The Ice Curtain

by Robin White

  Yuri stopped at the door to the maintenance crew’s bunk room. He listened to the snores. They were deep, loud, untroubled. “How many are in there?” he asked the terrified airport manager. “It sounds like a dozen.”

  “Only three,” said Tereshenko. “They’ll give you no trouble. Trust me. It usually takes an explosion to wake them.”

  “We can arrange that, too.” Yuri nodded for Bashir to wait by the door. “Where’s the fuel stored?” he asked Tereshenko.

  “The truck is in the garage. Straight ahead. Through that door.” Tereshenko was trying hard to sound helpful, but he was running out of room. At some point Kirillin would be more of a threat than these terrorists. You helped them? You gave them fuel? Who are you working for, Tereshenko? It was a conversation Tereshenko wanted very much to avoid.

  Mahmet motioned with the AK and said, “Open the door.”

  What was he going to say? No? A Chechen with an assault rifle was very convincing. How was he going to deflect the blame? Who would have expected a plane to land in the middle of the night, in the middle of this bastard of a snow? Chechens, in Mirny? He opened the door, reached in, and switched on the lights.

  The garage was cold, but not bitterly so. A single hot radiator kept the fuel tanker from freezing, but you could still see breath.

  A row of heavy arctic oversuits hung from hooks on the wall. Each had a blazing orange panel sewn on the back, with smaller stripes on each cuff. Designed to allow out-side work in a Mirny winter, they looked like space suits.

  “How much fuel is in the truck?” asked Yuri.

  “It’s always kept full. How far are you going to fly?”

  Yuri jumped up into the cab. “All the way. Let’s go.”

  Tereshenko climbed in after him. He opened an air valve to engage the starter.

  Mahmet opened the outer doors. Snow swept in on the wind. If anything, it was coming down harder.

  Tereshenko reached down to switch on the headlights. As he did, he saw the tiny red eye of the portable radio glow from beneath the dashboard. The radio! He’d been lost at sea in a raging gale. Rocks here, towering waves there. But the radio was his lighthouse. His salvation. His way into a safe, snug harbor. He put the truck into gear and moved out into the storm.

  Mahmet jumped onto the truck as it rumbled by. The wind buffeted them.

  Tereshenko saw the jet. A Yak-40.

  “The fuel point is under the left wing,” said Yuri. He got out and Mahmet eased in to take his place. “Watch him.”

  Tereshenko knew that it took two men to fuel a jet. One at the nozzle, one at the pump control panel. He reached down to find a pair of heavy gloves kept under the seat.

  “What are you doing?” the Chechen demanded.

  “It’s cold.” Tereshenko showed him the gloves, and then pulled them on. There was no more reason to mention the emergency pump cutoff located below the seat than there was to call attention to the radio.

  Yuri pulled the black hose out to the wing. He jogged back quickly, his leather jacket no match for the wind and snow. “Ready!”

  “Someone has to operate the controls at the pump,” Tereshenko told the suspicious Chechen. “Do you know how?”

  Mahmet seemed to be looking at something inside Tereshenko’s head. “Go,” he said. He opened his door.

  Tereshenko put up his hood and trudged back to the rear of the fuel truck. At least he was protected from the wind. Still, snow swirled over the top with enough force to sting exposed skin. He engaged the pump clutch. A red light burned. He closed the switch, then flipped it again. Still red.

  Yuri opened the fuel port and thrust the nozzle up against the seal. His ears were burning with cold. He looked back and saw the red light. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

  Tereshenko pointed at the light.

  Yuri’s fingers were going numb. “What’s the problem?”

  “The emergency cutoff switch. It’s stuck.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the cab.” Tereshenko stood stock still.

  “What are you standing there for?” Yuri was shivering. “Hurry up!”

  “Absolutely,” said Tereshenko. “It will only take a second.” Mahmet watched him closely when he reached his right hand under the driver’s seat for the cutoff switch. A gust filled the air with fine snow. Tereshenko used his left hand for balance, brushed the radio with his glove, and switched it on.

