He should have taken the cursed gun and simply thrown it away at some convenient moment. Should have wiped the fingerprints. But now they had already started the last part of the meeting after the 5 o'clock tea. It was hard to concentrate on Ralston's rambling when all the Controller could still think about was that blasted Sig and the pale woman sitting beside her. The captain had given her questioning looks during the afternoon, and finally asked if she was all right, and she had replied saying that something was simply disagreeing with her system. Well, that was one way of putting it.
After the initial rage had started to subside, there were questions circling in the old Scot's mind. The most painful was Is this what I have done to her? Schemes, plots, conspiracies she had heard about and even witnessed, had they caused her paranoia? He couldn't have imagined that the level-minded woman he once knew, would ever have done something as ludicrous, as insane, humiliating and dangerous as this. And he had no idea what he should do about it. He was still angry, aye, but there was a voice inside his head saying that maybe he should be angry more at himself, than at her. It was he who had invited her to join CI5, deciding against his own better judgement to ignore all the losses, all the emotional turmoils she had been through before that, simply to benefit of her capacity – aye, to offer her some distraction also, and a meaning to her life, but yet, nothing could hide that one fact: he had wanted CI5 to benefit of her. He, who had almost got her killed. He, who had lured her to trust... no, not lured. He had been honest with her. But he who had won Anna's trust. And he, who had told her about this meeting to begin with. So had she betrayed him, or was she only a victim of the filthy, treacherous world he had led her into?
Aye... maybe he really should blame himself, and himself only. But still, something had to be done.
He stole a peek at her again. Now she seemed to be watching the ceiling and the walls, with a pondering look in her eyes. She wrote something to her notepad, and showed it to the captain who was sitting on the other side of her. The captain also looked at the ceiling, thought, frowned a bit, and wrote something in the air over his notepad with his finger. There was a deeper frown on Anna's face. Then she too seemed to be writing something in the air, but as Freeman, another MI6, just addressed the Controller with a question, he didn't manage to watch what it was.
"I'm very sorry, I have to... eh, my stomach hurts. Please do excuse me for a moment." And Anna was out from the door.
A few minutes later the captain whispered something to his superior, and then leaned towards the Controller. "Controller, do you mind if I go and see if comrade Ashton is all right? She did not look well and I have some skills in medical issues. She mentioned feeling faint during the tea-break." And he was also on his feet even before the Controller really had time to say anything. He swore under his breath and only hoped the Captain would keep his hands to himself, and that Anna would still hang on to some thin thread of sense and loyalty.
Anna came walking briskly from the direction of the lift. "You said there were guards on the roof, Captain. I saw none. But I saw some drops of blood. Very fresh blood."
The captain gave her a hard look. "The men were there during the tea-break. I know because I tried to visit the roof again."
Anna went to talk to the man who had been sitting at the reception-desk since midday. "Have you seen anyone coming down those stairs, or using the elevator during the past two hours?"
The young man shook his head. "Only you and this gentleman, ma'am. None other."
Anna frowned. "Are you sure?"
The young man looked at her, annoyed. "I'm positive, ma'am. I've been behind this desk all the time since five, facing the lift and the stairs, taking reservations for the national conference of immunologists which was moved to Swindon." The phone rang again, and the receptionist turned his attention to that.
"Could you please do me a favour, Captain?" Anna gave a pleading look. "Could you go to the roof, to check quickly if there is another way down from there, that I missed? It is of course possible that a guard has simply cut himself and gone to search for plaster, or something like that. But somehow I don't like this at all."
The Russian looked thoughtful. "All right, I can do that. What are you going to do?" He also had an unpleasant feeling.
"I search someone who can tell me more about this building."
Captain nodded and turned to run up the stairs.
The manager was not present, so after ten seconds of thinking, Anna went to meet the caretaker who was. He was a new man and in a hurry to get home, and couldn't care less about some weird woman asking stupid questions. After a couple of minutes Anna lost her temper. "Show me the blueprints then."
The annoyed man, already pulling on his jacket, thought this was too much. "No I bloody hell won't!"
In less than a second he was staring at a muzzle of a gun. "I ask really nicely." And the eyes of that bitch were like some bloody Antarctica.
The captain came to the lobby almost simultaneously as Anna entered it. There was nobody else present than the receptionist. "You were right, agent. No guards to be seen there. I tried to have a look in the other shaft but the door didn't open." His eyes were sharp. And worried.
