He worked through the night, worked solidly; but at ten in the morning he hung the bobik’s floor panels, took a good swig of vodka, spread the sleeping-bag, and got in.
In the biting cold he got all of himself in, including his fur hat, and slowly warmed up and dozed. And was glad of the precaution when after an hour he heard the distant sound of a truck. He listened carefully.
From Green Cape.
He could plot the bends as it slowed and picked up.
It ground slowly past; a few metres from him. A big Kama. They were using them now. In the blackness he went off to sleep, and slept soundly, and woke abruptly. One o’clock, he saw on his watch in torchlight: one in the afternoon. As planned.
He got out and started the generator, and topped up the little tank of the kerosene stove. It had been going all night Then he gave himself something to eat: bread, cheese, a cup of coffee from the flask. He hesitated over pouring a drop of vodka into the coffee, and decided against. There was not much left and it was going to be a long day. She was leaving later, and he didn’t expect her till one in the morning, another twelve hours.
He relieved himself outside, and shifted his production, immediately frozen, to a crevice in the opposite bank with the bobik’s little snow shoveclass="underline" it came with the kit.
Then he got to work again.
The short sleep had done him good and he felt considerably more cheerful. He had passed some gloomy hours considering his prospects. Ponomarenko would have led them to the agent, and the agent, however little he knew, must have received instructions from somebody. He himself had a number to call at Tbilisi — perhaps the agent’s own number.
Tbilisi, bordering on Turkey, was one of two exit routes planned for him. Both exits involved a trip first to Yakutsk, where new papers awaited him. Now Tbilisi was out. But Yakutsk was still good. The Tbilisi agent (so he had been told) knew nothing of Yakutsk. All he had to do was get himself there. But not from Tchersky airport. That too was out now.
Perversely, this cheered him. The idea of the bobik had occurred as a means of avoiding Tchersky. Too much security at that airport: the gateway to the Kolymsky region. It had seemed best, if he had to leave in a hurry, to find some other airport, a more relaxed one. And he had found it, at Zirianka, a few hours along the river.
Zirianka was the distribution centre for the summer barges sailing south: a sleepy small place, with a sleepy small airport. This sleepy small airport, as he had discovered when running a load to it, had regular services to Yakutsk.
That had been the idea — wheels to take him fast out of Tchersky’s control. But Zirianka too was not on now. For though away from Tchersky, it was still on the Kolyma, within the region; and soon the hue-and-cry for him would be region-wide. He needed an airport outside the region. And the reasoning still held good — a bobik could get him to one.
A bobik with a battery could get him to one.
The battery, obviously, was going to hold him up. She would have to make an extra journey out.
But after some hours he saw it wouldn’t be the only holdup. Assembling the parts was one thing. One after the other, he found he had been assembling them in the wrong order. the book showed the exploded parts; it showed how to take them down for repair and how to put them back. It didn’t show how they had to go in in the first place. He leafed there and back. Each section covered a different one of the bobik’s systems. At the back there was a two-page plan of the whole thing complete. There was no plan showing how you got the thing complete.
He struggled and cursed, dragging the chassis out and dragging it in again, to get at one part or another with the block and tackle. The transmission came in and out, and the differential. The engine was twice hoisted out. But slowly, by trial and error, the logic of the thing became clearer. The rugged little beast, apparently so simple, was in fact highly complex.
At a quarter to seven in the evening, with the best part of another six hours’ work behind him, he stopped again. If the Kama had decided to return after just a couple of hours at Provodnoye — unlikely but possible — it would have left at four, and would pass here again at seven.
He hung the floor panels back, laid his sleeping-bag out, had a snack, still left the vodka alone. Then he turned the generator off and got back in the bag.
Seven o’clock. No Kama. He listened for an hour, decided to sleep anyway.
He woke at ten o’clock, as he had planned — no novelty but it still pleased him for he had been very exhausted. He got out, started the generator and lit up. And now he had the vodka. He drained the bottle, a good whole measure, and felt it lighting up his whole body. Wonderful.
The bobik didn’t look so bad now. Still only at chassis level and with a mountain of work to do, but it was beginning to look real. She would be here in three hours. He decided to make it look more real.
He sorted through the body panels and saw how to put them on — a couple of hours’ work. The whole thing could be taken down again in no time. But it would look a real bobik and cheer them both up. He drank the last of the coffee and got moving.
Again, the little bastard was perverse: no section fitting as expected. There was a lower frame bar that obviously had to go in first. The book showed the parts attaching to this bar. But how?
He swore, kicked the thing, crawled underneath. Found the little holes presently, at regular intervals in the steel pockets of the frame — well concealed, wisely concealed, against the snow and the weather. Located the right bolts for them in the pack. Fitted the frame bars, and started with a side.
Half an hour’s work showed you couldn’t start with a side.
The rear had to go in first.
The framework for the rear doors had to go in first.
The constant problems, one after the other, exhausted him again, and by half past midnight he still hadn’t finished. He put a spurt on. He had the back and the sides loosely in position by one — no point in tightening anything since it all had to come down again — but she had not turned up, so he hung the hood too. The windshield had to go in with mastic so he didn’t bother with it, or with any of the glasswork, or the lighting array, or even the catches and handles. But the thing looked real.
He lit a cigarette and walked round it.
He could do with a vodka. Well, soon. It was nearly half past one, she was taking it slowly. He finished the cigarette and decided to fit the catches and handles.
By a quarter past two she had still not arrived and worry began to gnaw at him. Had she missed the turnoffs? But she knew the way to Anyuysk. After a few kilometres she’d realise the mistake and turn back.
Or had she got on to the tributary and passed the cave? With the generator going, he wouldn’t have heard. Well, it was possible. She’d done it only once. But how far would she go? Not more than twenty, thirty kilometres. Half an hour, three quarters. And back again. Well.
He smoked another cigarette, fiddled some more with the catches. He couldn’t concentrate. At half past two he went outside. It was pitch black, unbelievably cold; at least sixty below. In the cave, the kerosene stove going for over twenty-four hours had had some effect. Here a thick mat of frost was growing by the minute, dragging at his boots. He looked both ways for some hint, some glancing reflection, of a car’s lights. Nothing.
Had they stopped her maybe, on the main river? Perhaps stopping cars there now … And she’d dreamed up some excuse and gone back. Or an accident. Or a breakdown. She was stuck somewhere. But she had her radio phone. Except she couldn’t use the radio phone. How would she explain …
He began walking along the track to Provodnoye. He didn’t know why he was doing it and he only walked as far as the next bend. Nothing. Blackness. His face froze; eyelashes stuck with frost. He walked back again. A faint glow from the cave, and he could hear the generator chugging away. He got to the cave and passed it and walked to the farther bend. Still nothing. Not a hint of light. If she was coming, there’d be some faint flicker down from the overcast.