Archangel

… I am tired, Michael Holly, you have four more days with me. In that time I will tell you what I know, all that I know… '

Behind the wall a woman still cried.

'Thank you, Mikk Laas.'

'You listen well, Michael Holly.'

'I have the best of teachers.'

Holly rubbed the back of his hand in affection across the Estonian's jaw.

'And you have hope, and that woman believes she has nothing.'

'Have you ever cried, Mikk Laas?'

'Only when no one could hear me.'

'What could you say to her?'

'That they should not hear you cry. If they hear you then they are satisfied.'

Holly struggled to his feet. It was the first time that he had stood since the warders had brought him back to his cell from the workshop and stiffness bit in his knees and hip.

There was weakness in his legs, and he pushed himself up with a hand that rested on Mikk Laas's shoulder. When he was upright he leaned on his hands and felt the damp of the walls.

'Don't cry,' Holly shouted. His voice boomed around.

'Don't show them you are afraid. Don't please them with your tears.'

Silence.

It was as if Holly was alone in the punishment block. He sank down to his knees, and in front of his eyes were the scratches and messages of zeks who had gone before him.

'What is your name?' Holly called.

A small voice, the cry of a bird carried on the wind from past the line of a hill top.

'My name is Morozova…'

Holly heard the advance of the warder along the corridor.

There would be an eye at the spy hole. He rolled onto his side and remembered a small face trapped between the swathe of a scarf and the peak of a cap.

He did not hear the crying again that night, and when he called in the morning he was not answered.

Chapter 13

All the officers of the Zone had gathered in the Mess for breakfast. Only the young and unmarried would normally have taken their first meal in the Mess; those who had bungalows and quarters in the village would have eaten away. But word of last night's cat fight between Commandant and Political Officer had spread with speed from man to man. They must both appear at breakfast in the Mess, not to show would be to admit humiliation. And every man who had the rank to gain access to the Mess had made it his business to play the part of witness. Not every day that a Major of paratroops was raging drunk and personally supervising the beating of prisoners – not every'day that a Captain of KGB felt secure enough in his position to abuse his senior in the full hearing of company.

The Deputy Commander, the Adjutant, the guards' platoon commanders, the supervisory officers of the warders, the officer in charge of camp maintenance, the officer who oversaw camp provisions and factory materials, they were all there. They waited in a strung-out line around the central table on which was stacked bread and cereal and the coffee-pot on its candle heater.

Major Vasily Kypov strode through the door. No fool, this man. He could recognize the craving for drama. He nodded brusquely to the four corners, and seemed to curl his lip as if in disappointment that one man was not yet present.

He poured his coffee, elbowed away the steward who tried to offer him a cereal bowl. He wore his best uniform and the medal ribbons blinked in the dull room. Dressed as for a parade. There was a defiance about the old goat, the Deputy Commander thought, something that was not pretty but assuredly brave. Kypov held the centre ground and watched the door.

Captain Yuri Rudakov came into the Mess before his Commandant had drained that first cup of coffee. A great silence about him as he eased the door shut. Something blatant about the watchers now. They devoured him. Rudakov had taken to his uniform, and his boots were cleaned and his cap was worn jauntily. Rudakov ignored the food, took only coffee. He hesitated for a moment inside the circle beside the table, then seemed to stiffen and walked straight towards Vasily Kypov. Collectively the watchers bit at their breath, craned to listen.

'Good morning, Commandant… I think we'll be spared more snow today… '

'I didn't hear the radio… we can do without snow.'

They spoke with a brittle politeness. Two men who share the same lover and have met at a party.

'I have my uniform back from the cleaners.' Rudakov smiled thinly.

'Put the charge on expenses… ' Kypov felt he had m? de a joke, that the ice wall would soon crack.

'This once I will do t h a t… it won't be stained again.'

'Of course.'

'I was working late last night.'

'After… after you came into the Mess?'

'Yes. I was drafting a report of my interrogation of Michael Holly. I was going to send the report, now I have decided not to.'

'No?'

'I have decided that there should be no interim report. I 185 will submit a report to Moscow when the interrogation is completed.'

'I am sure you have made the right decision.' The relief sighed in Kypov's mouth.

'I hope so,' Rudakov said quietly, in Moscow they put great store on this interrogation.'

'A good decision.'

'Last night I wrote a draft of what would have been an interim report, but I've consigned it to my safe. If the interrogation is as successful as I hope, then the interim report will become irrelevant.'

'I wish you luck with your interrogation.'

Rudakov looked around him. He was aware of the rampant disappointment of those who had overheard him.

'Thank you for your encouragement, Commandant.'

Rudakov offered his hand, Kypov accepted. The Commandant cuffed the Political Officer on the shoulder, the Political Officer smiled at the Commandant. There had been a public quarrel, there was now a public friendship.

But the Commandant knew who had won.

A draft report snuggled in the safe of the Captain of K G B, a report that would tell of gross interference by the camp Commandant in the legitimate investigations of Yuri Rudakov, a report that if it went to Lubyanka and headquarters would spring the trap of removal and premature retirement.

He felt the straps around him that would confine for all time his independence from his Political Officer. if you will excuse me, Commandant.'

'Of course… I hope you are correct in your forecast… about the snow…'

Rudakov turned his back on the vulture eyes and hurried out of the Mess. Those bastards would still be rotting in the camp long after Yuri Rudakov had returned to Moscow or been posted to Washington or had taken a trusted place in Berlin. Rudakov was temporary, Rudakov was going through, Rudakov was on his way and the Dubrovlag was a diversion on that journey. Rudakov was singled out for something better than the zek scum of a Correctional Labour Colony. Yet his ride out of the reach of Barashevo's claws was not certain. Michael Holly was the means.

He needed the confession of the Englishman. He needed his back to climb over.

He walked past the lines of prisoners drawn up for the roll-call. He saw the passive faces, the worn uniforms salvaged by shades of patchwork. He trod a path where the pack snow merged with the ochre dirt of the compound's sand. He went along the high wire and the high wooden wall and through the vague shadow of a watch-tower. He came to the main gate where two sentries stood with machine-pistols slung across their chests. He saw the dogs that waited beside their handlers ready to escort the prison column from the compound to the Factory zone. And he wondered. Was there not another way? That the camps had been filled by the purges of the Thirties was now explained by the Stalinist cult of personality. That the camps had been filled in the years after the Great Patriotic War was explained by the power of Lavrenti Beria, now executed. That the camps had been filled in the latter days of Krushchev had been explained by the incompetence of that First Secretary. But why were the camps still filled? Why, under the benevolence of Brezhnev, had they not found another way? It was a brief thought, and he trembled because it had shadowed across his mind.