“Except you couldn’t find any other Bellaks, could you?”
“Unfortunately, your father was in the mistaken belief that the painting had ended up in a private collection, which is where I focused my efforts. Fruitlessly, as it transpired. I enlisted your help because I thought a fresh pair of eyes might be of use. I was right.”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t do you much good, did it?” Archie pointed out tartly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re about to get buried under a mountain, same as us.”
“There’s one thing I want to know.” Tom locked eyes with Renwick. “Back in St. Petersburg,
you
said
my
father
had
the black sun 401
known all along who you were. That he had worked with you. Was that another one of your lies?”
Renwick returned Tom’s stare, but just as he seemed about to speak, Hecht returned from the end of the tunnel. At the sight of him, the two guards threw their cigarettes aside and stood up straight, one of them giving Archie a kick in the ribs for good measure, as if to show Hecht what a good job they were doing. He gave them an approving grunt.
“One of you go and fetch me a drink. Oh, and if you see Dmitri, tell him the charges are armed.”
The guard nodded and trotted obediently off toward the chamber, passing a man in hard hat and reflective jacket who was heading toward them.
“What are you doing up here?” Hecht growled as the man approached. “You’re meant to be in the chamber with the others helping unload that train.”
The man shrugged and then, noticing that one of his laces was undone, stooped to tie it. As he did so, he raised his eyes toward Tom’s and winked.
It
was
Viktor.
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
7:08 p.m.
Tom glanced at Archie, who gave a slight nod. He had seen who it was too. “I asked you a question,” Hecht challenged the still crouching Viktor. “Get back to your work.” “You bastard,” Tom shouted, rolling onto Archie and kneeing him in the stomach. “This is your fault. Your greed’s going to get us both killed.”
Archie kicked out as he tried to roll out from under him, flexing his back like a wrestler trying to break a hold. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours,” he shouted back. “I told you to drop it.”
Hecht stepped forward and placed a firm hand on Tom’s shoulder to yank him free. Tom, however, reached around and sank his teeth into the flesh between forefinger and thumb. Hecht cried out in pain.
Viktor, meanwhile, stood up behind the other guard, whose attention had been drawn to the fight. Taking careful aim, she landed a heavy blow on the back of his head, dashing his skull. He fell to the floor, unconscious.
Hecht spun around, his bleeding hand clasped to his chest, the other reaching for his gun. Lying beneath him, Archie kicked out and caught his arm, sending his gun clattering to
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the ground. With a furious roar, Hecht launched himself at Viktor, his huge frame covering the distance between them in no time and sending her sprawling with a punch to the side of the head.
Viktor lashed out from where she had fallen, catching Hecht in the groin with her knee and bringing him down to the ground crying in pain. He immediately spotted his gun lying on the mine floor, and scrambled toward it on his hands and knees. Seeing this, Tom struggled to his feet, using the mine wall to help push himself upright. He threw himself at Hecht, stars exploding in front of his eyes as he landed heavily on his injured shoulder. Hecht shrugged him off, but the delay was just long enough for Viktor to struggle to her feet and scoop the gun up as Hecht’s massive hands were about to close on it.
She stepped toward him, his eyes still flashing with defiance, the muzzle hovering only inches from his nose. Then, in one swift movement, she brought the butt of the gun down hard on Hecht’s temple. His face slammed into the dirt floor.
“God, am I glad to see you!” Tom wheezed between pained breaths.
“We told you not to go inside.” She smiled as she pulled a knife from her boot and sliced Tom’s hands free.
“Where did you get the outfit?” Archie asked as she crouched down next to him and cut his cuffs off too.
“One of Völz’s men decided to take a leak a little too close for comfort.” She grinned.
“Luckily, he fitted.”
“How did you know we were in here?” asked Tom.
“I didn’t, but Dominique guessed you would be. Said you wouldn’t be able to help yourselves. Good thing for you she knows you both so well.”
“Where is she?” Tom looked around in concern, as if half expecting her to leap out from the shadows. “She’s okay, isn’t she?”
“She’s gone back down to phone that FBI number you gave her. She seemed to remember seeing a phone line running into that old man’s house. Come on, let’s get out of
here.”
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“Hold on,” said Tom. “We can’t just leave them to it. Once Völz makes it out of here with that uranium, no one will ever hear from him again until it’s too late.”
“You’re right,” said Archie. “But there’s only three of us and over twenty of them. What do you have in mind?”
“Four if you untie me,” Renwick observed.
Tom ignored him, considering his options. In the end, it was the sight of Hecht’s sprawled bulk that gave him an idea.
“The detonator,” Tom exclaimed. “We can use Hecht’s charges to collapse the mine and trap them until the police arrive. Search him. He must still have it on him.”
Archie turned Hecht over and patted him down, recovering the detonator in one pocket and a folded piece of paper in the other. He smoothed the piece of paper out on the floor and held his flashlight over it.
“It’s a schematic of where the charges are. They’re numbered one to four. There seem to be two sets in each tunnel, one at the entrance and one near the chamber.”
