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I'm expecting Ben Trask's call, which could come in the next ten minutes. So... you'd
better think again.'
'This is infuriating!' Turchin threw up his hands. 'At this very moment my enemies
could be on their way to Perchorsk  my one chance to settle with them for good, and
the perfect opportunity to close the Gate at the same time  and Trask is unavailable to
me. He promised his help; I kept my part of the deal and he has let me down. Is there
no honour?'
'Maybe among thieves,' said Jake, 'but apparently not among murderers.'
'Haven't I told you it wouldn't be murder?' Turchin snapped. 'These are mad dogs
I want rid of, not true and honest citizens. They are dogs, Jake, and they're shitting all
over our world. I gave Ben Trask the information that has sent your locator David Chung
out on his mission to save the ocean deeps from pollution  to save your British fishing
grounds, the American coastline, and all the waters in between. I have made myself an
outcast, a defector, to come here and bring you people warnings and important
information. I sent a man of mine out of Russia into Sicily to get himself killed seeking
out Luigi Castellano so that you, personally, could take revenge. Have you forgotten
these things? These are the sacrifices that I have made. So don't you talk to me of
personal revenge. For what of yourself and Ben Trask? Ah, but that is different, eh?
Well, I think not. And why should I be excluded?'
Which gave Jake pause. Not only what Turchin had said about revenge, but
more especially what he'd said about sending a man out of Russia into Sicily, and
sending him to his death. Georgi Grusev had been his name, and he'd come out of his
tomb to save Jake's life in the cellars of Castellano's stronghold. And Jake really had
forgotten about all that in the light of more recent problems. Forgotten about it until now.
'Georgi Grusev,' he said.
'Yes.' Turchin nodded. 'He was dead before you got to Castellano. You never
met him, but that doesn't alter the fact that he did try to help you.'
'Oh, but I did get to meet him,' said Jake quietly. 'He was dead  you're quite
right  but still he got to help me. And I owe him. Which I suppose means that I owe
you.'
Turchin's dark eyes lit up at once, and he said, 'You'll do it, then?'
'That's something I can't promise,' Jake answered. 'I don't know which way Trask
will move on this. But we should certainly try to prepare for it. One thing's for sure: a
nuclear explosion in Perchorsk's guts would very definitely close the Gate.'
Turchin threw his head back and drew a deep breath. 'Common sense at last!' he
sighed. 'Good, so how do we go about it? How do we use this Möbius Continuum
thing?'
Jake shook his head and said, 'The Continuum isn't a "thing" as such but a place.
In fact, it's not even a place. It's every-place. Every-where and any-when.'
'Eh? What?'
'I can use the Möbius Continuum to go anywhere.' Jake tried to simplify it. 'But I
have to know where I'm going. So where's the bomb? Until I know that I can't do
anything.'
Turchin licked his lips and said, 'And so we get to it. The location of the bomb is
of course a secret. If it gets out  if the wrong people should get to know what I've done,
or even the right people  then I'm finished. But very well: the bomb is at my dacha in
Zhukovka, not far out of Moscow.'
'Zhukovka?' Jake knew of the place; he'd been reading of it in the Keogh files.
'There are several dachas on a pine-covered hillock overlooking the Moscow river.
You're not the first head of Russia's E-Branch to have a dacha there. Gregor Borowitz
had one, too. He died there, when Boris Dragosani murdered him...'
But there the Necroscope paused and frowned, because Turchin's mouth had
gradually fallen open while he was speaking. Now, snapping his mouth shut, the
Russian Premier said, 'But this is astonishing! And indeed Trask's intelligence is
amazing! Gregor Borowitz's place stood deserted until I took it over and refurbished it.
Yes, yes  I have the very same dacha!'
At which Jake's head began to whirl, and as if suffering an attack of vertigo he
swayed dizzily where he sat on his bed, as suddenly out of nowhere he remembered,
remembered
 Remembered...
23
TRANSITIONS
Gregor Borowitz' s dacha. Oh, Jake 'remembered' it, all right. But now that he had this
thing in proper perspective  now that he knew definitely that these weren't his
memories at all but the original Necroscope's  and even though these paramnesia-like
attacks still brought about spells of temporary disassociation and giddiness in him  he
was finally able to accept them for what they really were.
Which meant that he was no longer apprehensive about them, and so was able
to learn from them.
Borowitz's dacha (now Gustav Turchin's) was fashioned in a style that gave it the
looks of nothing so much as an Austrian or Swiss chalet. Approaching the timbered,
single-storey structure along a winding pebble pathway, Jake occasionally glimpsed the
sluggish swirl of the Moscow River down below, where Borowitz had delighted in fishing
illegally for state-owned speckled trout. Leading off from the track, the path to the rustic,
oak-panelled door was paved in stone. Pausing uncertainly under the projecting eaves
 hesitating, because something had warned him that what waited inside wasn't very
pleasant  Jake sniffed at the fragrant blue woodsmoke from nearby dachas. It hung in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]