Elusive Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  “Tight,” echoed Mrs. Pollifax uncomprehendingly and then she realized that in concealing the rope Radev stood where he could also touch it, and her heart began to beat very fast. “Talk to him,” she said in a low voice. “Keep him talking, Radev.”

  “Da.”

  Mrs. Pollifax fixed her eyes on the barless window behind Miroslav. She saw a hand grasp the window sill and then the silhouette of a slim body drag itself up to the sill. In a clear conversational voice Mrs. Pollifax addressed the shadow. “The guard stands with a gun, and with his back to the window. His back to the window!” The figure was crouched there now, black against the sky. It was Debby.

  Tackle, she thought silently. Tackle, Debby, tackle!

  Debby stood up, remained poised for a second on the sill and then hurled herself toward the floor of the cellblock, taking Miroslav with her. With trembling fingers Mrs. Pollifax lighted a match. It was enough for Radev; he found Miroslav, bent over him and wrested the gun from his hands. A moment later Debby stood up. Behind her there was the sound of bone hitting bone, a groan and then Radev said, “He’s out cold.”

  “Debby–oh thank God you made it,” gasped Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Debby?” repeated Philip incredulously. “Debby’s here?”

  “I’m here,” Debby said in a steady voice. “Phil, there’s a rope attached to the window and you have to go quickly, hand over hand, so that the rest of us can follow. Can you?”

  “With pleasure,” he said fervently.

  Radev said, “We can’t all go by rope, there isn’t time. I have Miroslav’s gun. How about it, Mrs. Pollifax? Shall we make a fast retreat by the stairs into hell knows what?”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax. She reached out, grasped Debby’s hand and squeezed it. “You won’t wait too long?”

  “I won’t,” promised Debby.

  Mrs. Pollifax and Radev walked down the hall to the staircase. A goose rushed at them and Radev scooped it up and pushed it into Mrs. Pollifax’s arms. They descended as quickly as they dared in the darkness, braced for discovery at any minute. They reached the last landing and then the inner courtyard and now they saw why they had not been challenged yet: fires had broken out following the explosions and the courtyard was filled with black smoke. They jumped into the truck and Radev backed and turned it and they drove through the first gate. At the second gate Radev called out to the solitary guard at the sentry box.

  The guard came running. To Mrs. Pollifax’s surprise Radev cut the guard’s questions short with a laugh reached over and took the goose from her and tossed it into the man’s arms. A moment later the guard opened the gates for them.

  “He wanted only to ask about the fire,” said Radev. “I told him he will have roast geese for dinner.”

  As they drove through the gates the lights and the siren of Panchevsky Institute came on simultaneously. Mrs. Pollifax looked down at her watch: it was precisely 3:27. She said blankly, “It’s over. It’s over, Radev, and we’re still alive!”

  “Beginner’s luck, eh, Comrade Pollifax?” said Radev.

  Minutes later they reached the appointed rendezvous in a park at the edge of Sofia, and what was most satisfying of all, Debby and Boris and Philip were in the car behind them.

  22

  Outside the Hotel Rila a man was sweeping the street with a broom of thick twigs tied around a crooked stick. The sky brightened during the past hour and there was a suffusion of pink in the east where the sun was rising. As Mrs. Pollifax mounted the steps of the hotel she turned and saw Georgi and the small blue car disappear for the last time and then she entered the lobby, properly dressed as a tourist again, her purse over her arm. A dozing desk clerk jerked awake and stared at her reproachfully. She wrote the number of her room on his memo pad and he handed her the key. He also handed over her passport, which had been placed in the box, and she tucked it into her purse.

  As she ascended in the elevator to the sixth floor she felt a sense of sadness. It was completely illogical, she reminded herself, because the sacking of Panchevsky Institute had been accomplished without bloodshed and with a success beyond all expectation. What was more, the passports she had delivered to Tsanko were about to save five lives as well as give new lives to Mrs. Bemish and Assen Radev.

  I’m just very tired, she thought.

  She tried to remember that she and Debby, Philip and Mrs. Bemish would be meeting on Monday in Zurich, in front of the bank to which Petrov Trendafilov would bring the ransom, but even this didn’t lift her sagging spirits.

