Kolymsky Heights

by Lionel Davidson

  That left the sprawling sheds and stores of the Transport Company above; and the militia chief thought this was the most likely. By some means or other he had got himself there. Plenty of booze crated in the place, and food. He was familiar with it and he was resting up there, deciding what to do. He couldn’t escape, and there was nowhere to go if he did. But you could look a long time before finding him there; and this was a problem for the chief who did not have a long time. He was being driven mad by urgent calls and faxes from Irkutsk.

  Irkutsk was 3400 kilometres away and it was a big town; they didn’t understand there how it was possible to lose someone in a little settlement of 10,000 people stuck out in the taiga. In particular, they didn’t understand the nature of the people here. Oddballs, many of them, running away from something; but not bad. There was no crime here, no theft or fraud. Everybody knew each other. The jail was for drunks, fighting mad at night but best of friends in the morning.

  This particular individual had been the best of friends with everybody. No one had a bad word to say of him; only that he could be touchy, if picked on as a Chukchee. Well, here he’d been picked on, for having funny papers. Knew someone had told on him. Plenty of people here had funny papers; the militia chief knew that. But this one had gone broody. A broody native hid himself. With a bottle. Obvious. He was holed up, would come out when it suited him. Explain that to Irkutsk!

  He had tried to explain it, on the telephone, and had been asked to put the details more concisely in a fax.

  This he had done, setting the matter out with clarity and authority. It annoyed him that his competence seemed somehow to be under question at Irkutsk.

  The person concerned, he dictated, had almost certainly smuggled himself in a vehicle into the premises of the Tchersky Transport Company. The premises covered a vast area, stacked with hundreds of thousands of crates, many containing alcohol and canned food. The person was a native person, brooding on a slight. To find him in this maze was a matter of time. But in his own good time he would come out anyway. This was the way of natives. There was nowhere for him to go, and the situation was under control.

  The chief signed his memo and faxed it off, and ten minutes later got one back. He got a series of questions back.

  If the wanted person had smuggled himself in, Irkutsk said, why couldn’t he have smuggled himself out? Of the premises of the Tchersky transport Company? What routes were taken by vehicles of the company? How many of them had left since 4 p.m. on Friday? What communications were mere with these vehicles?

  The militia chief looked up at his lieutenant. Both of them had been staring down at the fax as it rolled out.

  That was the embarrassment at noon on Sunday.

  By 1 p.m. it was established that seventy-three vehicles of the Tchersky Transport Company had left its premises in the relevant period. Communication with the ones on long-distance journeys was by means of the road stations. The road stations were spaced one hundred kilometres apart – roughly three-hour intervals for the big trucks.

  Within three hours all those still travelling were being searched and their cabin crews questioned.

  The short-haul trucks presented a different problem. On the shorter distances there were no road stations. But there had been far more journeys. The purely local ones could be ruled out, but many had not been purely local. Ambarchik, Anyuysk, Provodnoye were not local, yet trucks had visited all of them. The police posits there were contacted and inquiries started.

  By 5 p.m. all the road stations had reported negative, and so had most of the police posts, a few half-constructed buildings had still to be checked in outlying parts. But within an hour all this was tied up, too; to the militia chiefs great relief. There was nothing in it, and he told Irkutsk so.

  Since they liked faxes he gave them a fax.

  He added that the drivers had been quite astonished. The man had not been up front in any of the cabs, and behind he would have frozen to death; any driver in these parts knew this, and this experienced driver certainly knew it. A knowledge of local conditions was necessary. The warehouse search was continuing.

  His message was curt, and he was pleased with it.

  The fax went off soon after six and he waited for a reply.

  From Irkutsk replies were very prompt, if not immediate. This one took two hours and the message, when it finally came, was even curter than his own. Control of the operation was being assumed, with immediate effect, by Irkutsk. A major-general of the security service was flying in. All vehicles of Tchersky Transport Company were to be halted. Details and locations of all other vehicles within fifty kilometres were to be prepared. Acknowledgment of these orders required immediately. In shock, Tchersky’s chief of militia acknowledged the orders, and then he set about halting all the vehicles of the Tchersky Transport Company.

