by David Bishop
Flintlock held up two unused doses of purge juice. "Take them, please."
"My pleasure." The proud poisoner slotted both pellets into his sidearm, while keeping an eye on the gulag's perimeter. "Hmm, I think it's time we were moving on. Looks like our friends have got company."
Flintlock saw another dozen sentries approaching, hidden behind riot shields. "As Dante often says, discretion is the better part of valour, Spatch." The blond-haired Briton took to his heels.
"Like you'd know anything about valour," Spatchcock muttered.
Josef Shitov strode into the last of the workers' barracks. Most of the prisoners had been in the re-education hall when the attack began, undergoing their nightly indoctrination and loyalty-building session. A handful of inmates were excused attendance at these sessions, due to ill health or death - no other reasons were considered acceptable. As a consequence, searching the camp proved straightforward, yet none of the guards had found any evidence of an intruder within the perimeter.
Shitov snapped his fingers, summoning forward the guard assigned to this particular hut. "Kirilenko! How many workers from this barrack were not attending tonight's re-education?"
The heavy-set, slow-spoken sentry saluted briskly before replying. "Just one, Comrade Di Grizov."
"Ah, our most recent arrival. And where is he now?"
Kirilenko looked around helplessly. "I... I do not know, commander."
"Comrade Di Grizov has no legs, is that not true?"
"That is true, commander."
"Then how do you suggest he might have escaped from this building?"
"He has a trolley with wheels, commander. He probably used that."
Shitov turned his head to sneer at the guard. "He probably used a trolley with wheels to cross a compound buried in snow? Was this a magic trolley, Kirilenko? Did it possess the power to levitate, perhaps?"
"No, commander!"
"No, commander," Shitov echoed mockingly. "More to the point, this helpless cripple did not even take his wheels with him!" The commander gestured at the discarded trolley. "Perhaps he has magic of his own. Can Comrade Di Grizov perform magic, Kirilenko?"
"I do not believe so, commander," the sentry replied, his voice trembling.
"Dolt!" Shitov lashed out, his clenched fist smashing into Kirilenko's solar plexus, crumpling the guard as if he were tissue paper. "Search the compound! Find Di Grizov - and find whoever is helping him! Now!"
"You always had a taste for the low life, Nikolai, but this may be going too far. Even for you," Di Grizov said wryly. The two men were crouched inside the gulag's latrine block, hidden behind a row of wooden seats. Icicles of frozen urine hung from the rims. "I'd like to die with some shred of dignity, please?"
"We're not dead yet," Dante replied. "You were telling me about what Fabergè is doing on his private island."
"Secret experiments, fully authorised and funded by the Tsar. I was used as a guinea pig for some of the tests. I heard enough about what Fabergè was planning to scare the hell out of me. He's developing a new weapon, something that will strengthen tenfold the Tsar's stranglehold on the Empire. It's due to be put into effect on Easter Sunday, with the Tsar there to witness it. The Strangelove Gambit: that's what Fabergè is calling his new weapon."
"How many people know about it, Jim?"
"A handful on the island, plus the Tsar and his closest advisors. Beyond that, nobody else, I think. Apparently it's going to be a surprise worthy of the original Fabergè eggs."
Dante shook his head. "So how did the woman claiming to be your niece know of the Strangelove Gambit?"
"Smells like a trap," Di Grizov surmised, "and that's saying something in this block." He studied Dante's expression. "I know that look, Nikolai. You're thinking of taking on Doctor Fabergè."
"Maybe."
"Don't. He spent a dozen years hunting me down because I stole that egg from him. He knows you were my partner at the Casino Royale. If he ever gets his hands on you, I suggest that you commit suicide while you still can." Di Grizov looked down at his ruined hands and the stumps where his legs used to be. "Don't end up like me, Nikolai."
"I won't, I promise you that. I'll make Fabergè will pay for what he did."
Dante - I'm detecting a large group of guards closing in on this location, the Crest said. Now would be a good time to leave.
