Stepan snapped a birch branch from a tree and, sweeping the snow to cover his tracks, walked to the base of the fence. He took a rabbit from his pouch and tossed it against the wire. He turned and retreated quickly to the forest, again covering his tracks with the branch. The trail faded almost immediately as the wind polished the surface of the snow. Stepan began to count.
Five minutes later, a jeep crested the rise in the north and sped along the road to the point where the rabbit lay. Two soldiers in gray uniforms armed with Kalashnikov machine guns got out. One man spotted the rabbit and rolled it over with his foot. From his hiding place at the edge of the forest, Stepan could hear their voices. They looked around. Their eyes fell on the foliage surrounding Stepan. He held his breath. They looked away. One of them picked up the rabbit and threw it in the jeep. They got in, did a U-turn, and sped back north. A minute later, the jeep disappeared over the hill. All was again quiet.
Stepan lay there and thought. So the fence had impact sensors. That gave him five minutes to climb the two fences. Was it enough time?
Oh, Nadia. I’m so old.
He shook his head. A young man might have been able to scale the fences, but Stepan would never make it — one fence maybe, but not two, not in five minutes. He had to find another way. How? He gazed at the fence a long time, weighing options, calculating. The ground was too frozen for a tunnel. He didn’t have the tools to cut through the wire, and even if he had, five minutes was not much time. Suddenly, he remembered a prison break he had heard about many years ago. Yes, he decided, it might work.
Stepan began to gather small logs, roughly the diameter of his forearm, until he had several dozen in a neat pile. He got his reindeer-bone hatchet from his backpack and went to work notching the wood. He worked until nightfall, then ate some of his cooked rabbit meat and went to sleep. In the morning, he returned to work.
One of the skills he had learned in the camps was carpentry. Four times during his long confinement in the gulag, he had been forced to construct new camps out of the bare forest. That meant building barracks, bunks, towers, fences, furniture — you name it, Stepan had built it using tools not much better than his little hatchet.
It took him four days to complete his task. And as he chipped and fitted the wood joints, he was free to look back over the long, tortuous road that had led him there.
Prague, 1944. Moscow, 1945.Siberia, 1946.
Nearly forty years.
He thought of his first seven years in Siberia. They had been the worst; he had spent them in solitary confinement in that cell with the green bed and the dirt floor so cold — like frozen beef — he was forced to stay in his bed. When he thought about it, he could still smell the acid mustiness of the clay. Once, during those long years, he had forgotten his name. He had gone to bed that night praying he would remember it when he awoke. Mercifully, he had. He had been tempted then to write his name on the wall, lest he forget it again, but he didn’t dare; his true identity was the curse of his life.
That cell had burned down in 1953.
The things he had seen! He had watched a nineteen-year-old guard beat his best friend to death with a shovel. He had endured strip searches in temperatures of sixty degrees below zero. He had watched once-vital men lie down in the snow and refuse to get up no matter how much the guards beat them. He had once seen a man driven to such despair he had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach over and over again with a piece of rusted sheet metal.
True, there had been instances of kindness. A physician who had been treating Stepan for pneumonia had risked becoming a prisoner himself by smuggling in two potatoes and a piece of pork. It was this, not the hospital bed, that had saved Stepan. But such moments were like the yellow taiga flowers that pushed up through the ice. Stepan had never seen a prisoner who didn’t grind them beneath his boot.
At the end of the fourth day, Stepan finished his work and stepped back to inspect the result. Before him were two fourteen-foot-high ladders — one self-standing, the other a simple stepladder. He tested them in the forest, bouncing with all his weight on the rungs. They held. He practiced carrying the straight ladder on his back as he climbed the standing ladder. It was clumsy, but after a few tries he mastered it. From the top of the ladder he looked down and winced as he thought of how his ankles would fare in the fall. He thought of Nadia, and his resolve was restored.
Night descended like a velvet curtain, and he crawled under his blanket. He looked up at the stars a long time going over in his mind his plan for the next day. When at last he fell asleep, he dreamed of Nadia. She came to him dressed in her traditional Urguma costume of reindeer hide. She floated six inches over the snow like a brown-skinned angel of the north.
“Come, Stepan,” she called out.
He tried to reach her but a barbed-wire fence separated them. The mesh of the wire was so tight he couldn’t even drive a finger through it.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m too old.”
She spoke to him again, but this time she didn’t call him “Stepan.” With a shock, he realized she was using his other name.
Donald . . . Donald.
He screamed. He sat up straight and listened as his own cry echoed through the forest. He was terrified — from the dream as well as the thought that he had given himself away to the border guards. He sat a long time panting and waiting for the sound of a jeep or helicopter. But the forest remained silent. He looked around and realized with a start that dawn had come.
It was time.
Snow fell lightly as Stepan carried his ladders to the base of the fence. He didn’t bother to cover his tracks. He set up the stepladder and then snaked his arms through the rungs of the straight ladder, using it for balance like a tightrope-walker’s pole. He began to climb. At the top he looked out over the swirling barbed wire. He flung the straight ladder over the fence into the forbidden zone. It landed silently in the snow. He counted to three and flung himself over the fence. As he pushed off, his stepladder fell backward. He sailed out into space.
