‘Here, you fool, can’t you see who I am?’
The sentry observed the elegantly cut Colonel’s uniform in front of him and shrank nervously into his own ill-fitting coat.
‘Here.’ Alexei thrust Dmitri’s papers under the soldier’s nose. ‘I am here with a message from Colonel Tursenov himself. But I stumbled on a massacre in the forest. What the hell is going on here? I brought one of the wounded back for attention, so be quick, open up.’
The soldier saluted and hoped he would not lose this month’s pay. ‘Yes, Colonel Malofeyev. Right away, Colonel.’
He opened the gate.
Chang had laid a carpet of branches over the coil of razor wire at the base of the wall. The pine sap smelled fresh and tangy, and brought the memory of her last Christmas with her mother crashing into Lydia ’s head.
‘Why don’t you cut the wire?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘It could be alarmed.’
They were at the back of the compound where the forest was at its closest and the searchlight beams further apart. Chang was standing immobile, his eyes half closed, focusing on the wall. Lydia watched him exhale deeply, drawing together his energy, but she didn’t kiss him goodbye. Or tell him she loved him. That would be to tell his gods she knew he wasn’t coming back and she wasn’t willing to do that. Popkov clambered noisily on top of the branches, stomping down the wire, and stood with his back to the wall, his hands cupped together in front of him. Lydia was relieved her Cossack was here but frightened for him, and for the hole in his side that Elena had sewn up.
‘Ready?’ he grunted.
Chang breathed out one last time and she knew he was about to set off. Her heart was in her throat, but he surprised her by turning his head slowly and taking a long look at her. As if it might be his last.
‘ Lydia,’ he said softly, ‘remain here. Let me go to your father knowing you are safe.’
She moved closer but only one step. She didn’t touch him. If she touched him she wouldn’t be able to let go.
‘I am always safe with you.’
‘It is too dangerous in there.’
‘I can watch your back.’
‘And who will watch yours?’
‘I am quick. I can-’
‘No, Lydia. Remain here.’
A wind rattled the pine needles, a chattering of the night spirits, and the darkness weighed heavier than a sheet of steel. Neither spoke, not with words. Lydia swayed towards him, leaned so close she could smell the clean male scent of his sweat mingled with the dank odour of earth and pine sap on his clothes. She could hear the tension in his breath.
‘Please, my love,’ she whispered, ‘don’t ask it of me.’
He touched her hair and she rested her head against his hand. They stood like that for a long moment until Popkov growled again, ‘Ready?’
Chang focused on the wall once more. ‘Ready.’
Chang An Lo made it look easy. He seemed to fly. He waited for the searchlight to slide past, then he took a leap on to Popkov’s cupped hands and up the wall, twisting, curling, landing on his feet like a cat either side of the vicious razor wire at the top. He uncoiled the rope that was slung over his shoulders and fastened the middle of it to a metal fixing attaching the wire to the wall. One end he tossed down to Popkov, the other he dropped to the ground inside. By the time the searchlight crawled over that stretch of wall again he was gone, and Lydia could breathe.
She gave the Cossack an affectionate tug on his beard, scrambled up on his shoulders and grabbed the rope. Hand over hand she hauled herself up, cursing her skirts. Clumsier than Chang, she felt the wire at the top slice a piece from her finger. But once up there, viewing the compound spread out before her in the semi darkness and the looming shape of the hangar so close, she felt an unexpected calm. The fear and the nerves and the trembling fell away. This was it. Her father was here.
‘ Lydia.’ It came from below. So soft it was barely a word.
The searchlight was coming. The wind was biting her cheeks. With scarcely a sound she slid down the rope and crouched on the snow-scattered ground beside Chang. He seized her hand and together they ran.
The commotion at the front of the compound was frantic. A roar of vehicles and shouting soldiers, boots pounding the frozen earth, hounds on leashes whining with the scent of blood in their nostrils. They were getting ready to move out into the black forest but no one expected intruders to be already inside. Chang skimmed along the small hangar that lay in deep shadow at the rear and felt Lydia would be safe here while he scouted ahead. Safe? No, not safe. But in less danger.
He whispered in her ear, ‘Wait,’ and pointed to the spot she was standing on.
She nodded and didn’t argue. She was making it easy for him. He slipped along the length of the smaller hangar until he reached the side of the massive wooden structure beside it, but here he was exposed. The lights blazed. He crouched low and raced towards a narrow door near the front of it which stood open. A man was standing outside it, dressed in black, lean and wolfish in the set of his limbs, his back turned to Chang’s approach, the glowing tip of a cigarette hanging from his fingers. He was watching two dog-handlers across the yard ordering their animals to leap into the back of a truck, but one dog was more intent on savaging his companion’s hind legs. Chang moved up fast.
Two metres, that’s all that lay between them when the man sensed something and turned. Their eyes met. The man wore spectacles and the lenses magnified his shock, but even so he reacted quickly to the threat. His hand jabbed towards the revolver on his hip but too late. Chang had launched himself into the air, striking out with a kick that caught the man full in the throat. He clawed at his collar, knees buckling, and before he hit the ground a second kick thudded into his chest, breaking three ribs and stopping his heart.
The body was heavier than it looked. While the attention of the soldiers was elsewhere, Chang dragged it quickly just inside the open door and rolled it into the shadow of a crate. He glanced with astonishment at the great silver leviathan floating serenely above him, tethered to a tall metal mast, and rapidly retraced his steps.
Lydia was still where he’d left her but now her ear was pressed tight to the wall of the small hangar, the whites of her eyes huge in the dim light.
‘Listen,’ she urged.
He listened. A dull roar filtered through the timbers.
‘It’s fire,’ she warned.
Jens hadn’t expected this. This burning pain of regret in his chest. He’d climbed up the long ladder into the gondola attached to the airship’s underbelly, and immediately just the smell of its raw varnish and its faint odour of loneliness made him hesitate. Up here it was a solitary world. Different things mattered.
The gondola was set out with mahogany tables bolted to the floor along each side, next to the windows. Up front was the pilot’s cabin but Jens resisted the urge to enter it one last time. He reminded himself instead of all the military chiefs who would be sitting at these tables in a couple of days, swilling champagne as they watched first one plane detach itself from under the bows and then the other from under the stern. The gas canisters would be packed with their deadly cargo and Surkov camp within spitting distance. Hundreds of fellow prisoners choking to death because of him.
He unlocked the hatch to the body of the airship and pushed it open, pulled down the collapsible steps and climbed up. The air instantly grew colder. A soft grey twilight rippled through the silver skin from the lamps outside and it felt eerily calm. The interior was huge, cavernous – like being in the belly of a whale, Olga always said. But to him, even though he’d engineered it himself, each time he stepped inside he could not escape the sensation of being a tiny speck, a fly caught in a gigantic spider’s web of fine metal girders. He tipped his head back and gazed above. It was beautiful, unutterably beautiful. He was proud of it.