applies to you, Valari, go fuck yourself.” He walked away down the path.
She nearly laughed. Sweat ran down her face despite the frigid cold. The men came together and each stepped off the trail slightly to allow the others to pass.
Vlad looked drawn and angry. Blood covered the left side of Crepov’s face. How had Grisha done that? They shambled up to her, Vlad released the
Valari brought her weapon up quickly, but the trail stretched away cold, gray, and empty. They turned toward the distant helicopter.
A shot rang out and the sound echoed through the cut and past them, bounced off the frozen ridges.
They stopped. Crepov raised his head with an effort.
“He—the one that cut me—killed your Cossack,” he said thickly.
“So it would seem,” Valari said distantly. Her eyes squinted in the dim midday brightness.
24
“There’s one thing I still don’t know,” Grisha said, breaking the silence between them left by the gunshot.
They sat in the brush from where they had lost sight of Valari. No sense in trying to distance themselves from this place until the helicopter departed.
“What’s that?” Nik said warily.
“How’d they know where we were?”
“I have a miniature Japanese radio that I reported in with periodically. Now you tell me something.”
“What?” Grisha asked, staring into Nik’s eyes.
“Why’d you just fire off one round? You didn’t even aim it toward them.”
“So they’d think I just shot an informer, before he could tell me about his radio.”
“Huh?”
“Valari outsmarted me when I was still naive about her. No matter. But since she used me once, she thinks I’m stupid.”
“Da?”
“It’s my turn to outsmart her.”
“Oh,” Nik said with a frown. “Very well.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you explain?”
“And when do I do that, at the evening meal? ’Pass the salt, please. By the way, Grisha, I’m a spy and I must betray you and you’re all going to die.’ Something like that?”
“Why do you think we’re all going to die?”
“Because they have helicopters, and fighter planes, if they need them. They have spies everywhere. They have two hundred tanks about two days from here. They have—”
“Look around, Nik! What do you see?” He waved his arm. “They can’t get us in here with a tank. If we disperse, the planes can only blow up buildings, not kill people!”
“If your shelter is gone, you die.”
“Not all the shelter is open to the sky. This problem has not been ignored. You knew that. But still you didn’t tell me.”
“I needed commitment.”
“I gave you all that I had,” Grisha said tightly.
“Not you. Cora. I mean, I knew you and I were friends, I knew you would understand once I explained it.”
“Then why didn’t you explain it?”
“Because if I told you, Cora would find out. I wasn’t sure she would understand. In the beginning I was going to do what Capt—what Valari wanted.”
Grisha felt as if he’d been slapped. Before he could find suitable words, a helicopter racketed toward them.
“Quick, pretend you’re dead!” Grisha said. “Lay down on the trail.”
Nik sprawled on the ground, facedown. “What if they put a few rounds into me to make sure I’m dead?” he muttered.
“They won’t chance it, they’re too big of a target and they don’t know my location.”
The helicopter roared over them. Grisha watched it pull up, wheel around in a tight turn and start back toward them. He pulled back farther into the thicket and aimed his Kalashnikov at the pilot.
The craft moved over them again, slower this time, but it didn’t stop. A face peered whitely through the heavy plastic window. The rotor wash created a sudden snow flurry that quickly escalated into a miniature whiteout. The engine bellowed to higher decibels and the machine vanished over the ridge.
Grisha eased his weapon down to rest on his knees and sighed. “Okay, you aren’t dead anymore.” He brushed snow off him.
Nik rolled over and stared at the ridge. “You don’t think they’ll be back?”
“No. Not if they want to stop that
“What did you do to him?” Nik asked, getting to his feet.
Grisha stood. “Raked his face with this.” He moved his wrist quickly and abruptly a small knife gleamed in his hand.
“How long have you had that?”
“It’s been my talisman since the day we were rescued from the Cossacks.” Grisha stared at his friend. “Did you think I would tell on you?”
“I don’t know, would you? Are you?”
“No, I’m not going to tell them anything: you are.”
“They’ll hate me,” Nik said slowly. “Cora will hate me. I was a Cossack.”
“Just like she was a student nurse, in another life. You’re a weapon for the Dena Republik now.” Grisha began collecting his equipment. “You were actually a Cossack captain?”
“Da.”
“You aren’t old enough to be a captain!”
They skied into the late morning, following their trail back toward Toklat.
25
The pulsing beat of their engines reached far out in advance of the Russian gunships. In the village a hand- cranked siren shrilled into a wail for a full minute before the operator released the handle and fled into the forest.
The first helicopter buzzed in at treetop level, machine guns firing indiscriminately. More than forty Kalashnikovs filled the air with bullets.
Even from the ground they could see the effect of their fire; pieces of fuselage flew off, the engine sputtered as smoke leaked from it, one of the gunners collapsed, swaying in his safety harness. The gas tank abruptly ignited and the stricken machine exploded. The remaining door gunner screamed flaming to the ground.
Before the second gunship reached the village, the first already lay burning on the forest floor. The second machine strafed a different section of the forest and ran into another wall of lead.
