When Khyrbysk had gone, Lieutenant Gerasimov detached two of the VKBD–heavy grey-faced men with broad dull faces, early forties, running to fat–to take Lom and Florian to the detention area.
‘Wait with them there till Chazia comes.’
The VKBD men looked bored and resentful. They didn’t like being dragged away from bothering the women working the telephones. Vagant revolvers in hand, they shoved and hustled their captives along the corridors. People glanced at them curiously and quickly looked away, avoiding the eye of the VKBD. Lom shuffled along passively, eyes to the floor, looking defeated. Florian walked with as much dignity as he could muster, bareheaded, holding his astrakhan hat in his hand.
When they reached the transit car, Lom watched carefully as one of the guards set the control panel. The man worked slowly, concentrating on each move. The operation was simple: there was a button under the counter to turn on the power, then you selected your route and flicked the switches of the points you wanted to pass through. If you made a mistake, you flicked the switch the other way to cancel the instruction. The guard made several mistakes. Lom guessed the VKBD had arrived with Chazia the previous day.
The car rocked and settled and lurched into life.
No point in waiting. There won’t be a better time.
Lom glanced at Florian, who was watching him with glittering, rapacious amusement. Florian raised an eyebrow. It was a question. An invitation.
‘Leave it to me,’ said Lom. ‘No need to rip their heads off.’ He regretted the loss of his Blok 15, which the VKBD had taken. But it didn’t matter. It made no difference.
The guard nearest to him frowned.
‘Keep your fucking mouth shut—’
Lom stepped in close, inside the gun hand, and crunched his right elbow into the man’s face. Felt his nose burst and his head jerk back. In the same movement with his left hand he gripped the Vagant and the fist that held it and twisted. Hard. Felt the trigger finger snap. The gun fired, deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet punched a hole in the wall.
If the other guard had been watching properly, and if he’d been trained, and if he’d practised so much that he didn’t need to think, he might have realised what was happening and responded effectively in, what, two seconds? Maybe less. But he wasn’t trained, and he hadn’t practised, and he didn’t have two seconds. He was still standing in the same position with a puzzled look on his face when Lom’s right fist, holding the Vagant, powered by the momentum of his charge and with the full two hundred pounds of his weight behind it, crashed into the side of his head. The guard staggered sideways. His gun slipped from his fingers and skittered across the floor. Lom recovered his balance and aimed a vicious kick at the man’s kneecap. He screamed and fell. Lom kicked his head again just to be sure. It felt good. The angel taste was in his mouth again.
Both VKBD men were down and not moving. Lom stepped over them to the control panel. The schematic showed the NORTHERN GATE and a single straight line leading away from it, out of the mountain: the furthest terminal was labelled FIELD TEST OBSERVER STATION. He flicked switches, programming the most direct route avoiding major intersections. The car halted, hesitated, and started back the way it had come.