"We may have to shoot our way out of here," Dante murmured. He adjusted the rifle slung over his shoulder, then picked up Di Grizov again.
"Since when do you carry a gun?"
"It was a gift. Besides, this is a very special gun." Dante moved to the end of the latrine block and peered through a frost-coated window. "They're almost upon us. I wonder how they knew we were in here?"
Your tracks in the snow. Carrying Di Grizov made you heavier, so you left a clear set of footprints leading right to this building.
Dante looked around the sparse wooden hut. "I'm guessing there's no secret tunnels or hidden trapdoors in this place, right?"
His old mentor smiled weakly. "Sorry."
Commander Shitov kicked in the door of the latrine block, his pistol raised and ready to fire. "Normally I have to wait weeks, even months for fresh workers. You are the first to ever report here voluntarily. Tell me your name before I have my men induct you to the Murmansk Gulag."
"Dante - Nikolai Dante."
Shitov's face could not help betraying his surprise. "The Nikolai Dante?"
"In the flesh."
"How wonderful," the commander replied, firing his pistol.
Dante felt something spraying him with liquid, a scarlet aerosol staining the white of his cloak. The body in his arms jerked once, then lay still. "Jim? Jim, are you alright?" He watched the light leave Di Grizov's eyes, the wound caused by Shitov's bullet all too evident. Dante slowly dropped to one knee and laid the body on the floor. "What's your name, commander?"
"Shitov, Josef Shitov." The gulag's ruler sneered at Dante, his pistol aimed at the intruder's head, ready to fire again. "Why do you ask?"
"I want to know whose grave to piss on after they bury what's left of you." Dante reached forward and closed Di Grizov's eyes, resting his hands on the dead man's face. Purple and silver ripples began running along the veins of his arms, hurrying towards the fingertips.
"You're in no position to make threats, fugitive. True, the reward for your delivery to the Tsar while still alive is considerable, but I think it'll be safer if I gun you down in here like a dog and then deliver your corpse instead."
Dante's fingers began to lengthen, biocircuitry extruding itself from his hands, shooting forwards in the shape of blades. "You're welcome to try; but better men than you have failed, commander. What makes you think you'll do any better?"
"Because I have you right where I-" Shitov's words died in his throat, cut short by the bio-blades slicing through his windpipe. Dante flicked his hands in opposite directions, neatly severing the commander's head. It fell to the floor with a dull thud, bouncing once on the wooden boards.
Dante, there are still more than thirty armed guards outside. You'll never make it past them all unscathed, the Crest warned.
"I never said I was going to leave them unscathed," Dante snarled. He retracted the biocircuitry into his hands and slung the rifle from his back while walking towards the door. A grim smile crossed his face. Dante kicked Shitov's head out into the snow. "My name is Nikolai Dante and I am the most wanted man in the Empire!" he shouted to the surrounding guards. "I have just murdered your commander. Anyone who doesn't wish to join him in the next life, you have one minute to leave this place!"
A unique strategy, the Crest commented. I can't think of many cases where a single man in a hopeless position surrounded by dozens of enemies has negotiated the surrender of his adversary.
"Call it the Dante Manoeuvre. I'm inventing it today."
Let's hope you stay alive long enough to make it work.
Dante peered out the doorway. The guards were still trying to reach
a decision. "Perhaps you need some persuading," Dante yelled. "Let me introduce you to the Huntsman 5000, a rifle designed by the same people who created the Romanov Weapons Crest. This rifle makes its own ammunition and replenishes automatically, so never needs loading. When targeted and fired, the rounds instantaneously adapt into the most effective means of terminating the enemy - whoever or whatever they may be. That probably sounds more like magic than a real weapon to you. But I can assure you it does everything I have just described."
"Prove it!" one of the sentries shouted back.
"I thought you'd never ask." Dante stuck the rifle around the door and began pulling the trigger. A fusillade of bullets flew out, shredding the bodies of those closest to the latrine block. Dante stopped firing, letting the sound of shooting fade in the air, leaving just the whimpers of pain and agony from those still alive. "Any questions?"
