Ligacheva sat silently beside him as they headed out of the pumping station complex, out to the pipeline. As they approached the immense pipe Salnikov looked at her for confirmation of their direction. She pointed. He nodded, and turned the vehicle northward. From that point on the tractor chugged steadily along the service road beside the pipeline-not the shortest route to their intended destination, but the path that would be least likely to get them lost in the arctic night.
There were just the two of them in the cab; the others all rode in the trailer, no doubt exchanging jokes and bawdy stories. Ligacheva would be surprised if no one had managed to smuggle in a liter of vodka; she imagined they’d be passing that around, giving no thought to their commander and the driver up front.
Ligacheva looked out at the swirling snow and the cold darkness beyond, at the looming concrete and steel barrier of the pipeline that blocked out half the world, all of it white and gray, devoid of color, just shapes picked out in the glare of the tractor’s headlights. She felt the fierce cold beginning to seep into the cab with her and Salnikov, despite the desperate blowing of the heater.
Out here on the ice the grandstanding and maneuvers of generals and bureaucrats and politicians back in Moscow all seemed a distant, stupid, pointless game. Reputation didn’t matter. Power didn’t matter. Staying warm, staying alive, that was what mattered.
”Here,” she said as the eighteen-kilometer marker came into view, the sign on the pipeline a sudden spot of red in the black, white, and gray wilderness outside. “Turn east. Four kilometers.” She tapped the map she held on her knee, then pointed to the dashboard compass. “Four kilometers,” she repeated.
Salnikov looked at the map, then at the external thermometer. He hesitated, peering out into the empty darkness to the east.
”It… it’s getting colder, Lieutenant,” he said uncertainly. “Forty below zero, and the snow is heavier. Perhaps we should head back, try again later…”
”It’s just four kilometers farther, Salnikov,” Ligacheva said, keeping her annoyance out of her voice. “That’s nothing. Enjoy the fresh air.”
Salnikov bit back a reply and turned the tractor, away from the comforting solidity of the pipeline and into the unrelieved gloom of the Siberian wilderness. When he had, Ligacheva reached down into her pack and pulled out something she would have preferred not to have needed.
”What’s that?” Salnikov asked, glancing at the device she held.
”Just drive,” Ligacheva said. There was no need to tell him yet that it was a Geiger counter.
It buzzed briefly when she directed the probe ahead, but the radiation level was not dangerous yet. In fact, Ligacheva judged it was only a little higher than normal. Perhaps whatever had caused that spike on Sobchak’s graph was gone now.
She glanced at the thermometer outside Salnikov’s window. Forty-two below.
In extreme cold, she had heard engine steel turned brittle and could snap like balsa wood. More than eighteen kilometers from the station, in snow and darkness and extreme cold-if they lost the tractor out here, most of them, maybe all of them, would die before they could get back to shelter.
She frowned at the thought, but said nothing. The engine temperature gauge was still in the normal operating range, despite the cold outside.
A few minutes later she glanced at the outside thermometer again. What she saw caught her gaze, and she stared intently, trying to understand it.
Twenty-eight below. But just a kilometer or two back it had been forty-two below.
How could it be so much warmer here?
She lifted the Geiger counter and aimed the probe. The machine crackled, the needle on its gauge jumping slightly before settling down. There was radioactivity here, more than normal-but far below dangerous levels. The stolen cigarettes she had smoked as a girl had probably been more of a long-term risk.
Still, why was there anything more than the usual background radiation?
”Lieutenant!” Salnikov cried, and his voice sounded strained and unnatural. Ligacheva looked up, through the windshield, as the wiper cleared away the latest smear of snow, and saw what had triggered Salnikov’s exclamation.
”Bozhe moi,” she said. “Oh, my God.”
They were nearing the top of a low ridge. Ahead of them in the headlight beams, on the ridgetop, a broad patch of snow shone a vivid red; a sprinkle of snowflakes had powdered it with white, but the red still showed up, shockingly bright. Above the red patch dangled a dark shape, swaying in the wind, speckled white with snow.
”Stop the truck!” Ligacheva ordered-unnecessarily; Salnikov had already shifted into neutral. “Keep the engine running,” she said. If the engine were shut down, they might never get it started again out here.
The cold hit her like a gigantic wave, sucking the warmth and life out of her, as she unlatched the door of the tractor and climbed out. She shivered involuntarily as her body struggled to adjust. The wind howled in her ears, as loud as the steady rumble of the tractor’s engine-no, she corrected herself, louder.
Behind her the men were jumping down from the trailer, guns in their hands.
”Wait,” she called, holding up a hand. She drew her own side arm-the heft of the 9mm was comforting.
Salnikov had climbed out the other side of the cab, inching forward into the pool of light from the headlights, his AK-47 in his hands. Ligacheva didn’t stop him; when he glanced over at her she motioned him forward.
A splintered pole rose from the ice at a steep angle, reaching a height of maybe three meters above the very peak of the rise; the dark, swaying shape was tied near the top of the pole, dangling there in the night.
The shape was a man’s body, suspended by a rope lashed around both ankles; his outstretched arms hung straight down, fingertips brushing the snow.
His head was gone. Where his head should have been was a thin, dark icicle of frozen blood. Below him lay a broad pool of the same substance.
Salnikov stared at the corpse for a moment, then down at the frozen pool, then at the snow around it.
”Footprints,” he said. “Footprints everywhere, Lieutenant. Big ones, see?” Then he looked up at the corpse again.
”What happened here?” he wailed.
Ligacheva didn’t answer directly-she couldn’t. The only answer she could give would have been “I don’t know,” and she couldn’t say that in front of her men, not yet.
”Who is it?” she asked. “Anyone know?”
”One of the villagers,” Utkin replied. “Look at his clothes.”
Ligacheva looked at the dead man’s clothes, she realized she had been staring at the frozen blood, the headlights making the pool glisten like smoldering coals on the snow, rather than at the victim. Sure enough, the corpse wore the reindeer hide garments of the local tribesmen.
”Which?” she asked. “Who is it?” She wondered whether this might be some tribal ritual she had never heard of, some frenzied rite or primitive custom, a formal vengeance, perhaps, or a sacrifice to whatever brutal arctic deities the locals might worship.
”Taro,” Salnikov said.
”How can you tell?” Dolzhikov said, his voice cracking. “His head is gone!”
”His rifle is there,” Salnikov said. He gestured.
”That’s Taro’s rifle. He was very proud of it, never let anyone else carry it.”
Sure enough, a fine old hunting rifle lay half-buried in the snow behind the corpse; Ligacheva had not seen it until Salnikov pointed it out.
That eliminated the possibility that any sane human being had done this, Ligacheva thought. No one but a madman would have left so valuable an item out there in the snow.
A madman… then this was no tribal ritual but merely berserk slaughter.
”Footprints?” she asked Salnikov.
He nodded. “Hundreds of them.” He looked around, then said, “They go that way.” He hesitated. “And, Lieutenant,” he added, “I have never seen such footprints. They’re too big. And there are other marks, in front of every print, as if something had clawed at the snow.”
”Perhaps something did. Do you mean it was a beast that did this? A beast that ties knots?”
Salnikov shook his head. “No, these are boot marks, or shoe marks but there are claw marks with them, as if there were claws that stuck out the front of each boot.”
”More likely the killer had some sort of trained animal,” Ligacheva said. “Follow them. And be ready-whoever,
