A branch loomed out of the darkness and smashed against the windscreen, cracking one side of it. He was skidding all over the road, but he kept his foot down and raced towards the yellow glow that was forming in the distance. An imitation sun. Jens grimaced. Such an illusion, as if the Soviet machine heralded a new dawn.
‘Dokumenti? Identity papers?’
The soldier had come out of his sentry booth beside the gate, his rifle pointing straight at Jens’ head.
‘I am one of the engineers who work here. I have no papers. Listen to me, the truck bringing us here was attacked in the forest.’ Jens revved the engine impatiently. ‘Open the gates. Bistro. Quickly.’
The soldier stepped back into his booth and spoke for half a minute into a telephone. Immediately the gates jerked open and Jens drove in. For one terrible half minute he’d believed they would refuse him entry, but no, he was in. He studied the compound with different eyes this time, aware of the slow sweep of the searchlights as they probed the early morning darkness, the uniformed figures rushing round like chickens as word spread of the attack.
He was dragged into a stark room he’d never been in before, interrogated by an officer whose mouth remained in a severe line but whose blue eyes sparkled at the prospect of action. He dismissed Jens with a wave of the hand when he’d extracted all he could and abruptly Jens found himself outside in the compound, at the centre of a hubbub of shouts and orders, soldiers running, while the piercing wail of an alarm siren split the early morning air like a cleaver.
The rest was easy.
‘I’ll start work anyway,’ he said to his escort.
‘Is that what you were ordered to do?’
‘Yes.’
He strode off towards the large hangar. The soldier didn’t know what else to do with the lone prisoner, so he was relieved to have the decision made for him. Outside the small door at the side patrolled the two men in black who normally hovered like unwanted shadows, inspecting the prisoners’ every action with narrow-eyed interest. But today they waved him inside without following. Their spectacles glittered as the searchlight struck them and Jens saw them smile for the first time. Not at him but at the frantic commotion of their comrades.
Jens knew he had to move quickly. The biplanes first. He ran the length of the vast space, refusing to look up at the beautiful silver creature that floated above his head, and hurried through the doors to the smaller hangar attached at the rear. It was bitterly cold inside, like walking into an ice-room, the electric lights dim and gloomy because some of the bulbs had cracked overnight. It was always happening. He studied the two wood and canvas biplanes with affection and stroked a hand along one of the lower wings. Its skin felt almost human under his fingers.
‘You’ll soon warm up,’ he said and heard the sadness in his voice.
He hesitated. For a second his decision wavered. He could turn back now, it wasn’t too late.
‘ Lydia, would you think worse of me if I did?’ he murmured. ‘You know from my letter what I’ve done and yet still you came today.’
Suddenly, without warning, the generosity of her love overwhelmed him and for the first time in more years than he could remember tears welled in his eyes. He felt a rawness in his throat. A tightness in his chest. No, no turning back. Better this way. He couldn’t let the men of Surkov camp die. From his pockets he drew two sleeves which he’d torn from his spare shirt. He walked over to a green metal drum of aviation fuel in the corner of the hangar, unscrewed the cap and dipped one half of each sleeve into the liquid inside. The fumes made his head ache. Or was that the sorrow?
It took no more than five seconds to finish the job. He pulled out his cigarette lighter and flicked up a flame, touching it to one sleeve and then the other. When they were burning like torches he threw one into each of the planes’ open cockpits and instantly they crackled. Flames licked up the seats like greedy tongues.
He stood there for only a couple of seconds, watching his gleaming hopes burn. Then he headed for the airship.
53
‘Are you coming, Alexei?’
‘No, Igor. You go. I’ll tidy up here.’
‘Tidy up?’ Igor looked round at the carnage on the forest floor. ‘Leave the bastards for the wolves.’
‘You go, Igor,’ Alexei said again. ‘You’ve done your job well. I’ll report to Maksim.’
‘Our pakhan wants to know you are safe. I am ordered to bring you back to him.’
Igor’s words were courteous but Alexei had no doubt what was really in this vor’s mind. He would not welcome his position in the pakhan’s affections being usurped. Alexei was astonished that one of Igor’s bullets hadn’t already strayed his way during the confusion.
‘Thank you, Igor. But go home. I am aware that their army retaliation units will soon be here in force.’
Alexei turned his back on the thief and bent down to check on the first of the dead strewn across the road. The forest was silent now, just the wind jostling the branches, and as he crouched he could feel it leaning in on him, its breath stinking of rotten wood and death. Battlefields were always sorrowful places, but a battlefield after a meaningless, empty little battle was enough to rip a man’s heart out, especially if you were the one who had engineered it.
The others had gone, the living. Those prisoners who decided to escape had changed the flat tyre on the truck and driven off on an uncertain path through the forest. Those who were stupid enough to believe they would gain credit for their loyalty had set off huddled together, nervously aiming for the hangars and a lifetime of imprisonment at best. The vory had faded away like rats in the night, leaving only Igor.
‘Go home, Igor,’ he said again.
But when he looked up this time the thief had gone and the road was empty. Just the black shape of the first car remained, its headlamps as pointless as the battle had been. With care he felt the pulse of each soldier and when he found none, he closed their eyes and their mouths, removed their rifles and arranged their limbs in attitudes of peace instead of violence, as if he could cheat the devil of their souls. At one point he thought he heard something and swung round, peering into the shifting, breathing darkness.
‘ Lydia?’
No response.
‘ Lydia?’
But there was no one. After their father had driven off, the car veering wildly as it bucked out of control from rut to rut, skidding on the packed snow, she had wasted no time.
‘Why didn’t you stop him, Alexei?’
That’s all she asked. Before he could reply she was off and running, leaping with the legs of a gazelle across the road and plunging back into the forest from which she’d appeared. How could she see in there?
Why didn’t you stop him?
Why?
Because a father should choose his son. Not the other way around. Alexei had been standing there, waiting for his father to choose him, but Jens didn’t. Failed even to recognise him. That shouldn’t matter, but it did. For a long moment Alexei gazed one final time at the dead bodies, muttered a childhood prayer over them, then climbed into the NAMI-1 and started the engine. As a last thought he returned to the nearest corpse, a very young and very blond soldier who looked quietly asleep except for the hole in his chest, and lifted him up into the passenger seat. Then he climbed back into the driver’s side and steered a path through the trees around the fallen pine. Once back on the road he headed north, towards the brick wall and the monster behind it.
‘Get out of the car!’
The order was shouted at full volume. The sentry at the gate was jumpy. Alexei got out of the car.