Spatchcock and Flintlock were waiting beside their flyer when Dante emerged from the forest, carrying a heavy bundle wrapped in his white cloak. Blood was seeping through the material, but Dante himself appeared unharmed. "We heard shooting," Spatchcock ventured. "You alright?"
"I'm not physically harmed, if that's what you mean." Dante lowered the body to the snow-covered ground. "I thought I saw a laser cutter in the flyer. Flintlock, can you check? I'll need it to dig a grave in this frozen soil."
Spatchcock grimaced. "Your friend didn't make it."
"No. I couldn't leave him in that place, he deserved better."
"And the other prisoners?"
"I told them they were free. It's up to them what they choose to do next. One thing the war taught me well - we can't save everyone, not all the time."
"What about the guards?"
"Most saw sense. As for the others... they'll never see anything again." Dante sighed, looking down at his bloody hands. "Once we've buried Jim, we've another visit to make."
"Where to next?" Flintlock said as he emerged from the flyer, clutching the laser cutter. Dante took it and began marking out a grave in the snow.
"The Black Sea, to see an old acquaintance."
"If you don't mind my saying so, this visit with one friend didn't go very well," Flintlock ventured. "Why risk another?"
Dante tossed the cutter back to him. "Doctor Karl Fabergè is no friend of mine. We have an old score to settle." He looked down at Di Grizov's corpse. "And a new one as well."
FIVE
"Fear never stormed a citadel"
- Russian proverb
Five days after burying his mentor, Dante sat looking out across the Black Sea. The journey from Murmansk in the north had been long and arduous, thanks to the necessity of avoiding contact with the many Raven Corps checkpoints. Dante and his travelling companions had skirted the edge of St Petersburg, jagged sideways to Kirov and criss-crossed the Volga several times to make sure they were not being followed. Finally they chose a vantage point for watching Fabergè Island and settled down to wait.
Dante had visited this region once before, while staying at the Hotel Yalta, but twenty-seven straight days of partying, drinking and debauchery had left little time for sightseeing. Now, sat on a high cliff overlooking the Black Sea's glittering waters, Dante could understand why so many of the noble dynasties retained palatial mansions along this coastline. You could watch the sea for hours without getting bored; it also supported hundreds of fishermen alongside swarms of tourists.
But the waters around Fabergè Island were different. Dante had been watching the isle and its environs for hours yet seen almost no activity. No birds flew within a mile of the small rocky outcrop that rose from the water like a fist. Fishing vessels took a wide berth around the island, careful not to steer close to its vicinity. Even the shimmering schools of fish that sometimes broke the water's surface elsewhere avoided Fabergè's private residence, as if afraid of what lurked there.
Two people approaching, the Crest warned, one from the north, the other from the south - a pincer movement.
"I hear them," Dante murmured. Bio-blades extended from his hands, forming themselves into the shape of long swords. Dante rolled over backwards and sprang nimbly to his feet, ready for combat. Spatchcock and Flintlock stumbled out of the undergrowth from opposite directions to find razor-sharp blades at their throats.
"I say!" Flintlock protested. "Must you always do that whenever I arrive unannounced? It's dashed disconcerting."
Dante retracted his blades and went back to studying his target. Fabergè Island was some three miles offshore, beyond the range of all but the best swimmers and far enough from land to make any approaching craft obvious. "Well Spatch, what have the locals got to say about the good doctor?"
The foul-smelling forger sat beside Dante and consulted a handful of notes scrawled across the back of his left hand. "Nobody likes Fabergè much, or his staff. All provisions are flown in from outside the region. The island is home to some sort of educational institute but nobody living round here has been allowed to enrol. Apparently the fees for students are astronomical, without exception. The island has its own shuttle that makes one return trip a day to the mainland, collecting supplies, dropping off students, that sort of thing. Security is tighter than a gnat's ass. Nobody gets on or off that rock without Fabergè's express permission." Spatchcock stared out to sea. "It'll be a challenge, that's for sure."
