Eventually, the path opened out again and back onto a potholed road that crested a thickly wooded ridge. Rebellion hardwired into the topography, the forested mountains lent the best possible cover for resistance.
He started to breathe more easily. More stone dwellings. More grim-looking villages, clinging for dear life, it seemed, to the cliff edges. In spite of the sunshine, the place echoed with sadness. It was in the earth and in the air.
‘Shit,’ Tallis said, stopping dead in his tracks.
Ruslan looked up. He was out of breath, wheezing slightly. ‘Checkpoint,’ he muttered.
‘And they’ve seen us,’ Tallis said, slowly walking towards the soldiers, silently counting: four scared and jumpy-looking boys, probably no older than Ruslan, and one hard-faced bloke who was prematurely grey and had the strutting gait of a rooster. Tallis reckoned he was their commanding officer. The closer he got, the clearer the view of the badges the man wore, including one of a Scorpion that Tallis thought was only worn by the Russian Special Forces, the Spetsnaz.
‘Leave them to me,’ Ruslan murmured, pulling his hat down over his face and striding past Tallis before he could stop him.
Ruslan pulled out his papers, flashed them under the nose of the older man. Jerking his thumb in Tallis’s direction, his voice riddled with disdain, Ruslan spoke in Russian. ‘I am charged with bringing this man into the mountains so that he can witness the rebels’ attacks on the motherland for himself.’
The older guy handed the papers to one of the young soldiers and looked Ruslan in the eye. He’s not buying it, Tallis thought. He’s seen the cuts and bruises and knows that Ruslan’s lying. Tallis drew up alongside.
‘You have the necessary written permission from the Kremlin?’ the officer said, addressing Ruslan.
‘We do.’
‘Let me see.’
‘Unfortunately, we were jumped by Chechen gangsters,’ Tallis intervened, ‘They stole some of our papers.’
‘But not these,’ the officer said, thrusting Ruslan’s papers back in his hand and snatching up Tallis’s, including the press pass for one Nikolai Redko.
He barely looked at them but he looked at Tallis. Tallis looked straight back. He didn’t like the coldness in the man’s eyes. Something in them reminded him of Timur, the FSB guy and State assassin. The officer’s eyes travelled down to Tallis’s wrist. ‘Nice watch.’
The four inexperienced soldiers, srochniki, conscripts, had picked up the mood. All fiddled nervously with their weapons.
‘Have it,’ Tallis said, undoing the clasp and handing the watch over.
The man pocketed it without looking. ‘Go,’ he said, his dry red lips curled with contempt.
‘Thanks,’ Ruslan said.
Both of them started to walk away. The road ahead was empty. The air hung thin and still. Sun was shining. Sky was blue. An eerie silence descended. Exactly what Tallis most feared. Instinct kicking in, he pulled the Glock from his holster and wheeled round a split second after they opened fire, the first burst of machine-gun tearing through the air, ripping up the ground beneath his feet and singeing his hair. Everything slowed. Ruslan went down. The officer, his pistol smoking, shouted to his men to spread out. Bullets whizzed haphazardly. An intense flash of pain caught Tallis under his ribs, almost lifting him off his feet. Gasping with shock, Tallis shot the commanding officer in the face, blowing half of it away, his body jackknifing in the dirt. The trauma of losing their boss turned the soldiers into headless chickens. Two began to run for their lives. The remaining two took off, then turned, letting off another round of machine-gun fire that went high and wide. It was the biggest mistake of their short lives. Two shots later, both were dead. Tallis, ignoring the pain in his side, sprinted to Ruslan, whose legs below the knee were peppered with bullet-holes. He was bleeding profusely. Tallis grabbed both his legs, making him scream, and held them in the air to try to limit the blood flow. That’s when he noticed the wound in Ruslan’s chest from where the officer’s bullet had made its exit.
‘You weren’t wearing your Kevlar.’
‘I thought it would frighten Katya,’ Ruslan grunted, wincing with pain. ‘That’s why I left it behind.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Tallis thought, diving into his bag for dressings, knowing it wasn’t enough.
