Last of the Breed (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  She quite understood what was in his mind, but she also knew that if she wished to reach the higher echelons of government he was her ticket. So, never to demand anything, never to expect anything, never to get in the way, but always to understand, to be helpful and as efficient as he was himself.

  She did not know whether Zamatev would achieve his ambitions or not. In fact, she did not believe he would. Such men made their superiors uneasy. Not that they might fear his success, but that his very efficiency and drive might force them to move faster than they wanted. The men in staff positions in any army were rarely there for their skills, but because they were easy to get along with. Men in command did not want abrasive types. They had come to the top, and now they wished to relax. They wanted men who were socially acceptable and just reasonably efficient.

  Zamatev might get somewhere. Occasionally such men did. Gorbachev had done it; others almost had, but they failed by being a little too sure of themselves.

  Nevertheless, Arkady Zamatev was on his way and he would go far, and Kyra intended to go with him until such a time as she should cut loose and be on her own. If Zamatev recaptured the American, it was positive that he would go on to Moscow. So the American must be retaken.

  Wulff was the man in charge here. She knew very little about him that was good. His department was administered but poorly; nonetheless, he was well connected and seemed solidly in control. It was not the first such situation she had seen. His department created no problems for his superiors. The results might not be the best but whatever happened in his area was confined to that area, and no one wished to create problems where none seemed to exist. Discipline was harsh, according to rumor, and there were other rumors that his superiors profited nicely from the situation. Whatever else might be said of him, Wulff was in control, and if she was to get cooperation she must move with care.

  Wulff knew Arkady Zamatev and would be wary of crossing him. What she sought was cooperation and a hands-off attitude from Wulff. He was not, she had gathered, an ambitious man. He had what he wanted and wished it to remain as it was. He would not, she was sure, want anybody rocking the boat when it was moving so smoothly.

  He received her sitting behind a table. He was a fat but solid-looking man, partially bald, with round, wary eyes. His lips smiled, but his eyes measured her for problems.

  “I have heard nothing,” he assured her, after she had explained, “and I would have heard. Of course, it is a large area, and if you are right and he has come this way, we must find him.”

  “I would prefer not to disturb you or your department,” she suggested. “I want to be free to move about. I believe I know what must be done.”

  “Of course, but you must be prepared. It is very wild out there. It would be best, I believe, if you remained here in the city. We are remote, but it can be very pleasant, and we would enjoy entertaining you.” He smiled. “My wife would be particularly happy, as we have too few visitors.”

  “I should like to meet her, but there is much to do, and I wish to be,” she smiled, “where the action is.”

  She was, Wulff thought, a striking woman. She worked for Zamatev? Was there anything going on there, he wondered? Well, why not? Arkady was a single man. But hard, he thought, very hard.

  “Is there any word from hunters? Prospectors? Engineers? I mean, of anything unusual? Any strangers? Any thefts?”

  He smiled, shaking his heavy head. “Nothing. We have thought of all that, and we’ve been out around the country.” He smiled again. “As you have.”

  Her smile was a little tight. “Flying over the country we saw a place—”

  “I know,” he said, “my men were there some time ago.” He did not want strangers nosing about, and the sooner he got rid of this one the better.

  She was no fool. This one was sharp, unusually intelligent. The sooner he was rid of her the better.

  “Who is this man you seek? An American, I hear?”

  “I have heard that, too,” she replied. She had detected some uneasiness and decided Wulff did not want strangers looking about. Well, that was his business. Her business was to find and recapture Major Makatozi. Yet he was no fool, and he must already have the basic facts. “He is a flyer who has information we wish to have. It is as simple as that. It is very important that we capture him at once.”

  “It has been a long time now,” Wulff said. “He is probably dead.” He paused. “The watch along the border has been very careful. My men have gone into every town, every village, every camp all along the Amur. The army is uncommonly alert. If he is alive, we will find him.”

  “It would help,” she said, “if I found him. Or if he was turned over to me. I can assure you Colonel Zamatev would be most grateful.”

  “Of course. I am an admirer of the Colonel. I wish him every success.” He hitched around in his chair. “His capture might mean a lot to the Colonel. It might even take him to Moscow.”

  A move, Wulff thought, that would please a lot of people. Zamatev was too sharp, too hard to deal with. Or perhaps the trouble was that he would not deal at all. If he failed to recapture this American, he might be with them always. That in itself was incentive enough. Colonel Zamatev had many admirers, but it would be easier to admire him if he were in Moscow.

  “How he ever got such a man is beyond me. The GRU—”

  “It was Colonel Zamatev who arranged it”—she smiled—“as he arranges many things.”

  Wulff stood up. The interview was over. “If I can help, call on me, but I believe your American is dead.

  “Where would he go? How could he live? Winter is here, and that is a vast wilderness out there. Believe me, comrade, I have traveled it. When I was younger—”

  “This man is different. He is a Red Indian.”