  She tried also to remember Philip’s astonishment at meeting her again, or the flash of Assen Radev’s grin as he said, “Beginner’s luck, eh, Comrade Pollifax?” But another voice blotted them out, a voice that she would remember the rest of her life: I am not sure either of us is professional, is this not so?… I am good communist, a patriot and also–God help me–a humanist.… You have become very dear to me, Amerikanski.

  The elevator opened at the sixth floor and she walked down the hall to her room and inserted the key into the lock. She already missed Debby, but Debby would be making her way to the airport alone after she had helped to change Philip into Anton Schoenstein, a German with German credentials and clothes. She opened the door and flicked on the lights and brought her suitcase from the closet and carried it to the bed. Moving to the bureau, she picked up comb, brush and cold cream. She glanced at herself in the mirror and was startled to see how little changed she looked after twenty-seven minutes inside Panchevsky Institute. Perhaps one day next year–very suddenly–new lines would etch themselves on her face and she could say, Those are Panchevsky lines.

  Suddenly in the mirror she saw the door to the bathroom open silently. A foot–a black boot–inserted itself against the door and Nikolai Dzhagarov moved into the doorway and stood watching her. Their glances met in the mirror.

  “You have perhaps forgotten me,” he said, bringing out a gun. “My name is Nikki.”

  “Yes, I had forgotten you,” she admitted. “Foolishly,” she added in a low voice.

  “You may turn around now–slowly, hands up,” he said. “You will forget the suitcase, Mrs. Pollifax, you are my prisoner and before I let you go I must know how to find my friend Debby and my friend Carleton Bemish.”

  Slowly Mrs. Pollifax turned, hands lifted.

  “Now. First you will tell me where Karlo Bemish and Titko Yugov are to be found.”

  Mrs. Pollifax’s first reaction was one of relief: Nikki was still twenty-four hours behind them, he didn’t know about the prison raid, his mind was stubbornly fixed on Tarnovo, which felt to her like a century ago. Her second reaction was the more realistic. Dzhagarov had all the time in the world, and a gun, and he was a dangerous man. She might have to die tonight.

  “I didn’t think you cared about Mr. Bemish,” she said lightly. “You certainly exploited him rather cruelly, didn’t you?”

  Nikki shrugged. “He asked for it. What a bore, that man, always talking of his millionaire brother-in-law in America! An obsession. When he learned Phil would be visiting Yugoslavia in July he had the audacity to try and bribe me so that he might go to Belgrade and collect a few dollars from the boy.” He laughed savagely. “A few thousand was all he wanted, can you imagine? What a small mind!”

  “I wonder if I might lower my hands,” said Mrs. Pollifax hopefully.

  “No.” He left the doorway and moved across the room toward her. As he passed the bed he reached out and shoved her suitcase to the floor, kicking it viciously across the room. “So much for your departure,” he said contemptuously. “I want to know where Bemish can be found. I want to know where Debby is. She’s been in Bulgaria all this time, she did not leave with the others. Why?”

  “Debby left Bulgaria last night,” she told him. “If you ask at the desk you’ll discover she picked up her passport late yesterday afternoon. She’s gone.”

  “No one by that name flew out of Sofia yesterday or last night or early this morning. She is still here.�
� He moved behind her and placed the point of his pistol at the back of her neck. It felt cold against her flesh. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Where is Bemish?”

  “I don’t know,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax.

  The pistol burrowed deeper. “I will count to four,” he said. “If you do not speak I will kill you.”

  “Yes,” she said numbly.

  “One,” said Nikki.

  Mrs. Pollifax closed her eyes. She remembered that Tsanko was safe and that he had taken to safety the four men who had been rescued. The four would presently be leaving Bulgaria by bus, car and boat. Assen Radev had been given his well-earned passport and perhaps–knowing Radev–was already across the border.

  “Two,” said Nikki.

  But they all needed time, she thought: Debby and Philip, especially.

  “Try Bemish first,” suggested Nikki smoothly. “You were in Tarnovo that same night he disappeared. You saw him–of course you saw him.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t see him.”

