The Last Aerie by Brian Lumley Read Free Book Online

light grey eyes might mark him as an Arab; except Trask suspected it had been broken in an accident or a fight. Probably the latter, for the head of Russia’s E-Branch was a devotee of the martial arts. His mouth was well-fleshed if a little wide, above a chin which was strong and square. His cheeks were very slightly hollow, and his small, pointed ears lay flat to his head. The picture overall was of a too-perfect symmetry, where the left and right halves of the Russian’s face seemed mirror images. In the majority of people this would be a disadvantage, Trask thought: the physical attractions of a face, its “good looks”, are normally defined by imperfections of balance. Turkur Tzonov to the contrary: paradoxically, he was a very attractive man.
    The secret lay in the eyes, which were a fascination unto themselves. Trask could well understand the Branch’s profile of this man, which detailed a long string of beautiful and intelligent female companions. None of them had voiced any complaint when he moved on; they had all remained “loyal” to him in their various ways. Trask wondered if it were true loyalty, or simply that Tzonov knew too much about them. How could any woman speak out against a man who knows every detail of her pastlife? Only a stupid or insensitive or entirely innocent woman would dare, none of which were Tzonov’s sort.
    And now those near-hypnotic eyes—those telepathic eyes of Turkur Tzonov—were intent upon Trask as the two heads of British and Soviet ESP-Intelligence measured each other across a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles.
    Trask’s appraisal of the other had taken moments; possibly the Russian had read something of it in his mind; in any case there had been nothing there he could possibly object to. And if there had been, well he was the one who was asking for help. Trask nodded. “So you have a problem, Turkur … er, do you mind if I use your first name? I know you’re still fond of the term ‘Comrade’ over there, but we’re hardly that.”
    “Turkur, by all means,” the other shrugged and permitted himself the ghost of a smile. “As for ‘Comrade’: it’s true our organizations have had their differences in the past, Mr. Trask—or should that be Ben? But that is history and this is now, and the future is … oh, a very big place! In a world scrutinized by alien intelligences, perhaps even under the threat of attack, we wouldn’t find it so difficult to be Comrades. Am I right?”
    His argument and the way he presented it were disarming, especially since Trask knew what he was talking about. Perhaps Trask knew even more than Tzonov thought. For instance, he knew or suspected that the—intruder?—from the other side was a man. And now there might be a way to confirm his suspicions.
    “Is that what you think?” he said. “That your visitor is a spy for the Wamphyri? Their advance guard, as it were? Someone working for Harry Keogh, perhaps?”
    If his words caught the other off guard there was little outward sign of it: a single blink, and the almost imperceptible narrowing of cool grey eyes. Then Tzonov’s answer. “The reputation of your Branch is well-deserved, Ben. That is precisely what I think. It’s at least a possibility. Between us we control talents with which to combat any such incursion; but until we know what the threat is, or that it definitely exists …” He let his words taper off.
    “You haven’t been able to fathom him, then?” Trask took it that Guy Teale had been correct: what had come through the Perchorsk Gate was a man.
    “As yet we’re not wholly in a position to fathom him, no,1 Tzonov said. “Rather, he is not in a position to be fathomed.”
    “Can you explain that?”
    “We’re holding him within the Gate,” Tzonov obliged. “At our end, just beyond the Perchorsk threshold. What? But do you think we’ve learned nothing from the lessons of the past? That we would simply let such a creature in without first