‘I’m dying,’ Ruslan said, his eyelids fluttering.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Leave me here,’ Ruslan said. In seconds, his face had become as white as a sheet. ‘You can’t carry an injured man through the mountains.’
‘I’m not leaving you. I’m taking you back. I’ll get help.’
‘No point. I won’t make it,’ Ruslan said, his breathing scratchy and laboured. ‘If you go back, they’ll arrest you and you will never find your friend.’
He was right. But what choice did he have? If he took Ruslan into the mountains, the lad stood no chance of survival. ‘We’re in this together,’ was all Tallis could think to say.
Ruslan smiled, already, it seemed, looking into the angel face of his sister. Tallis did his best to patch him up. It had been too long since he’d worked in battle conditions. He thought about giving him morphine, then decided against it—it would be the quickest way to kill him. And though it might be kinder in the long run, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
‘I’m cold,’ Ruslan complained.
‘Soon get you warm.’ Tallis picked Ruslan up as gently as he could, the pain in his side searing from where a bullet had torn through his jacket and bounced off his Kevlar. No doubt he’d have an ugly bruise on his ribcage, but that was all. As he put the injured man over his shoulder, Ruslan groaned, then went quiet.
Straightening his back, Tallis moved east in a big detour, his sights set on Haracoj. He tried not to think of the two soldiers he’d allowed to get away, the inevitable raised alarm and subsequent pursuit by soldier and tracker dog. And the trail of blood he was conveniently leaving behind for them to follow. All his thoughts were directed at the injured man on his back. Against all the odds, he willed Ruslan to survive. Somehow, he promised, he would find help.
For several kilometres, Tallis moved forwards. It was slow going and arduous. The weight on his back grew heavier and heavier, and the sun, which had up until then been his friend, was starting to burn a hole in his head.
On he went, his feet slipping and sliding. The smell of the river was strong in his nostrils and he knew at some stage he’d have to get across. He seemed to be in a no-man’s land, the ground ahead unpopulated and barren, without life. Part of him was afraid to stop. He didn’t want his worst fears confirmed. But when he could go no further, when his vision was starting to blur, he decided he had to. At last, up ahead, he spotted a lean-to for animals. It would be an obvious place for the soldiers to look, but…
He did the calculation: the most efficient time for them to send out their trackers would be that evening or early the following morning when the sun was low. Added to that, they wouldn’t necessarily think that he’d adopt a contradictory route. It was a gamble but one he was prepared to take. He reckoned he had a couple of hours to rest before moving on.
Tallis set Ruslan down gently on the charred ground. The young Chechen’s trousers and sweater were soaked in blood where it had oozed through the dressings. Remarkably, he was still breathing, just, but his pulse was weak and erratic. Tallis knew then that it was only a matter of time.
He took out a bottle of water and, cradling him in his arms, gently put it to Ruslan’s cracked lips. The dying man’s eyelids fluttered. Water trickled down his chin.
‘You were right, Tallis. You travel alone.’ Then Ruslan’s eyes rolled up into his head and he was still.
You’re wrong. I travel with ghosts, Tallis thought sadly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WITH a heavy heart, Tallis replotted his route and resumed his journey. He decided to bypass Shatoi altogether. The way for now had flattened out a little. Footholds were easier to see. The sky was the colou
r of a large open wound and the sun was setting. With it, the temperature dropped fast. He listened hard for signs of a pursuit. After another few kilometres of tracking, and picking his way through stony ground, eyes skinned for booby-traps, he decided to pitch up for the night in the relative safety of some woods on the leeside of a hill. He was tempted to light a fire but didn’t want to risk exposure and alert others. Instead, he made a shallow depression in the ground and, dragging some broken boughs over it, settled himself into the makeshift burrow with his sleeping bag. After a hasty meal of dried rations, he fell asleep, exhausted.
The next morning he awoke to sunshine filtering through the leaves of his shelter, casting a fine net of light over his makeshift bed. He rose, took a leak, and listened for the sound of human activity. Other than his own, there were none. Next, he took a compass reading then, after eating once more, he started off again, his destination Borzoi.
