No one was looking in this direction; the only people I could see were half-lost behind the dazzling curtain of snow in the floodlights, so I bent over Konarev and brought down a measured hammer-fist to the frontal lobes to produce concussion and got him across my shoulders and took him to the ambulance station where they were putting the injured on board, told them it was a head trauma case.
That had been thirty minutes ago and it was then that I'd started to watch the pickup trucks, looking for Tanya, and by now I was beginning to think I'd missed her, but that idea was unthinkable, because of the last possible chance.
Drowning man.
Shuddup.
Clutching at a straw.
Shuddup and leave me alone.
Then I saw Tanya: she must have gone back to the train to find her suitcase; they were helping her swing it aboard the next truck in line. I turned and walked across the area ahead of it where the snow had been packed down by the vehicles coming in, had to watch my step, it was like a bloody ice rink now, they'd have to start breaking it up with a bulldozer. I went fifty yards and saw the truck coming at a crawl, slewing all over the place, and when it was close enough I clambered over the side and they made room for me. I still had the scarf across my face and I don't think Tanya recognized me, didn't want her to; she was at the rear and I faced forward, getting down behind the cab to keep out of the wind as the truck found better terrain and gunned up with the headlights dazzling against the curtain of snow. They hadn't seen me, Gromov and his men, but they'd go on looking for me and when they finally gave up and made for the city they'd fill the streets with militia patrols to help them. And there was the other thing — I didn't know how long it'd be before Konarev regained consciousness but when he did he'd let out a big squeal and that wouldn't help, I'd have to be very careful, go to ground if I could, find some kind of a bolt-hole.
Ferris wouldn't be waiting for me at the station in Novosibirsk as arranged: he'd have got the news by now and sent off a signal to London: Reports are that Rossiya has crashed. Whereabouts and condition of executive unknown. He'd look for me in the town wherever the transports were going to drop us off and I'd watch for him too, but I didn't think much of our chances in a crowd this size; we'd have to do it the other way, through Signals, try and set up a rendezvous.
'It was a bomb.'
'What?' the scarf was round my ears.
'It was a bomb, back there on the train.'
He was a youngish man, but with his face prematurely weathered by the Siberian winters, his eyes squeezed almost shut against the wind of the truck's passage, his nose leaking mucus.
'Was it?' I said.
'No question. I am a linesman. I work on the track. It doesn't take much, you see, at that speed, at a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, for the wheels to jump the rails. We were lucky it wasn't worse.'
'Very lucky,' I said.
'Revolutionaries.' the truck hit some ice and we grabbed each other as it slid and found some cinders and came straight again with a jerk, people calling out behind us. "They should be shot. If I found out who it was, I would shoot them.'
'Yes,' I said.
But I didn't think it had been revolutionaries. The target had been Car No. 12, where the former Hero of the Soviet Union, Velichko, had been earlier, and it could be that the bomb, like the smile, had been for the general.
The city's authorities had commandeered a public gymnasium for the passengers of the Rossiya, those who hadn't already been taken to the hospitals, and women were carrying mattresses and blankets inside, unloading them from trucks with the municipal insignia on them: City of Novosibirsk. The transports just in from the scene of the train disaster were dropping people off in a small square near the gymnasium, and loudspeakers were announcing the immediate and gratis availability of shelter, bedding, food and limited washing facilities for those who preferred not to go to a hotel. The loudspeakers were crackling and cutting out altogether a lot of the time, and upwards of five hundred people — the uninjured survivors of the crash — were crowding around the entrance doors, and it looked as if it were going to be hours before there'd be enough bedding in there for them all.
The blizzard had stopped as the storm moved on to the west, but snow-ploughs were in the streets, and emergency vehicles with chains were moving in behind them. Above the buildings the sky was black and the stars glittering. But it was cold: In winter, Jane had noted for me, the night temps can go down to -30°, so be prepared for closed streets and frozen plumbing.
But the main streets in this area were open, their surfaces rough with sand, and the ploughs were working through the smaller ones, their engines booming among the buildings and their headlights flickering. I was on foot, and had so far made two turns to the right and three to the left: Tanya seemed to know her way and was walking quickly where she could, though her suitcase looked cumbersome for her. I could have brought one or both of my bags from the train — Konarev would have allowed that — but there was obviously going to be the need to travel light.
She turned to the right again and I moved faster until I reached the corner: we were now in Ob Prospekt, named after the river that had turned Novosibirsk into a major inland port. Halfway along she crossed over, dropping her suitcase into a snow-drift and heaving it out again. She looked back for the first time since we'd left the square but I just kept on walking: the distance was adequate and there were other people in the streets: in this time zone, more than three thousand kilometres from Moscow, it was now 9:03, and the lights in most of the hotels were still burning.
The one she was making for was the Hotel Vladekino, a small three-storey red-brick building at the corner of two side-streets, and I went past and came back and gave Tanya five minutes to check in and went up the steps.
'The hotel is closed,' the woman behind the counter said, and watched me with eyes tired of looking at strangers. The lift was still moaning, and as I got my wallet out I heard it stop. Tanya was known here, had been made welcome. In the stairwell I heard the lift doors opening on one of the floors above.
'You're in the best place, mother,' I said, and put a fifty-rouble note onto the counter. 'It's cold enough to freeze a brass monkey out there.' the Russian translation was less coarse, could be used in talking to a woman.
'Are you from the train?' she eased her bulk out of the worn red velvet-covered chair and came to the counter, folding the note and tucking it away.
'No,' I said. I'd used snow to wash the blood off my boot.
'It was blown up. It was terrible. Have you heard?'
'Yes. Terrible.'
'People killed,' she said, and opened the register. The last entry had been made out for Room 32. 'You must fill in the form,' she said, and I picked up the pen that was tied to a big brass paperweight on the counter. 'And I must see your papers. You are from Moscow?'
'Yes.'
'You have the accent.' I couldn't tell from her tone whether it was a compliment or a reproach.
'Is there a phone in the room?' I asked her.
'There are no telephones in the rooms.' A distinct reproach this time, as if I'd said I needed to contact a call-girl.
I completed the registration form and she pushed my papers back across the counter. 'Where do I phone from, mother?'
'In the corner there.' she copied my name into her book and put the room number: 35. It was too close for safe surveillance work because Tanya would recognize me if she saw me, but I didn't ask the woman to give me a different room because it would bring questions and I didn't want that: she'd be one of the people in this town who'd be asked by the police if they knew anything of a man named Shokin, Viktor Sergei, perhaps a few minutes from now, a few hours from now, certainly by the morning. I'd taken the lesser risk, using my cover identity rather than alert her at the outset by saying I'd lost my papers.