Snow Falcon

There was no sound from the Russian.

'Where is the Englishman? Where is he?' Again the pressure of the gun — then he saw Waterford lean away, and the Parabellum exploded. Davenhill found his hands about his face, plucking at his lips, wanting to cover his ears. There was nothing he could do; the Russian was dead. He heard Water-ford's voice, distantly: 'Where is the Englishman?' Why ask a dead man? 'Where is he — you're not dead yet!' The command in the voice was — terrible.

And then Davenhill saw the head flop, as if alive, and Water-ford said again. 'Where is he? Did you bastards kill him? Answer me!' There was a choking sound, as if the young man was still swallowing the water thrown over him, and the head moved again, and over the hunched shoulder of Waterford he saw the eyes roll in the head, whites rather than pupils, and another groan.

Only then did he realise that Waterford had not killed the Russian.

'Speak! Now! When did you kill him? When?

A silence. Then:

'No — not kill…' the voice was awful, something already dead trying to get back from somewhere impossibly far. 'He — was taken back.'

'I don't believe you, you little Russian shit! He's dead!'

'No, no!'

'Yes!'

'Beg you…' Davenhill heard, and braced himself, hands fluttering at his sides, uncertain.

'You killed him!' Each syllable broken, precise with menace.

'No! They took him back over the border with them!'

'Who!'

The voice was easier now, lubricated by some whiff of possible life.

'The tank regiment — when they went back.'

'When?'

'Two — days.'

'Why are they here?'

'I don't know. Invasion!' The last word was shrieked as the gun drew back from the jaw, then pressed against the temple. Davenhill saw the terrible eyes swivel in the head, following the gun. All whites.

Then Waterford, as if some conjuror or magician releasing a spell, stepped back, slipped the gun into its holster. Then, his back to the Russian, he put on his gloves.

'Right,' he said. 'Let's get this young man outside and back to the jeep, shall we, Alex?'

Davenhill was immobile with shock, disorientation.

'Come on, Alex,' he heard Waterford say, almost cringing as the bigger man came towards him. But his voice was kindly. 'We haven't got any time to waste. Get him dressed.'

He left the room abruptly, exuding a confidence more appropriate to a Ministry corridor, an officers' mess, than to their present situation.

Then he realised that the peculiar sound in the room was the Russian's teeth as they chattered uncontrollably. The young man was hunched in the armchair, arms wrapped across his chest, moaning through the noise of his teeth. He moved to him, helping him slowly to his feet. The young man flinched from him, and his body began quivering as soon as it abandoned the mould of the chair. The eyes were still now, receded.

His nakedness was upsetting, humiliating. Davenhill bent down, and pulled the trousers up to his waist. The buckle was missing, and the waistband was torn. He gently guided the young man's hand until it held the trousers in place. Then he picked up the shirt, saw its condition and abandoned it, then pulled the anorak across his heaving shoulders. The chattering noise had gone. Sobs, irregular and heaving, were the only sounds now.

Waterford came back into the room.

'The back way,' he said. 'Get him moving.' Precise, clipped tones; army manoeuvres. The voice enraged Davenhill.

'You bastard! He'll freeze to death before we can get back!'

'Rugs, blankets in the jeep. He won't freeze — if he runs fast enough!' He glared theatrically at the Russian, who bowed his head, his mouth opening and closing, fish-like.

Davenhill stared Waterford out for a long moment, then capitulated. The man was right — always bloody right. And the Russian had talked. Folley was alive, somewhere in Russia.

And, he realised, they had a witness.

He bundled the young man in front of him, out of the main room, down the corridor, through the kitchen. It was already getting late in the afternoon, and the weak sun low on the horizon, a bleary, tired eye. Waterford went ahead of them, moving quickly, and Davenhill found the gun in his hand again, and he prodded the Russian in the back. He moved like an automaton, and Davenhill snarled, 'Pick your feet up!' in Russian. And shuddered as if he had caught some infection.

They almost walked into Waterford, because the man stopped suddenly.

A patrol of four, returning, topping the rise twenty yards away. Rifles, Kalashnikovs, slung over their shoulders, gait weary, relief and tiredness evident in the slouch of the shoulders.

Davenhill had an impression of heads snapping up, of fumbled movements, then the Parabellum roared in the quiet where the only sound had been the labour of footsteps through the snow. The noise banged back from the building behind them, seemed to echo from the low sky.

Then the Russians were firing, even as they split from the tight group; two of them, moving in separate directions, firing from the hip, bent low and running. Two bodies lay on the ground, ugly sprawling things like dark stains.

Then the exaggerated noise again from Waterford — he was in a crouch, hands stiff in front of him, both holding the gun. He was turning on his axis like a doll, spinning like something on a muscial box, firing alternately at one then the other. Davenhill saw flame from the direction of one of the Russians, who had paused long enough to kneel in the snow — and the young man in front of him, who had stood stupidly observing events he seemed not to comprehend, was flung back against him. Davenhill clutched the thin body as the anorak came away, and then stumbled and fell, the dead Russian on top of him, an obscene weight, his Walther sticking butt-up from the snow, out of reach of his hand.

Then there was a single shot, then silence. Davenhill lay sobbing, feeling the scream rising in his throat, threatening. It had to be madness, this being buried beneath a dead body naked to the waist and the trousers hanging open across the privates…

He heaved at the Russian, as at something loathsome, and staggered to his feet. Waterford was inspecting the bodies. Davenhill plucked his gun out of the snow, and wiped it, attending minutely to the whiteness, the wetness that had gathered on it, and in the barrel. Then Waterford was beside him, his hand on his shoulder.

'Don't sulk,' he said, but his voice was without rancour or sarcasm. 'I'm sorry the game has changed.'

Davenhill felt himself shaking with relief, quivering, and was ashamed. Waterford squeezed his shoulder. Davenhill looked at him; he saw the gulf between them in experience and nature, and he saw the kind of man Waterford was. Yet he saw something akin to pity, too — even regret.

Then the moment was over. Waterford said, 'We'll have woken the dead. Let's get moving. We might have to run all the way to Ivalo yet.' He looked down at the dead young man whose buttocks were exposed by the broken trousers as he lay face-down in the snow. 'Pity they killed that poor sod. Star witness, he would have been.'

Then he walked abruptly away, towards the top of the rise. Davenhill looked at the white buttocks, and the creeping red stain just showing beneath the hip, and felt sick.

'Come on — there are other patrols out, Alex. We have to move!'

Davenhill began to walk up the slope in Waterford's deep footprints.

There was an increased tempo of activity. Ilya was certain of it now. While Maxim interviewed a Senior Sergeant in the KGB Border Guard, Vrubel's most senior NCO, he was standing at the window of the wooden hut put at the disposal of the two SID men to conduct their enquiries. It was late afternoon, and Ilya's head was thick with cigarette-smoke and pointless interviews. Maxim seemed to have the stronger constitution when it came to the dead-end minutiae of their profession.

Outside, the pace of footsteps through the packed snow, the number of people appearing from the doors of