I waited, watching them. It was all I could do, or needed to do: I had no information. The militia man was gazing up the street now, also waiting; then he began walking into the roadway, taking his time as he raised his baton to halt the line of traffic on the side where I was parked. In my mirror the line was slowing to a stop, except for a low black van with lights on its roof, a police vehicle coming up fast and overtaking the other traffic until the militia man swung his baton and pointed it straight at my car and I thought Oh Christ it's a trap.
The police van was still slowing hard under the brakes and veering across the front of the traffic line when I hit the starter and botched the gears in and wheelspan into motion with the tyres squawking and the flashlight on the windscreen ledge sliding across and smashing against the pillar as I locked the wheel over and heeled into the roadway and straightened up, clouting the front end of the van and ripping my rear wing away: I heard it clatter behind me, a jangle of metal on tarmac as the whine of the siren came in and someone shouted.
On the conscious level the visual and aural experience was mostly a kaleidoscope of shapes and a medley of sound: the militia man leaping dear and the siren wailing and a faint thin whine starting from the rear of the Pobeda where a wing bracket was gouging the tyre, a face on the pavement — Ignatov's — and a small boy hunched in surprise and the lights at the intersection changing to red and the siren still howling as the van closed up and smashed into my rear bumper and bounced back with its reflection rocking in the mirror. The traffic policeman tried to get in my way but I kept going and he jumped back with the shrill of his whistle breaking off. A truck had started across and I touched the wheel and used the only space I had and ripped the rear door across his front end before I was clear and moving faster with the engine at peak revs in second gear. The mirror was vibrating but I could see the truck slewing to a stop and the front of the police van nosing round it with the rear end swinging as it struggled for traction.
This was Kujbyseva ulica and the street was wide but I needed obstacles for cover because if I kept straight on I'd be plumb in their sights so I took the first turn with the tyres sliding on the thin wet film left by the snow and the whine of the wing bracket descending in tone and then yipping suddenly as the rear wheels span under the acceleration. I was driving by instinct: the organism was in shock and trying to survive, but nearer the conscious level I knew there wasn't a chance because these were the streets that fanned out from the Kremlin and there were people along the pavements and a militia patrol at every corner and it was full daylight, strictly no go but I wasn't going to stop before I had to.
Mirror. The van was there with its roof light flashing. The siren died away and a voice came over the bullhorn: Stop — you are ordered to stop.
There wasn't a chance because they'd be sending this out on their radio and asking for a converging movement, a routine trap that would put me into the centre of a closing net and hold me there while they slid to a stop and the doors swung open and they came for me on foot, not hurrying.
I could drive this thing through any gap they left for me and run it into the ground if I had to but I'd need clear streets and there weren't any: if I kept on going I'd risk losing control and ploughing into the people on the pavements, this was a dead end, a bottleneck. There were sirens ahead of me now, echoing from the face of the building at the intersection while the surrealistic voice squawked from the bullhorn behind me: Stop — you are ordered to stop. The mirror was shivering, the black rectangular image jerking in it like an old film. I couldn't judge the distance between us but on this surface I could spin the Pobeda full circle without losing control and take it from there and hope for confusion — enough confusion to give me the five or six seconds I'd need to work in if I came out of the wreckage and there were anything I could do.
Another siren was cutting in: the whole city was wailing and the echoes were washing the sound back in undulating waves. I was still accelerating but the break-off point was close now and if I didn't shut down the speed I'd lose the surface and slide into the intersection with the wheels locked and no hope of any control. The nearest threat was still the vehicle behind me and if I could knock it out there was a chance of getting clear before the others turned into the street ahead of me. The surface was touchy and nothing much happened when I swung the wheel hard over and left it there and waited; then we found a drier patch and the Pobeda began spinning with one side lifting off the springs and a howl rising from the nearside wing brackets as they shaved the tyres while the street went swinging round against my eyes and the black rectangle came closer, curving away on the next swing and coming closer again, curving for the third time and suddenly filling the vision field as we met and hit and bounced and hit again as the van's momentum carried us locked together across the wet surface before a tyre burst and was wrenched off and the wheel buckled and dug into the roadway and the van swung hard and lifted, rolling over and slamming down with the Pobeda half-looping and then tumbling against it with a shrilling of metal and flying glass.
The sirens were dosing in.
7: SEPULCHRE
A city is a warren and the nearest hole I could see was one of the dark arched doorways of the GUM department store and I went for that, headlong across the roadway and the pavement and through the people as a man tried to trip me and someone shouted, whistles blowing and the last of the glass still tinkling among the wreckage as the doors were forced open, the whole street shocked and full of sound and stilled movement for the six seconds it took me to reach the arch, another man with his hands going down to tackle me but not fast enough as I hit the doors and pitched through into the bright lamplit interior and swerved at right angles and broke through a group of people, faces opening in surprise, someone running to the glass doors to see what was happening outside in the street, stop thief someone was calling out, it was a trap in here but worse in the open, keep running it's all you can do.
Glass doors, arches, windows and a stairway, everywhere crowded, wrought iron bridges crossing the cathedral form of the building, a bell ringing somewhere, then more shouting as doors crashed open behind me and to my left, keep running and find a door, a man's hand swinging out and his arm hooking round my throat but I used a face claw and span clear and hit the door and went through, a woman screaming and a table going over with buttons everywhere, a thousand of them and reels of cotton rolling and a box of scarlet plumes falling and exploding through the air, my hand on a brass handle and the inner door slamming back against shelves as I went through and saw the long narrow window and got there and used a packing case as a springboard and rolled, breaking the iron latch and falling, the woman screaming again.
It was a corridor and I ran hard for the door at the end, slowing and going through at a quick walk, shutting it behind me. I was back in the main building again with a lot of commotion at the Kujbyseva entrance where I'd come in. I began walking the other way, a little faster when I reached the big central fountain, not too fast, watch it, everyone's looking the other way and I'm not, I'm on the move, become or remain invisible, inaudible and unfindable, an old woman in black watching me, question it, and now a man, why? Watching my face and I touched it, blood, and got out my handkerchief as someone began shouting, a lot of them looking at me now so I went low and broke and ran again, dodging a group of children, the whistles blowing behind me and a foot darting out and sending me pitching against a man whose lined grey face loomed and stared straight into mine before I span away and went full tilt at the big glass doors at the end, stop thief, a dull rising roar of voices filling the arched building and then the crash as I hit the door on the left and swung through and found the street, slow down, the snow filling the dark sky and the pavement slippery with it, slow down, the sound of sirens on the air again, directionless and echoing from everywhere, a black patrol car slewing in to the kerb with uniformed men getting out of it, uncertain where they should go.