‘Yes, General.’
‘Who’s in charge of bobik parts there, that company?’
‘Bobik parts would be the Light Vehicles Depot.’
‘Do they work at night?’
‘No, not at night. They lock up at five, General.’
‘Good. Get a key. Have the director of the place there when I land. Don’t tell him why. See my car is waiting. And have you remembered that about the co-ordinates?’
‘Yes, General. You want them when you land.’
‘I don’t want them. The airbase will want them. Give them to the airbase.’
Idiots!
Vassili had been very silent all night, his eyes on the TV, and his wife’s eyes on him. He had known she would say nothing unless he said something; and he had said nothing at all.
Now he settled himself into bed.
‘All right, what?’ he said.
‘Will we lose the apartment?’
‘No.’
‘Will you get into trouble?’
‘No.’
‘They say he’s bad.’
‘He isn’t.’
‘They know someone helped him.’
He grunted. He should never have told her of the bobik. It had been in that romantic period when she had advised that Kolya should fuck an Evenk. He put his teeth in the glass.
‘Could they find out anything?’ she said.
‘No.’
He sincerely hoped not. He had gone through the duplicate order forms from March; delivery advices from July. His stock and deficit books had needed attention, too, and a razor blade. None of the parts showed up now. They’d never been ordered; delivery not advised; no deficits. The rumpus would come later, and he would sort it out later. If Kolya hadn’t fixed him. Got himself found. Or left the bobik to be found. He wouldn’t have done that. No. But he was depressed. He had been used.
Eleven o’clock, and he put the light out.
At militia headquarters the general hung on, waiting for the flight controller of the airbase to return to the phone.
His raid on the transport company had not been a success. A haggard director, evidently an old camp survivor, had savagely accused him of being spy happy, of wishing a return to old times. One Liova, the manager of the Light Vehicles Depot, also an old lag, also summoned, had demanded the presence of a native storeman; vetoed by the general. They had inspected the stores, and various books, all incomprehensible … A job for an expert later. For now –
‘Hello, yes?’
‘Okay, General. Meteorological conditions are difficult at the moment — there’s a white-out.’
‘But you can land there?’
‘Of course. What do you want doing?’
‘Just get him. You’ll need to liaise with Magadan, they supply the place. I have no clear idea of it here −’
‘I’m looking at air photos of it now.’
‘Ah, you have some. It’s isolated, is it?’
‘Yes, just a single structure. Is he armed?’
‘Assume that he is. When can you be there?’
‘Say 0100. I’ve lifted a squad of airborne now, in helicopters. You want him held there or brought back here?’
‘First get him. I’ll let you know,’ the general said, and hung up, satisfied.
A right decision to come himself from Irkutsk. The idiots here could still be combing warehouses. Upon arrival he had been two days behind the man. By issuing decisive orders — militia posts, air strips — he had reduced that gap to two hours. Now, twenty past twelve on his second night here, the two hours had been reduced to forty minutes.
He had a drink while waiting.
57
At twelve-thirty Porter climbed out of his bunk, tidied the rolled-up bedding, and took his boots and the backpack. The dormitory was snoring; he had made sure everyone was snoring before even entering it for a rest.
He had heard one shift go out at midnight and another return, evidently to some other dormitory. Now the place was dead. He peered out into the lobby.
All deserted; semi-dark.
Behind the counter, a single lamp. In the recess by the door, the ski stack, now tidied up.
He stood quite still, reviewing the scene, and waited some moments to be sure he had it to himself. Then he went behind the counter. There was a chair there and he sat and put his boots on, looking about him. A few notices pinned to a board: work schedules; a plan showing block numbers of work areas. Nothing more. There had to be better than this, and he looked under the counter, and found it.
All below the counter was pigeon-holed, and in the holes charts. The holes were neatly labelled. Camp Plan, Mining Works, Geological Survey, Topography.
Topography had a dozen rolled-up charts and he found the right one. They were inland from the cape forty kilometres: Dezhnev to the north, Lavrentiya to the south. In between, a curving bay showed several coastal villages — Naukan, Tunytlino, Leymin, Veyemik, Keyekan … Inuit villages: Eskimos.
The tiny marsh and lake of the atlas were here hugely magnified. The camp was exactly midway between them. The works were a kilometre to the west, in the foothills of a small mountain range; the chart squared off so precisely he could place himself to 500 metres.
The islands were not on the chart — on this scale too far out. But he knew that from midway in the bay they were directly east.
Midway in the bay … It looked like Veyemik. The compass bearing on the chart showed Veyemik as due south-east of the barrack block.
He dug in the backpack, found the school compass, and checked it, first finding north. North, according to the chart, should be the adjoining shed where the snow tanks had pulled in, the whole block laid out on a precise north-south axis.
He pointed the compass there, and saw it was several degrees out. No means of resetting the tinny little job so he made the adjustment in his head, and scanned the chart again.
There were three main tracks: to the works, the lake, and the nearest coastal village, Tunytlino. This one he examined carefully.
Tunytlino was thirty kilometres away. No track led from it to the next village, Leymin, twelve kilometres below it, but the ground looked flat. After that, Veyemik.
Veyemik was another fourteen kilometres, but surrounded by a whirl of contour lines. The place was on the far side of a creek; frozen now … If he hit the coast at Tunytlino, kept the sea on the left, Veyemik was twenty-six kilometres below it. The whole journey, from where he sat now, fifty-six kilometres. Thirty-five miles.
Okay.
He slipped the chart back in its pigeon-hole, went to the ski stack and found the pair he had arrived with, tagged by bunk number. He removed the tag, hunted in his pocket for its twin — this one looped to a locker key — and took them back to the desk. They’d come out of a drawer, he remembered. In the night’s confusion the deskman had hastily stuffed the papers in the same drawer. He opened the drawer and found his own papers, the tag number scrawled in one corner. He took the papers, dropped the tags in among a jumble of others and closed the drawer.
With backpack and skis he went out through the double doors. The outer one had a simple latch and it clicked securely behind him.
Outside the wind was howling, snow blowing horizontally.
He hunched through it to the shed and shone his torch. Four snow tanks, three bobiks. He looked over the best bobik; then the other two. No keys in any of them. He swore. A snow tank, then. Cumbersome; also very noisy. But nothing for it. He inspected the snow tanks, and found none of them had keys.
Jesus Christ! He wasn’t going thirty-five miles in a snowstorm on little work skis; not in view of what else he had to do tonight. He shone the torch around and saw the snow ploughs — one actually out in the snow, shrouded in it. He had a look at the other. It was at the mouth of the shed, a tracked vehicle, big tracks like a tank; its shovel raised and pointing out. High, with an enclosed cabin. He climbed up and opened the door.