"Have a look at these, Captain. I'm neither an architect nor a plummer, but I don't like what I think I'm seeing here." She threw the sheets on a table and showed with her finger. The captain studied the drawings. "One thing, Captain. If someone has managed to remove the guards, why now and not earlier? And how have they managed to get in?"
The young Russian's eyes were of steel. "They have come in earlier, maybe already yesterday. Now they wanted to secure their way out. Or then there is some completely sensible explanation to everything and we two are simply being paranoid. I go and have a word with the guards outside. There seem to be none in here."
The receptionist caught their attention. "What is it?"
The man gave them only a quick glance holding the receiver in his hand. "A customer called a couple of minutes ago and the line went suddenly dead. There must be something wrong with our lines."
The two looked at each other. "Tshort!"
Running Anna didn't ask for translation. She heard the captain give a sharp order to the receptionist to go out and tell the guards to get in immediately, and then she was already descending into the corridor leading to the conference-room.
She halted abruptly before approaching the door and the captain running after her almost collided with her. Pointing at the ceiling she whispered straight to the ear of the officer. "Maybe best to go in calmly. If the men up there are not yet in their positions, we might get at least some from the room sneaked quietly out before they are aware we know."
To his amazement, the captain detected a gun in her hand. "How...? Never mind. You tell your Controller, I tell my chief and that Ralston." He opened the door for Anna to step in.
Something in the eyes of those two made the Controller believe the whisper of his trainer. "Men possibly in ventilation-channel. Guards disappeared from the roof. Better get you out quietly and quickly, Sir." He was already getting on his feet.
Maybe they might have made it, if it wasn't for Ralston who couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Ludicrous! What are you two up to? Is this some damned plot of your own? And how the hell does that woman have a gun?"
And that hell broke loose.
A grate in the ceiling vanished and a man dropped on the floor below. Anna's first shot only wounded him but he had to take a new grip on his submachine-gun before being able to pull the trigger, and that gave Anna the fragment of a second she needed to finish the attacker. She lunged to reach for his sub and heard a loud thud as the captain, who had leaped over the table, crashed number two, caught probably in mid-air, against the wall behind. "Sir!" The Controller caught the Uzi cast to him. "Ceilings! Go!" He couldn't hear more as another Uzi started to rattle, the captain firing into the gap and Anna accompanying him with her Sig.
The Scot brushed past Ralston at the door, just in time to see another grill move in corridor-ceiling, and fired a long burst ending in a scream. He dashed forward. "On the move! Out!" The two would take care of the rear, he knew that without saying.
Belkin's back vanished through the door and Anna signalled the captain to go next and she secured the crossing corridor, following him a couple of seconds later. Maybe the hit-team had been this small, Captain had left one arm hanging down the gap, and puddle on the floor in the corridor under a grill told her the Controller had probably taken care of one.
But all of a sudden a part of the ceiling itself vanished and two men jumped down in a cloud of dust, right between the running officer and Anna. She realised that any quick shot from her own weapon might hit the ally on the other side, and Belkin, whom the Captain had needed almost to push, froze hearing the crash and Komarov turned. "Belkin, bezat'e!"
Anna used her running momentum to literally swoop at the feet of the terrorist now facing her, his shots barely missing her. Impact of her shoulder against the man's shank not only pushed the man off balance and made him fall, but unfortunately also made her lose her own weapon. At the same time Komarov reacted to her plunge and pulled the trigger, only to realise after one wounding shot that his gun died. And the idiat behind him was standing paralyzed. "VNIZ!"
Everything happened at the same time. Komarov turned to shield the still frozen KGB-chief, and somersaulting Anna's foot hit the ankle of the wounded hitman from behind so that the burst of bullets mostly missed but still the tall officer and his protegé staggered and fell.
Anna managed to make the wounded man fall and get on top of him, yank the Uzi away from his hands, and hit the man with it, only to realise the other hitman was standing up, and already turning his gun at her. But two shots from somewhere made the masked man fall. Turning, Anna saw the old Scot step down the stairs holding his sub, and only a second after that, the noise of running feet and shouted orders filled the building.
The officer had insisted he'd sit on the floor as he'd been helped up to the lobby. No need to spoil the lovely 'divan' he had said. The Controller walked to Anna's side as she cleaned and bandaged the wound in captain's shoulder. She had left the gunmen to the MI6-agents for the first aid, didn't want to have anything to do with them ever again. Trainer gave the Scot a quick look. "Much obliged, Sir."