  Such a thing had never happened before. The economy of north-east Siberia had not been so disrupted before. And a major-general of the security service! Obviously he had underrated what he had been told so far. But he had been told very little so far. He was totally dazed.

  ‘What is it with all other vehicles in the area – not everything to be halted surely?’ he asked his lieutenant.

  ‘No. No,’ the lieutenant said, looking at the message again.

  ‘Details and locations only. Just the company’s vehicles to be halted.’

  This was as well for it was now 9 p.m. and Medical Officer Komarova was just setting off in her own. She had the battery aboard.

  While the commotion had waxed and proliferated all Sunday in Tchersky, the lost man spent a productive day in the cave.

  He had slept and worked, and slept and worked, with meals in between. He was pretty sure now that he had got the hang of the thing and he proceeded confidently.

  By eleven at night, after a meal and a drink, he went round the bobik, shaking the structure, bouncing the suspension. All solid. Everything that had to be greased was greased. The various grades of oil had gone in. Fuel was in the tank. He had left the seats and the floor panels out, so that he could look down at the works. the works looked as they looked in the book.

  Everything looked as it did in the book. The windshield and wipers were in; lights in; doors and windows in; everything opened and shut properly. He thought he had done it.

  He turned the engine over with the handle. It was very stiff; no oil circulating yet. Nothing could properly circulate without the electrics in. But the gears slotted in place. The brakes worked − as far as he could tell, jacking the wheels and spinning them. Even after he’d got the battery, hours of testing still had to be done. But nothing more could be done now.

  He went out and chipped ice and made himself a pan of lukewarm coffee on the stove. Then he put the floor panels in, switched the generator off, and got back in the sleeping-bag – and again, almost as soon as he’d stretched out, heard the approaching note of the bobik.

  He got out and waited at the entrance; saw the flicker in the sky, then the headlights, and she was there again, bundled up in furs, pressed close to him, her nose in his neck.

  She was alert now, not dazed or tired, for she had slept well.

  And she had a budget of news. The militia were combing the warehouses of Green Cape. They knew he was hiding there. But Irkutsk had ordered them to look further afield. All the trucks were being searched as they pulled into road stations, and even short-haul drivers were being questioned.

  She had spoken earlier to Bukarovsky, the company boss, and he thought all this was tremendous nonsense. He agreed with the militia: the Chukchee had got hold of a bottle or two; he had even summoned twenty of the warehouse staff to help with the search and call out to the fellow not to be such a fool. Nobody was going to shoot him! If they shot every driver who had funny papers here … He had always known the Chukchee must be in trouble at home. Why was he here instead of at Chukotka? But it would certainly take time to find him in all the warehouses.

  She related this with excitement, and wa
s disturbed at the fox-like scenting look that came over his face again.

  ‘This isn’t good news?’ she said, uncertainly.

  ‘Yes. It’s good news,’ he said, and kissed her again. There was no point in explaining now that it wasn’t. He went and collected the battery. He lowered it into position and fitted the terminals. Then he checked that everything was in place, and drew a breath.

  ‘Well. Here goes,’ he said, and with the hood open pressed the solenoid for the starter.

  He got the first jump, and a croak, and tried again. The engine was very stiff, but it turned. At the fifth try the thing caught and roared into life. The row was immense in the cave, and he knew right away it was running too fast. The timing was going to need fixing. He left the engine running, tried the lights, the wipers. All okay.

  ‘Look, I have to move it, while you’re here. I might need a tow back.’