“So if we let off charges two and three, we’ll seal off the chamber at both ends.”
“I’m not an explosives expert,” Archie said with a frown, “but that’s what it seems to be saying.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me,” said Tom. “Let’s get clear and then we’ll set them off. We can’t let Völz unload that train.”
“You know, there may well be some people in the tunnel when you let those charges off,” Archie pointed out. “They probably won’t make it.”
“I know.” Tom compressed his lips. “But a lot more people may not make it if we don’t stop Völz now.”
They turned to leave, but Renwick, called out and stopped them in their tracks.
“Thomas, dear boy. Surely you are not just going to leave me here?”
“Aren’t I?” said Tom drily. “Just watch me.”
“They will shoot me, you know that.”
“Good. Then it will save me the trouble,” Archie said.
Renwick ignored him, his eyes boring instead into Tom’s. “You cannot do this, Thomas.
Think
about
the
times
we
had
the black sun 405
together. Think about the way things used to be between us. Unless you help me now, it will be as if you pulled the trigger.”
“Don’t listen to him, Tom,” Archie warned.
“Answer my question.” Tom walked over to where Renwick was still propped up against the mine wall. “Did my father know who you were? Did he work with you?”
“Let me go, then I will tell you.”
Tom shook his head. “No. I’m fed up with negotiating with your lies.” He reached into Renwick’s jacket pocket and pulled out the gold Patek Philippe pocket watch that had once belonged to his father. “I’ll take this,” he said, taking a quick look at it and then slipping
it
into
hi
s
coat.
“You
won’t
be
needing
it
anymore.”
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
7:15 p.m.
They sprinted down the tunnel until the rectangle of blackness and the luminescent glow of the snow in the pale moonlight told them they were near the exit. Seconds later they spilled out into the fresh air, the relief of emerging from under the mountain’s oppressive weight making them momentarily dizzy.
“Are you ready?” Tom asked when he had located a suitably broad tree to shelter behind, grasping the remote detonator in his right hand. They nodded, the mood suddenly somber. He flicked the unit on and extended the aerial. Four small lights glowed red, one next to each button.
“Two and three,” Archie reminded him. “That’ll seal either side of the chamber. Just two and three.”
“Okay.” Tom pressed the button marked 2. Far below them they heard a deep boom and then felt the ground shake. The snow that had accumulated on the upper branches of the fir trees above them fell to the ground with a thump. A stiff breeze blew up the mine shaft toward them, strong enough to ruffle Viktor’s dark hair.
“Now three,” she prompted him gently. Tom pressed button number 3. This time the sound was much closer, a throaty roar that seemed to grow louder and the black sun 407
louder until it was chased out of the mine entrance in a cloud of smoke and dust that cloaked everything it came into contact with in a white shroud. Eventually, the smoke settled and they stepped toward the mine entrance, the air thick with dust.
“You still got your radio, Viktor?” Tom asked. “Let’s call Dom and see whether she’s managed to get down to that chalet yet.”
Viktor located her radio and swapped it for the detonator. He turned it on and entered the encryption code that would allow him to tune it to the agreed frequency. But before he could speak into it, Viktor’s voice rang out.
“Tom, look out.”
She threw herself across him, shoving him to the ground as the crack of a gunshot split the night. He landed heavily on his back, Viktor on top of him, her body suddenly limp and heavy. She’d been hit.
Tom scrambled backward, dragging Viktor with him, until he reached a large snowcovered boulder, instinctively guessing which direction the shot had come from. A few moments later, Archie slid next to him as two further shots landed harmlessly in the snow.
“How is she?” Archie asked.
“Not good,” Tom said grimly, cradling her head in his lap, her face pale. A bullet slammed into the rock above Tom’s head, and he pulled back just in time to avoid a second shot, a firework of snow exploding overhead. “Who the hell is it? Where did they come from?”
Archie snatched a quick look around the other side of the rock. “It’s Hecht.”
“Hecht! Shit.” Tom kicked himself for not having tied him up. He rolled Viktor over onto her side and saw the snow sticky and dark where the bullet had penetrated her lower back. “She needs help fast. We’ve got to do something before he works out that we don’t have a gun. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“Any ideas?”
“What about the fourth charge?”
“What?”
408 james twining
“The fourth explosive charge. Didn’t you say it was near the entrance? If we set that off, we’ll bury him.”
“Where’s the detonator?”
“Viktor had it,” Tom said, feeling inside her pockets. “She took it off me when she gave me the radio. Shit, it’s not here. She must have dropped it.”
He peeked around the side of the rock and saw the deto-nator’s sleek black shape lying in the snow.
“Can you see it?” asked Archie.
“Yeah,” said Tom. “About ten feet away.”
“Then this is the plan. I’ll draw his fire while you run and get the detonator.”
“No way.” Tom shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s not much more dangerous than waiting here for Hecht to come and find us, is it?
And meanwhile, Viktor’s bleeding to death.”
