“Shit.” Brady thought for a moment. “Tell—”
A window behind him shattered, the shot reverberating through the room. A clerk at the far end of the room was just standing there, dumbly holding the pistol, not even attempting a second shot. Brady’s Colt boomed, and the man seemed to jump backward, spurting blood from his chest.
They could hear running feet outside in the tram yard.
Brady was striding down to where the spread-eagled clerk had collapsed against the wall. “You two, take the bags,” he told Piatakov and Rafiq, picking up the offending pistol and thrusting it under his belt. He walked back to the top of the stairs. “If I were you,” he told the assembly, “I’d think about how good life can be and just sit there quietly until this is over.”
As the three of them reached the foot of the stairs, another two shots were fired outside. Chatterji was by the doorway, looking out; behind him, the Chekist was slumped in the chair, his blouse a sea of blood, his throat slit open from ear to ear.
“Why did you kill him?” Piatakov asked furiously.
“What else could I do?” the Indian snapped back.
“You could—”
“Later,” Brady interrupted harshly.
He was right. Piatakov put down the heavy bags and took a look outside. On opposite sides of the tramlines, Shahumian and Nasim were retreating across the yard, guns in hand. As Piatakov watched, the Armenian took cover behind a stationary tram, the Indian in a convenient doorway. Figures were moving behind the distant gates.
“How many, Aram?” Brady shouted.
“At least ten,” the Armenian yelled back. “Ivan’s looking for another exit,” he added.
As if on cue, Grazhin appeared around the corner of the building. “There’s a way out through the factory next door,” he said breathlessly.
“Go,” Brady told Piatakov, Grazhin, Chatterji, and Rafiq, who now had a bag of coins each. “We’ll be right behind you.”
The yard beyond the office was edged by a man-high brick wall. A grindstone offered a convenient leg up, but as Piatakov put his head above the parapet, a shout from above and behind him was followed by the sound of a vehicle driving into the yard ahead.
He dropped back down. “More militia,” he told Grazhin.
They retraced their steps, feeling the weight of the coins, meeting Brady on the way. Ahead of them a bullet pinged off the metal flank of a tram.
“Maybe there’s a way out on the other side of the shed,” Grazhin suggested between coughs.
“I’ll take a look,” Brady said, pulling the bag off his head, making his hair stand up. “Can’t see a goddamn thing with it on,” he muttered, before taking off across the yard and disappearing into the glass-roofed tram shed.
They could hear militia behind them now, on the far side of the factory wall. Piatakov waited until a head appeared; then he fired off two shots. The head’s disappearance was presumably instinctive, as he’d aimed deliberately high. It wasn’t so long ago he’d been fighting the Whites alongside men like these.
He turned in time to see Grazhin, following in Brady’s footsteps, caught by fire from the militia beyond the gates. As his comrade stumbled and fell, the heavy bag dropped from his hand, spilling its harvest of shiny coins between the tramlines.
Nasim’s gun barked in reply, followed by Chatterji’s and Piatakov’s own. Grazhin, cursing loudly, hobbled on into the shed, holding his thigh.
Brady emerged from the tram shed, and signaled that he’d found a way out. He helped Grazhin deeper into the shed, and then joined Shahumian in offering covering fire for those on the wrong side of the open yard.
Piatakov made it across, slamming into a tram with rather more force than he wanted to. Chatterji was right behind him.
Rafiq tripped on a rail, went down, and then scurried on without his share of the spoils. Coming up behind him, Nasim stooped to retrieve the bag, but was instantly hit by a fusillade of fire. Flung backward across the tramlines, he came to rest with his handsome face staring lifelessly up at the sky.
When Shahumian instinctively moved toward the body, another volley sent him scurrying back, clutching his left shoulder.
Piatakov stared at the dead Indian. A blue world.
A bullet exploded a tram windshield above their heads. The militiamen from the factory were over the wall.
“Move!” Brady shouted, leading them at a run down the line of trams in the wake of the struggling Grazhin. The door at the rear of the shed was open.
Beyond it was another walled yard. In the corner a long-disused gate led into a narrow strip of waste ground between factory and houses. At its end they could see someone strolling past on Shabolovka Street. Behind them the sounds of pursuit grew louder.
They went down the passage at a run, slowing to a halt where it ran into the street. For a short moment only the stroller was visible, approaching the crossroads; then two militiamen came rushing around the corner, almost knocking him over. As Brady’s gun boomed, dropping one and sending the other flying for cover, a shot from down the passage spun Rafiq against the wall.
Piatakov returned fire, pinning the pursuers down, then followed the others across the street and into the alley opposite. Rafiq had taken a bullet high in the chest; his face was the color of pastry. Shahumian was bleeding profusely, but swore it was only a flesh wound. Chatterji was now carrying both the remaining bags of coins, Grazhin leaning against a wall, holding his mask over his thigh wound and breathing heavily. Brady was reloading the Colt. “Keep moving,” he said. “I’ll keep the bastards’ heads down.”
“No,” Grazhin wheezed.
Piatakov hesitated.
“I can’t run,” Grazhin told him and Brady. “Leave this to me.” A smile flickered across his cadaverous face. “I’ve had enough,” he added laconically.
Brady looked at him, nodded almost absentmindedly, and turned away, pulling Piatakov after him. At the end of the alley, as they caught up with Aram, Rafiq, and Chatterji, Grazhin’s army pistol sounded twice in quick succession.
They all pocketed or belted their guns, crossed the deserted street in front of them, and took a turn to the north. Ahead of them the half-built Shukhov wireless tower was starkly silhouetted against the yellow evening sky. More shots echoed, sounding much farther away.
“We should split up,” Brady said.
Piatakov eased Shahumian’s bloody shirt up over his head, balled it up, and told the Armenian to hold it against his wound. As he placed a pan of water on the faintly glowing ring, Piatakov realized how angry he was feeling, with Brady, with the others, with himself. What had they all been thinking?
He told himself to calm down. What was that phrase of Caitlin’s—crying over spilled milk. He smiled to himself—when had they last seen milk?
On the other side of the room, Shahumian was flexing his shoulder.
“How does it feel?” Piatakov asked, carrying the candle across to get a better look at the wound. “It doesn’t seem serious.”
“It isn’t. I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
“Assuming we haven’t been caught,” Piatakov said bitterly. “I should have spoken up. I knew it was a huge gamble, and I said nothing. Now Ivan Vasilyevich is dead; Nasim is dead; you and Rafiq are both wounded. I should have said something. Chatterji… I mean… why did he do it? Why not just knock the man out? And Brady… sometimes he seems like a madman. He was having the time of his life out there!”
“He was,” Shahumian agreed. “But that’s what makes him such a fighter. Isn’t that water ready yet?”
It was barely warm but would probably take a week to boil. Piatakov carried the pan across to his friend.