Arkhangel : A Novel (2020)

  The wind started to bite again. Snow fell from the branches overhead. Through the scope I could see that the cover up ahead was patchy. If they had men on the other side of the road I’d be a sitting duck at the crossing point. The pain from whatever I’d done to my knee falling off the bridge in Moscow made it impossible to maintain a steady kneeling position. I sat instead, locking my ankles, bracing my elbows against the inside of my thighs.

  I studied the white traces of the men closing in on me, slipping like ghosts through the undergrowth. The nearest had got to within a hundred metres. Putting them down would telegraph my identity to anyone else with a thermal scope within half a kilometre or more. I looked at the luminous hands of my watch. Ten minutes to RV. I adjusted the scope and took the soldier to the right of me with a single shot to the chest. But as I swung round looking for the next target, the air filled with the zip-crack of incoming high-velocity rounds. I rolled sideways and flattened myself into the snow, squirming down behind the body of the dead sniper and a tangle of fallen branches. Everyone within range opened up simultaneously. Chips of ice, bark and bone blew into my face. Whatever cover I had left was being shredded around me, the dead-body barricade included.

  I rolled right and got myself back on the gun. I could see the left side of the nearest shooter, who’d taken cover behind a skinny birch. He stepped sideways to fire. My steel-core 7.62 cut his legs out from under him. I worked the bolt, sending spent brass spinning into the night. A bullet clipped my left boot heel. I moved the rifle up and to the right. His wingman was seventy metres further out – crouching, firing. My fingers were freezing, my breath erratic, and all the while my body was leaching heat into the frozen ground. If I didn’t run soon, I wouldn’t be able to run at all. The wingman stood up. I fired. He toppled sideways into a bank of snow.

  I took more suppressing fire from my right. It was working. I was pinned down in a game of full-contact murder in the dark. I needed to take out the shooters directly ahead of me – and then split. If I made it to Highway 178, and then kept tight to the treeline, there was a slim chance I could outmanoeuvre them. It was a gamble, but the snow was falling so thickly again that it might cover me enough to reach the frontier. But however fast and loose the Russians might play it, there was no way Jack Nazzar or the Wing would cross the border itself; if he was waiting, though, he’d know for sure by now what was going on.

  I turned a tight circle and raised myself up to take a shot. A bullet clipped my left shoulder. Another passed between the inside of my left arm and ribcage, punching through the jacket, grazing skin. I pulled the trigger and felled one of the shooters as another round scored a line above my temple.

  Go. Now.

  But as I got ready to run, the snow in front of me lifted, filling the air with a thick white curtain. A deep, resonant boom filled my lungs. Shock waves expanded under me – flipping me into the air, twisting me on to my side. I clawed the ground, coughed blood into the blackness. My ears rang, chest heaved. Then another eruption, behind this time, knocked me forward, sprawling me headlong between the trees. White-hot shards of steel peppered the snow. A splinter of shrapnel gouged my back. Another tore at my left bicep.

  Rifle grenades.

  Deep snow had absorbed the impact of the blasts. As soon as one hit a tree I’d be in trouble.

  I pushed up on to my elbows. More rifle shots zipped between the trees, the usual snap, crackle and pop of incoming rounds muted by the snow. I reached for the SV-98 but dropped it smartly as the stock split, cracked by a direct hit.

  Moving forward was impossible. I hauled myself up and lurched back along the trail, head down. Every footfall was like driving a knife blade under my kneecap. I dodged around the trees as best I could, pursued by a stream of copper-coated steel. I was slow, snowbound. Fragments of ice blown from a tree-trunk ricochet blinded me momentarily. A round nicked my right calf; another, my left wrist. I stumbled on, twisting, ducking, zigzagging my way back to the Lada. However I was going to get to the border, it wasn’t going to be on foot – and it had to be fast.

  I emerged back into the lane as the clouds pulled apart enough to wash the landscape with moonlight. Dead ahead, eighty metres away through the trees, was the light I’d seen when I’d pulled up – a porch lamp, perhaps, or a security light for a barn or an outhouse. I was in a crook on the lane, the point where it looped back on itself, and I could only see a few metres in either direction. Behind me: shouts. I turned and faced the Lada and took a step towards it. And then the moonlight was overpowered by a bright white flash.

