RIVERS meandered lazily below as the aircraft flew due north. The threads crisscrossed through a vast water-filled landscape emptied of all color by mists that shrouded them in secrecy. The M-17 engines throbbed, and as Mikhail sat in the passenger cabin he could feel every beat of the pistons driving his blood through his veins. They powered a wonderful sense of being cut free from the earth.
It was a long time since he’d felt like this, as good as this. Which was crazy because he knew he was in serious trouble whichever way he looked, but somehow that all faded into insignificance up here. He was with Sofia and he was flying again, and he was determined to find Anna Fedorina. Reality on the ground seemed a long way down.
ARE you all right?”
Sofia turned her face from the window and gave him a smile, that crooked little curve of her lips that he loved.
“I’m fine.”
“Not nervous on your first flight?”
“No, I love it. How high are we?”
“Around three thousand meters.”
She nodded but looked tense. He put out a hand across the narrow aisle that divided them and stroked her arm, soothing her.
“It’s the continuous juddering,” he said. “It sets your nerves on edge if you’re not accustomed to it.”
She nodded again, a little dip of her chin. They hadn’t spoken much on the plane because in the small cabin every word could be overheard. Nine seats were set out in pairs, one on each side of a narrow central aisle and one at the back. The two passenger members of the squadron whose job it was to arrange the films and distribute the pamphlets were seated at the front, but even so they were close and conversations were far from private.
“How far will we fly?” she asked in a low tone.
“The Krokodil’s range without refueling is seven hundred kilometers. ”
“We’ll go that distance?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes changed as they stared at him in disbelief, and then she tipped back her long throat and released a silent shout of joy.
“I thought,” she said in a voice that struggled to sound casual, “that we would just be taken . . . out of that field and put down somewhere nearby.”
“No,” he laughed for the benefit of listening ears, “the captain is taking us on quite a little jaunt. He wants me to give my professional assessment of how these propaganda trips are working out. As my secretary, you must take notes.”
“Of course,” she responded in a demure secretarial kind of voice, but she rolled her eyes dramatically and mimed typing in the air, so that Mikhail had to bite his tongue to stop a laugh. As the shadows of the clouds chased each other over the flatlands below them, she asked, “Did you arrange this?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and was silent for a while, gazing intently out the small window, but eventually she turned to him again. “Mikhail, what about Pyotr?”
“He’ll be all right. Zenia is going to take care of him while I’m away.”
Her eyelids flickered, but he couldn’t tell why. Was it anger at the boy?
“I didn’t expect that from Fomenko,” she murmured.
He gave her a long look. Chyort! Was that man still in her mind? He put his head back and shut his eyes. Concentrate on Anna Fedorina, he told himself, this is your one chance. Concentrate on her.
THE Krokodil touched down. The surface of the landing field gave them a bumpy ride, but the plane rolled quickly to a stop and they climbed out. From the air the town of Novgorki was an unpleasant black scab on the landscape, but on the ground it looked worse, drabber and darker. After hours of almost nothing but forests of massed pine trees and silver shimmering waterways with an occasional fragile village clinging to the banks, the dirt and squalor of the streets of the northern town of Novgorki came as a sharp reminder of how easily people could make a place ugly.
It was a purpose-built town dedicated to minerals, with belching chimney stacks that soared into the gray sky, thickening the air with chemicals. Yet oddly Mikhail liked it. It was a place of no pretense, and he could sense an undercurrent of wildness as strong as the stink of the sulfur, a town on the very edge of civilization. That suited him just fine.
He thanked the pilot of the Krokodil; a handshake was enough. Sofia observed them with a thoughtful expression but passed no comment, just kissed the pilot’s cheek, which made him blush to the roots of his gingery hair.
Mikhail was glad of the walk into town as it gave them time to discuss what lay ahead. It was evening when they reached the center of Novgorki but in July the days were long and the nights no more than a darker shade of white. The main road was called Lenin Street as usual and held a crush of shabby concrete buildings, all the same monotonous tone of gray alongside squat wooden shops that seemed more permanent than the concrete. Rain-filled potholes littered the road, and even at this hour it was busy with trucks and cars making the most of daylight hours.
