Hawke knew he was back in Russia.
He glanced at the green glow of his wristwatch. It was after two o’clock in the morning, but the night was lit up like day. The citizens of St. Petersburg called their midsummer evenings the White Nights.
That beautiful town, the northernmost city of any size on earth, is so far north that the sun never really quite dips below the horizon during midsummer. This, of course, was December, but still, it was the whitest night Alex Hawke had ever seen. He could easily be reading by his window, and beyond it, a full moon on snow, not the sun, created the white night flying by his window.
He found himself bewitched by the luminous, enchanting landscape. As time passed, the succession of huge views from his window aroused in him such a feeling of spaciousness that it made him think and dream of the future. One that might well include the beautiful Russian woman whose face he so longed to see.
But, he reminded himself again, he was in Russia on a mission. It was no time for lovesick dreaming. It was time to reimmerse himself in the hard reality of Russia and all that menacing old word Russia once more implied.
It was time, he knew, to rearm, to steel himself for whatever lay ahead. What the British secret services had long called the Great Game with the Russians was afoot once more, and he was headed deep into the thick of it. Harry Brock was already waiting for him in Moscow, meeting with Red Banner’s newly recruited case officers and speaking with potential targets Stefan had indentified within the KGB. Spies with a price were not hard to come by in the new Russia.
In Bermuda, Ambrose Congreve, much improved every day, was happily ensconced in Hawke’s office at Blue Water. Appointing the former chief inspector of Scotland Yard temporary chief of station for the fledgling MI-6 division had been C’s idea, and Hawke thought it an inspired one. Especially when he learned that Ambrose was always summoning Pippa Guinness to his office, asking her to have this or that typed, or, better yet, please bring him a fresh pot of tea, no lemon, thank you. He was still in a wheelchair, but had said his leg seemed to be healing nicely.
As the endless miles rolled by, Hawke remained at his window, trying to summon his old memories of Russia. His mind found an ugly landscape of crumbling factories and idle collective farms, back streets of towns crowded with prostitutes, beggars, hawkers, hustlers, and peasants, all humming with activity, a scant few worthless things for sale in clogged lanes of shops with mostly barren shelves, selling matches and salt, sweatshops making T-shirts and plastic shoes.
But for the occasional intrusion of police, life went on. Politics was merely a nuisance you tolerated, with mostly bemused indifference. And what looked at a distance like total anarchy and chaos? Close up, it was meticulous order.
He wondered how much country life had changed in the years since the collapse of the old Soviet ways. Out here, probably not at all. The New Russia you read about existed only in places like Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev. The New Russia was all about money and power, and there was precious little of either to be found out here, where field was followed by field only to be swallowed up by another black forest.
He could make out an occasional farm building, buried under a mantle of snow. Or now and then, at a desolate country crossing, he’d catch a glimpse of snowy lane, winding back up a hill, disappearing amid a copse of frosted trees. It wasn’t until you got beyond the great cities of Russia, he now realized, that you could sense the vastness of this ancient land. Its true size, its scope, its immensity, were literally unimaginable.
There was never any vehicular traffic at these infrequent crossings, ever. No trucks, no cars, no tractors. Were there simply no combustion engines outside the cities? None at all? A few hours earlier, they’d slowed for a crossing, and he’d seen a mule cart with an ancient driver on his box, bundled against the freezing north wind, the reins clenched in his frozen fingers. The man was so still on his perch that Hawke feared he might have simply frozen to death while waiting for the long train to pass.
The train slowed further, and he guessed by the hour that they might finally be approaching his destination, a tiny country station on the way to nowhere.
He stood and gathered his few belongings. He was already wearing his long black woolen greatcoat against the cold and his thick black cashmere scarf and his Russian fur cap, purchased from a kiosk at the St. Petersburg station. He reached up to the top shelf for his luggage.
He had with him his old leather Gladstone portmanteau, primarily because of its twin false bottoms. The two visible compartments were filled with clothing and shoes and his few books. Two secret compartments contained one pistol each, twin SIG Sauer 9mms, plus enough Parabellum ammunition to start a small war. Another, smaller compartment housed his powerful Iridium Globalstar satellite telephone. The guns and the phone had been waiting for him in a luggage storage locker at the St. Petersburg train station.
The train lurched to a stop, and he leaned over to peer out his window. The window framed what looked like a charcoal sketch. There was the tiny station house with its puffing chimney. Beside it were birch trees, laden with hoar frost. Their branches, like smoky streaks of candle wax, looked as if they wished to lay down their snowy burdens on the building’s steeply pitched roof.
The dimly lit sign over the doorway read “Tvas.” The stationmaster’s office was lit from within, and inside the yellow room, he saw the silhouette of a tall woman bundled in furs, pacing back and forth. His heart leaped at the sight of her, and he raced from his compartment, careened down the narrow corridor to the platform, where he jumped from the train.
Her face was at the stationmaster’s window, peering out at the arriving train, as he grasped the doorknob and pushed inside, instantly grateful for the warmth of the small stove glowing in the corner.
Anastasia turned from the window and smiled at him.
“You’ve come” was all she said.
She was covered head to toe in white sable, an abundant coat reaching the tops of her snowy boots. Her head was covered with a matching sable cowl, and her golden curls fell beside her cheeks, still rosy with the cold. Her hands were clasped inside a white fur muff, which she let drop as she moved quickly toward him across the scuffed wooden floor.
“Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering the stationmaster who stood beside his counter. He was a small fat man who wore a grey Tolstoyan shirt with a broad leather belt, felt boots, and trousers bagging at the knees. He looked a kindly enough fellow, but a tiny gold pincenez on a wide black ribbon quivered angrily on the end of his nose.
“Nikolai, this is my new friend whom I’ve been telling you about.”
The Russian bowed, saying something under his breath to Anastasia.
“He says you’re very handsome but that I shouldn’t have come all this way for you on such a night. He’s very protective. I’ve known him since I was no taller than a poppy.”
“Come here,” Hawke said to her, dropping his portmanteau to the floor and spreading his arms wide.
She ran to him, and he enfolded her in his arms, burying his face against hers inside the warmth of her furry cowl, inhaling the fresh outdoor scent of her, the perfume of her skin, finding her lips and kissing them, at first softly and then with a sudden urgency that surprised even him. He’d struggled mightily to banish her from his mind for all the long hours on the train, and now he was overwhelmed at the strength of the feelings suddenly welling up inside.