  For a fraction of a second it looked as if the four-by-four had been lit from the inside by a bolt of lightning. And then the windows buckled and exploded outwards. The chassis jumped clear of the ground, lurching sideways. The kaboom of the blast ripped down the lane. Metal twisted around metal. Razor-sharp cubes of glass cut my face, neck. I dived flat as the gas tank went up, sending a pall of oily orange flame up into the treetops.

  After the explosion, shots. Electric green tracer lit up the night sky like lasers.

  I crossed the track and ran towards the farm buildings ahead. My legs buckled. I grabbed a branch and levered myself forward. More shots. The soldiers reached the road, distracted by the burning Lada. I limped free of the trees and into a frozen meadow.

  I was well met by the moonlight reflected from the snow in the air and on the ground. Out of the silver-white night a row of wooden buildings emerged. The lamp I’d seen was suspended on a pole over a smaller, enclosed field. The individual houses also had lights over the doors, but they shone too weakly to have been seen from the road. From one of the doorways a man stepped out, torch in hand. He fixed me with the beam.

  ‘Stoi!’

  But I wasn’t going to stop. I drew the Makarov and levelled it at him.

  ‘Drop it,’ I shouted in Russian, ‘or I shoot.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he blurted out. ‘You’ll hurt them.’

  The torch tumbled to the ground and then I was on him, left hand at his throat. He wasn’t a man, but a boy: fifteen at most. Moments before, he’d been defending the family home. Now he was shaking with fear. In the woods behind me firing started again. Tracer arced over us. I looked at the boy, at the buildings. Above the chaos of shots and shouts, I could hear another sound, too – wild and free, an echo from my deepest childhood memories. They weren’t houses, and he wasn’t protecting his family. He was a stable boy, protecting his horses. I spun him around and shoved him forward.

  ‘Davai!’

  He walked quickly towards the nearest stable block, hands up, breathing hard, and went in first. I followed. An intense, heady tang of dung and hay and sweat and leather rolled over us. Half a dozen stalls were lit by dim tungsten lamps. In the nearest, a sixteen-hand Akhal-Teke stallion nodded over a half-door, his palomino coat glowing a deep gold under the orange lights. He was, simply, stunning. I stepped away from the boy, still clutching the pistol.

  ‘Tack him up.’

  Tears ran down his face.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Not him. Any other one, but not him. Please, mister.’

  ‘Just do it,’ I said. ‘And be quick. He’ll be OK,’ I added. ‘I promise.’

  He went to work and I went to the door and pushed it to, trying to keep beyond the reach of thermal scopes. I pressed my eye briefly to a tiny gap in the door jamb. Despite the scattering cloud, gusts of fresh snow still swept across the open ground. It was impossible to see more than a few metres. I peered into the darkness around the halo cast by the outside lamp. Shadows moved at its edge. Then, dead ahead, a white-clad trooper stepped into view, assault rifle in his shoulder. Then to his left, another. And another.

  I stepped back. The Akhal-Teke whinnied. I turned to the boy and placed my index finger to my lips, urging silence. He’d got the tack on – English saddle and a simple snaffle bridle. I beckoned and he led the horse out of the stall. I pressed my eye to the door again. Outside, the soldiers edged closer – forming and vanishing a
s the wind picked up, sweeping flurries of snowflakes across them.

  Fifteen metres.

  I turned to the boy again.

  ‘Hold him steady,’ I whispered. He nodded, eyes still wet with tears. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Boynou.’

  ‘Is he fast?’

  ‘As an arrow.’

  I stepped carefully back to the door.

  Ten metres.

  Close enough.

  From the adjacent stall I led a grey Don mare by her head collar. The two horses touched noses. I handed the Don’s lead rope to the boy and took the Akhal-Teke reins in my left hand and the pommel in my right, still holding the pistol. I put my left foot into the stirrup and pushed up, pulling myself over, into the saddle, gritting my teeth at the pain in my knee. I found the other stirrup, and cocked the Makarov.

  ‘Let go of the lead and open the door,’ I said in a stage whisper. ‘And then get down.’ He put his hand on the wooden catch. ‘Now.’

