Free Firefox by Craig Thomas Page A

asked, as the face of a soldier in drab brown uniform slid past the cab window.
    ‘No - Red Army. But they’re commanded by a KGB man - he’ll be sitting in that hut over there.’ Gant followed the nod of Pavel’s head, and observed a young man in civilian clothes lounging in the doorway of a wooden hut, smoking a long cigarette. Gant could not” see through the window into the interior - the newly-risen sun reflected in a sheet of yellow-orange from the glass.
    ‘What happens - just a check on papers?’ he asked.
    ‘Usually, and your photograph is taken, from the smaller hut next to the office, but don’t smile - they’ll wonder what you’re trying to hide!’ Pavel smiled grimly, and tugged on the handbrake loudly. ‘Now, get out,’ he said.
    Gant opened the door, and climbed down. The tension in his stomach was returning, but not severely it seemed just to be moving up a gear from the slightly unsettled feeling that had been with him ever since Pavel had told him that the saloon had followed them all the way from the Kirov Street out to the motorway.
    He resisted an itching desire to look behind, to see the faces behind the windscreen of the KGB car. Pavel stood beside him, casually smoking a cigarette.
    Gant tried not to look about him with too obvious an interest. His cover presumed him to have undergone this formality a number of times before.
    A military guard-collected their papers, and took them away and into the office. Gant idly watched the cars and lorries that drew up in the three lanes that were used by outbound traffic. The circular motorway swept above them on huge concrete piles, and he could hear the thrumming of the traffic from overhead.
    ‘One of the men from the car has just gone into the office,’ Pavel said levelly. ‘You know where the car is, if you have to run for it…’
    ‘You think it might come…?’
    ‘No. At the moment, you are unremarkable as far as they are concerned. Ah, here come our papers.’
    The same guard crossed from the office, his boots clattering distinctly on the concrete, and handed them their papers, which had been stamped with the necessary permit for travel as far as Gorky on the main road. At Gorky, they would need another permit to travel as far east as Kazan, and then another from Kazan to Kuybyshev. Pavel nodded, stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette, and climbed back aboard the truck. Gant, careful not to watch the door of the office, rounded the front of the truck and regained his seat.
    Pavel switched on, slid the engine into gear, and drew away. A red and white barrier slid up in front of them, to allow them to pass beneath the motorway out onto the Gorky road.
    Pavel looked across at Gant, and said, ‘Gorky by lunchtime, and Kazan in time for tea - or don’t you Americans take tea?’ He laughed, encouraging Gant to smile.
    Gant said, ‘Are they tailing us?’
    Pavel looked into the wing-mirror, and said: ‘No, not yet - but they’ll have someone pick us up later on. Don’t worry! The KGB aren’t worried - just curious. They want to know who you are!’
    ‘You mean they don’t believe I’m this guy Glazunov?’
    ‘If they do now, they won’t do before long. Your picture will be at the records office of the State Highway Militia by this afternoon, and checked against existing photographs of Glazunov, then they’ll really want to know who you are!’
    ‘And they’ll stop us, and ask me?’ Gant persisted.
    ‘Perhaps. But - they are very confident, at Bilyarsk.
    Let us hope they want to play a waiting game. There are alternatives for you at each of our scheduled stops, so don’t worry. If they stopped us on the road, they would be asking for trouble, wouldn’t they?’ He smiled. ‘We shall hope that they leave us alone, until they come to be just a little bit afraid - and that takes a long time for the KGB.
    It was early in the afternoon when David Edgecliffe, looking immensely regretful, grave and dignified, identified the