Alex considered his next problem. Surely the airport would be just as risky as the station, but his thoughts were interrupted when he spotted a police car parked at a roadblock up ahead, and two officers checking licenses.
“Stop!” shouted Alex.
“What’s the problem?” said the young man, drawing into the curb.
“You don’t want to know. Better I just disappear.”
The driver didn’t comment, but when Alex jumped out, he found the back door of the ambulance open and an outstretched arm beckoning him. He climbed inside and joined a second man who was wearing a green paramedic’s uniform, his left hand held out. Alex knew that look, and produced another hundred-dollar bill.
“Who’s after you?”
“The KGB,” said Alex, knowing that there was a fifty-fifty chance the man either detested them or worked for them.
“Lie down,” said the paramedic, pointing to a stretcher. Alex obeyed him and was quickly covered with a blanket. The man turned to the driver and said, “Put the siren on, Leonid, and don’t slow down. Just go for it.”
The driver obeyed his colleague’s command and was relieved when one of the police officers not only removed the barrier but waved them through. Had they stopped the ambulance, they would have found the patient lying on a stretcher, his head wrapped in bandages, only one eye staring up at them.
“When we reach the airport,” said the paramedic, “where are you hoping to go?”
Alex hadn’t thought about that, but the man answered his own question. “Helsinki will be your best bet,” he said. “They’re more likely to be checking flights heading west. Your Russian is good, but my guess is it’s a long time since you were last in Leningrad.”
“Then Helsinki it is,” said Alex as the ambulance sped on toward the airport. “But how will I get a ticket?”
“Leave that to me,” said the paramedic. The open palm appeared once again, as did another hundred dollars. “Do you have any rubles?” he asked. “Wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself.”
Alex smiled and emptied his wallet of all the rubles Miss Robbins had supplied, which elicited an even wider smile. Not another word was said until they reached the airport, when the ambulance drew into the curb, but the driver left the engine running.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” said the paramedic, before opening the back door and leaping out. It felt like an hour to Alex, although it was no more than a few minutes before the door was opened again. “I’ve got you on a flight to Helsinki,” he said, waving the ticket in triumph. “I even know which gate the plane’s departing from.” H
e turned to Leonid and said, “Head for the emergency entrance, and keep your lights flashing.”
The ambulance shot off again, but Alex had no way of knowing where they were going. It was only a couple of minutes before they stopped when the back door was opened by a guard in a shiny gray uniform. He peered inside, nodded, then closed the door. Another guard raised the barrier, allowing the ambulance to proceed.
“Head for the Aeroflot plane parked at gate forty-two,” the paramedic instructed his colleague.
Alex didn’t like the sound of the word “Aeroflot,” and wondered if he was being led into a trap, but didn’t move until the back door opened once again. He sat up, fearful, anxious, alert, but the paramedic just grinned and handed him a pair of crutches.
“I’ll have to replace them,” he said, and only released the crutches after he received another hundred-dollar bill, almost as if he knew how much Alex had left.
The paramedic accompanied his patient up the steps and onto the aircraft. He handed over the ticket and a wad of cash to a steward, who counted the folded rubles before he even looked at the ticket. The steward pointed to a seat in the front row.
The paramedic helped Alex into his seat, bent down, and offered one final piece of advice, and then left the aircraft before Alex had a chance to thank him. He watched from the cabin window as the ambulance headed slowly back toward the private entrance, no flashing lights, no siren. He stared at the plane’s open door, willing it to be closed. But it wasn’t until the aircraft took off that Alex finally breathed a sigh of relief.
* * *
By the time the plane landed in Helsinki, Alex’s heartbeat was almost back to normal, and he even had a plan.
He had taken the paramedic’s advice, so that when he reached the front of the queue and handed over his passport there was a hundred-dollar bill enclosed where a visa should have been. The officer remained poker-faced as he removed Benjamin Franklin and stamped the empty page.
Once Alex was through customs he headed for the nearest washroom, where he removed his bandages and disposed of them in a bin. He shaved, washed as best he could, and once he was dry, reluctantly put the young man’s clothes back on and went in search of a shop that would solve that particular problem. He emerged from a clothes store thirty minutes later wearing slacks, a white shirt, and a blazer. His loafers were the only thing that had survived.
An hour later Alex boarded an American Airlines flight to New York, and he was enjoying a vodka and tonic by the time the shop assistant came across an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and some crutches that had been left in the changing room.
When the plane took off, the steward didn’t ask the first-class passenger what he would like for dinner, or which movie he would be watching, because Alex was already fast asleep. The steward gently lowered the passenger’s seat and covered him with a blanket.
* * *
When Alex landed at JFK the following morning, he called Miss Robbins and asked her to have his car and driver ready to pick him up the moment he arrived at Logan.