'And Yezhov -?'
'His widow hanged herself. They had a child.' He looked away. 'I don't know what became of it. They're all dead now, of course. Even Chizhikov.'
More silence. Kelso felt like Scheherazade: as long as he could keep talking, there was a chance. Death lay in the silences.
'Comrade Chizhikov,' he said. 'He must have been a -' he nearly said 'a monster" - a formidable man?'
'A shock-worker,' said the Russian, 'a Stakhanovite, a soldier and a hunter, a red expert and a theoretician of the highest calibre.' His eyes were almost closed. His voice fell to a whisper. 'Oh, and he beat me, comrade. He beat me and he beat me, until I was weeping blood! On instructions that were given to him, as to the manner of my upbringing, by the highest organs: "You are to give him a good shaking every now and again!" All that I am, he made me.'
'When did Comrade Chizhikov die?'
'Two winters ago. He was clumsy and half-blind by then. He stepped into one of his own traps. The wound turned black. His leg turned black and stank like maggoty meat.
There was delirium. He raged. In the end, he begged us to leave him outside overnight, in the snow. A dog's death.'
'And his wife - she died soon afterwards?'
'Within the week.'
'She must have been like a mother to you?'
'She was. But she was old. She couldn't work. It was a hard thing to have to do - but it was for the best.'
'He never ever loved a human being, 'said his schoolfriend, Iremashvili. 'He was incapable of feeling pity for man or beast, and I never knew him cry...'
A hard thing- For the best- He opened one yellow eye.
'You are shifty, comrade. I can tell.'
Kelso's throat was dry. He looked at his watch. 'I was wondering what had become of my colleague -'
It was now more than half an hour since he had left O'Brian by the river.
'The Yankee? Take my tip there, comrade. Don't trust him. You'll see.'
He winked again, put his finger to his lips and stood. And then he moved across the cabin with an extraordinary speed and agility - it was grace, really: one, two, three steps, yet the soles of his boots barely seemed to connect with the boards -and he flung open the door and there was O'Brian.
And later Kelso was to wonder what might have happened (I~ next. Would it all have been treated as some terrific joke? ('Your ears must be flapping like boards in this cold, comrade!') Or would O'Brian have been the next interloper in the miniature Stalinist state required to sign a confession?
But it was impossible to say what might have happened, because what did happen was that the Russian suddenly shoved O'Brian roughly into the cabin. Then he stood alone at the open door, his head tilted to one side, nostrils dilated, sniffing the air, listening.
SUVORIN never even saw the smoke. It was Major Kretov who spotted it.
He braked and pointed to it, put the snow plough into first gear, and they crawled forwards for a couple of hundred yards until they drew level with the entrance to the track. Halfway along it, the sharp white outline of the Toyota's roof showed up clear against the shadows of the trees.
Kretov stopped, reversed a short distance, and left the engine idling as he scanned the way ahead. Then he swung the wheel hard and the big vehicle lurched forwards again, off the road and down the track, clearing a path to within a few paces of the empty car. He turned the engine off and for a few moments Suvorin heard again that unnatural silence.
He said, 'Major, what are your orders, exactly?'
Kretov was opening the door. 'My orders are plain Russian good sense. "To stuff the cork back in to the bottle at the narrowest point."' He jumped down easily into the snow and reached back for his AK-74. He stuffed an extra magazine into his jacket. He checked his pistol.
'And this is the narrowest point?'
'Stay here and keep your backside warm, why don't you? This won't take us long.'
'I won't be a party to anything illegal,' said Suvorin. The words sounded absurdly prim and official, even to his ears, and Kretov took no notice. He was already beginning to move off with his men. 'The westerners, at least,' Suvorin called after them, 'are not to be harmed!'
He sat there for a few more seconds, watching the backs of the soldiers as they fanned out across the track. Then, cursing, he shoved the front seat forwards and squeezed ~ himself into the open door. The cab was unexpectedly high off the ground. He leapt and felt himself jerked backwards, ~ heard a tearing sound. The lining of his coat had snagged on a bit of metal. He swore again and detached himself. It was hard to keep up with the other three. They were fit and he was not. They had army boots and he had leather-soled brogues. It was difficult to maintain his footing in the snow and he wouldn't have caught them at all if they hadn't stopped to inspect something on the ground beside the track.
Kretov smoothed out the screwed-up yellow paper and turned it this way and that. It was blank. He balled it up again and dropped it. He inserted a small, flesh-coloured miniature receiver, like a hearing-aid, into his right ear. From his pocket he took out a black ski-mask and pulled it over his head. The others did the same. Kretov made a chopping motion with his gloved hand towards the forest and they set off again: Kretov first with his assault rifle held before him, turning as he walked, ducking this way and that, ready to rake the trees with bullets; then one soldier, then another, both keeping up the same wary surveillance, their faces like skulls in the masks; and finally Suvorin in his civilian clothes - stumbling, slipping, in every way absurd.
CALMLY the Russian closed the door and collected his rifle. He pulled out a wooden box from beneath the table and filled his pockets with bullets. In the same unhurried manner, he rolled back the carpet, lifted the trapdoor and leapt, cat-like, into the space.
'We stand for peace and champion the cause of peace,' he said. 'But we are not afraid of threats and are prepared to match the instigators of war blow for blow. Those who try attack us will receive a crushing repulse to teach them not poke their pig snouts into our Soviet garden. Replace the carpct~ comrade.'
He disappeared, closing the trapdoor after him.
O'Brian gaped at the floorboards and then at Kelso.
'What the fuck?'
'And where the hell have you been?' Kelso grabbed the satchel and quickly stuffed it back into his jacket. 'Never mind him,' he said, rolling back the carpet. 'Let's just get out of here.’
But before either of them could move a skull appeared at the cabin windows - two round eyes and a slit for a mouth. A boot kicked wood. The door splintered.
THEY were made to stand against the wall - shoved against the rough planked wall - and Kelso felt cold metal jabbed into the nape of his neck. O'Brian was a bit too slow on the uptake so he had his forehead banged against the planking, just to mend his manners and teach him a little Russian.