We were in a lock at the moment, like two wrestlers. He was a strong man and he was above me and he had the gun but the face of my sensei had come into my mind and his image was floating there as he lent me his spirit, his ki, so that I was able to stop thinking about what had to be done and concentrate instead on how to do it, which moves to make, which muscle groups to call into action, which angles and surfaces and hand-holds would be best for me if I could find them and use them. There was for instance the strap of the window touching the fingers of my left hand, and I thought about it, picturing the inside of the compartment until I could identify the strap and decide whether it would help me.
My arm was still across his throat and his neck was arched back with his head against the door-hinge but I couldn't increase the pressure enough to block his windpipe because he knew where the danger was: the throat is the primary killing area at close quarters for three very good reasons and he knew what they were. I couldn't increase the pressure there but I had to maintain it because he was waiting for me to slacken off and lose the initiative and then he would move his right hand and fix on the target again and squeeze his index finger and send a 200-grain hollow-point projectile into my skull and through the soft grey convolutions of my brain at 1500 feet per second and I didn't want him to do that.
He'd shut the inside door of the compartment after him when he'd come in here and when the train hit the tunnel it slammed a gust of stinking air across us and blocked the eardrums as the tumult of the wheels built up against the tunnel wall and produced a long sustained roaring that shut down a certain degree of consciousness while the brain tried to accept what was going on and reassure the emotions.
For the moment I couldn't do anything but keep him where he was and it wouldn't be long before muscle fatigue set in and he made a move and caught me by surprise and finished me off so I began trying to work something out, using the tactile data that was available. He had a choice, of course, and we both understood what it was: if he couldn't put a bullet somewhere conclusive he would have to push me bodily off the train; and as I thought about it I became gradually aware that the tactile information coming in confirmed it. He'd started to ease the pressure of the gun against my head and transfer it to my left arm. If he could break my arm or paralyse it at the median or the radial nerve it would release my fingers from the edge of the seat and I would fall backwards through the open doorway and he'd have time to put the bullet in to make sure.
I began putting pressure the other way to see if I were right and I was: he reacted at once, increasing his own. It was like a silent conversation going on, not terribly civil but perfectly articulate; we were equally experienced at clinging to life and there wasn't likely to be anything more than luck involved when we reached the conclusion; meanwhile our two heads were within twelve inches of each other and inside them there was going on this telepathic dialogue, so explicit that each of us had started anticipating the other's next move.
The train was still in the tunnel and I was shallow-breathing again because the compartment was thick with smoke and my eyes were streaming the whole time. The muscles in my right forearm were beginning to feel the fatigue of keeping up a constant pressure and when I took it off and clawed for his eyes we both shifted to the shock of the sudden movement and I felt the gun swinging across my temple and waited for the noise and found my right arm free and smashed the elbow against his face but missed and grazed his head and felt the whole of my weight falling backwards until I found one of his eyes with my fingers and used a gouge and sent him hard against the seat as he tried to stop me. I thought he was screaming but it was the locomotive — the sound came shrilling along the tunnel like a cry of pain.
No go. I'd relieved the strain on my arm but we were locked again and the gun was pressed against my face with the barrel pointing downwards along my body and it was only a matter of time before he fired and waited for blood loss and pushed me out of the train.
He began hurrying now and I knew why. If he could shoot me and push me out while we were still in the tunnel he'd bring off a certain kilclass="underline" it wouldn't matter if the shot didn't do anything lethal because when I went down I'd hit the wall and bounce back under the wheels and that would be final. He was hurrying by millimetres and I felt it and gave it some thought and realized that he wanted to make sure of a useful shot before he pulled the trigger: it was no good just putting it into my leg because you can go on working for quite a long time unless there's an artery hit and even then you can try for an overkill before the blood loss starts weakening the organism.
So I began hurrying too and pulled my arm from his neck and formed a half-fist and went for the windpipe but he was ready for any kind of move and blocked me and then there was a rushing of foetid air and the eardrums opened as the train ran clear of the tunnel and I lost my balance and clawed for a grip on anything I could find but it was no go and I went pitching down to the track.
15 OBJECTIVE
'Look at this! And they expect me to keep to a schedule!' The huge windscreen wiper grated across the glass.
'Three snow ploughs, in fifty kilometres. It's a joke!'
We hit a drift and he dragged us clear again.
'They should try it themselves some time!"
He tugged the gearshift, double-declutching, and the engine roared. Ahead of us the sky was black with snow clouds.
'Don't they make allowances for the conditions?' I asked him.
'Allowances?' He turned his huge bearded face to me, his eyes rolling. 'They wouldn't make allowances if the engine dropped out and the wheels fell off and the exhaust pipe got stuck up a polar bear's arse! They think this is summer! They're whoresons!'
He kicked the throttle with a massive boot and put the truck into a slide to avoid a stranded tractor. A man in a fur cap waved to him for help, and he stuck his face out of the window. 'Fuck your luck, comrade!"
I shifted my weight on the worn seat to ease the bruises.
'Have you got enough petrol to get you to Kandalaksha?'
'If those constipated imbeciles have got the road clear, yes.'
It was a big Sovtransavto truck with a Leningrad licence and a TIR plate at the rear. It smelled as if it were carrying some kind of fertilizer, or perhaps it was the driver, but I didn't mind, he was my friend, my good friend. He'd been crawling in low gear through a mess of stranded vehicles a few miles back and I'd climbed into the cab without asking first and told him my car was broken down with a cracked cylinder block.
The coat was a good fit and most of the numbness had gone from my legs. The bruises were on my right shoulder and forearm where they'd hit the rocks alongside the track. The Lithuanian had been underneath me when we'd dropped because my weight had torn his one hand-hold away and he couldn't save himself.
'That's my wife!' the truck driver called above the drumming of the engine. He pointed at the coloured photograph stuck to the facia panel, of a girl with enormous breasts in a bikini.
'Very nice too,' I said.
'Don't I wish!' he yelled and gave a bellowing laugh.