  Wulff was astonished. An Indian? He had believed they were all dead. He had not heard of any Indians since he was a boy and saw those American movies. Exciting stuff, too.

  “How could that be? I understood he was an officer in the American air force?”

  “He’s that, too.” Kyra turned toward the door. “What you must understand is that he is a man who knows how to live in the taiga.”

  Outside, Kyra was irritated. Nothing had come of that. What would Wulff do? Would he cooperate? Or try to take the American himself? Or would he work with Shepilov? She drew her belt tight against the wind. He would do what was expedient for Wulff.

  Stegman was waiting with a car. He was a lean but powerful man of some forty years who carried himself like a man ten years younger. He was one of Zamatev’s best men.

  “Nothing definite,” she told him. “Whatever is done we must do ourselves.” She paused. “Does he know you?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  “I will walk. But what I want is to find out what Comrade Wulff does next. It could be very helpful.”

  Stegman got in the car and drove away around the block; then he parked some distance off where he could watch the door. Kyra Lebedev went back to the hotel and getting out the maps she had brought, spread them out on the bed. She was dismayed. Even she, who had lived and worked in Siberia, was always amazed at its sheer size. Now, thinking of finding one man in all that vastness, she was appalled.

  So many rivers! So much forest! Yet if he was an Indian he must be a hunter, and he would try to live off the land. In the dead of winter that would be almost impossible. Wulff was probably right. The man was dead or soon would be.

  They had to be sure. Studying the map, she started to think, trying to imagine what the escaped prisoner must have done.

  First he had to get away from the prison area, and he dare not be seen. Yet he might have gone in any direction, and they had no leads, nothing except Alekhin’s belief that he had gone east, a belief based on something so flimsy—

  A missing knife that might have simply been lost. The chance
of some missing food. The food might never have been there at all, or it might have been eaten by some hungry workman who came to the place, saw the food, and simply took it.

  Yet she had heard much of Alekhin from Arkady and from two Yakut friends. They did not like him. He was a surly brute who kept much to himself and was notoriously cruel. Nonetheless, all agreed nobody was better at capturing escapees. She must talk to him. But where was he?

  The helicopter again—that was the fastest way of searching, and Stegman was a superb pilot.

  Earlier they had tried to check every abandoned building of which there was record, and they had followed streams and roads and landed to make inquiries…nothing. Simply nothing.

  There was a tap on the door. It was Stegman.

  “He left immediately after you did, and he walked to a small building on a side street.” Stegman looked up at her. “The man within deals in furs.”

  “Ah? In furs. A man, then, who might know trappers and hunters. And Wulff did not send somebody? He went himself? That’s interesting.”

  “Yes.”

  She thought about that while Stegman waited. Aloud, she said, “It might be some personal affair, but if not, why would he go himself and not have somebody else go?”

  “A source?” Stegman suggested.

  “Just what I was thinking. A private source.” She glanced at Stegman. “Did you notice the fur coat hanging in his office? Excellent fur.”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe I will have a talk with this furrier. Did you get his name?”

  “Zhikarev, Evgeny Zhikarev, in business in the same location for fifty years.”

  “Ah? A survivor. Well, we shall see.”

  Her heart was beating faster. Maybe Wulff knew something, maybe he was just fishing, but a furrier?

  Maybe this was it, the break she had been hoping for. If it was—

  To move swiftly, that was the thing. If this was the lead she needed, she might have Makatozi before the week was out. Maybe even today!

  She was almost running when she reached the car.

  FOURTEEN

  EVGENY ZHIKAREV WAS disturbed. He was a small man with rumpled gray hair and a thick black mustache. He wore steel-rimmed glasses that were perpetually resting near the end of his nose and seemed in acute danger of falling off. He wore this morning a gray shirt with a vest of worn velvet on which arabesques were embroidered in red, gold, and green thread.

  Around the shop he wore slippers. Several times during his earlier years he had undergone torture by the Cheka, and as a result his feet were crippled. He wore shoes only when it was necessary to leave the shop. As his living quarters were in the rear alongside his storeroom, his absences were rare.

  His father had been substantially well off under the Tsar, operating a highly successful fur business in what was then called St. Petersburg. The Revolution had ended all that, and having lost everything in Russia, the elder Zhikarev had fled to Siberia, where a source of his furs was still operating. There, far from the seat of power, the Zhikarevs had carried on. There was always a market for furs in Russia, as there was in Manchuria and China. The Zhikarevs, father and son, had done well, maintaining a low profile in rather shabby quarters, outwardly conforming to all the rules, but operating with a comfortable margin of profit.

  It was understood that officials such as Wulff could always secure furs from him at a modest price; in Wulff’s case this meant fur coats for himself, his wife, and at least two other ladies at no cost at all. Moreover, on occasion fur coats had been made for people Wulff wished to impress, and Wulff himself looked the other way as to some of Zhikarev’s other dealings. He took what was given, made occasional discreet suggestions, and maintained a nice relationship with Zhikarev without saying anything at all.

