The Searcher

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  One car had come in here. Two had come out, along this new path—to judge by the snow that had fallen in the clearing a few hours earlier, perhaps at first light. Hammer felt his heart quicken.

  For perhaps a mile or more they went slowly so that every now and then Irodi might stop to check the trail, and then abruptly the trees stopped and the tire tracks ran clearly in the snow, staying close to the woods and taking them up onto higher ground.

  TEN

  This was harder work still. Hammer grew hot in his coat, and Shakari began to steam. Snowflakes dotted her mane but melted on her flanks. The trees alongside ran out, and the wind quickened, and the air became colder. Eventually, the road rose sharply to a ridge, and then down to a handful of ruined buildings, the remains of a village. A grand village once, by the look of it, now a jagged collection of collapsed slate. Orange lichen grew on it, giving it the color of flame, and wild flowers poked through the snow. There had been a tower here, four stories high, but its windows were gone and its heavy walls leaned in on each other for support, balanced against all probability.

  Hammer thought this might be their destination, but the road and the tracks skirted the village and ran down the other side of the ridge. There, half a mile away, in a little hollow with its back to the hillside, sat a lone house. Even in this distant place it was remote. Only its front was visible, and that only through the pines that grew around it, but it was possible to see that it was not as ruined as the rest; its walls hadn’t crumbled, and part of its roof was in place. There was no sign that it was occupied, but the tire tracks stopped at its door.

  Irodi pulled his horse up and turned back to the shelter of ruins, Hammer clumsily following. When they were both out of sight, Irodi looked Hammer in the eye, silently asking him what he wanted to do. It was difficult to know. From the little they could see there appeared to be no cars outside the house, but that didn’t mean no one was inside, and there was no way of approaching along the road without being seen.

  Hammer assessed the terrain. The ridge they had just crossed curved slowly round behind the house, which was perhaps a hundred feet from the top. The only way to come at it unseen was to follow the ridge and then make a steepish descent down the bare slope to the back door. They would still be exposed, but so unlikely was the approach, and so snugly did the house sit against the hill, that there seemed a reasonable chance no one would be watching. Pointing and signing, he managed to convey his idea to Irodi, who nodded his head from side to side, as if to say it could just about be done, and got down to tie up his horse. Hammer was glad to get back on his feet, and Shakari could use the rest.

  Up on the ridge, Hammer turned his face away from the wind, which swept the falling snow across them, and concentrated on putting his feet where Irodi put his. They kept to the windward side, where they were out of sight of the valley and where the snow was already beginning to form an icy crust. The going was easy enough but the snow was deep here and the air thin and Hammer’s chest burned with the effort. Irodi seemed to glide over the surface, his rolling gait unchanged.

  Soon they were above the house and looking down at it from the top of the slope, which from the valley had seemed steep and now seemed sheer. A sparse line of pines ringed the place, but otherwise there was nothing between them and the back wall of the house. Slip, and you would gather speed until you hit it.

  Irodi turned to Hammer, motioned for him to follow his steps as closely as he could, and set off, bending his knees and keeping his feet parallel with the line of the ridge. With each step he tested the snow to make sure it would hold his weight, but before long he seemed satisfied and began to move down more quickly in a shallow zigzag. The two men were the same weight, more or less, and Hammer found the footholds that had been made for him stable enough, and with every yard began to feel a little more secure. The wind fell, and the drop diminished, and fear of the descent gave way to apprehension at what they might find when they reached the bottom.

  With twenty yards still to go Hammer was changing direction to start another tack across when he felt loose stuff under his foot, shingle or scree, and his balance getting away from him. With no chance to correct himself his grip went. He slid the first five yards, hit a slight rise in the ground, and was thrown down the rest of the slope, tumbling over, his arms round his head, snow driving its way into his face and down his neck. At the back of the house he hit a drift with enough force to knock the breath from him.

  There was a booming in his head, and pain in his shoulder, but his first thought was that he had made enough noise to rouse the deafest of guards. Lifting his face from the cold, he saw Irodi scrambling down and the next moment landing next to him in the soft snow. He touched Hammer’s arm.

  “OK?” he whispered, and it was only when he spoke that Hammer realized how quiet it was. He pushed himself up, nodded without conviction, wiped the snow from his face, and together they listened, expecting shouts and footsteps and hearing nothing but the faint breath of the wind in the trees above. Exchanging a glance, they stood, Hammer warily trying his arm, and stole toward the end of the wall, where Irodi stopped, peered round, and gave the all-clear.

  There was one window in the side of the house, nearer the road, and once they had ducked under it Hammer, with his face up to the wall and ever so slowly, took a look inside. Three of the four panes were missing and the frame was cracked, and he had a clear view of a dark, dusty, bare room that ran the width of the house. A table was pushed up against the far wall beside a fireplace, and around it sat three decrepit chairs, but otherwise it was empty. The walls were black with soot, and on one of them, incongruous, hung a bunch of colorless dried flowers.

