The Concubine's Secret

53

‘Are you coming, Alexei?’

‘No, Igor. You go. I’ll tidy up here.’

‘Tidy up?’ Igor looked round at the carnage on the forest floor. ‘Leave the bastards for the wolves.’

‘You go, Igor,’ Alexei said again. ‘You’ve done your job well. I’ll report to Maksim.’

‘Our pakhan wants to know you are safe. I am ordered to bring you back to him.’

Igor’s words were courteous but Alexei had no doubt what was really in this vor’s mind. He would not welcome his position in the pakhan’s affections being usurped. Alexei was astonished that one of Igor’s bullets hadn’t already strayed his way during the confusion.

‘Thank you, Igor. But go home. I am aware that their army retaliation units will soon be here in force.’

Alexei turned his back on the thief and bent down to check on the first of the dead strewn across the road. The forest was silent now, just the wind jostling the branches, and as he crouched he could feel it leaning in on him, its breath stinking of rotten wood and death. Battlefields were always sorrowful places, but a battlefield after a meaningless, empty little battle was enough to rip a man’s heart out, especially if you were the one who had engineered it.

The others had gone, the living. Those prisoners who decided to escape had changed the flat tyre on the truck and driven off on an uncertain path through the forest. Those who were stupid enough to believe they would gain credit for their loyalty had set off huddled together, nervously aiming for the hangars and a lifetime of imprisonment at best. The vory had faded away like rats in the night, leaving only Igor.

‘Go home, Igor,’ he said again.

But when he looked up this time the thief had gone and the road was empty. Just the black shape of the first car remained, its headlamps as pointless as the battle had been. With care he felt the pulse of each soldier and when he found none, he closed their eyes and their mouths, removed their rifles and arranged their limbs in attitudes of peace instead of violence, as if he could cheat the devil of their souls. At one point he thought he heard something and swung round, peering into the shifting, breathing darkness.

‘ Lydia?’

No response.

‘ Lydia?’

But there was no one. After their father had driven off, the car veering wildly as it bucked out of control from rut to rut, skidding on the packed snow, she had wasted no time.

‘Why didn’t you stop him, Alexei?’

That’s all she asked. Before he could reply she was off and running, leaping with the legs of a gazelle across the road and plunging back into the forest from which she’d appeared. How could she see in there?

Why didn’t you stop him?

Why?

Because a father should choose his son. Not the other way around. Alexei had been standing there, waiting for his father to choose him, but Jens didn’t. Failed even to recognise him. That shouldn’t matter, but it did. For a long moment Alexei gazed one final time at the dead bodies, muttered a childhood prayer over them, then climbed into the NAMI-1 and started the engine. As a last thought he returned to the nearest corpse, a very young and very blond soldier who looked quietly asleep except for the hole in his chest, and lifted him up into the passenger seat. Then he climbed back into the driver’s side and steered a path through the trees around the fallen pine. Once back on the road he headed north, towards the brick wall and the monster behind it.

‘Get out of the car!’

The order was shouted at full volume. The sentry at the gate was jumpy. Alexei got out of the car.

‘Here, you fool, can’t you see who I am?’

The sentry observed the elegantly cut Colonel’s uniform in front of him and shrank nervously into his own ill-fitting coat.

‘Here.’ Alexei thrust Dmitri’s papers under the soldier’s nose. ‘I am here with a message from Colonel Tursenov himself. But I stumbled on a massacre in the forest. What the hell is going on here? I brought one of the wounded back for attention, so be quick, open up.’

The soldier saluted and hoped he would not lose this month’s pay. ‘Yes, Colonel Malofeyev. Right away, Colonel.’

He opened the gate.

Chang had laid a carpet of branches over the coil of razor wire at the base of the wall. The pine sap smelled fresh and tangy, and brought the memory of her last Christmas with her mother crashing into Lydia ’s head.

‘Why don’t you cut the wire?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘It could be alarmed.’

They were at the back of the compound where the forest was at its closest and the searchlight beams further apart. Chang was standing immobile, his eyes half closed, focusing on the wall. Lydia watched him exhale deeply, drawing together his energy, but she didn’t kiss him goodbye. Or tell him she loved him. That would be to tell his gods she knew he wasn’t coming back and she wasn’t willing to do that. Popkov clambered noisily on top of the branches, stomping down the wire, and stood with his back to the wall, his hands cupped together in front of him. Lydia was relieved her Cossack was here but frightened for him, and for the hole in his side that Elena had sewn up.

‘Ready?’ he grunted.

Chang breathed out one last time and she knew he was about to set off. Her heart was in her throat, but he surprised her by turning his head slowly and taking a long look at her. As if it might be his last.

‘ Lydia,’ he said softly, ‘remain here. Let me go to your father knowing you are safe.’

She moved closer but only one step. She didn’t touch him. If she touched him she wouldn’t be able to let go.

‘I am always safe with you.’

‘It is too dangerous in there.’

‘I can watch your back.’

‘And who will watch yours?’

‘I am quick. I can-’

‘No, Lydia. Remain here.’

A wind rattled the pine needles, a chattering of the night spirits, and the darkness weighed heavier than a sheet of steel. Neither spoke, not with words. Lydia swayed towards him, leaned so close she could smell the clean male scent of his sweat mingled with the dank odour of earth and pine sap on his clothes. She could hear the tension in his breath.

‘Please, my love,’ she whispered, ‘don’t ask it of me.’

He touched her hair and she rested her head against his hand. They stood like that for a long moment until Popkov growled again, ‘Ready?’

Chang focused on the wall once more. ‘Ready.’