  Nowek slipped off his parka, balled it up and shoved it into the slot, then crawled in after it. The roof pressed down on him. One tiny shift, an inconsequential shrug of the earth, and he would be pinned here until someone mined the fissure and found him. Of course, the cartel had no reason to mine the fissure and flood the market with gems from the Ninth Horizon. It would be Nowek’s grave.

  His chest was hard against the floor. He let his breath out. The rocks dug at his ribs. He no longer felt the buckshot in his arm. He turned his head sideways and pushed, like a baby struggling to be born. He moved, gained ground, pushed the parka ahead. The rocks scraped his cheek. He could feel the wind blow over fresh blood.

  Keep the wind at your back. . . .

  It was odd how Boyko’s voice came to him, how he and Volsky seemed to merge in Nowek’s memory. Nowek had been so sure the pit boss was an enemy. And yet he’d been Volsky’s eyes and ears in Mirny. Two men, two miners. They’d faced death courageously. With dignity, with purpose. Both had died in different ways, different places, by different hands. But behind that hand?

  A million carats leaving for London in the morning . . .

  Somehow, he was going to stop them. Somehow, he would rise from this mine, pass all those scanners, even without an ID card. Somehow he’d live.

  Nowek tried to bring his arm around, but it was stuck. He stopped his brain from racing to obvious conclusions. He slowed his breathing. He couldn’t go back.

  Nowek turned his wrist, flattened his arm, relaxed his shoulders and squeezed a few millimeters of freedom from his aching joints. It was enough to free the arm. He brought it up to his face, then squeezed it ahead. His fingers found his parka, the ruff soft as sable. He pushed it ahead. It moved more easily. He reached for it, and it was gone.

  He strained his fingers out and came to a ridge, an edge.

  Nowek got his hand around it and pulled. He won half a meter and felt like cheering, felt like he’d run a marathon. He pulled again, and his head was free. A kick, and he was through.

  His parka was a heap beside him. Ahead, the fissure narrowed to an impossible vertical crack. It was a dead end. The fissure had closed off. He’d sit here and wait, using his light sparingly, but all the same it would run dry. Then there’d be nothing left but the hope that he’d die before going mad from the dark.

  But it wasn’t dark. Chuchin’s lighter was still in his parka pocket but he could see the walls, even the soft, nebular glow of exposed diamonds. He looked up.

  A golden outline, a soft rectangle of light.

  Nowek stood. His hands were shaking. There was a way out. How far didn’t matter. There was a way. He reached up and pushed the plywood hatch open.

  Golden light flooded down. He tossed his parka through the open hatch, then pulled himself up into the light. He wasn’t out of this mine. For now, being alive was enough. Nowek had been swallowed like Jonah. And like Jonah, he was coming back.

  The raw kerosene gushed out over Yuri’s hands. He tried to release the trigger on the hose, but his fingers refused to cooperate. The jet fuel felt warm on his skin. “Stop it!” he barked at Tereshenko, who was only too happy to comply.

  The gusher ebbed. Yuri was shaking as he carried the nozzle back. He couldn’t close the fuel door. He’d have to get warm first.

  The winds were really picking up, tearing black holes in the clouds. A few cold, hammered stars burned down through the rips.

  He hurried back to the truck, blowing warm breath into his cupped hands. They felt like claws. “I’m going inside. You’re okay watching him a
little longer?”

  “The Kavkass are much colder,” Mahmet said disdainfully.

  “Keep looking on the bright side.” Yuri hurried back into the warm terminal building.

  The hose stowed back in the truck, Tereshenko climbed into the cab with Mahmet behind him. “So,” he said to the Chechen, “you’ve made an illegal visit to Mirny. You’ve taken me prisoner, you’re holding my men. What will you do now?”

  “Drive the truck into the garage. Don’t talk.”

  “It isn’t every day four Chechen terrorists visit us. Me, I’m from Angara. Three years ago I came to—”

  “Is that where you want the body sent?” Mahmet noticed the red light below Tereshenko’s thigh. It was blinking urgently. “What is that?” He reached down and spun up the volume control.

  “. . . the devil is going on out there, Angara Three?”

  Mahmet looked up at Tereshenko, who was properly terrified. “What have you done?”