  Irodi had taken the rifle off his back and was now waiting for instructions. Hammer looked to the front of the house. The tire tracks did stop here; cars had turned, and he could make out sets of footprints. He felt sure that the place was empty but didn’t want to risk walking through the front door, particularly as Irodi would insist on going first. He squatted down and picked up a large piece of slate that had been dislodged from the wall, and with a glance of understanding from Irodi, lobbed it through the window and into the room, where it landed with a great clatter. Irodi moved beyond the corner and trained his gun on the front of the house. After the noise came silence. Nothing. Ducking past the next window, Irodi waited by the door while Hammer checked again that there was no movement inside.

  With a crack, Irodi kicked the door open, and Hammer followed him into the house. Two doors led from the main room, one into a storeroom, the other into what must once have been a bedroom. There was no one in either, nor anything that might suggest anyone had recently left. Hammer felt his hope slip away once more. This was where Ben had been held, he was sure, but now he began to imagine all the other stories that might account for the tracks in the snow. While Irodi went to check outside, Hammer began to look for signs that someone had been kept here.

  A dank cold smell had settled in the place. In one corner a pool of water had collected under a hole in the roof. There were ashes in the grate, but they were cold and compacted by time and seemed not to have been disturbed. The table was covered with a scattering of dirt. He checked under it for traces of food and saw none. In the bedroom he ran his hand over the floor, which was compacted earth, looking for a hair or any other sign that someone had been here, but all he found was soil and grit.

  By the light of his phone he scoured the storeroom; nothing. He scanned the ceiling, stood on a chair, and felt around in the rafters, looked up the chimney. Hopeless, he watched Irodi crouching down to inspect the tire marks outside and wondered what they would do next. If this house had never held Ben, the trail was as cold as it had always been. As he thought, he ran his finger through the dust on the sill of the window, rubbed it off with his thumb, and felt a familiar thrill go through him.

  Sitting in a chair, from as close as he could manage, he looked afresh at the top of the
table. It was grubby, like everything else, but not with dust. Reaching down, he rubbed the ground hard, pinched a quantity of earth between his fingers, and crumbled it onto the table from a height. The result was of a piece with the rest. With great care he blew some of the dirt off the surface. There was no dust beneath. Someone had wiped the table clean and then done their best to disguise that it had been used.

  “Irodi!” he shouted, and when he came demonstrated what he had just discovered. Irodi grinned, put his hand on Hammer’s back, in appreciation of his talents, and took him outside, where he managed to explain that two cars had been here, that morning. He set off at a run back to the deserted village and Hammer, no longer feeling the exertion, followed.

  ELEVEN

  From the village they took a new road to the south, following the twin sets of tire tracks showing clearly under the fresh snow. Irodi rode more quickly now and the road obliged, descending gently and threading through a string of hills. The snow kept coming at a steady rate, and Hammer did his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder, which was stiffening up in the cold. Whenever he took a hand off the reins to work it round Shakari would turn her head and snort.

  It was afternoon now, and at the back of his mind was the thought that he must return to Natela soon. Had he been able, he’d have asked Irodi where this road led and how long it might take to get there, but as it was he had no choice but to ride in silence, and anticipation.

  They rode into a dark forest, and abruptly the road became steeper, snaking down an ever narrowing valley. Everything was perfectly still, and the faint smell of pine was in the air. From time to time the road would split, but each time Irodi, after careful thought, continued on the downward fork. Over the noise of the needles underfoot and Shakari’s breathing, Hammer could hear water running, indistinctly at first and then with growing clarity. Through the trees came glimpses of the river, flowing fast over rocks on a broad bed.

  Eventually, the road leveled out and for half a mile it wound alongside the water, still in dense trees. Irodi slowed and sat upright in the saddle. At a curve in the river the road left the wood and simply came to an end, running out in a broad pebbled beach which was covered in snow. Hammer pulled on the reins and brought Shakari to a halt, with an odd sense that though there was nothing to see they had found what they were looking for.

  He scanned the scene. On every side rose thick green forest, overhung by immense stony peaks to the east. But in among the trees, fifty yards higher up, a fleck of red caught his eye. He shouted to Irodi, dismounted, and set off up the bank. There it was: a silver 4 x 4, with snow on its roof and no one inside. A Mitsubishi Pajero, its license plates removed. Ben’s car, no question. At the sight of it Hammer felt exhilaration and fear start in his chest, for the journey that had brought him here and the journey that still lay ahead.

  The car’s doors were locked. From the flat ground by the river he found the largest rock he could, brought it up to the car, and with both hands brought it down on the driver’s window, which shattered and bowed inward but didn’t give. For a moment he was back in the riot that had started all this, and he had a sense of how far he had come. At the third strike the whole pane fell in, and he was able to open the door from the inside. The car was empty. No papers, no belongings. On the driver’s seat he found a gray hair, short, as Ben kept his. It meant nothing but confirmed his hope.

  Outside, he looked around for a trail through the woods, but there was none, and to his inexpert eye the forest floor revealed nothing. Irodi was clambering up behind, and as Hammer turned he noticed, through the trees and at the far end of the beach, a line of footprints in the snow to the water’s edge.