“What now?” Sofia was looking around warily.
“A bed and a meal.”
Groups of men hung around on street corners with cigarettes dangling from their lips and bottles in their pockets. Mikhail approached one man with a thick Stalin mustache who leered at Sofia but directed them politely enough to a workers’ dormitory, a bleak building where they showed their identity papers and paid a few roubles in advance. They were allotted a couple of camp beds and soiled quilts in separate communal sleeping areas.
“It’s better than nothing,” Mikhail pointed out.
Sofia raised a doubtful eyebrow at him.
“Have you noticed,” she asked when they walked back out onto the street, “how few women are here?”
“That’s why we have to take extra care of you.”
They walked up the main street, aware of eyes watching them.
“More of Stalin’s economic boom times,” Sofia muttered under her breath with an ironic nod toward the empty shop windows.
Even at this hour many of them were still open, and they chose a prosperous-looking hardware shop for their purpose. It smelled of pine resin and dust inside, where a short man with a broad northern face and well-padded cheeks greeted them from behind the counter. His eyes crawled over Sofia.
“Good evening,” Mikhail said, letting his gaze roam the shop. “Busy, I see.”
The place was empty of other customers but did at least have a few goods on display. A sack of nails and screws, a box of hinges, some kerosene cans and paint brushes, but no paint, of course. Lengths of matting and a range of secondhand tools lay in a jumble around the walls, while zinc pans hung from the roof beams, low enough to crack a careless skull. But behind the shopkeeper’s head were shelves holding a row of cardboard boxes, unlabeled, and Mikhail suspected they contained the better stuff for the better customers. He picked up a roll of canvas and tossed it onto the counter. Beside him Sofia stood silent.
“Is that all?” the shopkeeper asked, scratching his armpit with relish.
“No.”
“What else?”
“I have something to sell.”
The storeman’s eyes brightened and slid to Sofia.
“Not me,” she said fiercely.
The man shrugged. “It happens sometimes.”
Mikhail placed a fist on the counter between them. “Who in this town might want to buy an object of value?”
“What kind of object?”
“One that is worth real money, not”—he gazed disdainfully around the shop—“not Novgorki kopecks.”
The man squinted at Mikhail, his tobacco-stained teeth chewing on his lower lip. “Very well,” he said, and he pointed to a curtained doorway at the back of the shop. “You, comrade, come with me. You,” he pointed at Sofia, “wait here.”
Before the storekeeper could draw breath, Mikhail had leaped over the counter and pinned him against his boxes, a hand crushing his throat. He could feel the man’s windpipe fighting for air.
“Don’t mistake me, comrade,” Mikhail hissed in his face. “I am
not one of your peasant fools. I do not walk blindly into your back room to be ambushed and robbed while my woman is stolen. Understand me?”
“Da.” The man’s voice was a gasp, his eyes popping in his head.
Mikhail removed his hand and let him breathe. The harsh rasping scrape of it sounded loud in the silence of the musty store.
“Now,” Mikhail said, keeping the man jammed against his shelves, “tomorrow morning I will return here at eight o’clock for no more than five minutes. If you know a buyer for a jewel worth more than you’ll earn in ten lifetimes, bring him here. Got that?”
The man blinked his understanding.
“Do zavtra. Till tomorrow,” Mikhail snapped and picked up the roll of canvas and the candles. He gripped Sofia by her upper arm and strode out of the shop.
SO you’re not just a handsome face after all,” Sofia said.
She was teasing him, he knew that, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“I had to do it, Sofia. It was the only way of showing that man I’m serious. This is a hard town, my love; danger is what they breathe out here. Don’t look so reproachful.”
“He might have pulled a gun on you.”
