He was deep in the forest, walking on damp leaves among the birch trees and the larch, when he saw her.
She was standing in a natural aisle among the birch and the larch. Her hood was thrown back, and a vagrant shaft of sunlight touched her blond hair. She was, he realized, a beautiful woman. Not that it mattered to him. The days were passing into weeks, and soon he would be leaving.
She came down through the forest to meet him and paused a few feet away. “You have not been to see us.”
“I built up your fire, and I left meat.”
“Thank you. We found the meat and knew it was you.” She paused. “We were not gone long.” She hesitated again. “There was a meeting.”
He waited, saying nothing. Somewhere, something stirred among the dead leaves.
“The meeting was about you. Peshkov wants you to leave. So does Rusinov. They are important men among us. My father spoke for you, and so did Yakov.
” ‘Where would he go?’ Yakov asked. It is the dead of winter. ‘
” ‘No matter,’ Peshkov argued. ‘He is a danger to us all.’
” ‘And we all eat meat he has killed,’ my father said.”
“I shall go soon.”
“Where will you go? Where can you go?”
“Where I was when I came to you. I shall go back to the forest.”
A wind rustled the leaves, a cold, cold wind. “My father says you may stay. It is not Peshkov who speaks for us.” A last golden leaf from an aspen fell and lodged in her hair. Joe Mack looked away. She was a woman, this one.
“How are they here? Do they keep hunting even in the cold?”
She shrugged. “Usually, no. For you, maybe. This is Zamatev this time, and it is Alekhin. This has not happened before. I think there will be some hunting but not much. Men could die out there.” She paused, considering it. “I think they will go to a few places. They will try to eliminate, to locate you. Then when spring comes, they will move.”
She paused. “There was a woman in Aldan. It was she who was directing. I do not know her.”
“A woman? What sort of woman?”
“Very attractive, someone said, but we do not know.” She looked at him. “We have ways … I mean, sometimes we can find out such things. This woman was in Aldan where the furs were sold. The man with her we know. His name is Stegman. We know him. He is KGB, or he was. He has been assigned to Colonel Zamatev, so the woman no doubt works with him, too. They were using a helicopter.”
He remembered the helicopter that had flown over him. The same one? It could be. Whoever was flying it had stopped to investigate that old building.
“At your meeting, what was decided?”
“You may stay, for the time being. Your meat has won you friends. It is very hard here in winter. In the warm times we can all get out and look for food. We plant. We gather in the forest. We do not do badly. In the winter it is very bad sometimes, and you brought us meat.”
They walked down the dim path together. There were many deadfalls, often crisscrossed, black with damp. It was treacherous walking. His eyes were busy, watching, seeking. There were few animals in the thick forest. Usually they were found closer to the streams or near clearings or open meadows. The forest was dense and, even at midday, shadowed and dim. But the days were even shorter now, the nights long and bitterly cold.
“You must talk to Yakov. His mother was from the Tungus people. They are keepers of reindeer, great travelers and hunters. They still live much as they wish, and there are many of them northeast of here. You might meet them.”
They walked on without talking. Stepping over a deadfall, her foot came down on another and slipped. She caught his arm and was astonished. “You are strong!”
“Where I lived there was much hard work, and then at school — do you know the decathlon? It requires all-around athletic skill. In college I won several meets, but lost out in the Olympic trials. I just wasn’t good enough.”
“Botev will go to Yakutsk soon. He will take furs.”
“I shall have some. Is it not far?”
“We cannot go always to the same place, and Stegman and that woman were seen in Aldan, visiting the place there. It is a danger to return now.”
“He will go alone?”
“No. Someone will go with him. They may not have to go all the way. Sometimes they meet with other trappers and trade their furs. We get less for them, but the risk is less, too.”
They lingered, neither wishing to end the moment. A cold wind moaned in the larch and spruce. “Come to see us, Joe Mack. I want you to tell me of the cities and the women.” She looked up at him. “I have been nowhere since I was a child. We hear so little here. Sometimes, on the Voice of America — “
Surprised, he asked, “You hear it here?”
“When we have batteries. There is no power. Yakov has been working on a waterwheel he hopes will generate power for us but it is far from complete.”
“I am the wrong person to tell you of the cities.” His eyes met hers and he shrugged. “I did not get around very much. Some of my people there drink too much, and I never wished to chance it.”
She laughed, but without humor. “It is a problem here, too. We hear of efforts to convince people to drink less, but so far they have not succeeded.”
“I know very little of Russia.”
“My father says it has not changed. Russia now is the same as under the Tsars. As a nation, Russians have always been suspicious of outsiders. They have always lived outside the community of nations. What is happening now in Afghanistan began long ago. Read Kipling’s ‘Kim’ again and especially some of his short stories. Nor have they ever permitted free travel in their country or allowed their people to travel freely outside of Russia. Balzac had to meet his Polish mistress in Switzerland, as travel to France was not permitted for long periods.”
“It is a pity. I have seen much beauty here, and I have seen little.”