After a time the sun rose high in the sky, the temperature, too, starting to soar. He found himself in a belt of green pasture, an alpine hinterland. Two shepherds herding a flock of sheep trundled past and nodded in his direction. He nodded back, a snatch of normality in the prevailing madness. On he went, ears alert, eyes scanning the horizon. Suddenly the track on which he walked widened out and he was brought up short by the sight of scorched earth and dead vehicles, including a burnt-out tank on which someone had painted ‘Russians Are Pigs’. He strode on, not stopping, to where the land briefly dipped into a half-farmed valley then rose, stark and sheer.
Out in the open again. The further he travelled, the higher the climb, birds of prey and mountain goats the only signs of life. At last he reached a peak and the landscape changed again. He was on the edge of a wooded area. He held back, took out his map. The band of trees signified the most direct route to Borzoi, but they also offered the possibility of mines. The road, easier terrain, meant people and vehicles, checkpoints and soldiers. Breaking his own rules, he opted for the forest.
It was time-consuming travel. Most mines were found simply by observation. Knife in hand, Tallis scanned the ground for protrusions and surface fuses, for earth mounds and craters, for signs left by others: crossed sticks; cairns of rock and rubble, bottles and cans placed on the top of stakes; lines of painted rocks. He had no choice but to adopt a slow, leisurely gait, the mantra of look, feel, prod repeated on a loop in his head. Then he saw it, gleaming white in the sunshine, a metre away, gaping up at him. He stopped in his tracks, a metallic shiver travelling up his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand erect as he processed the information, and stared at a human skull. Chechen or Russian, he thought, and what the hell did it matter? Somewhere a mother had lost a child.
He scanned the forest ahead: nothing untoward. About to walk on, he heard a crack behind him. No falling branch, no animal scurrying through, it was a sound he recognised only too well—the sound of a rifle cocking. Very slowly, he turned round, arms up. A thinlimbed boy emerged from behind a tree. Eyes glittering with malice, he resembled a wicked wood sprite from a fantasy tale. His skin was the colour of a pecan nut. He had a long face, the features off centre and sharp. He wore filthy combat trousers and a torn jacket. His boots, army issue, rubber-soled with the laces missing, looked too big for his thin legs. He carried an astonishing array of bullets across his chest and he was holding a Tikka-M65, a sporting and hunting rifle made in Finland. Designed for precision shooting, the target more usually big game, Tallis didn’t feel inclined to call the boy’s bluff. He was put in mind of child soldiers. They could be as ruthless as they were unpredictable. At any second he could be cut down. The only way to prevent certain death was either to attempt to kill him or appeal to the child’s venal nature.
‘I’m worth more to you alive than dead,’ he said in Chechen.
The boy smiled. That means nothing, his expression inferred.
‘I have money,’ Tallis said.
‘And weapons.’
Tallis felt surprise. The boy spoke with a young man’s voice, yet he only looked about twelve. He also spoke Chechen with a Russian accent. He pointed at Tallis to remove his holster and throw over his backpack. Tallis did both. Yes, he could have pulled out the Glock and shot him, but he had an unspoken rule about youngsters. He didn’t think he could live with himself even if it meant saving his own life. Now what? he thought. Would this sprite-child kill him there and then?
The boy dropped to the ground, sat cross-legged, and rummaged through Tallis’s belongings like he was going through a Christmas stocking, each new find an added source of delight.
‘I’m a Westerner,’ Tallis said, ‘English,’ he added, this time speaking in Russian.
The boy looked up and beamed. ‘This is good,’ he said, reverting to Russian. ‘I know someone who will pay a lot of money for you.’
Tallis led. Sprite followed. ‘No tricks,’ the boy warned, his untamed eyes glanced ominously at his loaded weapon just so Tallis knew he wasn’t fucking about. Tallis swallowed, walked on, feeling like the human equivalent of a mine detector. Having already spotted several tripwires on either side of the track, he half expected to be blown to kingdom come at any moment. Either that or it would be a bullet in the back. In this strange land the danger played to its own twisted beat.
From the way the light was falling, Tallis estimated it was approaching three o’clock. With storm clouds gathering, it would soon be dark. Tallis tried to engage the lad in conversation by asking his name. When he didn’t answer, Tallis briefly turned back.