  “Three,” said Nikki, and waited.

  Mrs. Pollifax also waited. It would be a sudden and clean death, she thought, and she had always known the odds were against her dying in bed at home in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

  Suddenly Nikki laughed and removed the gun from her neck. “You have strong nerves. You think I kill you so quickly–here of all places–without learning what I wish to know? Pick up the suitcase on the floor and close it.”

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed, crossed the room and placed the suitcase on the bed.

  “Put the coat on and pick up the purse,” he directed. When she had done this he added, “Now carry the suitcase out the door ahead of me. You will proceed down the hall to the elevator, then to the lobby, out of the lobby to my car. Walk!”

  She picked up the empty suitcase and went to the door. “Where are we going?” she asked quietly.

  “Headquarters. They will know how to deal with you there. The new head of security, General Ignatov, will see that you talk–he knows all the ways. Don’t turn around!” he said sharply. “I shall be directly behind you, gun in pocket.”

  Mrs. Pollifax walked steadily down the hall to the elevator. If there was a long wait for the elevator, she thought, it might be possible to draw close enough to Dzhagarov to catch him off balance with a kick and a shin strike.

  Unfortunately the elevator was standing at the sixth floor, depressingly empty, its doors wide open.

  “In,” said Nikki, and joined her only when she had walked to the rear.

  They descended, facing each other. When the elevator stopped he said, “Walk out now. Speak to no one and cross the lobby. A car is outside, the safety catch is off my gun. No tricks.”

  The doors of the elevator slid open and Mrs. Pollifax walked out into the lobby. She realized that she was about to enter a Bulgaria that no tourists were allowed to see, and the lobby was her last glimpse of the familiar.

  “So there you are, Mrs. Pollifax!” cried an indignant and familiar voice. Nevena stood beside the desk, hands on hips. “How insulting you are, Mrs. Pollifax! I am here at 7 P.M. sharp last night and you are not here, now they call from the hotel to say you are back, and again I must leave my work to find you! Bora! It is too much.”

  Mrs. Pollifax stopped uncertainly, the gun at her back.

  “You have your suitcase–good,” continued Nevena, walking toward her. “They tell me you have been given passport as well. You will come at once, please, this is gravest dishonor for you. Yes, yes, what is it, Comrade Dzhagarov?” she asked impatiently.

  “She is mine,” Nikki told her coldly, and began speaking to her rapidly in Bulgarian.

  “Nonsense–she is mine,” Nevena interrupted sharply. “Speak in English, Comrade Dzhagarov, or you will make the scandal. People are listening, you understand? This woman is not yours, she is to leave country at once, she is persona non grata. Balkantourist is finis with her. Kaput!”

  Nikki said icily, “I tell you she is mine, Comrade Chernokolev. I have orders she must go to headquarters for interrogation.”

  “Show me the orders,” Nevena said angrily.

  Nikki shrugged. “They are not written. You wish to cross General Ignatov?”

  “General Ignatov!” Nevena laughed. “Idiot–he was arrested only a few hours ago. By now he is on his way to Panchevsky Institute.”

  “Arrested?” repeated Nikki. “I do not believe you. What a liar you are!”

  She shrugged. “Please yourself, comrade, but you would do well not to speak his name. I will be kind and forget you spoke of him.”

  Nikki looked shaken. “This is not possible. On what charges?”

  Nevena looked at him scornfully. “His home is searched last night while he is at celebration. Big fortune in Russian rubles is found there.”

  “So?”

  “The rubles were counterfeit,” Nevena said curtly, and grasping Mrs. Pollifax firmly by the arm she led her out of the door to a waiting car.

  “You see the trouble you make,” Nevena continued as she pushed her into the car. “It is Sunday, I do not work on Sunday.” She started the motor and they hurtled forward. “I anticipate viewing of Party Chairman Brezhnev’s arrival from Moscow and now you make the work for me, more work.”

  Mrs. Pollifax turned her head and looked at her wordlessly.