  He pushed down and the door swung open. As a blast of frigid air ripped into the stable, I slapped the unsaddled grey on her rump and she bolted into the night. I dropped low on Boynou’s shoulder, leg on, and squeezed hard.

  ‘Nu!’ I yelled. Go on!

  The stallion gave a buck and surged ahead, leading with his left leg, neck straining forward. The first soldier was within touching distance of the door. The Don mare had flung him backwards. He swung his rifle towards me but overbalanced, falling sideways into the snow, loosing a shot above my shoulder. The second soldier – a barely visible ghost crouching in the winter whirlwind – brought his barrel to bear on me as I raised mine to him. But he was too slow, too far behind me. I fired. The bullet went high and hit him in the throat. The third soldier had been knocked flat on his back. Flailing in the snow, grasping for his weapon, he was out of sight within seconds.

  I cantered north-east towards the lights of another farm, coming out on the lane a few hundred metres beyond the burning Lada. Although Boynou took the snow in his stride, hacking straight across country was a no-go: one buried rabbit hole and we’d both come a cropper. I’d have to stick to paths and ride like Fear na gCrúb – the Man with the Hooves himself. The stirrups were too long, and I couldn’t get my heels down, but Boynou carried me lightfoot across the fresh powder. I shortened the rein and sat hard in the saddle, slowing him to a trot and then to a walk around the houses. Tactical torches flicked fingers of light into the falling flakes to my left. I patted Boynou’s golden flank.

  ‘Easy, boy.’

  We stood in the shadows of a frozen yard, steam streaming from his nostrils, front hooves pawing the ground.

  If I turned on to the lane, whoever was behind those torches was going to have a clear shot: one round in Boynou was all it would take. But straight ahead, at right angles to the lane, there was another path leading back into the woods. It was clear enough of snow to try it. The stallion started to step sideways, tossing his head. I tightened the reins, bunching them in my left hand, threading them between my fingers. I squeezed gently, and clicked my tongue, urging him to walk on. We edged around a barn and then I dropped my hand forward and pressed my heels into his ribs. My shoulder met his, unbalancing me for a moment. Then he leapt out, into the road. Two strides and we were across, following the trail between the trees. The shooting started again immediately. Streams of tracer fire fanned out, first along the road and then through the trees. Branches cracked. Burning bullets ricocheted off tree trunks, zapping this way and that, filling the woods with a lethal green cat’s cradle. After a hundred metres I took a sharp right. The path ended. Boynou picked his way through the snow, cautious, lifting his hooves high, shaking his head.

  We moved clear of the firing. The original RV was blown, but Nazzar would be able to follow the radio traffic – at least between the ground units. With any luck the chatter would lead him to me. I’d have to find my own way across the border, though. We threaded our way north. Even in the moonlight it was hard to see more than a few strides ahead. I kept inside the trees, parallel to a cleared path, and then stopped at the point where it converged with the main, Russian, road that had taken me from Krupp to Gorodishche. The route continued north-east for six klicks to the village of Kulisko at the mouth of a narrow inlet to Lake Peipus. The Estonian border was on the far side of what I hoped was a frozen solid expanse of fresh water.

  I leaned down and slipped the fingers of my left hand under Boynou’s girth. Too loose. I pocketed the Makarov and swung my right foot forward. I lifted the saddle flap and pulled the girth straps a notch tighter in their buckles. There was no time to shorten the stirrup leathers properly. I put two twists into each and stood up. It would do. It would have to do.

  Akhal-Tekes are bred for speed and stamina. I’d dreamed of riding one since I was a boy. But if Boynou wasn’t shod in iceshoes, it would be a stunningly short gallop. I broke a switch of birch from a branch beside me and nudged him out of the trees. The road ran ahead of us – a silver, snow-blighted ribbon of highway glinting under a recalcitrant moon. I listened hard, but heard only the beating of my heart and the deep nasal rasp of horse breaths in the frozen air. Snow fell. I checked the Makarov was secure and held the reins tight in both hands. I closed my fingers around the makeshift crop. They were stiff and painful, unresponsive from the cold, still bleeding from the cuts my grandfather’s knife had scored across them.

