surface.
Pekkala struggled to understand why the Comitati would bring him to this place. What strange rituals, he wondered, do these men perform down in the bowels of the earth?
In spite of the cold, Pekkala began to sweat. His breathing grew shallow and fast. He thought of the mountain of rock above him. Unable to shake from his head the thought of it all collapsing on top of him, he stopped and lurched against the wall, as if the ground had suddenly shifted.
Lavrenov went on a few paces, then halted. “What is the matter with you?”
“Give me a second.” Claustrophobia swirled inside Pekkala’s brain. He felt as if he were choking. “Keep going,” ordered Lavrenov.
They passed intersections in the tunnel system from which new passageways branched off at angles, some climbing and some descending. Handcarts filled with chalky slabs of radium ore stood parked against the walls. In the distance Pekkala could hear the sound of rusty wheels turning and the clink of metal on stone. Now and then he caught a glimpse of silhouettes, as men moved about in the shadows.
They reached a place where the tunnel was blocked by wooden pallets and metal-reinforced buttresses which propped up the ceiling.
Lavrenov twisted his body around the barricade of pallets and slithered into the darkness. “This way!” his voice hissed out of the black.
“Why is the passage blocked?”
“Last month this tunnel caved in. It leads to the part of the mine where they dig out Siberian Red.”
“What’s to stop the tunnel from caving in again?”
“Nothing.”
Forcing himself onward, Pekkala angled past the crooked beams.
Just ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the right. As soon as they rounded the corner, Pekkala noticed a faint glow, which seemed to be coming out of the wall.
Suddenly, Pekkala realized why Lavrenov had brought him here. They must have dug a way out, he told himself. Even if it took years, these men are stubborn enough to have done it.
Lavrenov came to a halt and Pekkala found himself opposite a small opening which led into a naturally formed cave. The space inside was large, more than twice the height of a man, and filled with ancient pillars formed out of sediment drips coming down from the ceiling. Pillowed hummocks of stone bristled with crystals of Siberian Red. Some were short and sharp, like barnacles on the hull of a shipwreck. Others resembled bouquets of glass flowers. All of them were tinted the color of fresh blood. The space served as a storage room for handcarts which had broken down. Inside, a few of the wrecked contraptions stood against the wall. Scattered on the ground lay the shattered tusks of stalactites and stalagmites which had been broken to make room for them. Against the far side of this strange temple, perched upon a tongue of stone as pale as alabaster, a battered miner’s lamp illuminated the chamber.
Now another possibility occurred to Pekkala. Perhaps the prisoners had not dug their way out, after all. Maybe they didn’t need to. Is it possible, he wondered, that in their years of toiling in the bowels of the earth, the Comitati had discovered some naturally occurring cave network which provided them with an exit into the forest, somewhere outside the walls of Borodok? Pekkala remembered stories he had heard about the caves of Altamira in northern Spain where, in 1879, a girl walking her dog had stumbled upon the entrance to a system of connecting caverns that stretched deep beneath the ground. In the largest of these caves, she’d found paintings of animals- bison and ibex-which, like those who painted them, had vanished from that countryside millennia before.
Lavrenov gestured into the cave. “After you, Inspector.”
Ducking his head, Pekkala stepped into the room. The lamplight shuddered. The air smelled rank. Shadows writhed like snakes across the floor.
Turning back, he saw that Lavrenov was not behind him.
His heart slammed into his throat.
In that moment, he heard a voice whisper his name.
“Who’s there?” asked Pekkala.
A hand reached out and brushed against his leg.
Pekkala shouted with alarm. Stepping back, he noticed a figure sitting in an alcove formed inside the stone.
The presence of this huddled shape reminded him of tales he had heard about ancient and mummified corpses discovered in caves such as this, creatures whose careless wanderings had brought them here to die before their species ever dared to rule the earth.
Pekkala’s eyes darted among the scaffolding of pillars. He was certain now that he’d been led into an ambush. In his terror, he glimpsed his own desiccated body, sleeping through millennia.
“Tarnowski?” he called. “Sedov, is that you?”
The figure emerged from its hiding place in the wall, as if the rock itself had come to life. Even through the matted beard and filthy clothes, Pekkala recognized a man he had long since consigned to oblivion.
It was Colonel Kolchak himself.
The colonel spread his arms and smiled, revealing strong white teeth.
“You!” Pekkala finally managed to say, and suddenly all the years since the night outside his cottage when he had last set eyes on Kolchak crumpled together like the folds of an accordion, so that it seemed as if no time had passed between that moment and this.
“I told you we would meet again someday, Pekkala. Many times during my long exile in Shanghai, I imagined this reunion. I had hoped it would be in more luxurious surroundings, but this will have to do, at least for now.”
“But how did you get here?” asked Pekkala, bewildered. “Is there a tunnel to the forest?”
The colonel laughed. “There is nothing beyond this cave but solid rock. If there had been a way in or out of here other than the main entrance to the mine, I would have made use of it by now. I have been down here for almost a month, eating stale bread from your kitchen and drinking your pine needle soup.”
“A month?”
“That was not my intention,” admitted Kolchak. “I had arranged to spend only a few days inside the camp while we made final preparations for the escape. It almost never happened. Then one of my own men betrayed me. At least, he tried to. There was a price to pay for that.” To emphasize his words, Kolchak drew a long, stag-handled knife from under his jacket. Its massive bowie blade glimmered in the lantern light.
“You killed Ryabov?” gasped Pekkala. “Your own captain?”
“I had no choice.”
“But why would he have betrayed you?”
“What does it matter now? He is dead.”
“It matters a great deal,” insisted Pekkala, “to me and to your men.”
“He went over to the enemy. That is all you need to know. My friend”-a tone of warning had entered Kolchak’s voice-“just be glad you’re coming with us.”
From the tone of those words, Pekkala realized it was the only answer he was going to get. “What caused the delay in your plan?” he asked.
“After Ryabov’s body was found,” Kolchak replied, “the camp was locked down. Guards were doubled. Curfews were put in place. And then, when I learned you had returned to Borodok, I did not dare to make a move until I knew why you were here. Now the time has finally come for us to break out of this place.”
“Break
“The Ostyaks arranged it. They have agreed to help us get across the border into China.”
“But the Ostyaks have never helped convicts before.”
“That is because no prisoner has ever been able to offer them a decent bribe, something better than the bags of salt and army bread paid out by the camp commandant for delivering the bodies of those who attempted escape.”
“What did you offer?”
“A share of the gold,” answered Kolchak. “Which we will pick up from its hiding place on our way to the border. Of course, before any of this could happen, they first had to get me inside the camp, so that I could organize the breakout of however many men remained from the expedition. I had no idea so few were left. I wish I could have come sooner, but it took me many years to find out where the men were being held and longer still to
