Stupid tears pricked at the back of his eyes. In an effort to dismiss them, he slammed the heavy drawer shut. It slid smoothly on its oiled rails, and clanged shut. The noise rang from the white walls, from the chequered tiles of the floor.
Vorontsyev sat huddled hi a narrow gully, staring at the Makarov 9 mm automatic in his hands. Hands that were clumsily gloved so that he could only just press the trigger-finger into the guard. Eight rounds in the magazine, and three spare clips in his pockets. Thirty-two 244 milligram bullets between himself and the whole of Ossipov's Far East Military District forces. He could not bring himself to contemplate the number of divisions posted at this end of the Soviet Union.
Ludicrous.
His breathing had now become less harsh, and his heartbeat no longer thudded in his ears. He must have been running for miles, for hours.
It had been for nearly an hour. It was twelve-fifteen on the 22nd. In Moscow, eight hours away by jet, it was — what was it? Midnight.
He threw aside the thought with a shake of his head. It did not matter. What mattered more was that he wished he had the larger Stechkin 9 mm automatic, with a twenty-round magazine, better range, more stopping power, instead of the particularly futile Makarov.
He laughed aloud when he considered the uselessness of either gun against a T-54 tank, or even the platoon of men that might leap out of an Armoured Personnel Carrier.
He fumbled the map from his pocket, and folded and refolded it until it revealed his present position. He checked with the sun's position, then the compass, then the shape of the land — here, on the edge of the long knife of forest that had followed the valley as it narrowed. Pointing south.
He was eighteen miles from the outskirts of Khabarovsk.
He crouched instinctively as he heard.he beat of a helicopter, coming up the narrow valley from the south. He was just under the outlying trees, in an olive-green anorak and brown slacks, and jammed into a narrow dry watercourse. The beat of the rotors became louder, and he felt his arms against his head throbbing with nerves as he covered his fair hair. The noise was directly overhead, and he could feel the small down-draught. Dirt jumped and quivered near him, and the trees overhead were swaying in the created wind.
Then the noise died away northwards, the way he had come, the pilot and observer in the chopper hoping that their down-draught might part the trees like some green and spiky Red Sea just long enough for them to spot a running man. He waited, not uncurling from his crouch, because he now knew the pattern they were using.
Two minutes later, the second helicopter passed overhead. They could not seriously believe that he had come this far in the time — probably these were the original choppers that had escorted, then lost him.
He stood up. He brushed his trousers free of the little hard dirt that had accumulated, and stepped out of the gully. There was no snow on this side of the narrow valley, facing the sun. The day was almost spring-like, mild. He had even heard insects in the intense silence, above his own breathing.
A vague plan had formed itself in his mind — something akin to a half-dreamed ambition, and connected with childhood. Certainly not a definite plan of action. But it was all he had. It meant getting to Khabarovsk, at least to the eastern outskirts, soon after dark.
He knew he could not enter Khabarovsk, or return to his hotel. He could not even rely on Blinn and the rest of the forensic team, or the replacement KGB officers flown in from Moscow. A tiny force, impotent. He could not attempt to board a plane hi Khabarovsk — the airport was outside the town, but it would be patrolled by now, or soon, anyway. He would be arrested, probably on some trumped-up charge and by a GRU detachment, and brought to Military District HQ.
And then, he thought, the light would go out.
Beyond the trees, the narrow neck of the valley opened out. He looked at the map. A small village — Nikoleyev — lay behind the valley, where the mountains and uplands surrendered temporarily to high pasture. A sloping bowl of meadowland. then narrow, radiating valleys again, before the land dropped down to the long hills which cradled Khabarovsk.
In the village, he had to obtain a car. Covertly, or overtly, it did not matter. Probably, there were troops in the village already. It did not matter. He had to get to the village, and he had to have the car. Only by having transport could he hope to make the rendezvous that was already assuming a prominent place in his thinking.
There was some kind of hut on a little rise, perhaps half a mile from where he stood. Not a house, perhaps a store for winter fodder.
He stepped cautiously away from the trees, as if expecting to see the belly of a helicopter slide into view just above the tree tops. He scanned the sky, revolving on his heels until he began to feel dizzy. Nothing. He began to run.
The ground was tussocky with the poor grass, flinty stones unsettling his footsteps. He ran as carefully as he could, his eyes scanning the ground immediately ahead of him, yet his mind screaming at the sense in the back of his neck, across his shoulders, that he was nakedly exposed as he moved with such idiotic slowness across that half-mile of grass and stones.
His breathing became heavier, the steps more automatic, and more laboured. He began to consider the futility of running, of crossing half a mile when thousands of miles separated him from the people who could help him — no, not help, now; protect, hide. His breath began to tear and sob, like cloth being pulled apart roughly, something human in him being made into i rags for cleaning.
He forced his legs on, his body seeming to bend lower, his face closer to the ground — stumbling more now, trying to shift weight immediately so that an ankle wouldn't give, twist. He could feel the body-heat, rising and breaking out in sweat. There was even sweat on his forehead now. He looked up. The hut appeared hardly any nearer than the last time he had looked up — perhaps one hundred strides ago. No, two hundred at least.
One hand pushing away from the ground as he stumbled, and the tiredness stressed as he tried to drive the legs in a [reasserted upright position.
He heard the noise of the helicopter, behind him, and it ' seemed as if the sound was gaseous, unnerving him, causing I the moving legs to quiver as if he had already stopped running.
He turned round, staggering as his body shifted clumsily.
he small scout helicopter, like the civilian one he had flown in, was fifty feet up, and moving across the grass towards him — a black, insect spot just horizoned above the dark lines of the trees.
He whirled round, stumbling again, and it was now as if he moved through some restraining element. The beat of rotors behind him became louder: he stumbled on, careless of stones and tussocks, waiting for the shadow of the helicopter, the waving of grass as it bent before the downdraught.
The hut wobbled on the rise, joggling in his vision as he looked up. The breath tearing, and the heartbeat frenzied. Above everything, the futility of it, the stupid blind panic to run, to keep running, thousands of miles from safety.
The grass leapt with small stones, flying dirt, near his right foot, then ahead and to his side. Gunfire. The noise of the rotors drowned the rifle shots. The helicopter was no gunship, but it carried at least one marksman. Again, flying spots of dirt. He saw the distressed earth scatter on his boot like scuffed sand.
Then his breath was knocked from him, and his shoulder jarred cruelly as he banged into the wall of the hut. He looked up, and the shadow of the chopper passed over him. White plucked splinters of dry wood stung his cheek as the rifleman, with the AK-47 on automatic, loosed a volley before he disappeared behind the overflown hut.
Sobbing, straining to get his breath — one breath, clear and deep would be sufficient, as the blood roared in his ears — he banged against the locked door. Wood splintered — he heard the sound, even as the rotor noise increased again — and he fell into the darkness, redolent of stored fodder, and tumbled against stacked hay bales.
A line of jagged holes, striped across one wall, entry of sunlight in splashes like yellow blood, as the marksman in the helicopter sprayed the hut on automatic. He buried his head, wriggling his body between the spiky, hard edges of the bales. Bullets plucked into the packed earth door, thumped softly into bales beside him. He put his hands over his ears, terrified.
The noise of the rotors came down to swallow him.
He was unsure how long it was, but he was aware of the changing noises outside. The rotors dying away, then the crack-ing of a voice, voices, as the helicopter's cabin speaker amplified the calls from nearest units in the search. He was stiff with 'ear, weak and unable to move.
