thieved and killed for a petty purse of roubles. Michael Holly could never walk away from them.
Holly said, 'There was a riot some years ago in the Dubrovlag, what was the reaction of the military?'
'They brought in helicopters.'
'They used the down-blast to flatten everybody.'
'When everyone was on the ground, the guards and warders came in.'
'They used chains on the men.'
Holly asked, 'What is the stomach of the camp for a fight?'
'Don't underestimate their hate.'
He breathed deeply, screwed his eyes shut. There would be no going back. 'Any man who wants to leave the compound should be given the chance to do so immediately.
I want wire and I want rope and I want blankets. I want every man, who wishes to stay, inside the Kitchen in fifteen minutes. There is no going back. We have to finish what has been begun… '
'Where is that finish?' The zek from Hut 4, a big man with a bulbous mole set half way up his nose, and mud streaks on his cheeks.
'There is the possibility, just the possibility, that the very weight of our action will frighten them. There is the possibility that they will step back, try to talk with us.'
'And the probability?'
'They will hit us with everything they have.'
There was silence round the table. One man slowly drummed his fingers on the wood boards, another fished in his pocket for a loose cigarette, another snorted into a rag handkerchief.
Byrkin scraped his chair, stood up. 'I'll start looking for wire and the rope and blankets. I'll pass the word for the meeting.'
Vasily Kypov put down the telephone.
He looked across his desk towards Yuri Rudakov, who was hunched on the edge of an easy chair.
'Yavas is sending a hundred men, a Company and a Colonel General. Saransk is sending four helicopters. That was staff at Yavas, a shitty Lieutenant, he was almost fucking laughing at me.'
The telephone rang. Kypov grimaced, reached out for it, listened intently.
Rudakov watched him for a moment, then resumed his own brooding. The Political Officer was responsible for gauging the mood of the compound. It had all happened at such speed, with such fury. He was baffled. He doubted if Kypov had ever considered the prospect of mutiny. Why should he have done? Rudakov had never entertained the thought. Smart arse, wasn't he? And he'd never entertained an anxiety of mutiny.
Kypov covered over the telephone, guarding it from his voice, it's bloody Moscow… the big bastard boss from Interior…' and he was listening again and Rudakov knew the connection had been made because Kypov seemed to straighten in his chair. 'Good morning, Comrade Procurator… yes, the situation is contained. There is no chance of a break-out. I am sorry if you disagree with my decision to withdraw… I was on the spot, in the compound myself… the reinforcement troops are expected very soon… no, I have not yet identified the clique of leadership… tomorrow, you are coming, tomorrow? I am sure that by then we will have the compound returned to normal working…
Goodbye, Comrade Procurator.'
Rudakov scratched sharply at the back of his neck. 'All we wanted.'
'What troops are being sent?'
'Buggers from the far east. Regular army, none of this M V D shit.' it's not easy to get soldiers to fire on crowds.'
'They're straight off the steppes, slant eyes, they'll shoot,'
Kypov said, and the pencil in his hand was broken in two short halves.
They made a grim, halting procession out of the Kitchen.
The zeks whistled their going in derision, slow-clapped in contempt. Holly led them out.
They were the 'stoolies', and the trusties, and the
'barons'. They were the outsiders who had cheated themselves of the full rigours of the camp. They were the compromisers who had sealed their deals with the regime. Each had stood in line earlier in the morning with a faint heart, because each had believed that the second stage of rebellion would be the reprisals. Until they stood in the sharp air of the compound each one had believed he might yet be the victim of a cruel trick. And now they were outside and there was no deceit.
Holly held Mamarev's arm as they started out for the gates.
'They would have killed you this morning, you know that?' i thought I was dead.'
'When you came into the Kitchen you heard what we talked of.'
'A little.'
'You can buy your debt from me.'
'How?' Mamarev looked up at Holly, into the hard and chiselled face.
'You will say there are divisions and factions, that they are frightened of the helicopters coming, that some want to surrender but are not allowed to leave the camp.'
'That is all?'
Holly stopped thirty yards short of the gates. Everything changed beyond the gate. He could hear the revving of heavy lorries and in the distance was the throb of a helicopter engine.
'Tell them what I have told you.'
The blood was dry at Mamarev's mouth, dark and con-gealed at his nostrils. A bruise was forming on his right cheek, it was me that reported you as missing two nights ago. I informed on you.'
'On your way.'
Holly turned. He started to walk back along the line of deserters. If he heard Mamarev's shout, he gave no sign.
'Do you forgive me?'
Byrkin supervised the work.
A table-leg that was nearly a metre long was tied to ten metres of electrical wire stripped from the Kitchen ceiling, the wire was tied to another ten metres of heavy rope taken from the building Store, the rope was tied to two blankets knotted together and stripped from the bunks of the defec-tors. They had the material to make up nine lengths. The men that Byrkin had chosen had one thing in common. All had served their conscription duty in the army of the Soviet Union. It was the role of a Petty Officer to carry out orders.
Holly had given him his orders. He bustled between his chosen few, checking the strength of the joins and the coiling of the heaps of wood, wire, rope and blanket. They were the best men he could have found, and much was expected of them.
He heard the faraway engine drive of the first helicopter.
He looked out of the broken window at the back of the Kitchen. The zeks were out in the compound where they had been told to wait.
He felt a sort of happiness, a happiness he had not known since the sailing of the Storozhevoy from Riga harbour.
Mikk Laas heard the helicopter coming.
He was a blind man in his cell in the SHIzo block. He heard many sounds that were new and strange, he saw nothing. The window was high above him, beyond his reach.
He had heard shooting.
He had heard the outer door of the cell-block locked, and after that no movement of warders down the outer corridor.
He had heard the arrival of lorries with a different engine-whine to those of the commercial vehicles that visited the camp.
He kicked the cell wall.
'Who is there?' The cry of an old man without eyes.
'Adimov…'
'What is happening out there?'
'There is a mutiny, I heard the warders talk. We're better here.. .'
'Where is Holly?'
'How can I know?'
