The Librarian

THE VILLAGE HUT

I WAS EXCLUDED from the Shironinites’ operation for health reasons. Vyrin fell under the same edict. Although Denis was terribly offended, they didn’t take him either—our enemies knew him by sight. For the same reason they had to do without Sukharev’s strong-arm help—he was often at Margarita Tikhonovna’s place and the Uglies could have caught sight of him. Sasha, Denis and I had to be content with contributing what we could to the theoretical planning of the ambush.

The Uglies’ cars—an old Mazda and an old Opel—were put under constant surveillance. The Vozglyakovs’ motorbike and Ogloblin’s RAF never let the Uglies out of their sight and we learned all their routes off by heart.

The Village Hut—a summer café on the shore of the Urmut reservoir—was a dreary, quiet spot: a sandy yard surrounded by unkempt bushes. The winter pavilion contained a kitchen and a dozen tables and in the yard there were gazebos with gabled roofs on log pillars—the village huts from which the café had got its name. In recent years ownership of the Village Hut had changed hands often. The present owner had turned it into a kebab house. Three people worked there—the cook, his assistant and a waitress who doubled as the cleaner.

The plan was thought through down to the finest detail. An hour before the Uglies arrived, the staff had to be neutralized. Kruchina took on the role of cook, support by Ogloblin and Anna Vozglyakova. Marat Andreyevich and Tanya became a married couple who happened to drop in when they saw the smoke. Timofei Stepanovich was loitering about outside the hedge, searching for bottles that had been planted in advance. Ievlev was working away with a spade outside the fence, deepening the drain. Especially for the ambush he made ten steel skewers, sharpened the ends himself and added convenient handles, like those on flaying knives. Every possible scenario was worked through for every eventuality, depending on which table our enemies chose to sit at. Who could have known then that this fine-calibrated plan would end in tragedy?…

As soon as the Uglies and their men had got into the cars, of which there were three for some reason—a Mercedes had joined the cavalcade—Sukharev made a call from a public phone in the street to Margarita Tikhonovna, who was sitting by the phone in the first-aid post at the lifeboat station. Svetlana Vozglyakova was on watch outside with the motorcycle. It took her only a few minutes to dash to the Village Hut and pass on the combat alert.

Silent figures in masks crept into the pavilion and tied up the cook, his assistant and the waitress securely. Kruchina, Ogloblin and Anna put on aprons and started preparing for the encounter.

The optimal table was in the central “hut”, which was equidistant from all the participants in the ambush. In order to attract our enemies to it, all the other tables were piled high with dirty paper plates and cups covered in grease spots and ketchup. Skewers were placed there in advance.

There turned out to be nine visitors, one more than had been expected. But even this turn of events had been anticipated. The moment they piled into the yard Ogloblin gave them a welcoming smile and lugged a chair over to the central hut. The chortling, guffawing pack seated itself on the benches along the table, four on each side. The ninth member of the Uglies’ party was seated at the head of the table. It emerged later that he was Girei’s hit man and the Mercedes belonged to him.

The Ugly brothers had not yet been infected with caution. They were satisfied with a genial explanation that the owner was away on business and the previous assistant and waitress had been sacked for negligence, so new ones had been taken on. The older Ugly was then treated to the cook’s obsequious assurances that the meat was the very finest-quality lamb.

About twenty metres away, behind the green hedge, a worker was swinging his spade in a ditch. Kruchina apologized for any noise and gloomily blamed the health inspectors for insisting that he deepen the drainage ditch and run it farther away from the yard. A down-and-out darted into the yard and set his eye on an empty bottle; Kruchina hissed at him and the old man meekly withdrew without his booty. Then the industrious cook set to work at the barbecue. Ogloblin brought mineral water, grape juice, lavash, sliced vegetables, green herbs and a spicy aubergine starter. The customers didn’t drink alcohol on principle, but they happily smoked suffocating hashish.

Twenty minutes later the kebabs were ready. Kruchina carried five portions to the table, clutching three in a fan shape in his right fist and two in his left hand. Ogloblin walked beside him in his bright apron. Another four huge skewers that looked more like banderillas were protruding from his smoking fists.

A married couple wandered into the yard, but Kruchina immediately shouted at them.

“A private banquet, we’re not serving anyone today!” and smiled enchantingly at the hut with the Caucasian party.

The couple loitered on the spot in bewilderment.

Kruchina repeated his message in a severe voice.

“I told you in plain Russian: we’re closed!”

Anna, who was clearing the next table, set her rag down and picked up an empty skewer. Ievlev was no longer working in the ditch, but lurking behind the bushes with his spade at the ready.

Kruchina and Ogloblin walked up to the table. All nine men sitting there were gazing at them and looking forward to the food.

Kruchina spoke the key words: “Bon appétit!”

Three deadly shafts were thrust simultaneously into the bandit seated at the head of the table. The sharp points of two others protruded from the back of next man, and on his chest fat from the chunks of meat mingled with blood, spreading across the white material of his shirt. Ogloblin ran another two through with skewers. Vaulting over the bushes, Nikolai Tarasovich cut down a fourth man with his spade—the left half of the table died in a matter of seconds. The men on the other side didn’t even have time to react. Anna jabbed one of them in the neck with her skewer and Timofei Stepanovich dashed in just in time to crush the back of another man’s head with his mace. Marat Andreyevich dispatched the others with criss-cross slashes of his sabre.

But who could have thought that one of the three skewers with which Kruchina attacked would jam against the table, slowing down the other two so that they didn’t penetrate deeply enough into the body to end the victim’s life. The wounded man was able to whip a pistol out from under his jacket and fire.

Ogloblin fell. Blood gushed out of his head onto the trampled sand in heavy, spasmodic surges. Ievlev swung his spade, severing the hand holding the pistol. Kruchina snarled, driving in the perfidious skewers so hard that the chunks of smoking meat were wodged tight together against the enemy’s chest.

Squatting down, Marat Andreyevich turned over Ogloblin, who was already dead.

“Our reverse namesake is dead… Gone to join Larionov…”

“Why did we have to play this stupid game of honour?” Timofei Stepanovich asked the silence that had descended in a bitter voice.

“We ought to have poisoned them,” said Anna Vozglyakova. “All their lousy lives weren’t worth a single minute of his…”

The operation that began so brilliantly was a disaster. Ogloblin’s death cancelled out everything. Timofei Stepanovich and Ievlev carried Ogloblin to the RAF. Marat Andreyevich and Tanya splashed petrol onto the corpses out of a can. A match was struck and the bodies sitting at the table burst into stinking flames. A ragged, blue-flame fringe trembled on the pillars of the little hut.

Our enemies no longer existed, but the reading room had lost another cherished member.