  Up close it looked as if there were two sets, perhaps three, but in places they had been disturbed, as if whoever had left them had dragged a heavy weight behind them, and in a patch by the river all the snow had been trodden into slush. A single set went back toward the trees. Hammer and Irodi stood and watched the water flowing by.

  “Where?” said Hammer, nodding downstream to the mountains. “Where does it go?”

  Irodi understood him, and Hammer understood his reply.

  “Ruseti,” he said, his face grave. “Russki.”

  • • •

  Russia. Vast and unassailable, like the mountains that protected it. An ancient swallower of secrets. And lives.

  Shakari was a sturdy horse, and strong with it, but by the end of the climb she was tired, and the decent thing to do would have been to let her rest. But Hammer had to press on and Irodi, at least, understood. Until this moment the silence between them had been expectant; now it was anxious and flat at once. As they rode, Hammer tried to make sense of what they had just seen, and to separate what was likely from what he wanted to believe.

  A sequence began to piece itself together in his mind. Sometime after renting his car Ben had been kidnapped, by at least two men, who had taken him to a house in the most remote part of this most remote place, and kept him there, for what reasons only they knew. Today, they had gone, into Russia, taking their charge somewhere even less accessible. Hammer felt like a sap chasing a dollar bill on a string, but for the first time he felt sure that there was something to be chased. That Ben was alive. That it had not yet proved imperative, or convenient, to kill him.

  He should phone Elsa, but there simply wasn’t the time. One thought forced all others aside: that he hadn’t yet found the second car. If someone had taken Ben into Russia, someone had stayed behind.

  As soon as the road began to level out Hammer clamped his legs tighter, willing Shakari to find some speed, talking to her all the while, half in encouragement and half in apology. She took it, and together they trotted at a decent pace. The snow eased and then stopped, and the sky began to lighten. But for Hammer this stretch of his journey was the longest. He needed to get back.

  From a mile or so outside Diklo he thought he could make out Koba’s car, parked on the shoulder of the road where the houses started, and as they drew closer his fears were confirmed. All the doubts of the past two days coalesced into a single question: where had he been that morning?

  Hammer brought Shakari to a halt by the car and jumped down, barely noticing how easily he now did so. He squatted behind the Toyota and brought up on his phone the photographs he had taken that morning. Comparing those tracks with what he saw now on the ground he felt certain, even before Irodi, without the benefit of pictures, made up his mind, and gave a somber nod. Hammer photographed the scene.

  Footsteps led from the car but Hammer didn’t need to follow them to know where Koba was. He and Irodi walked their horses the last hundred yards and tied them outside the house, and before they went in, Hammer raised a finger to his lips and made sure Irodi understood. For the first time in this whole affair, he knew something, and he didn’t mean to squander the advantage, scant though it might be.

  The fire was lit and the kitchen smelled of smoke and cabbage. Koba was alone, standing over a pot, stirring it with a wooden spoon.

  “Isaac! Is good see you. I think maybe you are lost. Your friend, she think bad things has happened.” He grinned at Hammer and nodded at Irodi, who went out into the yard with the two guns.

  Hammer smiled as best he could. “We got stuck in a little snow. Nothing serious.”

  “Good, good. You find your friend?”

  “No. No, we didn’t. We thought we’d found his car but it had gone.”

  “Is bad news. I am sorry.”

  Hammer watched him stir the soup. Since the snow had started falling, Koba had put on two worn fleeces, one red, one black. Underneath, at the collar, was his trusty white shirt. Through the lamb and cabbage Hammer thought he could smell his sweat, fresh and acrid. He was all geniality, but Hammer no longer believed it.

  “Where is Natela?”

  Koba pointed upward. “She is quiet lady.” The words were innocent enough but Hammer, on edge, found so
mething sinister in them. He started up the stairs.

  “What about Vano?” he said.

  Koba shrugged.

  In the dark corridor above, Hammer stopped for a moment, felt the urgent beating of his heart, and knocked.

  “Diakh?”

  “It’s Isaac.”

  Two footsteps, and the door opened.

  “You are here,” she said. Her hair was tangled where she had been lying down.

  “When did Koba come?”

  “An hour. He wanted to talk. I did not.”

  “Where’s Vano?”

  “I thought he was here.”

  “OK. Can I come in?”

  Puzzled by his seriousness, she took a step backward and let him into the room.

  “Close the door,” said Hammer, crossing to the window. It looked out over the yard, and across white rooftops. Irodi was talking to his mother down below.

  Natela came and stood by him.

  “You found something.”

  “I know more than I did,” said Hammer, keeping his voice low. “Ben has been here. They’ve taken him into Russia. He,” he pointed at the floor, “has something to do with it.”

  He told her about the tracks, and the house, and the river, and when he was done she thought for a while.

  “And for sure they take him there? It is not a lie?”

  “I have to accept what I saw. Otherwise, I don’t have anything.”

  “And Koba?”

  “I buy him. He’s been waiting for this opportunity his whole life.”

  Natela said nothing, and Hammer read her quietness as doubt.