Archive 17

grew, filling the sky, vibrating the ground beneath his shoulder blades until, suddenly, Gramotin realized what it was. Immediately, old nightmares reared up in his mind and a choking sensation clamped down on his throat. Squinting into the distance, he spotted a train approaching from the east.

It took a moment before Gramotin was able to comprehend that, in fact, the arrival of this train was the best thing that could possibly happen to him. It meant that help was on the way. All trains on the Trans-Siberian carried a contingent of armed guards. These men would assist him in rounding up the last of the Comitati. For certain, they would be amazed to find him there, a solitary warrior, having pursued these escaped convicts across the taiga before cornering them in the forest. They, not he, would be the ones to tell the story of his heroic journey. He no longer needed to concern himself with any Dalstroy board of inquiry. They would not be punishing him. Instead, they would shower him with honors. There would be a promotion. That much was certain. Master Sergeant Gramotin. They might even make him an officer. There would also be a medal. But which one? Hero of the Soviet Union, perhaps. All he had to do was go down there and tell that train to stop.

WHEN THE NOISE of the first gunshot echoed through the trees, Pekkala dove for cover into the frozen reeds.

Tarnowski was waiting for him on the other side, a rifle in his hand. “The colonel?”

Through the brittle screen of rushes, both men looked out onto the pond. Kolchak’s open eyes stared blindly back at them. A round had hit him in the shoulder, leaving a gaping tear just under the right armpit as the bullet left his body.

Pekkala glimpsed a muzzle flash from the cliff, just as another round slammed into the ice on the pond, filling the air with a strange popping sound, like the cork coming out of a champagne bottle.

Pekkala and Tarnowski crawled back among the trees, where they found Lavrenov hiding in the hole from which they had dug out the crates. “Where’s the colonel?” he asked.

“They got him with the first shot,” replied Pekkala.

Bullets hacked through the branches above them, showering the men with pine needles.

“There must be a dozen of them out there,” whimpered Lavrenov, “to judge from all that fire.”

“But who are they?” asked Pekkala.

“Whoever they are,” Tarnowski answered, “they’re using army rifles.”

Pekkala realized that their situation was hopeless. The others knew it, too. No one had to say the words. He could see it on their faces.

He looked at the gold bars, which lay strewn across the scorched and trampled ground, and thought of how close he and the Comitati had come to living out their lives as free men. Tarnowski was right. There would be no prisoners this time.

With his eyes fixed on the luster of the ingots, Pekkala fell backwards through time, to when he had last seen this treasure.

Deep beneath the Alexander Palace, hidden in the stone vault of his treasure room, the Tsar placed his hands against the neatly stacked bars of the latest gold shipment from the Lena mines.

To Pekkala, he looked like a man trying to push open a heavy door, as if that wall of gold would give way into another room, or perhaps another world.

“Excellency,” whispered Pekkala.

The Tsar turned suddenly, as if he had forgotten he was not alone. “Yes?”

“I must he getting back.”

“Of course.” The Tsar nodded his approval. “Be on your way, old friend.”

Pekkala began to climb the winding stone staircase which led to the ground floor of the palace. After a few steps, he paused and looked back.

The Tsar stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him.

“Will you be staying, Majesty?” inquired Pekkala.

“You go on ahead, Pekkala,” said the Tsar. “I have yet to count the shipment. Every bar must be accounted for. This is a task I trust to no one else.”

“Very well, Majesty.” Pekkala bowed his head and turned away. He continued up the narrow stone stairs. Just as he reached the main hall, he heard the Tsar’s voice calling to him from the bowels of the earth.

“Remember, Pekkala! Only the chosen will be saved.”

Pekkala did not reply. Silently he walked along the hall, where his own wet footsteps still glistened on the polished floor, and out into the pitiless heat of that August afternoon.

Faintly in the distance, Pekkala heard the sound of a locomotive. Moments later, the three men glimpsed the dull gray snout of an armored engine barely visible among the ranks of pines.

Lavrenov began to panic. “Those men up on the cliff were only keeping our heads down until the reinforcements arrived. There’s no way out of this. We’re as good as dead.”

“Just try to take one with you,” said Tarnowski.

Both men seemed resigned to their deaths.

“You could run,” Pekkala suggested quietly.

Tarnowski shook his head. “With those men after us, how far do you think we would get?”

“Once they set eyes on the gold, they won’t be thinking about anything else.”

“You talk as if you aren’t coming with us.” Tarnowski was staring at him.

“Stalin might be persuaded that your freedom is the price to be paid for getting his hands on the gold, but my escape brings him no such reward. If I go with you, he will pursue us to the ends of the earth.”

Lavrenov gripped Tarnowski’s arm. “Let’s do what he says and get out of here now.”

“What about the gold?” For the first time, Tarnowski seemed completely overwhelmed. “You can’t expect us just to leave it all here, not after what we’ve been through.”

“Not all of it,” replied Pekkala. “How much gold does one man really need?”

The train was close now.

Worried that he might not reach the locomotive before it passed, Gramotin lumbered down the steep slope. Half running, half falling, swamped with snow, he tumbled out at last onto the rails.

The engine slowed as it rounded a curve on the tracks. Then its motor roared, regaining speed and trailing a cloud of snow dust which rose like wings behind the train.

Gramotin raised his rifle above his head and began waving his arms back and forth, all the while shouting at the top of his lungs to attract the attention of the driver.

The engine changed pitch suddenly. The great machine was slowing down. They had seen him. The sound of brakes filled the air with a ringing clash of steel.

As the train came to a stop, Gramotin stared in awe at the overlapping plates of armor, the heavy machine guns jutting from their turrets and the ice-encrusted battering ram mounted in front of the driver’s compartment. Painted on the front of the engine, he glimpsed a name in large white letters. Even though Gramotin could barely read or write, it took him only a moment to spell out the word ORLIK.

Gramotin swore he must be dreaming, but the shaking of the ground beneath his feet proved otherwise. “No,” he mumbled. “Not you. Not again!” He could almost hear the terrible clanking rattle of the Czech machine guns as they strafed the foxholes where he lay with his platoon. He flinched as he recalled the whip-crack sound of bullets passing just above his head. He smelled pine sap from the gashed trees, mixing with the burnt-hair reek of cordite from the guns. He pressed his hands against his ears, trying to block out the terrible noise of bullets striking bodies, like that of a cleaver hacking into meat. Gramotin closed his eyes as tightly as he could, in a last, desperate attempt to banish these visions from his skull, but when he looked again, the train was even closer than before.

Convinced that his nightmares had finally sprung to life, the sergeant turned and fled.

“Go!” said Pekkala. “There isn’t much time.”

Lavrenov did not hesitate. Snatching up a gold bar in each hand, he vanished into the forest.

But Tarnowski had not moved.