“What do I care if you kill your own spy? Go ahead, then I want you down that trail as fast as you can go.”
“You don’t care if I kill him?” she said, doubt washed over her.
“If you don’t care that I kill Corporal Lover, here.” He jammed the muzzle of his weapon behind Vlad’s ear. Vlad winced and tried to pull away.
Grisha tightened his grip on the corporal’s collar. “I have nothing to lose. Now get out of here!”
Something sagged inside her. He was right. She, on the other hand, could lose everything if she didn’t handle this correctly.
“Let us all go,” she said quickly. “And we’ll let you both leave.” The promyshlennik tried to stand but fell into the snow.
“Get away from me or I’ll kill all of you,” Grisha said.
“You can’t get all of us before I get you.” Her voice carried more of an urgency than she wanted to exhibit, but she had no time to think. “Do it my way and we all live.”
Muscles moved beneath the dark beard. This man had changed a great deal more than expected in a few short months; he was no longer a defeated cuckold. She hadn’t considered that possibility at all.
“Okay,” he said. “Put down your weapon and carry your dog off.”
“You must think I’m stupid, Grigoriy. If I put down my weapon you’ll kill all three of us.”
“All right then, you use the captain there for a shield and move back down the trail to where it turns. I’ll back up with your corporal until I can find cover.”
“Then?”
“Then the corporal helps your wolfhound move slowly down the trail—at the same time Rezanov moves toward me. Once they pass each other you won’t be able to fire for fear of hitting the wrong people.”
Her lips were very dry; she licked them again. Her mind darted over his words, searching for treachery, couldn’t find any and knew she hadn’t looked closely enough. But there was no more time.
“Da. It will be as you say.” She looked down at Nik. “Get to your feet very slowly, with your back to me.”
He turned away from her and rose slowly to his feet.
She grabbed his collar and prodded his spine with the Kalashnikov.
“Walk backward,” she ordered. “If you try anything foolish I will spread your bowels all over your Creole brother.”
He stepped back and hit the toe of her ski with his heel.
“Stop.” She reached down and unlatched the bindings with her rifle muzzle. “Now step back over the skis.”
Once he was across them, she stopped him again.
“Pick them up and hold them in front of you. If you try—”
“I’ll do what you say, damn it!” he shouted. “Just shut up!” He bent over and grabbed the skis.
She glanced at Vlad as he shuffled backward down the trail away from her. This just hadn’t worked out according to plan, she thought dully. Rezanov moved backward again.
The slow, awkward journey seemed to last for ulcerating hours. By the time they reached the bend in the trail, her back and legs ached. She peered past her hostage.
Perhaps Grisha outsmarted himself. The range of his weapon was considerably less than hers. But the assault rifle was not known for its accuracy at long distance either.
“Let Rezanov go!” Grisha shouted. His voice echoed down the valley.
Vlad and Crepov staggered slowly toward her. She prodded the traitor.
“Get away from me. There will come a time when I kill you, if your noble savages don’t do it for me.”
Rezanov hesitated for a moment and looked into her eyes. “There is a saying in the southern republiks that applies to you, Valari, go fuck yourself.” He walked away down the path.
She nearly laughed. Sweat ran down her face despite the frigid cold. The men came together and each stepped off the trail slightly to allow the others to pass.
Vlad looked drawn and angry. Blood covered the left side of Crepov’s face. How had Grisha done that? They shambled up to her, Vlad released the promyshlennik and slumped beside the man when he fell.
Valari brought her weapon up quickly, but the trail stretched away cold, gray, and empty. They turned toward the distant helicopter.
A shot rang out and the sound echoed through the cut and past them, bounced off the frozen ridges.
They stopped. Crepov raised his head with an effort.
“He—the one that cut me—killed your Cossack,” he said thickly.
“So it would seem,” Valari said distantly. Her eyes squinted in the dim midday brightness.
I wonder if Rezanov told him about the radio before he died?
24
“There’s one thing I still don’t know,” Grisha said, breaking the silence between them left by the gunshot.
They sat in the brush from where they had lost sight of Valari. No sense in trying to distance themselves from this place until the helicopter departed.
“What’s that?” Nik said warily.
“How’d they know where we were?”
“I have a miniature Japanese radio that I reported in with periodically. Now you tell me something.”
“What?” Grisha asked, staring into Nik’s eyes.
“Why’d you just fire off one round? You didn’t even aim it toward them.”
“So they’d think I just shot an informer, before he could tell me about his radio.”
“Huh?”
“Valari outsmarted me when I was still naive about her. No matter. But since she used me once, she thinks I’m stupid.”
“Da?”
“It’s my turn to outsmart her.”
“Oh,” Nik said with a frown. “Very well.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you explain?”
“And when do I do that, at the evening meal? ’Pass the salt, please. By the way, Grisha, I’m a spy and I must betray you and you’re all going to die.’ Something like that?”
“Why do you think we’re all going to die?”
“Because they have helicopters, and fighter planes, if they need them. They have spies everywhere. They have two hundred tanks about two days from here. They have—”
“Look around, Nik! What do you see?” He waved his arm. “They can’t get us in here with a tank. If we disperse, the planes can only blow up buildings, not kill people!”
“If your shelter is gone, you die.”
“Not all the shelter is open to the sky. This problem has not been ignored. You knew that. But still you didn’t tell me.”
“I needed commitment.”
“I gave you all that I had,” Grisha said tightly.
“Not you. Cora. I mean, I knew you and I were friends, I knew you would understand once I explained it.”
“Then why didn’t you explain it?”
“Because if I told you, Cora would find out. I wasn’t sure she would understand. In the beginning I was going to do what Capt—what Valari wanted.”
Grisha felt as if he’d been slapped. Before he could find suitable words, a helicopter racketed toward them.
“Quick, pretend you’re dead!” Grisha said. “Lay down on the trail.”
Nik sprawled on the ground, facedown. “What if they put a few rounds into me to make sure I’m dead?” he muttered.
“They won’t chance it, they’re too big of a target and they don’t know my location.”
The helicopter roared over them. Grisha watched it pull up, wheel around in a tight turn and start back toward them. He pulled back farther into the thicket and aimed his Kalashnikov at the pilot.
The craft moved over them again, slower this time, but it didn’t stop. A face peered whitely through the heavy plastic window. The rotor wash created a sudden snow flurry that quickly escalated into a miniature whiteout. The engine bellowed to higher decibels and the machine vanished over the ridge.