  Leg on, heels down, back straight. Boynou went from a walk through a couple of strides of a sitting trot and then into a canter. The road beneath held his sure-footed hooves. I urged him on, touching his shoulder with the birch. I shifted my weight and rose in the saddle, dropping my hands either side of his withers, moving my arms forward to give him his head while keeping the rein short enough to control him.

  He didn’t gallop.

  He flew.

  I hung on tight with my calves like a solo eventer riding the White Turf at St Moritz. The road dissolved into a blur, a continuous frozen stream of white-water rapids. I looked up and over Boynou’s ears, focused on the way ahead. But I could see almost nothing. Snow spattered my face, filled my eyes. I blinked and was blinded, wind lashing my cheeks. I moved the crop and the reins to my left hand, and wiped the ice from my vision. As I opened my eyes, the village lights of Yachmenevo sped past to the right. The frontier with Estonia was only thirteen hundred metres to my left – but there was no path through the thick forest and I knew I couldn’t make it that way. I pressed Boynou onwards, as far out of the saddle as I dared, my head sheltering behind his neck, my shoulders just above his. The trees on either side of us slipped past in the darkness – a white-crusted mass of shadows that flanked the road, giving it shape, form.

  I twisted in the saddle and looked behind me. If anyone was on our tail, they were engulfed in the pale veil of snow kicked up by Boynou’s hooves. And then as I turned back around: headlights – dead ahead. Distance was impossible to gauge exactly. I kept going. It was too late to stop, and there was nowhere else to go. A third light appeared above the first two – brighter, cutting a focused beam towards me. Boynou galloped another two strides.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  Tracer fire arced out of the spotlight towards me, past me. Then more. A lot more. Bright green rounds whipped through the snow, streaming either side of Boynou’s head, zooming into the void behind. I dropped as low as I could, all the way down on to his right flank – every tracer chased by four invisible high-velocity rounds. I dug into my jacket pocket, frozen fingers fumbling for the Makarov. Then I saw them clearly.

  Ten metres ahead, two soldiers manned an all-terrain vehicle. They were stationary. The driver was leaning into a PKM. Spent brass from the belt concealed in its magazine box spewed into the night. A bullet nicked Boynou’s neck. His blood sprayed across me. But the gunner had opened up too late, too high. He struggled to get his barrel around far enough, fast enough.

  I pulled the pistol clear of my pocket and swung my arm up. The first trigger pull was heavy,
cocking the semi-automatic as well as dropping the hammer. The pressure, the gallop, the cold – everything was against me. The shot went wide. I drew parallel and fired again. And again. The third shot hit home and the tracer leapt into the sky, sending a stream of green bullets into the ether. The ATV disappeared behind me in Boynou’s white wake.

  It was another six minutes to the inlet. Now everyone knew exactly where I was and where I was heading. If there weren’t already Russian troops by the inlet at Kulisko, there soon would be. I rode hard, head down. For a minute I was in the clear. Then more electric green ribbons unwound themselves past me – this time from behind. I looked over my right shoulder. The ATV was back in service. I cracked the birch crop on Boynou’s flank and thrust my hands further forward, giving him the rein to run as fast as he could. Ahead of me the road curved sharply to the right. I leaned into the bend as the driver behind me loosed another burst of 7.62. But he was firing one-handed, at speed, and his aim was way off, spitting the barium-bright bullets into the snow around us.

  We took the corner fast and I sat back in the saddle. A soldier stood in front of me, chainsaw in hand, turning towards the noise of Boynou’s hooves thundering on the road. I passed him at arm’s length, firing point blank into his chest as his snowsuit brushed the end of the Makarov’s barrel. He twisted and fell, the saw biting into him as he hit the ground. The semi-auto’s top slide locked back. Out of ammo. I dropped the pistol and took the reins in both hands. As the lights of the ATV swung around behind me, I saw what the soldier had been doing. The road was cut, logs felled across it. Then I saw muzzle flashes – but they couldn’t get a line on me without shooting up the ATV on my heels. I pulled back twice on the reins, hard, to slow Boynou’s pace, and then released them, squeezing with my calves as I came up out of the saddle.