  Wulff promised nothing, offered nothing. His comments were few but understood. He would simply say, “Comrade Thus-and-such is looking for a fur coat. You know, something very fine. He asked if I could recommend a furrier.” That was the way such matters were handled.

  The shop smelled faintly of the cooking Zhikarev did in his own rooms. It also smelled of fresh leather, in which he also dealt in a modest way.

  The walls of the shop and of the rooms behind it were thick. It was never actually warm, however, as Zhikarev kept the temperature down because of the furs on display. Usually, there were stacks of hides and furs about, single furs or in bales.

  Unknown to Wulff or to anyone else, Evgeny Zhikarev maintained a private account in a Hong Kong bank, a procedure he handled as he did other things, quietly, efficiently, and with skill.

  Evgeny Zhikarev thought of himself as a loyal Russian. He loved his country. He did not love some of its officials. He had survived a revolution, several purges, and a number of inquiries. These last had left him somewhat crippled in body but not in mind.

  For the past dozen years events had moved quietly along, and now he was thinking more and more of retirement. This would mean leaving Russia, but it would also mean freedom from inquiries and a time to relax and read. Somehow he never had found time to read all the books he wished, many of them books difficult to obtain in Russia.

  Lately he had been thinking more and more of an apartment in Hong Kong, in Japan, or even in California. His feet had been hurting more of late, and it worried him. Was it a warning?

  He went back into his shabby living quarters and put cabbage on the chopping board. He would have cabbage soup again. The smell of it was always reassuring to officials, for it had the odor of innocence.

  Ever since opening the new bale of furs he had been disturbed. It was an especially fine collection, especially the blue fox and ermine. Squirrel skins were there in plenty, but those ermine and blue fox skins—

  He added water and dropped cabbage into the pot, adding a few slices of carrot. As he stirred and thought, he was mulling over Wulff’s visit.

  The bale of furs had been there on the table, but Wulff had merely glanced at them. He had come right to the point.

  “Comrade, there is an American at large. He is a Red Indian, and he must be taken. You know more hunters and trappers than anyone. Put the word out. We want him. I want him! I want him, and I want him alive. If we do not find him, there will be soldiers all over the country. There will be rest for nobody until we do find him!

  “If you hear anything, see anything, suspect anything, you are to come to me at once. At once! Do you hear?”

  He paused and said, more gently, “I would not want anything to happen to you. I would not want anybody asking you questions. Do you understand?

  “Find him! Find him at once! Put the word out. The man is an enemy of the Soviet.”

  Wulff had strode out, and Zhikarev had turned to making his cabbage soup, but he was worried. Comrade Wulff rarely spoke so forcefully. He had no need of it. Everyone knew what he could and would do, if necessary.

  Zhikarev brushed a lock of gray hair away from his brow. He peered at the soup. He liked it a little thicker. He hesitated, hearing the outer door open. Turning, he looked toward the front of the shop.

  A young woman was standing there, a very attractive young woman, but one of those sharp ones. He knew their kind. They were quick, crisp, and demanding and almost impossible to please. He wiped his hands on a cloth, put it down, and went toward the front of the shop.

  She was looking at the furs.

  He ran his fingers through the gray hair. She had turned to look at him. He hoped he had spilled nothing on his vest.

  Looking past her out the window, he could see a car standing in the street; a big, strong-looking man stood beside it. That could be trouble.

  “I am Comrade Lebedev. You are Evgeny Zhikarev?”

  “I am.”

  “You have heard of the escaped prisoner? Of the American?”

  He shrugged. “There has been talk, but I
meet so few people. You see, I am busy with the furs—”

  “I know. You do business with trappers?”

  He shrugged again, letting his eyes blink vaguely. “If they have furs to sell. Often it is with someone who has been out in the taiga who buys furs. I don’t see many men who trap. They do not come to the towns.”

  “I work with Colonel Zamatev. We are looking for the American.” She gestured toward the just-opened bale. “Have you just bought these?”

  “Yes. They come from far away.”

  “Who sold them to you?”

  A direct question and hard to evade. He shrugged again. “A trapper, I—”

  “I want his name. His location.” Her eyes were cold. “I want it now!”

  Zhikarev blinked. “He is only an occasional trapper. I do business with so many. This one,” he scowled, shaking his head, “I believe it was Comrade Borowsky.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Zhikarev was wary. This was a very bright young woman, and if Colonel Zamatev was involved—

  “One knows so little. No doubt Comrade Wulff has a dossier on him. There is gossip, of course. One hears he was a soldier who fought bravely against the Germans, but his father was a Jew, and he wished to leave the country. He was sent out here and his family with him. Borowsky was not wanted anywhere, so took to trapping. I do not know if this is true.”

  “Does he come often?”

  “Once, twice a year.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Zhikarev shrugged. “They do not talk, these trappers. They are afraid others will come where they are. I believe,” he lied, “he traps branches of the Sinyaya, north of here. I suspect,” he added, “he sells most of his furs in Yakutsk.”