“The Kamchatka Peninsula is magnificent. There are volcanoes, snow-covered peaks, waterfalls, and splendid forests. If it was possible, I think your people would come to see it. You are great travelers, I know.”
She shivered. “It grows colder. We shall have a bad winter, I believe.”
“They have not bothered you here?”
She shrugged. “We are far out of the way, and we do nothing to attract attention to ourselves. Wulff knows we exist, but our furs enrich him. Nevertheless, if we caused trouble he would have us all in prison or shot” She paused. “I think he only knows we exist, but does not know where and does not wish to know. Nor does he know who is here or how many.
“You see,” she looked up at him again, “we are far from anywhere. No one travels this way. Someday — “
They walked on. “Is it true that everybody in America has an automobile?”
“Some families have two or three. A car is not considered a luxury, but a necessity. Many people drive many miles to work, and someone who does not drive a car or own one is a curiosity.”
“And you?”
“I could fly a plane before I drove a car, and I would still rather fly. In the mountains where I grew up, there were no roads. Not close by, at least. My grandfather and my father did not want them, nor did they want visitors. When I left the mountains to go to school I lived with some Scottish relatives and rode in a car for the first time.”
“Do Indians have cars?”
He chuckled. “The pickup has replaced the pony. I think every Indian has one, or if he does not own a pickup he soon will.”
They paused again. “The way of life changes very rapidly in America. When cars became available, Americans began to travel even more, and at first there were tourist parks where they could stop at night and camp. Usually there was one building where there were showers and a place to cook. Then there were tourist courts where you could rent a room with a carport attached. That gave way to the motel, and now the motels are passing. Too many Americans are flying now, rather than driving. It used to
be that there were filling stations on every corner and almost as many motels. Each year now there are fewer. I believe that soon there will be vast stretches in America where nobody travels but local people. It is faster to go by air.”
“But you have railroads!”
“Of course, and for something less than one hundred years they were very important. They grow less so year by year. “
Joe Mack did not go further. There was a restlessness in him that he felt was a warning. They parted there at the edge of the cluster of shelters, and she walked away without looking back. For a long moment he stood looking after her.
It was a grim life that faced her, a truly beautiful young woman condemned to live her life out in a forest, making do in a crude shelter, always in fear of discovery and what might follow. He had never been given to parties or even the essential affairs an officer was called upon to attend. He had gone, and he had known the effect he created, but he was happiest when far out in the woods or when flying alone and high in the sky. Yet thinking of Natalya he could see her in an evening gown at some of the balls or dinners he had attended. She was made for that world, not this.
He paused again when well back into the birch forest and looked carefully around. He must not be followed. And he must prepare, now, for an escape. Above all he must not settle down to a day-by-day existence here. True, this was the best sort of place he could find to ride out the winter, but he must be prepared to move, and quickly, at any time.
The search was on, and it would be a relentless search, Remembering Alekhin, he knew the man would be ruthless as well as persevering. And somewhere down the chain of days they would meet. Somewhere, somehow, he knew it would happen.
Man to man, face to face, and death for one or both.
Remembering Alekhin’s cold, heavy-lidded eyes, he felt a chill.
Chapter 17
Colonel Arkady Zamatev was coldly furious. He was also frightened.
He had spent the evening at a gathering in the apartments of Comrade Shepilov, where he had been almost immediately surrounded by questioners wanting to know about the American who had escaped.
Who was he? What exactly had happened? Where was he now? There were people present who were important. Trust Shepilov to be sure of that. There were also people who would go away wondering and asking questions of each other. The hitherto solid tower he had built was showing signs of wear and tear.
There was but one answer. He must recapture the American without delay. But had he not been trying to do just that? Had he not alerted everyone? Had he not tried everything he could think of? And not a single lead.
Well, not many. There was, of course, Alekhin’s feeling and the indications he, Alekhin, believed in.
Zamatev sat down behind his desk and page by page went over the reports he had received from the field.
Negative.
The man had vanished like a ghost. In a vast, only partly explored land, without weapons, without food, without proper clothing, he had disappeared. The man could not speak Russian. He could not possibly know the country well enough to exist. Aside from the one insubstantial story Alekhin had, there were no reports of thefts; yet somehow if alive, the man had to be eating.
Pennington had been brought back and grilled. He had been treated roughly, yet he obviously knew nothing. It was apparent that Pennington was telling the truth. After all, they had had no time together, and their conversation, carefully overheard, had been an exchange of the most obvious kind. As Pennington said, the man would not and could not trust him. Their informant in the prison knew nothing, either.
Zamatev made tea. He liked it strong, and on this night he needed it.
Once more he got out the map and studied it. First, the large map of the Trans-Baikal and the lands to the east. That portion of Siberia east of Lake Baikal, lying between the Amur River border with China and the Arctic Ocean, was a huge piece of territory. He merely glanced at the thick finger of land pointing eastward toward the Bering Strait and Alaska. That was impossible, absolutely impossible. Mountains, rivers, and tundra. Few villages, few people, many small mountain ranges, swamps, and bitter cold.
