Of course, getting out of the river would be another matter. In those temperatures, hypothermia would set in within minutes, so he wouldn't be able to afford to hang around. Whatever the risks, it still beat getting shot in the back by a panicked guard.
He climbed up onto the windowsill, took a deep breath, then lifted the latch and opened the window. Immediately a deafening alarm filled the room and he heard the sound of shouts and running feet.
With a firm kick, he toppled the statue over the edge. Its white bulk sailed gracefully through the air and crashed into the ice, splitting a wide hole in its surface and then sinking out of sight.
The shouts were closer now, the footsteps almost in the same room. Tom stood up and looked over his shoulder. Five guards were bearing down on him, their guns pointing in his general direction. The first shot rang out, the bullet fizzing past his ear and slamming into the plasterwork.
Without hesitating Tom jumped into the dark waters below.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
The cold water bit savagely into him as he arrowed through the hole in the ice. The shock made him inhale sharply, his lungs only half filling with air as the water closed over his head. His momentum carried him down to the canal floor, and he felt its soft, loamy bed grasp his ankles as he touched down, as if trying to hold him there. Immediately Tom kicked off in what he believed to be the direction of the metal grille and the river, hoping that he could hold his breath long enough to get there.
He tried to open his eyes to see where he was going, but the cold clawed against them like a blunt knife, forcing him to screw them tightly shut. Unable to tell where he was going, or even if he was heading up or down, Tom kicked furiously with his legs, his hands scooping the water ahead of him.
A sharp knock on the back of his head told him that he'd hit the ice, a series of high-pitched pings echoing immediately above him confirming it — bullets drilling into the ice as the guards fired down on him from the rooms above. For a moment he was grateful that the ice was as thick as it was, until he remembered that he was trapped beneath it.
He tried to angle himself down a bit but found that his legs were becoming strangely unresponsive, as if the cold had wrapped a thick blanket around them that he was trying to kick free. His damaged shoulder had seized up completely.
With his other hand he reached out and felt a wall to his left — the side of the Hermitage. Using it as a guide, he half dragged himself, half swam toward the river, his chest and throat burning as the muscles constricted, his heart pounding, his stomach feeling bruised.
He swam on, each kick of his legs tightening the metal fist that was closing slowly around his lungs. Every muscle, every organ in his body was crying out for air, and Tom was gripped by the strange sensation that he was falling through the water from a great height. He knew then that he was drowning.
With a last, desperate thrust, he propelled himself forward and felt the grille in front of him, cold and hard as the bars on a prison cell. He pulled himself down its face, kicking and kicking until it felt he must have swum almost to the center of the earth, a sharp, stabbing pain in his eyes and ears.
Finally he found a gap between the canal bed and the bottom of the grille. He squeezed through it, his head exploding, small stars and flashes of light strobing across the inside of his eyelids.
He tried one last kick, but his legs barely moved, the riverbed soft and inviting beneath him, the lights of St. Petersburg glimmering soothingly down through the water like stars on the far side of the universe. Everything was quiet and still.
Two hands suddenly surged out of the darkness and grabbed him roughly. He had the sensation of flying, of soaring toward the stars like a rocket, his body screaming, his brain roaring. And then he was free, coughing and gasping, his lungs hungrily sucking in air, his throat uncoiling itself, the knot of his heart slackening off.
"Get him in the boat." He heard Viktor's voice behind him and realized that it was her hand that was wrapped protectively across his chest as she dragged him backward through the water.
Two pairs of arms reached down and hauled him out of the water, immediately wrapping several towels around him. He caught a glimpse of Viktor, fully clothed, climbing up the ladder behind him.
"Let's go," he heard her say. The engine that had been idling roared into life, the speedboat lifting its nose out of the water as it accelerated. The fiberglass hull skipped and slapped across the river's surface as the Hermitage receded into the distance.
Viktor sat down opposite him, handing him a hot drink that he held between his clenched fists, still unable to move his fingers.
"I guess now we're even," she shouted over the engine. Tom nodded, his whole body shaking with cold. "Did you get it?" she asked. He shook his head. "Where's Archie?" he croaked. "We've found out he's being held at the U.S. Consulate. What happened to Turnbull?"
"He didn't make it."
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Dominique heard voices and edged her head around the corner. Viktor, her hair still wet, was talking earnestly in a low voice to three of her men. They were listening intently, nodding every so often as if she was giving them instructions. Dominique wondered what Viktor was up to as she watched her handing them several large bags. One of the men then glanced through the open door into the room beyond it and asked something. Viktor's eyes followed his, then looked around with a smile. "Da."
A board creaked under Dominique's bare feet and she snatched her head back. The voices stopped, then she heard the sound of footsteps fading away.
"You can come out now." Viktor's voice echoed down the corridor.
Dominique stepped sheepishly out of the shadows. "Sorry, I didn't mean to… Is he all right?"
"He's fine," Viktor replied. "We got him just in time. He needs to get some sleep, that's all."
"And Turnbull?"
Viktor shook her head.
"How…?" asked Dominique.
"Tom didn't say. But I told him about Archie. He's going to go there in the morning and find out why they're holding him."
"Can I see him?"
"He's asleep," said Viktor, shutting the door gently. "Leave him now."
"Okay."
There was a long, awkward pause as both women stood in silence, neither wanting to be the first to move.
"You and Tom," Viktor said eventually, "you never…?" She let the question hang there suggestively.
"Tom and me?" Dominique laughed. "Is that what you think?"
"I just wondered. I mean, you're very beautiful and he… he's very…"
"Tom." Dominique finished the sentence for her, smiling to herself at the effect that Tom had on some women, even women like Viktor who appeared to have no soft edges left. His strength seemed to appeal to their need to be protected, his vulnerability to their desire to protect. She had never really felt that way about him herself. There was just too much history there with his father.
"I just wondered…" Viktor shrugged, not sounding as casual as she had probably intended.
"The thing about Tom," said Dominique slowly, "is that he's not very good with people. It's not his fault. It's what he's had to do to survive. Everyone who he has ever relied on has ended up leaving him. It's easier for him just to never get close. That way he's never disappointed and he never lets anyone else down."