He was out of breath again, and I decided to call it a day. We were working in the gap between the garbage dumps and the wire on the west side, where a degree or two of warmth lingered from the winter sun that had come out in the wake of the blizzard, flushing the snows with a pale roseate light.
'When will I be ready?' Alex asked.
'Two more months. Go off at half cock and God help you.' I threw a sword-hand across his face and he was painfully slow. 'You've got to work on your reaction time too. Drop things and catch them before they hit the ground. Listen to people talking, and the next time you hear the word "Maybe" or "Always" or whatever you choose, squeeze a fist – instantly. It'll take some doing – you don't want to be jumpy, you want to be fast.'
'Is there anything,' he asked me with an appealing diffidence on our way back to the hut, 'I can do to repay you for all this?'
'I'm doing it for my own satisfaction. But if I think of anything, yes, I'll let you know.'
'Is your name Marius Antanov?'
'No. You've got the wrong man.'
Three now.
Three.
The huts full of steaming men, the ringing of the shovels over for the day, the pathways cleared, a feeling of good work done, someone singing in the wash rooms, singing, in this place, My life, Igor had said, I took his point.
The gruel filthy in its tin bowl, but we spooned it up with gusto, blowing on it, searching for the end of a carrot, a lump of potato, a few black beans.
I thought of something that Alex could do for me, yes. Perhaps tomorrow, whatever news midnight would bring.
'Marius Antanov?'
He looked at me, the eyes suddenly wary in the thin, sculpted face.
'And who are you?'
21: KEY
'How is she?'
'Worried about you,' I said, 'of course.'
'I suppose so.' He sat shivering on the coconut matting, hunched in his striped greatcoat. He felt the cold.
We were in the gymnasium, if you want to call it that, a bigger hut than the others with no stove, just a few moth-eaten mats strewn around and a rickety vaulting-horse and some parallel bars made of gnarled pit props, no punch bag – any kind of combat training was strictly prohibited in Gulanka. Place reeked of sweat, as you can imagine.
It was the evening end-of-work hour, what we called free time.
'Natalya didn't send her love,' I told Marius, 'because she didn't know I was coming here.'
He moved his head. 'How much warning did you get?' Justice was summary in the capital these days.
'I came here on my own account, chose my own time.' There was a pause. He listened attentively, Marius, then considered before he spoke. He was the kind of man, I thought, who would have been good at running the Sakkas empire; cool, intelligent, creative. In Gulanka he worked in the commandant's office as a book-keeper, he'd told me, his talents not totally wasted.
'You came here on your own account,' he said. 'And what does that mean?'
'I fiddled my way onto the train, with false papers.'
'To Gulanka.' Listening very hard now.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'To look for you.'
Watching me with his pale attentive eyes. 'For me.'
'I'm taking you back to Moscow. I assume you've no objection.'
He blinked, which he didn't do often. He was a bit like Ferris, a cool cat, raised an eyebrow when he felt moved, instead of the roof.
'Taking me back to Moscow,' he said. 'And how long have you been here?'
'Four or five days.'
'Not long enough,' he said, 'to learn anything about Gulanka.'
'I learn fast. But do me a favour. Imagine for a moment that I could in fact get you back to the city.'
Two beats. 'I should tell you it's entirely academic, but very well.'
'What would you want to do in Moscow, after you'd seen your sister?'
He thought for a long time now, turning his head away, turning it back. Then quietly he said, 'Destroy Sakkas.'
I caught something in his eyes for the first time, a brightness; hatred, I thought, an intense hatred.
'Destroy,' I said. 'You mean kill?'
'Not immediately. Bring him down first. Destroy everything he has, first. Then kill, or have killed: I'd bring in a professional, to make certain I didn't bungle things. That's something I would very much like not to bungle.'
The door at the other end of the gym came open with a bang and someone came in, the snow under the lamps outside casting a wash of light across the rafters. He shot us a look, slammed the door and shook off his greatcoat, dropping onto a mat and stretching out.
'This is because,' I asked Marius, 'of what he did to your sister?'
'For the most part. And for what he did to me.'
'I didn't come here,' I told him, 'just to give you the chance of destroying Sakkas, though I wouldn't object. I need your services in return.'
In a moment, 'My services. And what are they?'
'I'll tell you when we reach Moscow.'
Watching me with steady concentration. 'Who are you?'
'I work for a European government, but as a freelance.'
'I see.' He was too intelligent to ask which government, or what post; if I'd wanted him to know I would have told him.
'Let me ask you something. Have you done much training?'
He looked at me. 'Training?'
'In athletics. Or just – you know – jogging, aerobics, that kind of thing. How fit are you?'
'Oh, all right I suppose. I used to jog every day in Gorky Park.'
'How long for?'
'Maybe half an hour.'
'Do anything with the arms?'
'Arms?' He was thinking suddenly of assault rifles. 'Oh, lifted a few weights when I had the time.'
'Press-ups?'
'Too boring.'
'They are, aren't they.' I left it. It was too late to tell him to start a crash-program now: he'd get muscle-bound.
'You're pretty fit yourself,' he said in a moment. 'I heard what you did to that man Gradov.'
'He was easy meat, run to fat.' I watched the man on the mat over there, doing some leg-raising now, his breath steaming under the bleak yellow lights. 'How's the commandant these days?'
No surprise in the eyes: he fielded unexpected questions well. 'He's a very angry man.'
'Why?'
'Someone tried to bribe one of the guards.'