The thought made him grin.
They don’t know we’re behind them. They think we were all killed in their hellish maskirovka. They have no idea that we were patiently waiting for the word, or how quickly we moved out.
The mixed force of Cossacks, promyshlenniks, and Imperial Army rangers had been chosen for speed and woodcraft. At the last minute the general in charge of the mission had ordered the tank and regular infantry to accompany the ranger force. “Insurance,” he said.
Insured to slow them down! Crepov thought contemptuously.
The Cossacks had wanted to charge into the construction site. Bear Crepov knew better. He’d already been at two such sites in the past. There would be nobody there and the Indians always left a maskirovka-deception.
When he asked those he guided for a volunteer, six Cossacks and two army rangers stepped forward, growling. He chose the biggest Cossack and instructed him to look in every building, to carefully examine the whole area for fool traps. Through his binoculars he saw the man snatch up the Kalashnikov in the middle of the square and wave triumphantly before he and all the buildings around him were blown to fiery pieces.
That slowed both the Cossacks and rangers down and they no longer questioned Bear as the obvious expert-in-place.
“Now you see what they are capable of,” he told them in his rumbling voice. “The Dená Separatist Movement are not your normal fish-stinking Indians-not only can they kill, they like it as much as we do.”
The tourist camp burned to the ground. Crepov didn’t care about that. There were plenty more convicts at Tetlin Redoubt and villages full of lazy Indians to be inducted into service for the Czar if needed.
Only twilight stopped their pursuit. Crepov knew they were close but he didn’t want to stumble over them in the dark.
Just before the sky bled to gray, his belly clock woke him at the final edge of blackness. He kicked his six men out of their blankets and gave them a few minutes to prepare their departure. Then he went over to where the six Cossacks snored and farted. He prodded the foot of their sergeant, Tulubev.
“There is game to be hunted, my friend.”
The Cossack sergeant reared up from his blanket with a knife in his hand.
“Don’t ever touch me without first asking permission. I heard you coming and recognized your lumbering tread, otherwise you would now be holding your guts in your hands.”
“When you are done boasting, wake up your junior scouts here and see if you can find us.” Crepov bared his teeth in a wolf’s leer and turned back to his men.
Tulubev barked at his men and scrambled to secure his gear.
At least, Crepov reflected, he didn’t have to deal with the forty army troopers and two tanks left behind at the burned construction site. Somebody had to clean up that mess, and he didn’t want those children in uniform out here alerting the quarry. The rangers had reluctantly stayed at the camp to protect the relief troops in the unlikely event the DSM would return.
A breeze moved through trees now darkly silhouetted by the slowly lightening sky. He smelled someone out there who hadn’t come down the trail with him, and they were close. Stepping next to his closest friend and best tracker, he bent over and whispered in his ear, “Company ahead on the trail. I’ll go left.”
Wolverine White wordlessly rolled into the brush and faded like mist. Crepov stepped into the trees and moved swiftly forward. The black spruce, birch, and willow grew far enough apart to allow a man to make good time if he knew how.
A flicker of movement, dark on dark, caught his eye. He froze, stared off to the side, slightly away from the location. Another ripple of shadow over shadow.
Crepov gazed intently now, easily smelling the man, wondering if he was alone. A slow deliberate step revealed the clear definition of an arm braced against a tree. The spy peered around the trunk, allowing only his head to show if someone in the Russian camp should glance up.
Bear unsheathed Claw, his razor-edged skinning knife, and crept forward, silent as death.
12
Grisha plodded along mechanically, senses alert, closely followed by Nik Rezanov, who had ceased muttering to himself some time ago. Two meters ahead of Grisha, Wing moved steadily, effortlessly, almost gliding through the brush. He again wondered how many followed.
Grisha hated promyshlenniks almost as much as he hated Cossacks. Ruthless opportunists who totally lacked discipline, they would wipe out a game population rather than use forethought and harvest animals with conservation in mind. Two islands near Akku no longer held the otherwise plentiful Sitka black tail deer because of promyshlennik butchery.
As far as the hunters were concerned, the animals existed as a gift from God and Czar. Their proprietary manner in small communities often caused those of a different mind to move on to greener pastures. Grisha had never chartered his boat to any party containing promyshlenniks.
They also did the Czar’s dirty work along with the Cossacks. Half of every man’s earnings belonged to the Czar. The promyshlenniks proved themselves foully adept at finding hidden potatoes, moose hides, and dried fish—not to mention money.
The year after his father’s death, four promyshlenniks had come to his mother’s door, demanding the Czar’s share of her earnings. She told them she was a widow with nothing to spare. They threw young Grisha out into the snow and spent the afternoon extracting what they wished from her while he beat his hands bloody trying to open the cabin door.
No more loathsome creature inhabited the subcontinent of Alaska. They prided themselves on being the worst. Grisha felt sick with loathing and apprehension, knowing that human weasels followed his party.
He pulled his attention back to the problem at hand. The sun came up over his right shoulder. They were moving west? But then did the sun really come up in the east this late in the year? Alaska’s interior was as alien to him as the Republic of California.
Wing held up her hand, stopped, and cocked her head to the side.
“Listen,” she said.
Grateful for the stop, Grisha tried to listen. All he could hear was his heart beating. Leaning against a tree, he opened his mouth wide to baffle the pounding pulse. Still he heard nothing.
Wing shook her head. “It’s gone now. I thought I heard a scream.”
“You did,” Claude said from behind the panting Nik. “I think it was the last sound that person will ever make.”
Grisha shuddered, glad he missed the whole thing.
“How many are following us?” Nik asked.
“Lynx said a dozen at least,” Wing answered. “Alex was to get a better count and then catch up.”
“Maybe they got Alex,” Claude said in a low voice.
“That’s the conclusion I reached about a minute ago,” she snapped. Wing turned away from them. “Let’s go.”
Grisha stifled a curse and hurried after the fast moving woman. Nik followed and Grisha heard him ask Claude if Alex was related to Wing.
“Actually he was my cousin,” Claude said in a low voice. “But he was her lover.”
Nik cursed in Russian. “She must be in great pain,” he said while trying to see her around Grisha. “And she just keeps going. What a woman.”
Grisha glanced back at Nik. “Do you want to change places?” he asked in a joking tone.
“Yes!”
Before Grisha could respond, Nik darted around him and closed on Wing.
Grisha shrugged and wished his feet would stop hurting. As his stillwasted body ached into the rhythm of the pace, he forced his mind to range beyond the physical just as he had during his imprisonment. Movement became automatic. He concentrated on the country they traveled through.