Chechulian raised his rifle to the animal and fired in one movement. Then he fired again at the receding form. The second shot had winged him, he thought, somewhere in the shoulder. The beast’s head had reared violently, it had stumbled, but had then charged away across the line of trees to the right. Chechulian re-loaded and moved after it, running.
After the first shot the boar had veered away from Flitlianov just as he’d thrown himself to one side, finding cover among some brush at the base of a large fir trunk. The second shot had hit the animal, ripping through the top of his shoulder, and a moment later he saw Chechulian and his man hurrying after it not five yards away from him. Flitlianov waited until the two of them were out of sight before getting up and moving quietly on across the line of trees.
Yuri Andropov heard the two shots to his left, and thirty seconds later the sound of underbrush and dead branches splintering violently, this new noise approaching him like an arrow. He gripped his rifle, half raising it — an involuntary, useless gesture, he knew, for the ammunition it contained was blank. And then the boar was upon them through the nearest line of trees. The group had no time to scatter. The keepers fired almost simultaneously. But for the first of them it was too late: the animal rammed him viciously about the legs and then started to gore his midriff. The second keeper threw himself forward, trying to kick the beast away, unable to get another shot in.
A rifle had fallen to the ground. Andropov picked it up and ran. He was fifty yards away from the struggling keepers, zigzagging through the trees before a first shot followed him; then came a ragged volley — the bullets slapping into tree trunks, kicking up little gobbets of snow about his feet. But it was useless. Andropov was running southwards, against the grain of the wood, the trees masking him more and more completely at every step. The forester’s jeep drew up at the edge of the trees. Two men got out and, leaving the keeper to tend his wounded colleague, they set off in pursuit.
Alexei Flitlianov kept his head well down among the bushes while this new shooting raged invisibly in front of him. When it had stopped he raised his head an instant and then ducked again. A man was running wildly towards him — a tall, burly figure, with a light silver fox-fur helmet and rimless spectacles: Yuri Andropov. But as he passed a few yards away from him Flitlianov recognised something else about the man: it was not Yuri Andropov but someone dressed and made up to look very like him.
Vassily Chechulian had stopped in his pursuit of the wounded animal when he heard the shooting. It could only mean one thing: Andropov, or some other party to his right, had sighted the boar, missed it, and succeeded only in heading it back towards him. It was coming for him now, the undergrowth rattling fifty yards ahead. He raised his rifle but the noise suddenly stopped. Something moved in a patch of dark scrub beneath the trees. He would have to flush the animal out. He fired once, and then a second time, the shots ringing violently in the silence. Then he moved carefully towards the patch of scrub. Halfway there he stopped. Two men were facing him from the other side of the bushes, their rifles covering him. And in the bushes lay the body of a man: Yuri Andropov.
Flitlianov worked his way across the edge of the forest and paused, crouching down behind the last line of trees. A covered forester’s jeep was parked on a logger’s track, its back towards him. There was no one around. He walked up behind it slowly. The front seats were empty. He put his head in through the driver’s window. Yuri Andropov and Alexander Sakharovsky were sitting quietly in the back seat. They started forward in alarm.
Flitlianov looked at them easily. ‘I heard all the shooting. What’s happened?’
The two men said nothing, looking at him in dulled astonishment.
‘What’s going on?’ Flitlianov put his rifle on the bonnet of the jeep and opened the driver’s door.
‘We don’t know yet. The men have gone to see,’ Andropov said at last. And then the two-way radio started to crackle beneath the dashboard. Flitlianov picked up the receiver and handed it over to Andropov.
‘Yes?’ he said, listening. ‘Who? — what happened?’ His voice rose in genuine surprise. ‘Yes, all right. Get them all back here as soon as possible. Yes, we’ll carry on with the hunt’ He handed the receiver back. ‘An accident, Alexei. They’ve shot me.’ He looked at Sakharovsky, smiled, and began to clamber out of the jeep, brushing himself down, stretching and stamping his legs in the snow. ‘Yes, they got me in the end.’ He looked up at the marvellous sky, blinking, his face bright now, satisfied, enjoying the crisp air. ‘And I thought it might have been you, Alexei.’ He smiled again, breathing deeply.
‘I don’t quite follow.’
‘Well — it did look just possible, no? This conspiracy — your background. I had to take everyone into consideration, even my deputies. But it wasn’t you of course, Alexei. I did you an injustice. It was Vassily Chechulian — who would have thought it? Yes, Vassily has just shot me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Flitlianov said in real astonishment.
‘A tragedy, Alexei.’ Andropov came forward, wiping his spectacles, then pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘You were right at our last meeting. All we need do now is chase the rest of the group up. I think we have our conspirator. Our liberal, our counter-revolutionary.’ He put his hand on Flitlianov’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Alexei.’
Andropov took his rifle from Sakharovsky, shot the bolt several times, loaded it, checked the safety catch, and finally made some imaginary passing shots in the air. Then he turned, and swung the rifle down towards Flitlianov. Sakharovsky, standing behind him, made an involuntary movement to one side.
‘Oh, and by the way, Alexei,’ Andropov checked his rifle again, crooked it under his arm like a shotgun and walked casually towards him, ‘now that we’re all three alone together, we can get on with some other important business that’s just come up: your internal security division. We need some work done in America. I’d like you to get one of your men to New York to check out one of our circles there. Do you have anyone you can send at once? You normally have some one in the pipe-line ready for these occasions — a completely fresh face.’
‘Yes, I have someone — due to go over to America quite soon in any case. Part of a routine replacement. He’s ready.’
‘A good man?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, you’re sure of him? He’s clear. No one has any tail on him?’
‘Absolutely. As you know, we keep these men completely clear of any contact at their base before sending them into a target area. He’s done some work before for us in Africa, years ago. But he’s completely unmarked now.’
‘Fine, I’ll give you the details tomorrow. Let’s get on with the hunting.’
The three men walked away from the jeep, up the hill, Andropov still brushing himself down, almost frisking about, as though he had been in a cardboard box all morning. His driver and his bodyguard emerged from the woods with the body of a man. The two groups stood together a moment in the dazzling light, Andropov giving directions like a stage producer, before they separated and the three hunters disappeared into the dark green tunnel of trees.
Alexei Flitlianov shot nothing at the hunt and on the drive back to Moscow that afternoon he looked out at the dull landscape, the bright day gone, remarking on the weather and the traffic to his Czech colleague who travelled back with him. But he disliked this flat countryside — a muddy April thaw edging the road, beginning to creep in over the immense fields — a landscape so drab and featureless by comparison with the sharp mountains and tangy springs of his own Georgian background in the south. And thus he politely lied about the beauties of the Moscow plain to the man beside him: he lied as he had done for most of his life, while thinking of other things that were true.