‘I have no name,’ the boy said darkly. ‘Now, walk,’ he added, raising his weapon.
An hour further on, they were clear of the forest and on land that peaked sharply. Tallis expected to track along what appeared to him the nearest and less demanding route. Sprite had other ideas. They were moving up, vertical, high into the mountains where the air was thin and the going tough.
It began to rain, sheeting down like a fusillade. Every so often, Sprite would order him to stop, not to rest, but so that he could listen and smell the air. It seemed the boy had highly developed senses. Once he called out a warning as a piece of cliff edge plunged past, crashing down the mountainside, missing Tallis by centimetres, and once he picked out a hidden stream from which they drank the water. Tallis had tasted nothing like it. It was clear and bright and thirst-quenching.
Darkness fell like a curtain. Tallis became seriously worried. He couldn’t see a damn thing and the path ahead was savage. Suddenly the night sky lit up with tips of red and yellow tracer. There were reports of small-arms fire. He wondered if Darke was there in the thick of the action.
‘Rebels,’ Sprite said matter-of-factly. ‘They are trying to draw the Russians’ fire.’
Tallis saw the logic. Whoever held the higher ground had the advantage. It was probably the rebels’ best card.
On they climbed until Tallis stumbled, Sprite overtaking him, the boy’s sense of direction acute and unerring. It was as if he had another sense: night vision. After that, Sprite set the pace: fast and ferocious. Tallis had no intention of turning tail and making a dash for it. Either he’d fall in the dark or be shot, neither prospect appealing.
Finally, they arrived at Sprite’s destination: a lonely ledge underneath an overhanging cliff. It wasn’t a bad place for a shelter, Tallis thought, feeling his way around, conscious that Sprite was scampering about his den like a stray dog. Flicking on the torch he’d stolen from Tallis’s backpack, Sprite shone it in a wide hole in the rock, plunging one hand deep inside and pulling out a filthy sleeping bag which he threw to Tallis. The boy obviously intended to enjoy the spoils of war by commandeering the belongings of his victim. Tallis wasn’t that bothered. After two nights out in the open, he smelt like a hyena. Might as well live like one.
Wriggling inside, he lay down on the rock. Sprite did the same. Then the questions started.
‘Your papers say that you are Russian yet you say you are English.’
‘I am English.’
/> ‘Then what are you doing here?’
Tallis thought. Whatever he said could prove disastrous. ‘I’ve come to join the fight.’
Sprite let out a squeal of laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You fight the Chechen when you cannot even fight a child?’
Tallis froze. Words, which seemed a lifetime away, reverberated through his head. In an instant he was back in Birmingham, in Viva Constantine’s cosy sitting room, Lena standing there with an arrogant look in her eye. She’d accused him of running away from a woman. And now, with Ruslan dead, what else would she accuse him of? An image of Katya, blonde and beautiful, floated before his eyes. He blinked her away. ‘I haven’t come to fight the Chechen. I’ve come to fight the Russians.’
Sprite sat up a bit at that. Tallis could hear him rustling in the darkness.
‘Why?’
‘Because I think the Chechens have had a raw deal. I think this time they’re in serious trouble.’
‘What do you care?’
‘My grandmother on my mother’s side was Croatian.’
‘Ah,’ Sprite said knowingly, ‘you hate the Serbs so you hate the Russians, too.’
‘And you?’
‘I have no loyalties to anyone other than myself.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’
‘Only if you’re stupid.’
‘So what are you exactly?’ Tallis said, pushing it. ‘You speak Chechen but with a Russian accent.’
‘I am unfortunate,’ Sprite said with no hint of self-pity whatsoever. ‘I am an ethnic Russian born in Chechnya. I belong to no one.’
Tallis woke the next morning with a boot in his rear. ‘Get up!’ Sprite shrieked.
The weather was dire. Thick mist shrouded the mountains. It was bone-crunchingly cold. And it was still raining. Tallis was ordered to climb. Thin air punched him in the chest. On he climbed until joyously they were cresting the peak and heading back down. Tallis adopted a sideways motion, using his inside hand to feel his way, feeling for mines. According to Sprite, the Chechens were fond of setting tripwires.
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