“Okay,” Tom conceded. “But keep your head down.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” Archie grinned. “See you back here in five.”
Archie jumped up and burst over to the right, heading for the nearest tree. A barrage of gunfire immediately erupted from the mine entrance, bullets fizzing through the air and embedding themselves in the trees with a thud or landing in the snow with a hiss. At the same time, Tom rolled out from the other side of the boulder and sprinted toward the detonator. The few seconds it took him to reach it seemed to last forever. He grabbed it and turned to make his way back. The shooting stopped. Tom looked up fearfully and saw Hecht standing in the mine entrance, staring straight at him, a vicious leer etched across his scarred face, the gun raised and poised to fire. Tom froze, momentarily transfixed by Hecht’s glittering eyes. But then he noticed a shadow peel away from the mine wall behind Hecht. A shadow with a knife glinting in its hand. A shadow with one hand.
Renwick.
With a frenzied cry, Renwick jumped on Hecht, plunging the knife into the small of his back. Hecht roared in pain, the gun dropping from his grasp as he reached around and the black sun 409
clutched his wound, before bringing his blood-soaked hands back to his face. With an angry shout he spun to face Renwick, advancing slowly upon him like a bear walking on its hind legs. Renwick lunged at him again, catching him first across his forearm, then at the top of his thigh, but Hecht didn’t seem to notice, advancing irresistibly until he fell on Renwick with a series of heavy punches. Both men tumbled to the ground and rolled out of sight down into the mine.
Tom ran back behind the boulder. Viktor had regained consciousness, and she smiled at him weakly.
“Hang in there,” he said with a worried look. “Dom will have some people up here in no time. We’ll soon have you back home.”
“I’m not going back home,” she said simply.
“Of course you are,” Tom protested. “We’ll patch you up. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m never going back. I’ve got it all planned. That’s why I came here with you. So they couldn’t stop me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got money saved. I’m getting out. While I still can. Like you.”
“Good for you,” Tom said, tears filling his eyes as he saw the bloodstain swelling underneath her.
“Like you said, it’s never too late,” she said with a smile.
Tom said nothing, his throat swollen as he felt the life ebb out of her until, with a final burst of energy, Viktor suddenly reached up and pulled Tom’s lips down to hers.
“Thank you.” She exhaled, her hand slipping down Tom’s neck, along his arm, to where his hand was holding the detonator. Her eyes flickering shut, she pressed the fourth button.
This time the explosion was ferocious and immediate as the mine entrance collapsed, bits of stone and debris flying through the air. Tom threw himself to the ground, his body arched over Viktor’s to shield her. The heat of the blast seared into his cheeks, the ground twisting and groaning and moaning beneath him, the trees creaking and whining dangerously.
As the echo faded, a thick cloud of dust and smoke remained, hanging in the air like a heavy
fog,
making
him
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cough and his eyes stream. He heard a shout and saw Dominique emerging into the clearing, accompanied by about ten armed Austrian policemen.
Tom looked down at Viktor’s pale face. A smile was frozen on her lips. He carefully rearranged her hair to cover her scarred ear.
In the moonlight, the large pool of blood that had soaked into the snow around her looked
quite
black,
like
a
dark
mirror.
EPILOGUE A few peop
le laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from Hindu Scripture, the Bhagavad Gita—“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” OJ. ROBERTPPENHEIMER AFTER WITNESSING
THE FIRST NUCLEAR EXPLOSION, 16 JULY 1945
LAZAREVSKOYE CEMETERY, ALEXANDER NEVSKY
MONASTERY, ST. PETERSBURG
January 13—3:02 p.m.
The freshly turned earth lay in a smooth mound, a narrow black finger against the whiteness of the surrounding ground covered in snow. In the distance, smoke rose from a small mountain range of factory chimneys. Gray and dirty, it drifted aimlessly upward until, touching the sun, it suddenly blossomed into a glorious pink cloud that soared toward the empty heavens.
Tom knelt down and grasped a handful of earth. He rubbed it through his fingers, the cold already freezing the moisture so that it crumbled like small grains of ice to the ground.
“What do you think we should put on her gravestone?” asked Archie.
“Katya. Her name was Katya,” Tom said firmly. “Katya Nikolaevna
Mostov.” “To me, she’ll always be Viktor,” Archie said with a shrug.
“Katya just doesn’t seem to fit somehow.”
“It fits who she once was and who she hoped to be again, one day,” Tom said. “She never really wanted her life as Viktor. She just sort of fell into it and found she couldn’t escape.”
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“I think that’s what she liked in you,” Archie said, drawing on a freshly lit cigarette.
“The fact that you’d also ended up in a place you realized you didn’t want to be and had somehow walked away.”
There was a pause, and Tom shifted his weight to his other foot as he stared silently at the ground.
“Any news on Dmitri?” he asked eventually.
“Bailey called me last night. There’s no sign of him yet. Lucky bastard must have been outside when we set off the charges.”
“Any survivors?”
“Sixteen in all. Four dead. They must have been caught in the tunnel.”
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