Mikhail patted the loaded pistol hidden under her slender waistband, the one he’d stolen from the officer behind the GAZ truck. “Then you’d have shot him,” he said, and he kissed her nose.
She shivered nevertheless, and he wrapped an arm around her to keep her warm, as neither of them were dressed for a cool northern evening, but she pulled away.
“Don’t,” she said angrily. “Don’t take risks.”
He burst out laughing and felt her fist smack into his chest. He caught it in his hand and pulled her tight to him. “This is all one huge risk, my sweet love, so what’s an extra little one or two along the way?”
“Don’t die,” she whispered.
“I intend to live till I’m a hundred, as long as you promise to live to a hundred with me.”
“To darn your socks and cook your meals?” she teased.
“No, my precious, to warm my bed and let me kiss your sweet neck.”
She nestled her lips in the hollow of his throat. “I’ll warm your bed and let you kiss my neck,” she crooned, “if you darn my socks and cook my meals for a hundred years.”
“Agreed.” He laughed.
FIFTY-SIX
NO, Mikhail, we do this together. We agreed.”
They were standing in the street and heavy rain was lashing down, soaking them to the skin and turning the road into a muddy torrent. A yellow stray hound crouched shivering in the gutter, its mournful eyes following their every move.
Mikhail pushed open the door to the hardware store, and Sofia positioned herself silently just inside the entrance, leaning against the timber wall where she casually laid one hand on the gun at her waistband. Her eyes followed Mikhail as he approached the stranger who was waiting next to the counter with folded arms. The man was built like a series of boxes balanced on top of each other: square hat, square head, square shoulders, a sharp square suit. His face possessed the broken veins of a drinker and the shrewd eyes of a man in authority who knows how to use it. The shopkeeper hovered in the background, as brown and dusty as his boxes.
“So, comrade, what have you brought for me to see?” the square man said without preliminaries. “It had better not be shit. No gavno.”
Mikhail took his time eyeing the stranger up and down in a manner that was meant to insult and which brought Sofia’s heart to her throat. He didn’t speak, just took a small piece of green material from his back pocket and opened it on his palm. The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed to half-shut like a lizard’s because even in the dim light of the hardware shop the diamond on the green cloth winked at him. He drew a loud intake of breath.
For the first time Mikhail spoke. “It’s worth more than you possess. ”
“Comrade, there’s something you need to learn. A jewel like that is only worth what someone will pay.”
“And”—Mikhail gave him a hard smile—“how quickly they will pay for it.”
The man nodded his square head, took out a handkerchief, and blew his veined nose into it. This seemed to be a signal of some kind, because another man stepped out from behind the curtain to the back room, a great bearded ox of a man with a badly scarred face. Instantly Sofia pulled the gun out of her waistband and, clutching it with two hands, pointed it directly at the square stranger. His lizard eyes stared at her for a second, assessing the danger, and then he waved a hand dismissively and his scarred henchman lumbered back into his curtained den.
Nothing was said, no mention was made of the short-lived intrusion, but Sofia didn’t lower the gun. Mikhail took a slow and deliberate step forward, then spoke in a voice that crowded the dismal room.
“Now that we understand each other, . . . comrade”—he made the word sound like something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe—“let’s get down to business. My time is short.”
“By all means”—the man’s gaze focused on the diamond, his words as smooth as oil—“let’s talk money.”
"No, comrade. Let’s talk horses.”
SOFIA waited alone in the rain. Zenia’s scarf on her head was soaked, but a few meters of canvas with a hole cut in it for her head was keeping the worst of the downpour off her body. The black earth beneath her feet had turned to a quagmire, but she barely noticed the squelch of mud as she prowled soft-footed among the trees and her eyes scanned the road that ran straight as a rifle barrel into Novgorki.
Where was he?
He should be here by now.
Was he safe?
Should she race back into town?