  Up from the collapsed fissure, through the hatch, down a drift that grew wider, the flow of fresh air stronger, cleaner. There had been five tunnels radiating out from the main chamber of the Ninth Horizon. Nowek had escaped down one and now he was emerging from another. The naked bulbs strung along the roof were almost searingly bright. Ahead, the drift opened onto the main chamber. The growing breeze urged him on. He came to the mouth of the tunnel. The blast curtain was up. He stopped.

  Someone had switched on the lights in the main chamber. He wished they had not. They burned hazy and yellow behind gauzy veils of smoke and dust, dimmed, but plenty bright enough to see Boyko’s body.

  He was facedown in a growing pool of water. His head was turned to one side, away, thank God. One arm was trapped beneath him, the other stretched out. A white bag had been placed between his fingers. Blood swirled black in a milky suspension of powdered ore and melted ice. Nowek couldn’t hear the pumps, but then he couldn’t hear anything.

  Boyko’s hard hat was gone, and with it the two identity cards Nowek had hoped to find. The pit boss had been shot twice. There was one small hole down from the shoulders, left of the spine. Another at the back of his head, behind an ear, surrounded by charred hair plastered to the scalp with blood. A doctor he once knew had a name for it: the gray tattoo. The pattern left when a gun is thrust against skin and fired.

  Nowek couldn’t bear to see Boyko’s face under the dirty water. He gently turned him over.

  Entry wounds are almost always small. Exit wounds are another matter. A fist-size hole in Boyko’s chest exposed a sharp broken rib and lung tissue already gray, already dead. The part of his face that had been underwater simply didn’t exist. Nowek saw something else.

  In the hand he’d kept under him as he fell, Boyko’s gray fingers clutched a plastic identity card.

  He pried Boyko’s fingers away and took it. Slava’s face stared belligerently up from the card. Nowek let the body down softly. The pit boss had turned his back to Kirillin. Insolence? Maybe. It was also possible that Boyko and Volsky were more alike than even he knew. Volsky grabbing that shotgun. Boyko protecting a card Nowek would need to escape. Each one had died trying to save Nowek’s life.

  Nowek opened the diamond pouch. They were smaller than the huge gem in Nowek’s pocket. Ten ice-clear, perfect diamonds. He carefully tucked the giant in with the lesser crystals and thrust the pouch into his pocket.

  A pistol lay on the floor, already underwater. He picked it up, found the safety was off, and thumbed it closed. There were six rounds left. It felt heavy, like cast iron. His fingers left perfect prints in the dust.

  With Slava’s card in one hand and the Makarov in the other, he splashed to the elevator. The water was up to his ankles and rising even as he looked. The blind security camera stared down as Nowek swiped Slava’s ID through the reader.

  A red light burned above the door. There was a soft click. The yellow light came on. The hoist was coming down.

  “To be frank,” said Yuri as he put his feet up on Tereshenko’s desk, “I’m disappointed. I thought we had an understanding. I thought you were part of the team.”

  Tereshenko looked at the radio and shivered. The red light was blinking furiously. Someone was trying to contact him. That would have been good news except that one of the Chechens had a very sharp blade almost, but not quite, pricking the tender skin of his neck. “You don’t know what it is to live here,” he said. “You don’t know Mirny. Everything is watched. Everything is monitored. Please. It’s the diamonds. He’ll . . .”

  “Mahmet?” said Yuri.

  Mahmet barely twitched, and a thin stream of blood ran down Tereshenko’s collar.

  The airport manager screamed.

  “Quiet,” said Yuri. “You should be glad it’s Mahmet. My other business partner is a professional. Mahmet might accidentally kill you, but Plet would make you wish you were dead. So who’s monitoring that radio?”

  “This is Mirny. You can’t fart without Kirillin knowing.”

  “Kirillin?”

  “The mine director. He’s going to find you one way or another, and the sooner you leave, the better.”

  “I agree,” said Yuri. He looked at Mahmet. “So?”

  The Chechen said, “I have seen no diamonds.”

  “They’re not scattered on the street like plums!” Tereshenko shouted.

  Yuri thought, then said, “Mahmet, give him the radio.”

  “Please!” Tereshenko pleaded. “You’re in enough trouble. . . .”

