the leather of the harness straps and the rank odor of the unwashed men.
By now, the cold had worked its way into Pekkala’s feet and across his shoulder blades. He could feel the remaining warmth in his body retreating deeper inside.
The Ostyaks halted in a clearing deep inside the forest. The men jumped down from their sleds, stamping the crust of snow from their legs.
The sun had slid behind the clouds. Now it began to snow.
Pekkala heard the noise of a stream somewhere nearby flowing beneath the ice. Chickadees sang in the branches of the trees and it was not long before the fearless, bandit-masked birds arrived to inspect the strangers. Like little clockwork toys, they hopped along the backs of the animals.
Sedov was lifted from his sled. The silhouette of his body, outlined in blood, remained on the rough wooden planks. Pekkala and Lavrenov laid him down in the snow, but he began to choke, nostrils flaring as he struggled to breathe. Instead they sat him with his back against a tree. Helplessly, they watched the wounded man, knowing that the help he required was beyond any skills they possessed.
Klenovkin crawled out from under his desk, a pistol clutched in his hand. When the attack began, the commandant had been asleep in his office, head on his desk with a pile of requisition slips for a pillow. Jarred awake by the noise, he first thought that there had been an explosion in the mine. His semiconscious brain was already composing the damage report he would have to make to Dalstroy when, arriving in the outer office, he saw the main gates ripped from their mountings and Ostyaks waiting on the other side. At that point, Klenovkin grabbed his gun off the bookshelf, locked the door, and took cover beneath the desk, determined to shoot anyone who tried to get in.
But no one did.
Now the shooting had stopped. The camp was silent again.
Zebra stripes of sunlight gleamed through the shuttered windows.
Relieved as Klenovkin was to have been left alone by the Ostyaks, he could not help feeling a certain indignation that none of the guards had come to rescue him.
He could not fathom why the Ostyaks had mounted an assault on the camp. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He wondered what offense, conjured from their primitive and superstitious minds, had sent them on the warpath. In spite of what had happened, Klenovkin was not overly concerned. The camp guards, with their superior firepower and Sergeant Gramotin to lead them, would certainly have fought off any Ostyaks who managed to enter the camp. Nor did he worry about any prisoners attempting to escape, especially when there were Ostyaks around.
The sooner he made his way out to the compound, the fewer questions would be raised about his actions during the attack. Anxious to give the impression that he had been in the thick of the fighting, Klenovkin removed a bullet from his gun, detached the round from the brass cartridge and poured the gray sand of gunpowder into his palm. Then he spat on the powder, stirred it into a paste with his finger and daubed the mixture on his face.
Still cautious, Klenovkin climbed to his feet and peered between the shutters. The damage was worse than he’d thought.
Pale shreds of wood, all that remained of the gates, lay scattered across the compound. The two guard towers had burned and collapsed. One of the barracks was also on fire. Tar paper blazed on its roof, shingles curling like black fists in the heat. In an effort to stop the blaze from spreading, a couple of prisoners were shoveling snow up onto the roof, which seemed to have no effect at all.
Other prisoners had gathered at the cookhouse, where Melekov, refusing to alter his habits, was now handing out the breakfast rations.
In the center of the compound, a guard was kneeling on the ground, a rifle, with bayonet attached, propped against his shoulder.
Klenovkin looked closer, and recognized Platov, that idiot lapdog of Gramotin. The first thing he would do when he embarked on his inspection tour was to tell that lazy fool to get up and go back to work. But then he noticed that the rifle wasn’t resting against Platov’s shoulder as he had first imagined. In fact, Platov had been stabbed through the throat with the bayonet, which now protruded from the back of his neck. Platov was dead, propped up by the rifle, which had prevented him from falling.
No one had touched the body.
The spit dried up in Klenovkin’s mouth. Turning from the window, he picked up the phone and dialed the guardhouse. “This is Klenovkin. What is the situation?” Hearing the reply, he suddenly appeared to lose his balance and grabbed hold of the corner of his desk. “They what? All of them? With the Ostyaks? And Pekkala, too? Are you certain of this? Who has gone after them? What do you mean, nobody? You were waiting for my orders? Do you honestly think you need my permission to chase after escaped prisoners? I don’t care if the Ostyaks were with them! Get after them now! Now!” Klenovkin slammed down the receiver.
As the full measure of this disaster became clear to him, all the strength seemed to pour from his body.
He would be held responsible. His career was finished. Dalstroy would have him replaced. And that was the least of his worries. These were not just any prisoners. These were the Comitati, and for their escape he would answer directly to Moscow. His only chance was to blame Pekkala, in the hopes of deflecting Stalin’s fury.
Klenovkin slid the phone into the center of his desk. After breathing in and out several times, like a runner preparing for a race, he dialed the Kremlin.
Time slowed to a crawl as he listened to the click and crackle of the empty line. Vaguely, he recalled the night before, when his promotion through the ranks of Dalstroy had seemed a certainty. Last night felt like a dream, borrowed out of someone else’s life. Now a great spiraling darkness appeared in front of him, and Klenovkin felt himself drawn helplessly into its vortex. Finally he heard the distant purr of the telephone ringing in Moscow.
“Kremlin!” barked Poskrebyshev.
“This is Commandant Klenovkin.”
“Who?”
“Klenovkin. Commandant of the camp at Borodok. You gave me this number.”
“Ah. Borodok. Yes. You are calling to confirm that the liquidation of Pekkala has been carried out.”
“Not exactly.” Klenovkin inhaled, ready to explain, but before he had the chance a new voice broke in on the line.
“Put him through,” Stalin ordered.
Klenovkin felt as if the air had been punched out of his lungs.
Poskrebyshev pressed a button on his telephone, transferring the line to Stalin’s desk. But the secretary did not hang up as he should have done. Instead, he placed the receiver gently on his desk, then bent forward until his ear was almost pressed against it. His teeth gritted with concentration, Poskrebyshev strained to hear what was being said.
“Has Pekkala been executed,” demanded Stalin, “or hasn’t he?”
Klenovkin knew that the next words out of his mouth would change his life forever. As he tried to compose himself before delivering the answer, he stared at the white cloud of a snow squall riding in over the valley in the distance. It occurred to him that with a snowstorm coming in, all trace of the escape would be wiped clean and the prisoners would vanish forever in the taiga.
“Klenovkin? Are you there?”
“Yes, Comrade Stalin.”
“What has become of Pekkala?”
“I beg to report that the inspector escaped before I had a chance to carry out your orders.”
“Escaped? When?”
“This morning.”
“But you received my instructions
“I decided to wait until morning, Comrade Stalin.”
“And what purpose could that possibly have served?” spluttered Stalin.
Ransacking his mind, Klenovkin could no longer reconstruct the train of thought in which postponing Pekkala’s execution had seemed such a good idea to him only a few hours before. “There is more, Comrade Stalin.”
“More?” he bellowed. “What else have you bungled, Klenovkin?”