  He closed the hood, fixed a seat in position, got in, reversed slowly, and braked. He tried this operation again, there and back, braking sharply. Then he took it out on the river, and drove a short distance, in first and second, and stopped. He tried the brakes going forwards and backwards, and made an awkward many-point turn, everything very stiff, the engine racing hard. This he did twice, left and right, and drove back into the cave.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, darling. Lovely man!’ She embraced him as he got out, smothering him in her furs.

  ‘Tanya.’ He nuzzled her, thinking how to put it without panicking her. ‘We have to talk a little. You mustn’t stay long here, but there are a few things to say.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Yes, that. But listen to me. You’re going to be seriously questioned – not by the people here. Probably they’re already out of it, and don’t know yet. But if Irkutsk told them to look for me elsewhere, and they still think I’m here, then Irkutsk hasn’t told them everything. The chances are people will fly in, senior people, professionals. You must be prepared for it. Tell me – Tcherny Vodi is the one secret place here?’

  ‘So far as I know.’

  Then that’s what I’ve come for – they must know that. They don’t know how I got here. But they know a place was prepared for me – they know the whole Ponomarenko angle now. He doesn’t know why, the agent who fixed him doesn’t know. I’m certain of that. But they know. They know there was an explosion here, and that a satellite observed it. And a few months later, I arrived. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘Who is allowed to go to Tcherny Vodi from here?’

  ‘I am – you know that.’

  Exactly. Only you. Who drove you there?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes. Now remember – I made all the running. I volunteered. I struck up acquaintance with you, asked if I could drive you – to anywhere, to Panarovka, to settlements. I hung on to you, made myself available, was very willing. You didn’t ask for me. That’s the first thing. Now Tcherny Vodi – could they find anything out from there?’

  ‘Find out what?’

  ‘Are they entitled to ask them questions? Could they question the Evenks on what happened?’

  ‘They wouldn’t get far with the Evenks.’

  ‘No.’ He thought for a moment. ‘When you left, the first time, you went to a couple of European settlements and stayed the night. What happened to the driver there?’

  ‘They gave him a room.’

  ‘Did he eat with them? Did they get a good look at him?’

  She thought. ‘No – he took a tray to his room, he didn’t eat in the dining hall. The same both nights. He kept himself to himself. And in the mornings, too. I remember there was only comment on his fine hat, his fancy balaclava. That’s all they’d remember – a native. They can’t tell one from another. I’m almost certain.’

  ‘Okay.’ He thought about this. ‘Now, they’re going to assume I had help here – that at the least someone must have helped me skip from Tchersky. They need steering away from you. You will have to mention a couple of things.’

  He told her what they were, and she listened seriously.

  ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’

  ‘Stay very alert. They’ll be professionals. In another life I’ve had experience of the type. Unexpected questions come up. I wish I could think of some more for you. You’ll be stuck with this, after I’m gone, and I can’t help.’

  ‘Oh God, darling, sweetheart.’ She had opened her coat and enfolded him in it, pressing them close together. ‘Only go safely! Please be safe. Lovely one! I want you. And we’ll be together again. When this is over, when all the craziness in the country is over, we’ll be together – why not? Everything is changing. I’ll move from here. At some time I’ll move, and we can be together, in another place. I love you!’ She was caressing his face, kissing him. ‘You’re necessary for my life! And you love me. Say it to me. Tell me.’

  ‘Yes. I love you,’ he said, and meant it. He was moved by her, and she had fallen very much in love with him. But now he only wanted her away.

  And presently she grew more practical. ‘I brought you more food and two flasks of coffee. I couldn’t get a map. Can you manage with that?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll manage.’

  ‘Do you know where you’re going?’

  ‘No,’ he said. But he did. ‘I have to work it out, and go where I can. When I’ve got this working properly – it isn’t anything, I can do it.’

  ‘Is there anything more you could want?’

  ‘I don’t know, I hope not.’

  ‘I’ll come back to see. I’ll come tomorrow night.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly, ‘if that’s so wise.’

  ‘I’ll be very careful. If it isn’t safe, then as soon as I can. But I will come. If you’re gone will you leave me a sign?’