He shrugged, not knowing what to say with outsiders in the hearing range. "Ach, don't mention it. Captain, agent, well done." He nodded and walked to join the MI6 officials.
"Right, Captain, that should do." Sweating Anna was still grimacing, and breathing heavily. She wiped her dirty brow into her sleeve once she got the shoulder plastered and bandaged. "Only a flesh-wound, so a few good stitches asap, some days rest and then careful use, and in a few weeks you're as good as new. You know the drill, judging by the old scars."
"Thank you, comrade Ashton. Are you unharmed yourself? You look pale."
She gave a quick smile. "Don't worry Captain, it's only that I'm not in my full form. But you were, and thank goodness for that. You did extremely well." She patted the other shoulder of the officer and gingerly heaved herself on her feet and saw the two other Soviet delegates approach. Her face darkened. "And you, tovaritsh," her finger pointed at Belkin who had escaped unscathed, "next time when a security-man of that quality tells you to get down, you GET DOWN!"She turned away, muttering "Waste of good craftsmen, to use them on blockheads..." The first ambulance arrived at the yard and Anna went out to meet it, missing the whole variety of faces tried to be kept in check.
"Controller, you'd better keep also that woman in control." Hissing Ralston came to life beside the Scot.
"Och, really?" He turned and spoke very quietly. "Funny enough, I found her today a lot more useful than your bloody idiot who either had forgotten to check the blueprints or then had not understood what was drawn there. If it wasn't for her, and for the young Russian, we'd all be pickering outside the Pearly Gates about who takes the longest fall, courtesy of the ever correct MI6." He went out, leaving Ralston stare after him.
Grim-looking Major Smirnov approached him right after he stepped out of the front door. "Controller, it is my duty to inform you that tovaritsh Belkin protests for the disrespectful and insolent behaviour we just witnessed." He sighed. "And please let me compliment you for such effective and skillful staff." There was a slight smile on the officer's face. "Kaka'a zhenshina..."
The Controller smiled too and replied to the major's salute. What a woman. Aye. His gaze searched for Anna and he caught her sitting on a bumper of an ambulance, following the commotion around her and checking and re-loading her gun, bathing in the last rays of the evening sun in her smudged clothes, her golden pony-tail fluttering in the wind. A picture of serene confidence and tired ease, only a moment ago a snarling panther crouched between them and the enemy, ready to fight. And oh lord the way she had fought.
He looked at her with a mixture of pride and pain. As if she felt being watched she looked up, searching for his gaze, and once she found it, tilting her head in her familiar questioning way, without grudge, or irritation over the events of the day before the meeting. And without disdain. Simply wanting to know if things were all right again, if she could return to be only a civilian, a trainer, and giving him a tired smile once he nodded at her.
That's my bairn. That's my bonnie bairn.
Anna stood up before he reached her, thus snatching away from him the chance to sit beside her. "Am I needed here, or do I have your permission to leave the premises, Sir?" Her eyes were tired and calm, almost expressionless.
"Leave? Where to? And don't you want to know more about what happened here?" Controller was taken aback.
"Actually, Sir, I couldn't care less about who they are and why or any of that shit. Sir. It doesn't interest me at all. I simply would like to get away from here, if you don't mind, and as soon as possible. To get away and try to forget. A constable said they could give me a quick lift to downtown Swindon, I can go on by train from there."
The Controller didn't know how he should take this. But it would take at least a couple of hours longer, before the whole house would be cleared and everything sorted out, and he was interested to know the whos and whys. And Anna, who had given them a short preliminary report right after the shooting stopped, when they had been waiting for the first-aid kits, looked weary. "All right. You have my permission to leave. Whether Ralston likes it or not. But aren't you happy?"
She frowned. "Happy for what, Sir?"
He shrugged. "For being right, naturally."
She grimaced. "At least four men died inside that building, I personally killed at least one of them. Probably the missing guards will be found dead too. Three wounded, including a perfectly useful Russian. How in God's name could I be happy for being right?." She had undressed the shoulder-holster at some stage and pushed the gun in it, wrapping the straps around it. She handed the package to the Controller. "The only thing to be happy about is that you were not among the casualties. Have a nice evening, Sir." She took her jacket and handbag, and headed towards a police-car, leaving a man with a heavy heart watch after her.
END OF CHAPTER 3