Her head swarmed with fears for Mikhail. Her fingers played incessantly with the Tokarev pistol clutched under her canvas shroud, and she drew some comfort from it because the weight of the weapon, its hard metallic edges, its lethal simplicity, all gave her a grain of reassurance. But Mikhail should have his fist tight around this gun right now. He’s the one in danger.
He’d forced her to wait. The square man with the smile that stretched too tight had insisted on a one-to-one deal with no guns and no henchmen. So Mikhail had kissed her, a light touch of lips that she committed to memory, and left the hardware store. Sofia had watched them disappear up the street, the yellow dog trailing behind them through the rain, and then she retreated to the spot on the edge of town where he’d told her to meet him.
Hidden from curious eyes, she waited for him. She felt as if she’d been waiting for him all her life.
TWO hours later Mikhail finally emerged through the gray curtain of rain. Sofia wanted to throw herself into his arms and yell at him for putting her through such hell, but instead she stood quietly under a dripping poplar tree and let him come to her. He was riding a big chestnut horse and leading two others, one of which was carrying quite a load on its back, strapped down under a canvas sheet. Mikhail slid to the ground in one easy movement, placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked carefully into her face.
“You were a long time,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry. Were you worried?”
“No.”
“Good. You must trust me.”
“I do.”
He smiled, the wide smile she loved, the one that he kept just for her, and she wrapped her fist into his sodden shirt in an effort to hold on to that smile.
“I hope one of those horses is for me.”
“Always thinking of taking it easy, aren’t you?”
She laughed, and the unexpected relief of it doused her fears. “Did you get a good deal?” she asked and released his shirt.
“Svetlana Dyuzheyeva would turn in her grave if she knew how cheaply her diamond ring had changed hands, but yes, for us it was a good deal.”
From inside his wet shirt he pulled out a fistful of large-rouble notes, lifted the front of her canvas cape, and slipped the money into the pocket of her black skirt.
“That’ll keep you saf
e,” he smiled, and suddenly he took her in his arms as though frightened of losing her.
They stood like that, Sofia had no idea how long, heads together. But when their hearts had finally stilled, they swung up onto the horses and headed off through the forest. Behind them the yellow dog skulked in their tracks.
IT was the dog that warned her with a low throaty growl that raised the hackles on her own neck. They were riding through the forest with just the pattering of the rain for company and the soft shuffle of horses’ hooves through the undergrowth. Mikhail was leading the way, Sofia close behind, but her horse had a shorter stride and kept hanging back. They had been weaving their way through the trees for more than an hour when the attack came.
But the dog had warned her, so the gun was ready in her hand.
Two bulky figures leaped out from the trees at Sofia with a great roar as they launched themselves toward her, and a rifle shot rang out, ricocheting off the trunks. Her horse screamed a shrill shriek of fear that split the air, and the dog snarled, loud and menacing. A man’s face appeared next to her horse’s head, gaunt skin stretched over sharp bones, hair black and matted, a ragged length to his shoulders. His mouth was open and bellowing words at her, threats and insults and crude curses. Sofia yelled back at him with rage as one filthy hand seized her horse’s bridle, the other her ankle.
She raised the gun and shouted a warning. Her attacker’s eyes grew round as coins and he yanked hard on the horse’s mouth, drawing blood. In terror the animal jinked sideways and reared up, its front hooves slicing through the rain, its wet head thrashing violently from side to side, tumbling Sofia from its back.
As she fell to the ground, she pulled the trigger.
SOFIA.”
Mikhail’s voice was drifting in and out of her head. Sometimes near and sometimes so far away she could barely hear it. Other noises came and went, strange sounds she couldn’t place, but through them all snagged the low whining of a dog. She fought to open her eyes but her eyelids refused to obey, so instead she called Mikhail’s name, but it came out as no more than a breath.
“Sofia, wake up.”
She listened to the voice she loved, to the way he made her name sound like something precious, and when she felt his cool hand brush over her forehead, she sighed. Something let go inside her and she started to float into a dream where silver-haired women stretched out their arms around her.
The Red Scarf Page 42