”Which?” she asked. “Who is it?” She wondered whether this might be some tribal ritual she had never heard of, some frenzied rite or primitive custom, a formal vengeance, perhaps, or a sacrifice to whatever brutal arctic deities the locals might worship.
”Taro,” Salnikov said.
”How can you tell?” Dolzhikov said, his voice cracking. “His head is gone!”
”His rifle is there,” Salnikov said. He gestured.
”That’s Taro’s rifle. He was very proud of it, never let anyone else carry it.”
Sure enough, a fine old hunting rifle lay half-buried in the snow behind the corpse; Ligacheva had not seen it until Salnikov pointed it out.
That eliminated the possibility that any sane human being had done this, Ligacheva thought. No one but a madman would have left so valuable an item out there in the snow.
A madman… then this was no tribal ritual but merely berserk slaughter.
”Footprints?” she asked Salnikov.
He nodded. “Hundreds of them.” He looked around, then said, “They go that way.” He hesitated. “And, Lieutenant,” he added, “I have never seen such footprints. They’re too big. And there are other marks, in front of every print, as if something had clawed at the snow.”
”Perhaps something did. Do you mean it was a beast that did this? A beast that ties knots?”
Salnikov shook his head. “No, these are boot marks, or shoe marks but there are claw marks with them, as if there were claws that stuck out the front of each boot.”
”More likely the killer had some sort of trained animal,” Ligacheva said. “Follow them. And be ready-whoever, or whatever, did this is dangerous.” She waved to the others. “Utkin, Vetrov, you go with him. If you see anything move, anything strange, fire twice-don’t take chances.”
Utkin and Vetrov nodded and followed Salnikov reluctantly as Ligacheva called, “The rest of you, help me cut him down. We’ll take him back to his people.”
The pole was firmly fixed in the ice, and none of the men could reach high enough to untie the ropes from its peak; instead two men held Taro’s frozen corpse to keep it still while a third sawed through the bindings with his knife.
It took longer than Ligacheva would have thought; she resisted the urge to order Kazaryan, the knife-wielder, to hurry. The blade was probably brittle with cold; hurrying might snap it. She shivered and glanced after Salnikov and the others.
They had moved on down the slope to the east, following the trail; the wind carried away their words, and Ligacheva could not hear them as they shouted to one another.
”Look how big these prints are!” Utkin said. “Whoever made them must be a giant!”
Vetrov knelt by the trail and shook his head. “Look again,” he said. “The ice melted with each step, then refroze-that’s why they’re so big.”
Utkin stared at him. “Do you have any idea what kind of heat that would take?” He looked at Salnikov, who had moved on ahead, then turned back to Vetrov. “Besides, they must have been huge even without the melting-look at them!”
Vetrov shrugged. “Maybe,” he admitted.
”The trail goes on past that next rise,” Salnikov called back to them. “Perhaps from the top we can see something. Come on!”
Reluctantly the others followed, struggling up the next slope-it wasn’t steep, or particularly high, but the wind was against them.
”We should have brought a light,” Vetrov muttered.
”Yes,” Utkin agreed. “I would like to see these footprints more clearly. I do not think anything could have melted the ice as you suppose.”
”Feel them for yourself,” Vetrov retorted. “The bottom of each print is slick ice.”
Utkin stooped and did as Vetrov suggested. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But I do not think that was what made them so large, Igor. I think it is a giant that we follow.”
”Come on, you two,” Salnikov called as he struggled up onto the top of the little rise-it wasn’t really much more than an overgrown snowdrift, but it did provide a slightly elevated vantage point.
Salnikov paused, peering out into the gloom. He did not say so, but he, like Vetrov, wished they had brought a light. The night here was not utterly black, not with the clouds and snow to reflect and multiply every slightest glimmer of light, but he still could not see far through the swirling snow and the midwinter gloom.
At least, at any distance he could not be certain what he was seeing. A jagged black gap in the snow cover ahead might be a ravine or merely a shadow; he couldn’t be sure. He stared, but still couldn’t decide whether the canyon he thought he saw was really there.
He was sweating, he realized abruptly. His face was damp with perspiration and wasn’t freezing.
He pulled off his hat and crumpled it in one hand. No ice crunched, no snow fell; instead he could see the fur was damp.
”My God,” he said. “You two, can you feel it? The heat?” He stared into the darkness. Where was the warmth coming from? He saw no lights, no fires.
He could feel the heat, though-and something else.
”Something’s out here,” he said. “Something… I can feel it…”
His vision seemed suddenly distorted, even more than the snow, the night, and the wind could account for.
”What…” he began.
Then he screamed and fell backward, sliding down the icy slope.
Vetrov and Utkin had been crouched over the footprints as they advanced, not really listening to Salnikov; now they looked up just in time to catch him as he tumbled into their arms.
”Pyotr!” Utkin cried. “What…” He felt something warm and wet leaking into his heavy gloves.
”Look at his face!” Vetrov said.
Utkin looked.
Two parallel slashes had cut Salnikov’s face open, slicing from cheekbone to throat, laying the flesh open right down to the bone-and in fact, Utkin could see a notch in the cheekbone itself, a notch that vanished beneath welling blood. Blood was spilling from Salnikov’s ruined face across Utkin’s hands-that was the warmth he had felt.
”What could have…” Utkin began, looking out past the top of the rise.
He saw only a flicker as the blade came down at him.
Vetrov had time to scream.
Once.
Chapter 4
They had Taro’s frozen body loaded halfway onto the truck when Lieutenant Ligacheva heard the scream. It was faint and distant, muffled by the wind, but there was no mistaking it for anything but the scream of pain it was.
”What in the…” She looked up in time to see something flare blue-white in the darkness beyond the ridge. “Pyotr!” she cried.
Then she remembered where she was, who she was, and who was with her.
”All of you,” she barked, “follow me! Now!”
Dolzhikov hesitated, holding Taro’s legs.
”Forget him!” Ligacheva shouted. “We can tend to him later!”
Dolzhikov obeyed and dropped his burden; the frozen corpse teetered, then rolled slowly out of the truck and onto the ice. Dolzhikov joined the others as they charged up the ridge, past the pole.
Ligacheva was shouting orders as she ran. “As soon as we reach Salnikov and the others, take up defensive positions! Use the ridge and the drifts for cover, if you can! No firing until I give the order!” That last was an afterthought; she didn’t want anyone accidentally shooting Salnikov or Utkin or Vetrov if they were still alive out there in the dark.
She tried to imagine what could have happened, what the three men could have found, what could have left those huge footprints and the strange scratchy marks. There had only been the single trail leading away from the pole, yet she had not heard any of her men fire their weapons, and no single lunatic could have defeated them all before they could shoot-did Taro’s murderer have companions? Was there an entire company of madmen waiting for them? Was this some insane invasion by Americans, or a terrorist attack by some extremist faction-Chechens, or Georgians, or Jews? Thoughts and images tumbled through her mind too quickly to make sense of any of them, to choose any as more likely.