He landed hard and rolled. His left ankle exploded in pain.
Ahhh!
He clutched the ankle. It was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Broken. Damn. He lay there a while panting. He didn’t worry about the border guards: he had not tripped the impact sensors, so he had time for a short rest. Then he would drag himself and his straight ladder across the forbidden zone to the next fence. The second ladder, of course, would trip the sensors, but he would have five minutes before the border guards arrived. By then, he and his broken ankle would be in Norway.
He lay there a while catching his breath, massaging his ankle. He rolled over and looked back through the fence. He gasped.
The stepladder was leaningagainst the fence. He understood at once what had happened. When he had pushed off to jump, the stepladder had rocked and then fallenforward.
The impact sensors! The border guards were already on their way!
How long had he lain there?
He got to his feet and gingerly put weight on the broken ankle. It buckled, and he nearly fell. He tried again. It was no use; the ankle was worthless.
And he had to hurry.
He hopped to the ladder, which lay on the snow where it had fallen. He wedged his broken ankle between the rungs and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes.
“Nadia,” he whispered, and then threw his body hard to his right. His ankle, caught between the rungs, twisted sharply. The pain nearly caused him to pass out.
He tried the ankle. Still, it buckled.
They’re coming!
He put his foot back in the ladder and tried again, this time twisting even harder.
The ankle popped, and he dropped to the ground. He probed it with his frozen fingers. The joint was back in place. He got to his feet and tried it out. It could take weight now, though every step was agony.
He picked up the ladder and began to limp toward the second fence. Through the net of barbed wire he could see minu
te details on the snow — ice patches, dirt, bits of sand.
Norwegian sand.
The thought gave him strength. He reached the fence and raised the ladder against it. He began to climb.
Halfway up, he heard the distant whine of a jeep engine. His heart raced.
He got to the top of the ladder and swung his right foot onto the fence. He stood a moment atop the crossbar and then jumped.
He landed, and this time the pain in his ankle was something unbelievable. Tears clouded his eyes and then promptly froze in his lashes.
He pulled himself into a sitting position against the fence. He felt like a corpse who had risen from his grave and was now relaxing against his headstone. It occurred to him that’s how the world would see him: a man returning from the dead.
You made it!
He tipped back his head and let a snowflake drop on his tongue. He turned his head and gazed east through the fences toward the Soviet Union. At that moment, he could feel no bitterness. His enemies were all dead. Hitler was dead. Stalin was dead. The men who had replaced Stalin were dead. The guards who beat him, who drove him like an animal, who starved and humiliated him — they were dead too. He had outlived them all. There was no one left to hate.
There’s still one.
No, he wouldn’t think about him now. The time had come for the man with the stub nose to say good-bye to Stepan Bragin. It was time to rediscover the identity he had buried so long ago in that cell with the green bed and the frozen floor. But now he found himself strangely reluctant. After all, if he hadn’t become Stepan Bragin he wouldn’t have met Nadia.
He raised his head and shouted,“Ya yeshcho chelovek!” Then, just for the thrill of it, he repeated the phrase in English, savoring the alien, near-forgotten sounds as they escaped his throat. “I am still a man!”
He paused, half-expecting a response.
Then a voice cried out in Russian, “Get out of there, you fool! They’re coming!”
He flinched.What? A voice here?
A jeep crested the hill and sped along the access road on the far side of the two fences.
Stepan got slowly to his feet, balancing on his good leg. Through the barbedwire he watched, confused, as the jeep bore down on him.
“Halt!” one of the border guards cried.
But he was safe, wasn’t he? They were in the U.S.S.R. and he was in Norway —
Thwing.The first bullet whistled by him like a bottle rocket.
My god! They’re shooting across the border!
He turned to flee, but his ankle buckled under him and he went down. The pain shot up his leg all the way to his hip. He scrambled back to his feet and began to hobble away. He took four agonizing steps and then something hit him in his shoulder blade. It felt like a punch. Another blow struck the arch of his back. He fell.
He must have passed out, because the next thing he knew he was being rolled onto his back. He opened his eyes. A young man with a black beard and shining, deep-set eyes kneeled over him. He wore civilian clothes.
“You’re still alive,” said the stranger.
“Bastards shot me,” Stepan groaned.
“I saw.”
A snowflake fell into Stepan’s eye, and he blinked. As his vision cleared, a strange clarity washed over him. He lay on the snow, yet his body was warm. He could feel where the bullets had pierced him, but he felt no pain. Even his ankle had stopped throbbing.
“Who are you?” Stepan asked. His voice gurgled.
“That doesn’t matter,” said the stranger.
Stepan grabbed the stranger’s wrist. “Answer me!”
“I’m like you,” said the stranger. “A border dasher.”
“How . . .”
“From the forest — I was watching you. I used your ladders to follow you over.”