  The blade dug in another millimeter. Tereshenko went white.

  “Now listen,” said Yuri. “You’re going to say you had too much to drink, that you and your boys were playing games, and everyone here is very, very sorry. You won’t even have to pretend.”

  Mahmet held up the portable radio. He dialed up the volume.

  “. . . airport? Angara Three, come in. This is Pine Tree.”

  Tereshenko’s hands shook. Say one thing and Kirillin would call him a hero, though he’d be a dead one. Say another and this madman would let him live long enough to face Kirillin. Tereshenko had two options. Two ways to die. One tonight. The other tomorrow. And so he made the natural choice.

  “Angara Three. Listening.”

  “This is Pine Tree. What’s going on out there?”

  Pine Tree was militia headquarters. “Nothing. The maintenance men had a little drink. Everything is normal.”

  “You’d better tell them to be more careful. I was just about to send word that someone was playing with the radio out at the airport. You know what that would mean.”

  He did. “They won’t step on the same rake twice.”

  “Well, just watch it. Pine Tree out.” The red light went dark.

  Yuri clapped his hands. “Very good.”

  “What do you want done with him?” asked Mahmet.

  “He can wait in the garage with his sleepy friends. Have Anzor guard them. Bashir can run a snowplow?”

  “Without doubt.”

  “Have him clear the runway. Nobody gets near the jet. I want to be ready to go at the jump of a flea. You’ll be coming with me.” He looked at Tereshenko. “About that car we discussed?”

  Tereshenko stumbled on his words. “A militia jeep. It’s parked by the entrance. The keys are in the desk. The top drawer.”

  Yuri pulled them out. “We’re meeting an official from Moscow who is visiting your lovely town. Where might we find him?”

  “There’s just one hotel. The Zarnitsa. In the main square. Across from company headquarters. The road outside goes straight there. Don’t turn off to the pit or the mine. They’re guarded.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation. Just so you understand, if we don’t return in a few hours, Bashir and Anzor will be very upset. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us before we go?”

  “The company building is guarded. The hotel is not.”

  Yuri got up and walked to the window. He said to Mahmet, “Those arctic suits in the garage? We’ll borrow them
. It’s getting cold. If we don’t come back in—”

  “Wait!” Tereshenko shouted. He reached into his pocket.

  Mahmet was faster. The Chechen plucked a wallet from the manager’s fingers and tossed it to Yuri.

  “There’s a card inside,” said Tereshenko. “There are magnetic readers all over Mirny. An alarm goes off if you don’t have it.”

  “Thank you.” Yuri slipped the card from Tereshenko’s wallet. “And allow me to say, welcome back to the team.”

  Chapter 27

  The Soldier’s Story

  The mine elevator was already through the Seventh Horizon. Rising, Nowek thought about A Soldier’s Story, a folktale about a Russian soldier who trades his violin, his Russian soul, to the Devil for a book of knowledge.

  The Devil takes him home for three days to explain a few details. But when the soldier returns home, it’s been three years, not three days, and he’s long been given up for dead. Now in his own house, in his own country, and soon in his own mind, he’s just a ghost.

  Nowek looked at his watch. The crystal was shattered. It had stopped the instant of the explosion: four forty-eight. Nowek had visited the Devil’s garden for only three hours, not three days. But time already felt elastic, stretched out of shape.

  Had he only arrived this morning in Mirny? Was it just yesterday that he found that dog skinner dead in a jet of live steam? Had only four days passed since Volsky was standing in a shower, telling him that things were looking up?

  The Fifth Horizon flashed by as a line of flickering, smoky lights. The air reeked of explosives and dust. Nowek’s ears still felt plugged by thick wool. When he tried to clear one with a finger, it came back bloody.

  The Fourth Horizon. The air was getting cold again. The rock outside the elevator wasn’t rock, but Siberia’s eternal ice. It made him think of Galena and her diamond earrings. The thought that he might never see her again was more painful than the pellets lodged in his arm.

  A shudder, a pressure wave pulsed through the elevator. It was like the quick, violent gust that precedes an express train barreling through a station. Nowek could feel it. Wham! Then gone. The car swayed against its guides, then continued up.