  He kissed her hard, wishing her away. ‘Yes, I’ll leave you a sign,’ he said in her ear.

  He turned the car on the river, and got her into it and, as she clung to him, felt the tears on her face.

  ‘Sweetheart, darling. It’s only goodbye for now, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s only for now,’ he said.

  ‘I love you for ever and ever, my lovely lover. You know that. Say it to me.’

  ‘For ever and ever – I love you, lovely Tanya-Panya.’

  He watched her lights recede, and went in and had a stiff drink, and to his surprise found his own eyes were moist.

  Then he lit a cigarette and looked through the book. Engine. Timing.

  50

  As she drove on to the main river, the aircraft passed overhead, and she saw its lights emerging through the overcast. But in the river’s curve it went out of sight, dropping lower and lower.

  Ahead, many kilometres ahead, unusual activity was taking place on the river; cars milling, headlights swinging.

  Although it was almost three in the morning, a full reception committee was awaiting the major-general of security; who was not in the best of tempers. He had slept the last hour of the long flight and had awoken bilious.

  ‘What’s this – have the fools turned out the town band?’ he said, peering out of the window as the plane taxied.

  Not the town band, but senior town hall staff and all the headquarters staff of the militia were tumbling out of cars and lining up as the plane came to a halt, its engines whining down. The general had a team of four with him and they went slowly down the steps, shielding their eyes in the powerful glare of headlights. In this glare the general’s shoulder-boards were very prominent, and the chief of militia had no difficulty in identifying him. He stepped forward and snapped off a smart salute, receiving a nod from the general.

  ‘Are you head of the militia here?’

  ‘Yes, General.’

  ‘You’ve got me an apartment?’

  ‘Of course, General.’

  ‘Come with me to it. Which is my car?’

  A fine apartment had been secured for t
he general, and two more, not much less fine, for his four aides, who included a colonel. In fifteen minutes all of them were at the general’s.

  He had brought a set of large-scale maps with him, and on the journey had ringed a number of areas. He took a glass of bismuth while casting a sour eye over these.

  ‘The routes you sent were not so clear. On these short hops, the drivers seem to have a choice. Who determines it?’

  ‘It depends on the load, General, and what’s to be dropped off. They can stick either to the river or to the made tracks. To Ambarchik, for instance –’

  ‘Forget Ambarchik. He hasn’t gone to Ambarchik. He’s gone south or east.’

  ‘General, I don’t think he’s gone anywhere. He’s an experienced driver. He knows there isn’t anywhere to go. He’s a native, drinking his way through a problem. I know his type. When you see the warehouses you’ll appreciate –’

  The general halted him, with a shake of the bismuth.

  ‘You know this fellow, do you?’

  ‘A hundred people know him! I have their testimony.’

  ‘He’s a foreign agent,’ the general told him bleakly. ‘His operation was set up in June. Khodyan’s papers were stolen in June.’

  ‘General, there are many people here with stolen papers. We need skilled workers – we don’t inquire too closely whether they’re using stolen –’

  ‘His papers aren’t stolen. I said Khodyan’s were stolen.’

  The chief of militia blinked at him.

  ‘General?’

  ‘Khodyan’s papers were stolen at Batumi six months ago. He reported the matter to the police. Thirty-six hours later they turned up in a pocket of his suitcase. End of inquiry. You’ve seen this fellow’s papers?’

  ‘Of course, General. When the Transport Company took him on we naturally –’

  ‘All correct, were they? Stamped? Right-coloured seals, red, blue, green?’

  ‘Certainly. Magadan papers. We’re familiar with Magadan papers.’

  ‘They were copied. Colour-copied, overnight – and properly bound and embossed, I expect, if you noticed nothing out of the ordinary. And the originals returned. That’s a foreign operation. Khodyan gave us the benefit of his reminiscences. He’s in Magadan, working. Your Chukchee with a hundred friends is a spy.’