Alexei crouched low, moving forward at a run. He blasted out the truck’s headlights. One of the soldiers was climbing back into the rear car and Alexei fired at point blank range. A huge crimson flower blossomed on the back of the soldier’s greatcoat and he slumped into the passenger seat, clawing to shut the door to protect himself. A bullet from somewhere close took his eye out and he stopped moving.
‘Let me go.’
‘No, Lydia. No.’
‘I must see what is-’
‘No.’
Chang would not release her. His grip on her was too strong. They were hunched behind a tree far back from the road and she could smell the tang of its bark above her own fear, but the gunfire and the shouts in the darkness were unbearable for her. She needed to be there.
‘Please, Chang An Lo, let me-’
He clamped a hand over her mouth, listening hard to the sounds from the road. ‘The guns are growing fewer.’
That’s when she bit him.
Jens felt panic like something solid inside the truck. It writhed in the blackness and threatened to choke him. People were screaming in here, raging. They hammered on the metal doors, begged to be let out. The noise of the guns outside was loud enough to deafen, reverberating as bullet after bullet thudded into the side of the truck. One hit a tyre and they felt it lurch as though drunk. Out in the forest, lives were ending. Explosions of glass and shrieks of pain, death trampling over hearts and lungs.
Jens sat on the bench, his face clutched in his hands, and tried to think – but the darkness, the noise and the panic, they knotted the coils of his brain. Don’t do this, Lydia. Don’t. Not today of all days, my daughter. This day was to be my redemption.
We are coming for you. That’s what she’d said in her letter.
Suddenly Olga was beside him and she lifted his face, kissed his closed eyes. ‘This is goodbye,’ she whispered.
He knew she was right. ‘I hope you find your daughter again, Olga.’ He kissed her cheek.
Elkin was bellowing at the doors when suddenly the guns ceased and there was a collective intake of breath, all ears straining, all pulses racing.
‘Get out here,’ someone yelled outside and the truck’s rear doors were thrown open.
Alexei stood at the edge of the trees, something in him unwilling to approach. The dirt road was littered with nine bodies, plus one sprawled in the second NAMI-1, but he kept a watch on the forest as though not trusting it to remain silent. He had chosen this spot for the ambush because it was too far from the hangar complex for gunfire to be heard, but still he hung back. He was uncertain about approaching Jens and for the first time wished Lydia were there.
The prisoners inside the truck were tumbling out, blinking hard in the rear car’s headlights and clutching each other as if they feared they would be snatched away. Some were crying, one was shouting abuse at their rescuers. The vory had no interest in them but prodded them into a group the way someone would herd diseased cattle in an abattoir. Alexei spotted Jens Friis easily. He was taller than the rest and stood apart, ignoring the men in black who had stopped the convoy, scanning the darkness, searching the cars, the road and the dense mass of trees for something. Or someone.
Lydia. Jens wanted Lydia.
His appearance came as a shock to Alexei. The red hair was gone and in its place was a thick white mane. Even though Lydia had told him about it it still jarred, and his face was gaunt and weathered, his jaw-line set hard. Only the way he carried himself was the same. That, and the mouth. Whatever else had died in Jens Friis, the gentle lines of his mouth had survived and tempted Alexei to rush over and embrace him. But he recalled the coolness of the letter.
‘Thank you, spasibo.’ One thin woman kissed Igor’s hand and set off on her own down the road, away from the hangars.
‘Don’t be damn stupid,’ a short man shouted after her.
‘They’ll hunt you down and shoot you.’ He swung round angrily to the rest of the group. ‘We’ll all pay for this if she leaves.’
‘Maybe this is a test of our loyalty,’ another shouted.
Others joined in.
‘Let’s leave. This is our chance.’
‘No, we’ve been promised our freedom.’
‘We can stay here and go on working for them or we can escape. Decide quickly.’
What would Jens do? Would he cling to his monster?
Where was he? The white mane had vanished. Where? Alexei started to stride towards the group, who reacted with shock at the sight of his uniform, but just then an engine roared into life. The rear car, the one with the dead soldier in its passenger seat and its door hanging open, lurched violently off the dirt road and veered into the black world beneath the trees. It was travelling at speed and its headlamps carved a dangerous zigzag path between the looming trunks. There was a nerve-scraping screech of metal as the door was ripped off its hinges.
‘Jens!’ Alexei bellowed.
A slight figure came hurtling out of the darkness. It was Lydia, running on to the road just in time to see the NAMI-1 charge back out of the forest on the far side of the fallen pine. For a moment its wheels scrabbled and spun on the dirt as it struggled to regain the road, its engine threatening to stall, then it was off at full throttle towards the hangar complex.
‘Jens!’ Alexei roared again.
Lydia looked from her brother to the car disappearing into the night and the expression on her face froze into one of despair.
‘Papa!’ she screamed. ‘Papa!’
‘He’s gone. He drove off. I didn’t even see him, he was so eager to get back to his monster.’
They were deep among the trees and Chang couldn’t make out her face in the pitch dark, but he could hear her voice. That was enough. He drew her to him, held her close and kissed her cold cheek.
‘That’s why we’re here, my love. In case anything went wrong with your brother’s plan.’
Her head jerked back to look at him, but her face was no more than a pale blur with black holes for eyes. It looked unnervingly like a skull and sent a cold finger of dread down his spine, so that he swore fiercely at his gods under his breath. Don’t let it be an omen.
‘We go after him?’ she asked. Her voice had changed. It was Lydia ’s again.
‘If that’s what you wish.’
For an answer she kissed him full on the lips.
Out of the undergrowth a lumbering black form rose noisily to its feet, smelling no better than a bear, and growled, ‘So what are we waiting for?’
It was Popkov.
The steering wheel kicked and bucked in Jens’ hands. He knew he was driving too fast over the rough road. Something could break. He wasn’t used to cars. Years ago in St Petersburg he’d owned a glorious gleaming Buick and twice in twelve years he’d been called on to drive a truck in the timber yards. But this army car handled like an ill-behaved dog, pulling hard one moment, unresponsive the next. So he just jammed the pedal to the metal floor and kept it there.
He had to get there fast before those hard-faced rescuers took it into their heads to come after him. He should be grateful to them, he knew he should, but he wasn’t. Dear God, those people had risked their lives! Good Russian men had died. Oh my dearest Lydia, why weren’t you there? I looked for you. As he ploughed through the forest he wondered what the other scientists and engineers would do now? Escape? Olga would, Jens was certain of that. But not Elkin. Maybe those who realised the alternative was-