'For each fish there is a different bait.'
'And when you've milked him, will he be on his way?'
'He thinks so, that's what he believes.'
The Commandant laughed. Major Vasily Kypov shook in merriment and his shoulders heaved and his jaw wobbled, and the burst of his amusement splayed out over the small front garden of Yuri Rudakov's bungalow. Rudakov laughed with him, and the cigars glowed from the porch. On the road beyond the white-painted palisade the Commandant's driver started the engine of the jeep.
'That's what he believes… That's very good… very funny. Bloody spy. An excellent evening, Rudakov. I'm more than grateful to your wife. Fine meal, and damn good hospitality afterwards… Won't be forgotten, not by me.
Shit, we dented those bottles.'
Kypov swayed against Rudakov. The Political Officer wondered how the Commandant would negotiate the snow-bound path to the gate. it's been my pleasure and my privilege to entertain you, Major. Vasily, please… Again my best wishes and my thanks to your wife.'
He made it to the jeep, not easily, but he arrived. The lights sparked, the engine roared-Rudakov smiled, sweetly, privately, went back into the bungalow and locked the front door. He was hurrying now.
Through the living-room and the kitchen to turn off the lights, to make up the fire for the night, to peel off his tunic and kick off his shoes. The bedroom was in darkness. He could hear Elena's breathing, erratic and excited. More of the scent that he had bought for her, that she knew he liked her to wear. Shaking out of his trousers wriggling from his shirt, discarding his socks. Elena would have sensed his mood, known the anticipation that gripped him while the banalaties were traded with a boring fool on the front porch. Her arms greeted him, slender and naked. Naked as her breast and her stomach aand her thighs. He swam beneath the bed duvet, he slid over the sheets warmed by her body. Beautiful, wonderful, dry, clean skin resting, rolling against his. Her hands finding the sinew in the small of his back, his fingers scouring for her nipples. Her hands diving over the flatness of his belly, his fingers plunging for the richness of heat and moisture and opened legs. Her hands holding and squeezing, his fingers prying and searching.
And he had sat with the file open, with the typed words battering his mind, when this was waiting for him. Idiot, Y u r i… her mouth was over his, her tongue forced his back.
There was a whisper in her ear, an entreaty. He began to climb onto her, to submerge her beneath him.
He heard the siren.
Turn the bastard thing off • • •kill it. But the siren at Camp 3 can never be switched off- It must scream its course.
The softness had fled Elena. He felt her rigid against him. A new sound with the siren call, sharper and more urgent. He might have sobbed, and Elena pulled the bed clothes around her as he reached for the telephone.
'Rudakov… '
He listened.
The hand that had gloried in the skin of Elena was now white and clenched on the telephone. Abruptly he replaced it, then sagged back onto the bed. Though the room was dark his hands covered his face. For a full minute he lay quite still on the bed, not caring to cover his nakedness, then he dragged himself from the coverlet and started a hapha-zard search across the floor for the items of his uniform. He let himself into the living-room where he would dress.
Because Elena Rudakov's head was deep beneath her pillow he did not hear her weeping.
He had lost a jewel, a jewel that would have adorned his crown.
On the railway line, beyond the reach of the village lights, two men heard the far cry of pursuit, the siren's howl, and tried to run faster.
Chapter 16
There had been a long night of confusion in the hut.
The zeks lay on their beds as they had been ordered and were drowned by the blazing ceiling lights. None were to leave their beds. The counting had been long ago; now they lay submissive on their mattresses, witnesses to the anger of the high and mighty of the camp who came to inspect the insult of two empty bunks and two folded blankets. The zeks were forbidden to talk, but they watched each move of the investigators. Ever since the siren had awakened them the zeks had been alert to the drama of the night. The Commandant had come, glowered at the unused mattresses, stalked the length of the hut, departed, and had returned. The Political Officer had been three times to Hut 2, as if some factor in the outrage of escape had first eluded him, and there was fury on his face for every time that he stamped the boards of the hut to the far wall where guards and warders stood, useless as statues.
Each man in the hut read the message. Escape was the great weapon. Escape was a cudgel that whipped across the shoulders of the men of authority. The anger of Vasily Kypov, the fury of Yuri Rudakov, were twin witnesses of the wound that had been done to them. He would have been a brave man who sniggered in their hearing, an idiot man who smirked in their sight. The zeks were silent, the zeks averted their eyes from the faces of the men in authority.
All the men in the hut would reckon that they knew Adimov. Only a few could claim to be familiar with the Englishman.
Chernayev from his bunk watched the two camp officers who would co-ordinate the hunting down of Holly and Adimov, and against his vest was the letter that he had been charged to hand to Rudakov when the late afternoon came.
Byrkin who in his time had been a Petty Officer and so was familiar with command and instruction saw the pacing frustration of the Commandant. Poshekhonov turned to his pillow and pretended to sleep so that he might better hear the whispered conversations of Kypov and Rudakov when they came close to the mother heat of the stove.
'Right under the corner tower they went out.' A snapped accusation from Rudakov.
'Under a tower?… and the tower was manned?'
'Of course it was manned…'
'You have a trail?'
'Something that is nothing. We have a trail that is under twenty centimetres of snow. Two sets of wire cut, and then a trail to the woods on the north side… If we have the dogs out blundering in the trees in darkness we screw all the scent that's left. If we leave it till first light we have another twenty centimetres sitting on the scent… it's a bloody shambles.'
'How could that happen?'
Vasily Kypov spoke almost to himself, as if the question bemused him.
He won no charity from Rudakov.
'They had wire-cutters. They went out underneath a tower. I'm not responsible for fence security… '
'Holly was yours. You were responsible for him. Full enough last night with your boasts of success.' Kypov flared in retaliation, and the memory of hospitality received a few hours earlier fled. if he had not been able to walk out of your camp – to walk through two wire fences and over a wooden fence – then he would have been mine.'
'You should have observed your man better.'
'You should have secured your perimeter. Isn't that what they teach the serving officer?' Rudakov sneered.
'They'll singe us for this.'
'They'll have our arses.'
Kypov cocked his head, peered out through the window into the stinging snowfall.
'Where can they go?'
'How can they go anywhere? They can only run, freeze, starve.'
'There will have to be an inquiry.'
'When a prisoner escapes there is always an inquiry. They will say that escape is not possible from an efficiently run camp.'
'The search parties will start at dawn.'
Kypov bit at his lip, tucked his chin to his chest, and stamped out of the hut into the last moments of the night.
Trailing behind him were his Adjutant and a radio operator whose set crackled static across the compound.
Rudakov stood by himself close to the stove. He felt the frail, local warmth.