The stranger glanced anxiously to the north. “They’ll be back in a few minutes. They had to circle up the road to the gate at A-1, about a mile. We have to get you out of here!”
“I don’t understand,” said Stepan. “Isn’t this Norway?”
“This is the Soviet Union. You’re in the forbidden zone.”
“I thought — ”
“There’s another fence, further west.”
“A third fence,” said Stepan. “Damn.”
The stranger frowned. “Can I move you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!”
“No,” said Stepan. The alertness held, but he couldn’t know for how long. He had to do something. Stepan asked, “Can you make it to Norway now?”
The stranger looked west, calculating. He shook his head. “It’s too far. There isn’t time.”
“Can you go back?”
“I think so.”
“Good, you can try again later,” said Stepan. “Right?”
“I guess.”
“Right?” Stepan demanded, his voice rising to a wheeze.
“Yes, right. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Good. Now, do you want to help me?”
“Sure, but — ”
“How much time do we have?”
“A few minutes . . . maybe.”
“Okay. Listen.”
For the next three minutes, Stepan gave his testimony to the bearded stranger. The man listened carefully. He had intelligent, trustworthy eyes. Stepan began to wonder if he hadn’t been lucky, after all. Perhaps this was how it was meant to be.
Stepan finished and pressed a small pouch into the stranger’s palm.
The stranger looked at it. “What’s this?”
“Something that is of no use to me. Now go!”
“I can’t just leave — ”
“Go!” he said, and, in the distance, an engine raced. “They’re coming!”
The stranger stood up.
“Your name?” asked Stepan. “What is your name?”
“Anton Perov.”
“Anton Perov,” he repeated. “May the gods be with us both, Anton Perov.”
Anton took a last look at Stepan and darted back east to the fence. Stepan watched as the stranger scaled the fence. Clever boy. He wore heavy gloves and several layers of clothing to protect him from the barbs. He had powerful arms that lifted him up the fence like a spider in a web. Ah, to be young. Anton reached the top, swung his legs over and scampered down. He dropped the last few feet to the ground and gazed back through the fence at Stepan.
The sound of the jeep grew louder.
“Go!” cried Stepan.
With a last look back, Anton darted for the eastern fence. Stepan shut his eyes. The jeep drew nearer. Minutes passed. He heard men’s voices.
“Over here!” a voice said excitedly.
Stepan looked up into the falling snow. Slowly, out of the dance of falling flakes, the figure of his wife appeared floating over him. She looked afraid.
“Don’t despair, Nadia,” he whispered. “There is still hope.”
She nodded. Then her figure faded and coalesced into a man looking down at him. He wore a gray uniform and held a machine gun.
“We got him,” he said.
2
Six months later
April 15, 1984
The pilot spoke in Russian. The announcement was short, and when he finished an icy hush fell over the plane.
In her seat, Katherine Sears flipped through the pages of her Russian-English dictionary trying to translate what had been said. It was hopeless. She might have let the matter pass but for the reaction of the passengers, which couldn’t have been more chilling if the pilot had just informed them that an engine had failed.
Katherine gave up and turned to the Russian man beside her. “Excuse me, what did he say?”
The man removed the plastic headphones from his ears and raised his eyebrows. “Youdo talk,” he said in accented English. “I sit here whole flight from London — four hours! — and you not say anything. I think, ‘I must talk with this pretty lady.’ But then I think, ‘Don’t embarrass her; ma
ybe she’s a mute.’”
“I’m sorry. Is there a problem with the plane? I mean, the captain’s announcement . . .”
“Everything — A-okay,” the man grinned. “The captain said: ‘Now we enter Soviet airspace.’”
“Oh.” Katherine felt a moment of relief, and then her stomach twisted into a knot. In less than an hour she would be in Moscow. She wondered for the millionth time if she was really up to this.
He frowned at her. “You don’t like to fly?”
“Why do you say that?”
He pointed at the napkin on the tray in front of her. It was shredded to confetti. She smiled thinly and brushed the paper into her empty drink cup. She raised the tray and put the cup neatly in the pocket.
The man watched her. “You are American?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You don’t speak Russian?”
“Not really. I know a bit from my father.”
“He’s an immigrant?”
“No. An academic, a sovietologist.”
“Really? I’m an economist with the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada.”
Katherine’s heart sank. Christ! The man was a KGB informant, if not an outright spy! Now she was in a bind. Katherine remembered what they had told her in Amsterdam: Never volunteer information. God, she was such a fool. What was she doing here? She was an astronomer, not a spy. Had a more poorly prepared agent ever been sent into the fray of the Cold War? If so, Katherine pitied the poor bastard. She braced herself for the inevitable next question. The man obliged immediately.
“What’s his name?” the man asked.
She tried to act nonchalant. “Sears.”
“JackSears!” he exclaimed.
Katherine nodded.
“Lord!” the man said and then began to mumble to himself in Russian. He made no further attempt to talk to her.
Katherine turned and looked out the window. Thirty thousand feet below, the muddy, untended fields of Belorussia slid past. The lifeless sight did nothing to lift her spirits.
The Forbidden Zone Page 2