Ruzsky stared at him.
“But you wish to impress us. And not too much. I like that.” Borodin’s eyes searched Ruzsky’s own. “Very well. A friend of the ballerina is a friend to us all.”
Borodin turned back to the group. The man next to him was thin and, like the student at the gate, wore tiny round glasses. His teeth were poor and his hair dirty. The woman on the other side of him could have been his older sister; she, too, looked like she had seen neither soap nor water. Her lank hair hung down to her waist, a cloth cap in her hand. Once, she might have been almost pretty, but her face was lined and careworn, her teeth rotten. The pair were resentful, Ruzsky could see, not of him but of Maria and the way their leader instinctively responded to her.
There was a fifth member of the group and when he stepped forward into the light, Ruzsky could see that he was just a boy. Sixteen at most.
“As soon as Michael has finished speaking,” the older woman went on, “he will make the announcement. Then we will go.”
“Come,” Borodin said, with sudden urgency. He turned and marched away down the corridor, the torch above his head. They climbed another stone staircase and onto an iron gangway that ran the length of the factory. Borodin walked quickly, the torch splashing light onto the machines standing idle beneath them. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space.
Ruzsky was at the rear of the group, Maria just ahead of him.
Borodin led them into a room on the far side of the building. There was a clock on the wall and four desks, all facing tall windows with views across the factory floor. A shelf in front of them was laden with boxes of tools of every description: wrenches, hammers, spanners.
It was cold in here, too.
Borodin swung around to face him.
“Let’s talk about your friend a little more, Maria.”
“He looks like a police agent,” the older woman said, her mouth tight.
Ruzsky tried to keep his breathing even, his face calm.
“An official inside the Ministry of War? It was too good an opportunity to miss.” Maria smiled at him. “I-”
“What is his name again?”
“Khabarin. Alexander Khabarin.”
“How senior is he?”
Maria turned.
“Grade seven,” he responded.
“How did you meet him?”
“I was given his name and address by a friend in Moscow. I was told he was loyal and decent and”-she looked at him significantly-“I have not been disappointed.”
“Why have you not mentioned him before?”
“He needed to be convinced.”
“No revolutionary should need to be convinced.”
Maria did not flinch. “He can provide details of the movements of soldiers and other information that might prove useful. He’s strong and brave.”
This last remark was directed at Borodin, in apparent admonishment of some other members of the group. Ruzsky understood that she was using her own personal standing with the leader to appeal over the heads of the others.
Borodin took a step forward. His face was dark and unyielding and his every movement suggested a violence barely suppressed. “Why now?” Borodin asked.
“I told you already,” Ruzsky responded.
“Where were you educated?”
“My parents were teachers at the Kirochnaya.”
Borodin nodded, understanding the significance of the name. It was an officers’ school and explained his aristocratic bearing.
“He still looks like a police agent,” the woman said.
“I found him, Olga, not the other way around,” Maria’s voice was still controlled. If she shared his fear, the way in which she contained it was extraordinary.
Borodin turned to the others. “Maria is right. We cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by mistrust, isn’t that so, Andrei?”
The boy looked startled. “Of course.”
“But it would be naive to imagine they don’t try to infiltrate us, wouldn’t it?”
Andrei realized he was required to respond. “Yes, Michael.”
“Do you think they have succeeded?”
“I don’t know. I mean, no, they have not.”
“And yet I wonder. This man Maria has brought… It appears she sought him out. The ones we have to watch most carefully are those who have sought us, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“Factory workers could be unreliable, couldn’t they, those who approach us to be involved in our work?”
He hesitated. “Yes, they could be.”
“Or students.”
Borodin had returned his hands to his pockets, his black overcoat drawn back. He wore a smart suit beneath it, a silver watch chain strung across his waistcoat.
“Yes,” the boy said.
“Students worry me especially, Andrei.”
Ruzsky saw the boy’s Adam’s apple move violently as he swallowed.
“You’re a student, Andrei.”
Andrei didn’t answer.
“Tonight, for instance, we have plans. Plans that only people in this room know about. People in this room and, I’m told”-he looked Ruzsky straight in the eye-“the police.”
They were silent.
Olga glared at Maria. Ruzsky edged closer to her, but she betrayed no fear, her expression steady, her attention on Borodin. Andrei was farthest away from the torch and his breath was visible on the cold air.
“The police are expecting us.” Borodin took a step back toward the shelf full of tools. “Do you think it should stop us, Andrei?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“The Cossacks are waiting. Aren’t you frightened of them?”
Andrei did not answer, his face white in the half-light.
“Or are you more afraid of being discovered?”
The only sound was the rasp of the boy’s breathing.
“Just a few more days, Andrei.”
The boy swallowed violently.
“By Saturday, our task should be complete. Do you think they know about us?”
Andrei did not respond.
“Answer me!”
“I don’t know.” Andrei blinked rapidly.
“What about our friend the American? What about Ella? What about Borya? Who is killing them, Andrei?”
“I don’t know, Michael.” The boy was on the edge of tears.
“Did the police kill them? Are they picking us off one by one before we can reach our goal?”
As the boy shook his head, Ruzsky moved a fraction and felt the photographs pressing against his chest. He felt a bead of sweat gathering upon his forehead.
Borodin turned toward him, as if sensing his fear. “Perhaps the police are watching us, Khabarin. Perhaps they are trying to infiltrate us?”
Ruzsky did not answer.
“An official at the Ministry of War befriends a pretty girl. She vouches for his loyalty, perhaps in ignorance of his real purpose.”
Ruzsky could feel the sweat run down into the corner of his eye. He tried not to blink.
“They use an agent to try and get close to us. It would be their way, would it not?”
The question was directed at him. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Borodin shook his head. “Then you appear to be less of an expert on the workings of your own government than I think you are.”
They were silent again. Borodin’s eyes never left his. “An infiltrator,” he said softly. “What should we do with such an enemy in our midst?”
Borodin turned away, half shielding the torch. Ruzsky listened to the sound of the boy’s breathing, hoping it drowned out his own.
The eyes of the group flicked from Ruzsky to the boy and back again. Maria watched Borodin.
The torch hit the ground. The flame flared, casting nightmarish shadows as Borodin grabbed a wrench from one of the boxes and turned, his arm above his head. Ruzsky saw his eyes glint as he walked purposefully back toward him. He felt the ice crack beneath his feet, and knew that this time, no one would be able to save him.
Ruzsky saw the terror on Andrei’s face for a split second before the wrench struck the center of the boy’s forehead.
Blood spurted into the air.