South toward the Amur; that has to be it. Perhaps eastward, south of Magadan?
He was studying the map when he heard the tap on the door. For a moment he sat starkly still.
The KGB? They usually came in the night. But he, Zamatev, was the KGB, or at least he was the GRU, which was almost the same thing.
The knock came again. Too light for that. He walked to the door. “Who is there?” he demanded.
“Kyra.”
He opened the door. “Come in! Come in! How are you?” His kiss was brief. Her lips were cold from the night air.
There was no nonsense about her. She walked right to his desk. She placed a typewritten report on the map, “It is there, what I have learned, but let me tell you. I think I have a lead.”
He sat down and leaned back in the chair. “Tell me.”
“We covered a lot of area and we found nothing, nothing at all. We asked questions, we looked at reports. Nothing.”
“In Aldan, however, there is a dealer in furs. A man named Evgeny Zhikarev.”
“I know the name.”
“Exactly. Stegman had questioned him once.”
“What about him?”
“A dealer in furs, as I said, and a small bale of furs had just been received. Obviously he was nervous, and it had something to do with the furs. I went through them, and I know something of pelts. Some of them were very fine skins, and the best of them were treated in a different way from the bulk. Most of the furs were crudely handled, but a number of them showed the skilled hand of a man who both knew about furs and cared about them.
“Zhikarev had obviously noticed it, too, but he disclaimed any knowledge of the man who had done it. I believe him.”
“You believe him?”
“Yes. The furs come from the forest and are obviously taken and treated by several different trappers. There is no way he could know them all, and this one was new.”
“You know that?”
“He swears it and I believe him, I went through many of the furs he has for sale or trade. None of them were handled in the same way.”
She took off her fur hat and shook out her hair. “Comrade Wulff wears a beautiful fur coat, and so does his wife, whom I happened to see. That’s not unexpected in a section where furs are so common, but I have an idea that the comrade is doing very well by himself. I believe the traders favor him somewhat and that he favors them.”
“So?”
“You and I know that happens, and Wulff seems very happy with his position.”
“It is a good one, and he has friends.” His eyes yielded nothing. “Some of his friends in the higher commands have fine fur coats, too. It is not unusual.”
“I do not criticize. I only comment. One comment would be that Wulff knows a good deal about the furs and their origin. No doubt he could provide information if he wished.”
“Ah?”
Zamatev was thinking about it. That Wulff was being given furs he did not doubt. That he might overlook a few things as a result was also probable. That he would in any way betray his government Zamatev did not believe. If Wulff knew where the American was, he would arrest him or at least report him. Hence, he did not know. But was he, perhaps, negligent? Did he know of a place where the American might be? Wulff had once been a very good man. He had covered a lot of wild country long ago. Now he was an administrator and content to be so.
“You spoke to him?”
“He was cooperative. He went back to the house of Zhikarev with me, but Zhikarev was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Not at home.”
“You went inside?”
“We did. Everything looked much the same, except that the bale of furs had been unpacked and placed with other furs of their kind. There were no signs of hurried packing. It looked like he had just stepped out.”
“Bu
t you do not believe it?”
“I do not. I think Stegman frightened him. I think he is gone. I may be wrong, but I do not believe he will come back. Or, let us say, I do not think he planned to come back.”
“But he may?”
“As a precaution I suggested to their commanding officer that the border guards be replaced for a few days. That the guards be given some leave and others put in their places.” She smiled. “Just in the event that Zhikarev had made some friends along the border.”
“Good! Very, very good! A friend of Zhikarev might also befriend a friend of his. You ordered the arrest of Zhikarev?”
“I did.”
Zamatev walked to the window and looked out. The little car was farther down the street tonight. He gave it a glance only. This was a lead, although a slim one, scarcely more than that found by Alekhin.
If the American was an Indian he must also be a trapper. Were they not all hunters and trappers? If so, he might be catching fur to raise money he would need and to pay his way now. In any event, he could not afford to ignore any lead.
“You are tired.”
“Not too tired.”
He smiled. “Go home and get some rest. It will be busy around here tonight.”
“We know nothing,” she warned. “It is only the furs.”
“And the man Zhikarev, who disappeared. It is only the guilty who flee.”
“It is sometimes as dangerous to be merely suspect,” she said. “Zhikarev had been questioned before, by Stegman.”
“And others.”
He paused, thinking about it. “We must find him, but Wulff may know something. He is one who always knows more than he says and uses it for his own benefit. This time he will use it for mine.”
“Be careful of him. He has friends.”
He got out his maps after she had gone and studied them. Kyra and Stegman had gone to the Sinyaya and found nothing, and so they might be anywhere. They had sold their furs in Aldan.
Because it was nearby? Or because they knew a buyer who would ask no questions? Of course, for the profit that could be made, there might be many such. But supposing they were near Aldan? He drew a mental circle around the area and began studying the streams. It was wild country once one got away from the city itself. The Sinyaya was far from Aldan. It was not even close. It was closer to Yakutsk.
Last Of the Breed (1986) Page 13
