They stepped into the trees to take cover. It was quickly growing lighter now.
Ahead, Pekkala could make out the blazing skeleton of the truck.
“What’s he doing, giving away his position like that?” whispered Kirov. “The smoke must be visible halfway across Poland.”
They crawled forward until through the shifting flames they could make out the shape of the tank. In front of it, they saw Kropotkin. He was pouring fuel from a battered gasoline container into the tank. Then, with a roar of anger, he flung the container across the clearing.
“That’s why he didn’t stop at the depots,” whispered Maximov. “He’s been draining fuel out of the T-34. Now he probably doesn’t have enough to drive the tank all the way into Poland.”
“So he set fire to the truck,” said Pekkala. “The woman I talked to in the village said that Polish cavalry run patrols through these woods all the time. He lit the fire so the Poles will come to him.”
Kropotkin disappeared around the other side of the tank. When he reappeared, an old man was with him. He was a short, bald man with narrow shoulders, wearing a collarless blue work shirt and heavy corduroy trousers. Pekkala knew it must be Zoya Maklarskaya’s father. Kropotkin had tied Maklarsky’s hands behind his back. Now he hauled the old man to the center of the clearing.
“You swore there would be gasoline here!” Kropotkin raged at his captive.
“There was!” The old man pointed at the empty fuel can. “I told you, they always leave some here for an emergency.”
“One fuel can is not enough!”
“It is if you’re driving a tractor,” protested Maklarsky. “You didn’t tell me how much you needed. You just asked if there was fuel.”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now,” said Kropotkin, taking a knife from his pocket.
“What are you going to do with that?” Maklarsky’s eyes were fixed on the blade.
“I’m letting you go, old man,” replied Kropotkin, “just like I promised.” He cut through the ropes and they fell like dead snakes to the ground. “Go on,” said Kropotkin, and gave him a shove.
But Maklarsky didn’t run. Instead, he turned and looked back at Kropotkin, motionless.
“Go on!” bellowed Kropotkin, folding the knife shut with a click and returning it to his pocket. “I don’t need you anymore.”
Slowly, Maklarsky began to walk out of the clearing, following the path which led to the main road.
Then the three men watched helplessly as Kropotkin drew a gun from his coat. The dry snap of a pistol echoed through the trees.
Maklarsky staggered forward. He did not seem to realize what had happened. Crookedly, he walked on a few more paces.
Kropotkin strode across the clearing. With the barrel of the gun touching the back of Maklarsky’s head, he pulled the trigger. This time, the old man dropped, so suddenly it looked as if the ground had swallowed him up.
Kropotkin returned to the tank. He climbed up onto the turret, whose hatch was already open, and dropped down inside the machine.
Pekkala realized that Kropotkin was preparing to move out, whether he had enough fuel or not. He nodded at Kirov.
Kirov unlocked the tripod from the barrel of the anti-tank rifle. He set it up and lay down behind the gun.
“Do you have a clear shot?” Pekkala asked.
“No,” replied Kirov, after he had squinted through the sights. “Too many trees in the way.”
“We’ll move around the side and stop him where the clearing meets the road,” Pekkala told him.
Kirov picked up the gun and the three men set off down the road, keeping inside the cover of the trees. They reached the place where the wide path intersected with the road. Here, they realized that the path from the clearing did not run straight out to the road. It curved to the left, so that the tank was out of sight. The only way Kirov would have a clear shot was if the tank drove out to the road.
Knowing they had little time to spare, the three men dashed across the road and slid down into the ditch on the other side. With trembling hands, Kirov set up the PTRD so that it was pointing directly down the path into the clearing. If Kropotkin tried to drive the T-34 out onto the road, Kirov would have a clear shot.
“Do you still think you can talk him out of it?” Pekkala asked Maximov.
“I doubt it, but I can probably buy you some time.”
“All right,” said Pekkala. “We’ll both go. We’ll have a better chance if we both try to reason with him, but if he won’t listen to us, get out of his way as fast as you can. He’s bound to head towards the road. He doesn’t want to get trapped in that clearing and he’s got nowhere else to go except down that path.”
“I don’t see how you can walk out there to face a tank with nothing more than words to shield yourself,” said Kirov.
Pekkala held out the titanium bullet. “If words don’t convince him, then maybe this will. No matter what happens, if you see an opportunity to take the shot, take it. Do you understand?”
“It’s a hell of a risk, Inspector.” Kirov took the bullet from his hand. “If this thing hits you, it will blow you to pieces.”
“That’s why I’m glad you’re a good shot.”
“At least you finally admitted it,” said Kirov, as he settled himself behind the gun.
Maximov and Pekkala set out towards the clearing.
Pekkala felt the open space around him as if it were a field of electricity. He saw the tank, hunched like a cornered animal at the clearing’s edge. With each step towards the iron monster, he felt his legs weaken. His breathing grew shallow and fast. He had never been so aware of the impossible fragility of his own body.
Leading away from the clearing, Pekkala saw woodsmen’s trails, too narrow for trucks, which snaked into the darkness of the forest. On one of these, a glint of silver caught his eye. Just off the path, partially camouflaged with branches, a motorcycle was propped against a tree. A pair of leather-padded goggles hung from the handlebars. The machine looked almost new and he could even see the maker’s name—Zundapp—emblazoned in silver on the teardrop-shaped fuel tank. In that moment, he realized it was the same machine he had seen the day Maximov had tried to gun him down outside the Cafe Tilsit. The motorcycle was the first indication Pekkala had seen that Kropotkin planned on surviving what he was about to do.
There was no sound except the fierce crackle of the flames still rising from the wreckage of the truck. Smoke swirled through bolts of sunlight which made their way down through the trees.
They reached the clearing, littered with strips of old bark from the logs which had been piled there by the foresters. Between them and the tank lay the body of the old man, facedown in the dirt, a tidy red circle in the pale blue cloth of his shirt.
The two men halted. The liquid from the bottle in Pekkala’s pocket sloshed as he came to a stop.
Now that he was only a few paces from the T-34, it seemed to Pekkala that his quarrel was no longer with Kropotkin but with the machine itself.
“Kropotkin!” shouted Maximov.
There was no reply. Instead, with a dreadful bellowing sound, the tank engine fired up. The noise was deafening. Two jets of smoke poured from its exhaust pipes. The T-34 lurched forward.
Instinctively, the two men stumbled back.
Suddenly the tank jerked to a stop, like a dog held by a chain.
“Kropotkin!” Pekkala called out. “We know you’re short of fuel. Just listen to us!”
But if his words reached through the layers of steel, the man in the tank gave no sign of having heard them.
The T-34 jolted towards them, spinning in its tracks. Mud and twisted shreds of bark sprayed out behind the machine. This time it did not stop.