  “They already begin the ropes along the street,” went on Nevena hotly, “and I doubt gravely we get to aerodrome in time for the early plane to Belgrade. Soon they stop cars.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, testing her voice and surprised to find that she could still speak.

  “Dzhagarov is arrogant,” said Nevena. “As for you, Mrs. Pollifax–please. You are too old for travel. Go home to your children, your grandchildren, you understand?”

  Mrs. Pollifax drew a deep breath; it was beginning to dawn upon her that she was going to survive this day, after all. The cool, early morning air was reviving her; it occurred to her that she had been very near to a state of collapse back at the hotel. She realized that Nevena had no idea at all that she had just saved her life, and this struck her as incredible and wonderful and a little hilarious, and this, too, revived her. “Yes,” she said to Nevena, and her eyes turned to Mount Vitosha and then to the sun spilling gold across the road and to the clusters of vivid blue asters.

  “Do me the favor of staying in your home,” went on Nevena, driving very fast, her profile stern. “You have not the gift of coordination.”

  “No,” Mrs. Pollifax said humbly.

  Nevena swerved to avoid a flock of sheep crossing the road. “Nahot,” she said under her breath, and sent the car racing down still another country road. “You Americans must learn the purpose, the punctualness. I forgive much because you are old, but never come back to my country, you understand?”

  “I understand,” said Mrs. Pollifax, clinging to her seat.

  They emerged on a broad boulevard. “You see the police collecting,” pointed out Nevena reproachfully. “Chairman Brezhnev must already be landing at the aerodrome, we may be cut off. I drive quick, but I do not know. When the glorious leader of the Soviet Union comes to our country it is great honor.”

  “It’s going to be a lovely day,” ventured Mrs. Pollifax. “For his arrival,” she added quickly as Nevena gave her a suspicious glance.

  “We make good time–there is entrance to aerodrome,” Nevena announced, and with a quick glance at her watch added, “We have ten minutes to get you to Customs, half an hour to plane departure.” But as they began the long drive into the terminal Nevena clucked suddenly and with exasperation. “We are to be stopped,” she said.

  A barricade had been set up just this side of the terminal, and uniformed police were standing around it. They gestured the car to the side and Nevena handed one of the guards her credentials, speaking vivaciously and pointing ahead. The guard shook his head.

  Nevena said with a shrug, “We
ll, we must stop, but not for long, and it is gravest honor for you, Mrs. Pollifax–you also will observe the Chairman Brezhnev pass by. The procession is just leaving the air terminal.” She parked the car and climbed out. “Come if you please,” she said indifferently. “For me this is happy moment, I see the Chairman after all.”

  Mrs. Pollifax climbed out of the car and joined Nevena by the side of the road–it seemed a very small way in which to repay Nevena for saving her life. She stood quietly as the procession of cars slowly approached: first the uniformed men on motorcycles, then one long, black, closed limousine–“There is Chairman Brezhnev with our Premier!” cried Nevena, stiffening in a salute–and following this came three open limousines filled with wooden-faced men in black suits.

  How stiff and Slavic they looked, thought Mrs. Pollifax, amused, and then her glance rested upon one of the men in the second limousine and she stared in astonishment. There was no mistaking that profile, that square jaw, those shaggy brows. She said, “Who …” and then she stopped and cleared her throat and said, “Who are the men in the cars following your Premier, Nevena?”

  “Members of our Politburo.” said Nevena, not turning. “High officials of our government.”

  I have an appointment early in the morning, Tsanko had said.

  The heads remained fixed, like statues–he did not see her–and standing behind Nevena, unseen by her, Mrs. Pollifax lifted a hand and gravely saluted, too.

  23

  It was early Monday morning in Langley Field, Virginia, and just six o’clock as Carstairs entered his office. With the Trenda affair so tragically ended by the boy’s death there was a great deal of back work to clear away. It was all very well to begin a day at the leisurely hour of nine if dealing with American affairs, but at that hour in America it was already 2 P.M. in Europe.

  As Carstairs sat down at his desk Bishop suddenly appeared in the doorway of the adjacent room, yawning and shaking his head. Carstairs said in astonishment, “Good God, what on earth are you doing here at this hour?”