“Before Nagorski decided to build himself a tank,” explained Ushinsky, “we say he built himself a Maximov.”
Just then, from somewhere among the drab buildings of the facility, they heard a shout.
Captain Samarin ran to the edge of the proving ground.
Kirov was close behind him. He yelled to Pekkala, but his words were lost in the rain.
As suddenly as they had arrived, Samarin and Kirov disappeared from view, followed by Maximov.
“What the devil’s happened now?” muttered Ushinsky.
Pekkala did not reply. He had already set off through the mud, heading towards the facility. Along the way, he sank up to his knees in craters of water, and once he lost his footing and stumbled with arms outstretched beneath the surface. For a moment, it seemed as if he might not reappear, but then he rose up, gasping, hair matted by silt, mud streaked across his face, like a creature forced into existence by some chemical reaction in the dirt. Having scrabbled up the slope, he paused to catch his breath at the edge of the proving ground. He glanced back towards the tank and saw the two scientists by the shattered body of Nagorski, as if they did not know where else to go. They reminded Pekkala of cavalry horses, standing on the battlefield beside their fallen riders.
He caught up with Kirov and the others on the road which led out of the facility.
“I saw someone,” explained Samarin. “Hiding in one of the supply buildings, where they keep spare parts for the vehicles. I chased him out onto the road. Then he just vanished.”
“Where are the other security guards?” asked Pekkala.
“There’s one stationed out at the gate. You saw him when you came in. There are only four others and they’re guarding the buildings. That is the protocol Colonel Nagorski put in place. In the event of an emergency, all buildings are locked and guarded.”
“If this work is so important, why are there so few of you guarding this place?”
“This isn’t a jewelry shop, Inspector,” replied Samarin defensively. “The things we guard here are as big as houses and weigh about as much. You can’t just put one in your pocket and make off with it. Colonel Nagorski could have had a hundred people patrolling this place if he’d wanted it, but he said he didn’t need them. What worried the colonel was that someone might run away with the plans for these inventions. Because of that, the fewer people wandering around this facility, the better. That’s the way he saw it.”
“All right,” said Pekkala, “the buildings are sealed. What other steps have been taken?”
“I put in a call to NKVD headquarters in Moscow and asked for assistance. As soon as I confirmed that Colonel Nagorski had been killed, they said they would dispatch a squad of soldiers. After I sent you out into the proving ground, I received a call that the doctors had been intercepted and ordered to return to Moscow. The soldiers will be here soon, but for now it’s just us. That’s why I fetched these two.” He gestured towards Kirov and Maximov. “I need all the help I can get.”
Pekkala turned to Maximov, ready to introduce himself. “I am—” he began.
“I know who you are,” interrupted Maximov. The bodyguard’s voice was deeply resonant, as if it emerged not from his mouth but in vibrations through his massive chest. As he spoke to Pekkala, he removed his cap, revealing a clean-shaven head and a wide forehead which looked as solid as the armor of Nagorski’s tank.
“This man you saw,” began Pekkala, turning back to Samarin. He was curious as to why they had decided not to pursue him.
“He’s gone into the woods,” said Samarin, “but he won’t last long in there.”
“Why not?”
“Traps,” replied Samarin. “During the construction of the facility, Colonel Nagorski disappeared into those woods almost every day. No one was allowed to follow him. He dragged in slats of wood, metal pipes, rolls of wire, shovels, boxes nailed shut so that no one could see what was in them. No one knows how many traps he built. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Or what kind of traps, exactly. And where they are—nobody knows that either, except Colonel Nagorski.”
“Why go to all that trouble?” asked Kirov. “Surely—”
“You did not know Colonel Nagorski,” interrupted Samarin.
“Is there really no map of where these traps were placed?” Pekkala asked.
“None that I’ve ever seen,” replied Samarin. “Nagorski hammered small colored disks into some of the trees. Some are blue, others red or yellow. What they mean, if they mean anything at all, only Nagorski knows.”
Squinting into the depths of the forest, Pekkala could make out some of the colored disks, glimmering like eyes from the shadows.
A sound made them turn their heads—or, rather, a series of muffled thumping sounds, somewhere lost among the trees.
“There!” shouted Samarin, drawing his revolver.
Something was running through the woods.
The figure moved so swiftly that at first Pekkala thought it must be some kind of animal. No human could move so quickly, he thought. The shape appeared and disappeared, bounding like a deer through the brambled thickets which grew between the trees. Then, as it leaped across a clearing, Pekkala realized it was a man.
In that moment, something snapped inside him. Pekkala knew that if they didn’t catch him now, they’d never find him in this wilderness. He had not forgotten about Nagorski’s traps, but some instinct had awakened in him, overriding thoughts of his own safety. Without a word to the others, Pekkala set off running through the woods.
“Wait!” screamed Samarin.
Pekkala raced among the trees, drawing his gun as he sprinted.
“Have you gone completely mad?” shouted Samarin.
Kirov too joined the chase, hurdling the thickets as he struggled to catch up with Pekkala.
“This is insane!” roared Samarin. Then, with a shout, he lunged after them.
Brambles tore at their legs as the three men raced through the dying light.
“There he is!” shouted Samarin.
Pekkala’s lungs were burning. The weight of the coat hung on his shoulders and dragged against his thighs.
Samarin had overtaken him now, picking up speed as he gained on the running man. Then, suddenly, he skidded to a halt, a hand raised in warning.
Barely in time to avoid crashing into Samarin, Pekkala managed to stop. He bent double, hands on his knees, his throat raw and painful as he struggled for breath.
Mutely, Samarin pointed to the strand of wire strung across the path. It threaded through a bent nail which had been hammered into the trunk of a nearby stump. From there the wire stretched up through the leaves of a tree beside the path until at last, Pekkala’s straining eyes could see where it wrapped around the handle of a Type 33 grenade, bound with threads of dried grass to a branch directly above their heads. A tug on the wire would bring it down. This movement would arm the grenade, since Type 33’s—like iron soup cans attached to a short stem and wrapped with a gridded fragmentation sleeve—were normally activated by the movement of throwing them through the air.
“We’ll keep after him,” wheezed Samarin, as he bent down to untie the string, “as soon as I’ve disarmed this thing.”
As Pekkala moved forward, he glanced up once more at the grenade. It was then he noticed that the slide cover at the top of the grenade, which should have contained the cigarette-shaped detonator, was empty. The thought that this might, somehow, have been intentional was only half born in his mind when he heard a loud rustle in the branches above him.
He had just enough time to turn his head to look at Samarin.
Their eyes met.
A shape flashed in front of Pekkala. The speed of it brushed cold against his cheek. Then came a dull and heavy thump. Leaves flickered down around him.
Pekkala had not moved, paralyzed by the closeness of whatever had swept past him, but now he forced himself to turn.
At first glance, Samarin appeared to be crouched against a tree stump. His arms were thrown out to the sides, as if to steady himself. A shape, some tangling of earth and wood and weather-beaten steel, obscured his body.