Chang An Lo made it look easy. He seemed to fly. He waited for the searchlight to slide past, then he took a leap on to Popkov’s cupped hands and up the wall, twisting, curling, landing on his feet like a cat either side of the vicious razor wire at the top. He uncoiled the rope that was slung over his shoulders and fastened the middle of it to a metal fixing attaching the wire to the wall. One end he tossed down to Popkov, the other he dropped to the ground inside. By the time the searchlight crawled over that stretch of wall again he was gone, and Lydia could breathe.

She gave the Cossack an affectionate tug on his beard, scrambled up on his shoulders and grabbed the rope. Hand over hand she hauled herself up, cursing her skirts. Clumsier than Chang, she felt the wire at the top slice a piece from her finger. But once up there, viewing the compound spread out before her in the semi darkness and the looming shape of the hangar so close, she felt an unexpected calm. The fear and the nerves and the trembling fell away. This was it. Her father was here.

‘ Lydia.’ It came from below. So soft it was barely a word.

The searchlight was coming. The wind was biting her cheeks. With scarcely a sound she slid down the rope and crouched on the snow-scattered ground beside Chang. He seized her hand and together they ran.

The commotion at the front of the compound was frantic. A roar of vehicles and shouting soldiers, boots pounding the frozen earth, hounds on leashes whining with the scent of blood in their nostrils. They were getting ready to move out into the black forest but no one expected intruders to be already inside. Chang skimmed along the small hangar that lay in deep shadow at the rear and felt Lydia would be safe here while he scouted ahead. Safe? No, not safe. But in less danger.

He whispered in her ear, ‘Wait,’ and pointed to the spot she was standing on.

She nodded and didn’t argue. She was making it easy for him. He slipped along the length of the smaller hangar until he reached the side of the massive wooden structure beside it, but here he was exposed. The lights blazed. He crouched low and raced towards a narrow door near the front of it which stood open. A man was standing outside it, dressed in black, lean and wolfish in the set of his limbs, his back turned to Chang’s approach, the glowing tip of a cigarette hanging from his fingers. He was watching two dog-handlers across the yard ordering their animals to leap into the back of a truck, but one dog was more intent on savaging his companion’s hind legs. Chang moved up fast.

Two metres, that’s all that lay between them when the man sensed something and turned. Their eyes met. The man wore spectacles and the lenses magnified his shock, but even so he reacted quickly to the threat. His hand jabbed towards the revolver on his hip but too late. Chang had launched himself into the air, striking out with a kick that caught the man full in the throat. He clawed at his collar, knees buckling, and before he hit the ground a second kick thudded into his chest, breaking three ribs and stopping his heart.

The body was heavier than it looked. While the attention of the soldiers was elsewhere, Chang dragged it quickly just inside the open door and rolled it into the shadow of a crate. He glanced with astonishment at the great silver leviathan floating serenely above him, tethered to a tall metal mast, and rapidly retraced his steps.

Lydia was still where he’d left her but now her ear was pressed tight to the wall of the small hangar, the whites of her eyes huge in the dim light.

‘Listen,’ she urged.

He listened. A dull roar filtered through the timbers.

‘It’s fire,’ she warned.

Jens hadn’t expected this. This burning pain of regret in his chest. He’d climbed up the long ladder into the gondola attached to the airship’s underbelly, and immediately just the smell of its raw varnish and its faint odour of loneliness made him hesitate. Up here it was a solitary world. Different things mattered.

The gondola was set out with mahogany tables bolted to the floor along each side, next to the windows. Up front was the pilot’s cabin but Jens resisted the urge to enter it one last time. He reminded himself instead of all the military chiefs who would be sitting at these tables in a couple of days, swilling champagne as they watched first one plane detach itself from under the bows and then the other from under the stern. The gas canisters would be packed with their deadly cargo and Surkov camp within spitting distance. Hundreds of fellow prisoners choking to death because of him.

He unlocked the hatch to the body of the airship and pushed it open, pulled down the collapsible steps and climbed up. The air instantly grew colder. A soft grey twilight rippled through the silver skin from the lamps outside and it felt eerily calm. The interior was huge, cavernous – like being in the belly of a whale, Olga always said. But to him, even though he’d engineered it himself, each time he stepped inside he could not escape the sensation of being a tiny speck, a fly caught in a gigantic spider’s web of fine metal girders. He tipped his head back and gazed above. It was beautiful, unutterably beautiful. He was proud of it.

A sudden sound rose from below and set his heart racing. He dragged his mind back to what he was doing and rapidly made his way along the central planking to the nearest of the gas balloons. These were the great moons of hydrogen gas which kept the airship afloat, and it was the work of half a second to thrust a chisel through its pliable skin. He could hear the gas escaping, as angry as a cat’s hiss.

‘Prisoner Friis!’

Jens spun round. It was one of the Black Widows. Just his head showed above the hatch. ‘What are you doing up here, prisoner Friis?’

‘My job, comrade. Until my unfortunate companions join me once more.’ Jens pocketed the chisel and walked back to the hatch so that he was looking down on his interrogator’s neat bald patch. Even the man’s spectacles looked irritated. ‘I’ve been inspecting the fastenings of the gas bags. Nothing must be overlooked for the coming test.’

The man’s eyes registered suspicion, but there was nothing he could pick on, so he backed down the steps to allow Jens access to the gondola. The moment he was out of sight Jens removed his cigarette lighter from his pocket, flicked its flame into life and stood it, still alight, on the walkway. He had seconds. No more. He slid down the steps and made straight for the gondola’s door. To his surprise the Black Widow was seated at one of the tables, gazing out of the window and smoking a cigarette.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ Jens asked quickly.

‘Not for a moment. I like it here, it’s peaceful.’

Jens didn’t stop to argue. He opened the door and fell, rather than climbed, down the ladder. Before he hit the concrete ground, all hell’s fury exploded around him.