began to chatter among themselves, wondering why Sasha had left the chamber so abruptly.
‘Question number two,’ said the Speaker, smiling to himself.
Robin Cook was on his feet by the time Sasha had reached the members’ entrance.