Flitlianov moved forward again into the tunnel of heavy branches, bright sunlight breaking through them here and there on the snow in front of him, speckling the dark arcade with small patches of brilliant tinsel. After ten minutes’ walk he saw a small clearing ahead with a pile of fir trunks stacked in a large pyramid waiting to be taken away.
Further along the line to the right, Vassily Chechulian checked his rifle. He removed the ammunition, shot the bolt back and forth quickly several times, depressed the magazine spring up and down violently with his huge thumb, and then re-loaded it again carefully with a different supply from an inner pocket. For him this gun was what would get him safely through the day. It was a Mauser.375 barrel mounted on a Winchester sporting stock and he was remarkably well able to use it. He too had been worried by Andropov’s recent behaviour, his untypical flights of fancy over this imaginary Sixth Directorate, and he had come up with no good answer for it. He only knew, with the sure intuition born of many years experience of cover in the field, that he was exposed, at risk. From what quarter he had no idea, no more than he knew when or where the boar would run. And so the nerve of action was sharp in him that morning, all his senses resting on a hair-trigger: if there were to be any untoward accidents in. the coming hours he was determined to be the cause and not the result of them. He lit a cigarette and watched where the breeze would take the smoke: it drifted southwards along the line. He threw the cigarette away, washed the oil from his hands in a fistful of snow, dried them carefully in a fresh chamois cloth, and then drew a long breath, drinking the keen air several times deeply into his lungs. He waited another minute with his keeper, listening intently all round him, trying to fathom the silences that ran away from him in every direction, peering intently down all the long green tunnels. He saw that there was only a properly clear field of fire directly ahead or behind him, if he stayed in the track between the long straight rows of trees. So he moved forward in a zig-zag pattern, changing the angle of his walk by 90 degrees every forty yards or so, always moving diagonally across the lines of trees and thus, from any distance away, almost completely covered by them.
Half a mile away, to Chechulian’s right, at the edge of the line, Yuri Andropov walked along between the head gamekeeper and another man. The line of trees ended fifty yards away. There was a loggers’ track along the side of the wood and beyond that 200 metres of open ground rising steeply to the brow of a hill where the forest began again in a younger plantation. Behind him, out of sight in the distance, a forester’s jeep followed them along the rough track. He could just hear the engine on the wind as it climbed the steeper gradients, turning back towards it every so often, as though he was being pursued and not protected by it. His fingers were numb on the weapon; he did not know really how to use it. The spectacles he wore bit into the bridge of his nose painfully. His eyes had begun to water in the sharp air, blurring his sight. He could feel the drops running down his cheek; warm at first, like blood, but icy pellets by the time they reached his chin. He stumbled over some dead branches, making heavy weather in the thicker drifts of snow that had blown in from the edge of the wood. He seemed generally ill at ease.
Alexei Flitlianov stopped by the large pile of fir trunks, leant his rifle against them and glanced up at the circle of brilliant blue morning sky above the small clearing. He took his gloves off, blew on his hands and rubbed them together vigorously. They had been walking for almost half an hour. His keeper joined him, keeping his rifle in his hand.
‘Just the weather, isn’t it?’
The man nodded. ‘We had such snow this winter. The road out was blocked for weeks.’
‘You’re from these parts, are you?’
‘No. From Leningrad. I’m stationed at the village. Two weeks duty up here, then four days off.’
‘I know. You’re under Rakovsky aren’t you — at Orlyoni? Second Directorate, Leningrad south-east division.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Flitlianov thought then that the man must have been a plant put on to him by Andropov. Hadn’t Rakovsky been moved from that Leningrad area command six months before? But he couldn’t remember precisely.
‘Married?’
‘Two boys. Twelve and fourteen.’
‘Are your family with you here?’
The man hesitated. ‘No, they’ve not joined me yet. They’re still in Leningrad.’
‘Pity. I expect they’d like the hunting.’
‘Yes, sir, the younger one, Pytor, is very keen. It’s more the guns than the animals, I’m afraid; he’s very keen on guns. Youngsters are!’ The man laughed quickly, easing the rifle strap on to his shoulder.
‘Indeed, I know.’ Flitlianov chuckled — and then belched hugely. ‘God, I ate too well this morning. I must get it out. Will you wait for me.’
Flitlianov walked round towards the other side of the stack of logs, unbuttoning his coat. But the moment he was out of sight, he climbed quickly up the slope of trunks and found himself a niche between two of them at the top. He squeezed down, lying out full length, and waited. He must have been at least fifteen feet off the ground so that unless the keeper went looking for him up the hill, and then turned round, he could not be seen. Besides, in his fur helmet, brown leather overcoat and tan boots, he knew he must look something like a log.
Several minutes passed in silence. The sun beat down thawing the frozen drops of moisture on his sleeves. Already it had warmed the resin that seeped from the gashed trunks, so that, with his face buried among the logs, he felt himself beginning to suffocate in the strong smell of rising pine. Then he heard a sound, like a knuckle cracking, a rifle bolt breaking and then the bullet being rammed home. The man had come round to the far side of the logs. Another minute passed.
‘Comrade Flitlianov — are you all right?’
From somewhere away to their left a branch cracked, the sound running clearly down the light wind. Flitlianov raised his head a fraction. The man was just below, his back towards him. He turned his head in the direction of the sound.
‘Comrade Flitlianov?’
The gamekeeper’s voice was thin this time as if he expected no response. The man looked at the confused footprints in the snow and then started to follow them backwards down the hill into the trees. After a hundred yards he turned back and re-traced his steps to the clearing. Then he started to climb the pyramid of logs. At the top he stood up and looked all around him, shading his eyes from the hard sun. There was nothing to see anywhere — nobody, no sound, an empty world.
Flitlianov by now was well away from the clearing and running hard up the hill between the thickly arched trees. Then he turned sharply, at right angles, moving northwards across the plantation lines. He would have to be careful; this path would cross that of two or three other hunters, including Chechulian, before he came to Andropov’s beat at the end of the line. He had suspected from the beginning that somehow Andropov might be the real target of the day. Now he needed confirmation of this and of the marksman, if possible.
He had crossed two sets of tracks and must have been close to Chechulian’s path. But there was no sign of him or of his footprints. Chechulian must have slowed or been delayed in his walk. Flitlianov would have to wait until he passed. He stood quite still for a moment, listening, his eyes probing the dark corridors. There were footsteps somewhere, faint, but coming towards him, rising up the hill to his right. Then, a stone’s throw in the same direction, the undergrowth crackled and a brown shape exploded from it. The boar stood an instant in its tracks, then came for him, head down, moving fast, kicking up a flurry of snow behind it.