“There!” said Novikov, abruptly pointing through the gloom.
The gulag emerged like a mirage, at first a skeletal outline. It seemed a long time before they were able to distinguish buildings on the left of the approach road from the mine on the right. That was brightly lit, with two descent shaft derricks.
“Gold,” identified Novikov. “There’s three, quite close together. We won’t be able to stop. As it is, my registration will be logged. There are diamond and gold mines about thirty kilometers farther on.”
As they slowed, a straggled line of men emerged from the camp of single-story wooden shacks elevated from the ground. Some had their hands on the shoulders of the man in front. All walked head down, scuffling in jangling ankle manacles, crossing to the mine. They all wore uniforms padded against a cold that didn’t exist. All the guards were armed. One began waving Novikov’s car on urgently.
“Convicts?” queried Charlie.
Novikov nodded. “It will be the afternoon shift. The mines are worked twenty-four hours.”
Charlie was concentrating on the camp. The huts were in regimented lines, five to a line. Charlie counted thirty. There were two control towers like those he’d seen in the photographs in the museum. Charlie frowned, knowing he should be aware of something but unable to decide what. Then he said, “Wire! There’s no wire.”
“There rarely is. Look where we are: what this place is. Where isthere to run? People tried, of course. Still do. They’re never chased. It isn’t worth the effort. The locals find them frozen to death when the snow melts. That’s why run aways are called ‘snow drop.’”
The cemetery was on the far side of the camp, what appeared to be hundreds of lines of uniformed crosses. They were close enough for Charlie to see there were no names, just numbers.
“So this is what it was like?”
“No,” said Novikov. “This is civilized-humane-by comparison.”
Charlie had just finishing spraying the room with insecticide, after another meaningless conversation with the Moscow embassy, when Miriam’s knock came at his door. Charlie thought he kept any reaction from showing when she entered the room, but he wasn’t sure. His own hands and arms were swollen from bites, but the woman’s face was ballooned, hamster-cheeked and bumped and very red, despite whatever cream she’d smeared upon it. There were still isolated globules she hadn’t properly rubbed in.
“Meet the bride of Frankenstein.” Her skin was so stretched it was difficult for her to speak. “You don’t need me to tell you I’m not coming down for dinner tonight.”
“No,” accepted Charlie.
“You’ve been playing quite a game,” she accused. “The consensus is you’re a no-hoper.”
“Everyone’s entitled to an opinion.”
“It’s not mine,” she said. “Saul filled me in before I left Moscow: it’s been fascinating watching you. That’s why I haven’t interfered.”
As fascinating as it’s been watching you, reflected Charlie. “Don’t read too much into it.”
“I’ve come to warn you.”
For a reason, guessed Charlie. “What?”
“Our calls to Moscow are being monitored.”
There’s a clever girl, thought Charlie. “Who told you?”
“Ryabov, trying to get into my pants. They know you’re not getting anywhere.”
It had to be getting pretty crowded inside Miriam’s pants, thought Charlie: there wouldn’t have been room for him even if he’d beeninterested. “How about you? You got anything that gives any sort of lead?”
Miriam started to shake her head but abruptly stopped, wincing at the discomfort. “Lestov says there was something in the grave: that he’ll tell me when he finds out. And I’ll tell you, obviously. The locals haven’t got a clue. They just want to get rid of us. According to Ryabov, the Russians aren’t going to be included in tomorrow’s meeting and he thinks Polyakov is planning what he regards as a coup, but Ryabov doesn’t know what it is.”
She was wrapping up her eagerness very well, Charlie decided. For his own amusement he said, “Not sure I like being used.”
“You haven’t said what you’ve picked up,” prompted the woman.
“A lot of isolated bits, nothing making any sort of sense, any picture,” avoided Charlie. “I need to get back, start putting the picture of the man to work. There are a lot of checks that have got to be made with that. And I don’t just want to get the body and its organs back to London, for our own pathologist. There’s the uniform, too, for forensic tests.”
“I thought you had more,” said the woman, disbelievingly.
“Nothing crystallized yet.”
“We are working together on this, aren’t we, Charlie?” pressed Miriam. “I mean, Washington and London have agreed?”
“What I get, you’ll get. Trust me.”
“That’s what I’ve got to do!” agreed the girl. “Learn to trust you.”
“Perhaps things will pick up tomorrow.”
Miriam said, “I’d like to think so.”
When it did, neither of them was happy.
12
Charlie was totally trapped. Miriam, too. He experienced every feeling, beginning and ending with the same numbed, disbelieving fury. There was a lot of that in between, too. He was furious at being tricked-and at not anticipating it-and at not being sure what, ifanything, was salvageable-and perhaps most of all at his helplessness because Charlie Muffin hated most of all being in a situation over which he had absolutely no control. So a lot of the anger was directed at himself.
There’d been no warning, although maybe he should have suspected more from Commissioner Ryabov’s hotel foyer announcement that the Russians were excluded from the meeting with the Yakutsk chief minister, wrongly assuming that to be the “something funny” the militia commander had warned Miriam about. Charlie had withdrawn to the sidelines of the inevitable argument from the Moscow homicide detective, uncertain whether to try to force Novikov’s hand by announcing his return to Moscow after the formal release of the body, which was the purpose of the meeting to which he and Miriam were going. He’d actually checked the availability of late afternoon and evening flights.
There had been no indication, either, from their initial reception by Valentin Ivanovich Polyakov. The full- bearded, towering chief minister had greeted them with handshakes, samovar tea and cakes in what had to be the only room in the government complex not in imminent danger of collapse. He’d said he appreciated the cooperation there appeared to have been with the Yakutsk force and in return Charlie and Miriam had promised its continuation after their return to Moscow, from where a lot more inquiries needed to be made. And Polyakov had agreed at once to the bodies and the possessions being returned to Britain and America. He had, declared the Yakutsk leader, already officially informed London and Washington and had the necessary papers prepared and ready. Even more prepared-an indication Charlie missed-he summoned a photographer to record the documentation formally being handed over. Charlie was speculating again about the last evening flight when Polyakov rose unexpectedly from behind his ornately carved desk in what Charlie first thought to be in dismissal but instead said, “Now perhaps you’d be good enough to come with me?”
Charlie followed, imagining a courtesy meeting with the rest of the local ruling assembly, smiling in expectation at the murmur of people when Polyakov thrust open linking doors to a larger room. Charlie later decided, when he saw the video, that the fatuous grinfroze on his face as rigidly-and almost as terrorized-as those of the murder victims.
The lights from the television cameras that recorded his expression made it difficult for Charlie to see the extent of the press conference. From the immediate North American-accented questions, against which Polyakov held up his hands, Charlie finally realized the surprise that Ryabov had told Miriam about was a press contingent flown in certainly from Canada and probably from the United States as well. And knew how the media leaks that
