Russian Roulette Read Online Free PDF

British tourists!’ he growled to Pokrovsky, ‘Especially those who don’t come back when they should.’
    Unlike the purser, he found it a continual strain to be polite to Western tourists.
    The ship was due to sail from Helsinki dead on nineteen hundred hours and all passengers were supposed to be aboard one hour before this. Today, most of them had returned early because of the rain, but two had failed to show up – Mr Simon Smith and Mrs Elizabeth Treasure.
    The news had spread rapidly through the passengers in the usual manner of all happenings aboard ship and a line of curious faces peered over the rails.
    After a few moments, Yutkevich gave a final glance at his watch, then craned his neck upwards at the midshipman who controlled the winch that pulled up the gangway. ‘Stand by. We sail in three minutes, whether they come or not!’
    He turned to Pokrovsky, still standing alongside him. ‘The comrade captain says we sail on schedule. If these idiots want to lose the rest of their holiday, then they’re welcome. No doubt they can raise the price of another ticket from their speculations.’
    The purser said nothing. The other man was a dry, humourless fellow but, as he was the ship’s political representative, it did no one any good to antagonise him. His rigid dialectics, together with his bitterness at being repeatedly being passed over for promotion, had soured him beyond redemption.
    The purser was jerked out of his ruminations by the sound of heavy boots rattling on the wharf. A junior immigration officer ran up to the Finnish official on the edge of the quay. They spoke rapidly together, then the older one hurried up the ramp to the Russian officers. He spoke no Russian and they no Finnish, so, as often happened, English rather incongruously became the lingua franca.
    â€˜Telephone from one of the city police stations – they have these English people there. The woman is not sick, but something has happened to the man Smith. They are bringing them to the ship now.’
    Yutkevich jumped to the telephone to call the bridge, while Pokrovsky tried to find out more information. ‘What’s wrong with this man – if he has some serious disease, we cannot have him back on board.’
    The Finn shrugged. ‘I do not know – I think he was picked from the water.’
    To save him further talk, a blaring ‘hee-haw’ of a motor siren sounded in the distance and within seconds, a cream Volvo ambulance rushed in through the gates alongside the warehouse. It pulled up near the gangway and under the avid eyes of the drama-starved passengers, two attendants got out and opened up the doors at the back.
    A pale Elizabeth Treasure was helped down first, to stand by while the ambulance men expertly slid out a stretcher. On it was the even paler faced Simon Smith, muffled up to the chin with a grey blanket.
    Before the men could start taking the stretcher up the gangway, there was a commotion on the platform and the captain of the Yuri strode out.
    He was something of a mystery figure to the tourists; hardly any had set eyes on him before. Fairly young, tall and good-looking, he had a serious set to his jaw that explained how he got the command of seven million roubles-worth of new ship, whilst older men like Yutkevich remained First Officers.
    â€˜Stop those men,’ he rapped out in Russian. Yutkevich ran down the gangway at the double. On political matters, he might be able to tell the captain a thing or two, but, when it came to the running of the ship, if the Old Man said ‘Jump!’, everyone jumped. The stretcher was slid back into the Volvo and everyone on the quayside stood and waited. Then the more familiar figure of the ship’s doctor appeared and together with Yutkevich, went down to the ambulance.
    The surgeon climbed into the back, while the First Officer had an animated conversation with Liz Treasure.
    After crouching over the