Dante turned to his other partner in crime. "What about the island itself?"
Flintlock shrugged off his jacket. "Apparently the waters around it are empty. No marine life, no nesting birds and no ships. I listened to some of the local fishermen moaning in a tavern by the docks. It could have been the ale talking, but they believe that sea monsters and terrible creatures from the deep surround the island. Nobody I approached was willing to take a boat within a mile of Fabergè Island. You could offer them all the money in the world but I doubt they'd accept it. Everyone is scared of the doctor, and more scared of what happens on that island."
"I am becoming more and more curious," Dante murmured. "Crest, what has your analysis found? Can we launch a covert mission to the island?"
Not a successful one. Fabergè has a state of the art security system built into the rock - motion sensors, laser defence grids, mines set into the grounds outside the castle walls. It's a fortress. The only safe place outside the castle's walls is the landing pad. There's a narrow walkway between the two that is made safe when the daily shuttle leaves and arrives, but that's it.
Dante nodded grimly. He noticed the quizzical expressions on his companions' faces. "Sorry, sometimes I forget you can't hear the Crest talking. It confirms what we already suspected - the only way on or off that island is via the daily shuttle. If we want to pay Fabergè a visit, we have to do it on his terms." In the distance a bulky black and silver shape was rising above the stone turrets of the castle. "Here comes the shuttle now, right on time."
The trio watched as the only viable link to their target swooped over to the mainland, landing neatly on a flattened area below their own vantage point. A dozen locals were carrying heavy crates towards it from a nearby village. The shuttle door opened and a tall figure in a hooded cloak emerged, barking orders. Within moments the supplies were being swiftly loaded into one of the shuttle's compartments. Once their task for the day was completed, the locals retreated to the safety of nearby homes, muttering darkly amongst themselves. But the shuttle remained on the landing pad for several minutes.
"That's unusual," Dante noted. "Normally it doesn't stay a moment longer than necessary. The shuttle must be waiting for something or someone."
After remaining for another four minutes the cloaked figure climbed back into the shuttle and it rose swiftly into the air. The return journey to the island was quickly completed. "Well, whoever or whatever it was, they missed today's flight," Flintlock observed.
"There!" Spatchcock jabbed a grubby finger at the pathway to the landing pad. A lone male figure was hurrying up the track, burdened by kit bags and military paraphernalia. Bushy brown
hair framed his scowling features, a clipped military moustache prominent above the mouth. He reached the landing pad and dumped his gear, before cursing at the island in the distance.
"He'll have to wait until tomorrow - they won't send the shuttle back to collect him," Flintlock said with satisfaction. "Nothing like savouring the misfortune of others to make you feel better about yourself."
"Perhaps," Dante pondered. "But his misfortune also offers an opportunity. I think we should offer our condolences to the hapless traveller. I may have crossed swords with his kind before."
Captain Grigori Arbatov was furious. When he had been offered the job with the Fabergè Institute, one thing was stressed to him - there was only one way on or off the island. Miss the daily shuttle and he could expect to spend a cold night outside waiting for it to return the next day. Madame Wartski described the mainland's local residents as a surly lot who would offer little in the way of comfort or aide.
In fact, it was the locals who had conspired to make him late. Most of the road signs leading to the landing pad were defaced to the point of illegibility. When he asked a farmer for directions, they sent him the long way round the village. Arbatov had seen the shuttle preparing to leave the landing pad, but simply could not reach it in time, weighed down by all his luggage and equipment. Now he was stuck in a hostile environment with little prospect of finding a bed for the night. Hardly the best first impression to make on his new employer. Arbatov snarled another curse, not bothering to keep it under his breath. He was furious and he didn't care who knew about it.
"My, my, captain! What would your commanding officer say if he heard such language?" A sneering voice caught Arbatov's attention. A trio of men was approaching, climbing down the hillside towards him. They reached the scorched surface of the landing pad and moved to surround him, one taking a position on either side while the last remained facing the captain. He must be the leader, judging from his cocky arrogance.
