And now, with Haglund compromised, possibly already dead, and the crisis with the ruined third snowmobile, she’d decided it was time to show her hand and take her chances on her own.
All of this registered in Purkiss’s mind in the space of a few seconds. He watched the snowmobile gather speed.
He lifted the Ruger again.
It had a four-round rotary magazine. He’d fired three shots at the bear.
Purkiss sighted through the rifle’s scope. She was hunched in the seat, the side of her head just visible.
He squeezed the trigger.
The image in the scope changed abruptly.
Purkiss lowered the rifle. In the distance, the snowmobile veered, skidded sideways, stopped. The slumped figure was almost invisible in the front seat, and wasn’t moving.
Laying the rifle down — it needed reloading anyway, and he had other priorities — Purkiss begun to run towards Haglund.
They used Avner’s clothing to bind the wounds, Clement tearing the garments into suitable strips, Purkiss applying the bandages. Haglund lay on his back, his breath hissing through clenched, bared teeth, his eyes tight shut in agony. Beneath him the bloodied ground appeared black in contrast to the snow.
The bear’s claws had opened parallel trenches in his left outer thigh, and had taken a chunk of flesh from the upper arm on the same side. Despite the copious blood, there was no indication that an artery had been severed. The wounds were ragged, shreds of skin and muscle difficult to distinguish from the fibres of his ripped clothes. It was irrelevant. There was no time and there were no facilities to clean the wounds properly.
When he’d secured the dressings, Purkiss said, ‘Can you sit up?’
Clement helped him to heave Haglund upright. His hissing increased, but he managed to reach a sitting position. He braced his hands, preparing to stand, but Purkiss said, ‘Take it easy. Stay like that for a minute.’
Purkiss trotted fifty yards away to where the snowmobile had come to a halt. He drew the Walther from his pocket as he moved.
It wasn’t necessary. Budian had taken the shot directly in the head. Purkiss was glad she was wearing her balaclava, which appeared unnaturally concave. He dragged her body out of the sled and dumped it on the ground. On the seat was a handgun, the one she’d used to kill Avner. A .22 Beretta Bobcat. Purkiss pocketed it.
He examined the snowmobile swiftly. It appeared undamaged. To make sure, he climbed on and rode it back to Clement and Haglund.
Haglund was trying again to get to his feet. He succeeded, with a grunt of pain, before staggering and sinking to his backside once more.
‘Damn it.’
‘We’re in a better position now,’ said Purkiss. ‘Three of us, and two working sleds.’
Clement shook her head. ‘Oleksandra. I never —’
‘Neither did I,’ said Purkiss. ‘But I should have.’
He checked his watch. They’d lost almost half an hour.
‘We need to move,’ he said.
Thirty-one
It took Captain Aleksandrov fifteen minutes to satisfy himself that it was a ruse.
The GAZ Vodnik had aimed towards the tower of smoke in the distance and they’d found the blackened wreck of the Ural partway down the ravine. Aleksandrov, suspecting an ambush, sent two of his men down the ravine’s wall with grappling equipment, while he and the remaining man kept watch from the Vodnik. He used the time to call General Tsarev and update him.
When the men emerged from the ravine and shook their heads — no human remains inside the truck — Aleksandrov called the General again.
‘They’ll have taken the snowmobiles, sir. The advantage they gain with regard to speed will be offset to some extent by the terrain ahead.’
Tsarev said, ‘Two clarifications of your orders. The fugitives are to be prevented from reaching Saburov-Kennedy Station at all costs.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And they are to be terminated. All of them, without hesitation, even if they attempt to surrender. The bodies are to be brought back with you.’
‘Understood.’
The rocks and copses of vegetation took on a new, threatening aspect, every one of them a bear or an armed man. Purkiss wove among them, the urge to increase the snowmobile’s speed held in check by his knowledge that they couldn’t afford another accident. Nonetheless, he knew they were covering ground more slowly than before, knew Haglund was the more skilled rider.
Haglund was wedged into the rear seat behind Purkiss. His breathing was rapid, worryingly so. Purkiss couldn’t estimate how much blood the man had lost from his wounds, but he knew the effects would be multiplied in the prevailing temperature.
Clement kept close behind, alone in the other sled. Purkiss had been concerned that she’d be overly cautious after her mishap earlier, but she maintained the speed he set.
The compass was on the dashboard before him. Purkiss ignored his watch. Time seemed to be of lesser importance, and in any case had taken on an unreal quality, as though the brooding mass of the tundra had sucked it in, distorted it.
Apart from direction, only distance mattered now.
The digits on the odometer ticked over steadily. They’d covered eighteen kilometres since resuming their journey. Eighteen gone, which meant seven or ten remaining.
Haglund had said there was a rudimentary network of roads in the vicinity of Saburov-Kennedy Station, where the landscape began to flatten out once more. Purkiss held on to that knowledge. Roads meant predictability, reassurance.
A mild slope presented itself ahead. Purkiss slowed as he approached the crest, mindful of a possible sudden drop beyond.
At the top of the slope he pulled to a stop.
Clement drew up beside him.
Despair dragged at Purkiss, threatening to smother him in its dark embrace.
The tundra continued a kilometre or so ahead, before terminating at the base of a ridge that stretched from left to right as far as the eye could make out. It peaked off centre, resembling the back of a gargantuan prehistoric beast half buried in the ground.
Clement let out a sigh like a prayer.
Thirty-two
‘We go up,’ said Purkiss.
As they’d approached the ridge, he’d begun to appreciate its height. At its peak it reached perhaps one hundred metres into the sky. In places the surface was smooth and sheer, in others more rugged but tilting at no less than sixty degrees from the horizontal.
‘We have to find a way round,’ Clement said.
They’d ridden the sleds along the base to first the right, then the left. The ridge continued, implacably, showing no sign of petering out in either direction. Purkiss had dismounted and stood gazing upwards.
‘There is no way round,’ said Purkiss. ‘None that we’ll find any time soon.’
For the first time he heard a catch in her voice. ‘We can’t take the sleds up.’
‘So we leave them. We go on foot.’
She seized his arm, another first. ‘There’s still five miles to go.’
‘We can do it.’
He moved away, striding along the base, peering up into the darkness. Some way along, he saw an immense furrow winding up the rock wall. The top of the ridge was visible against the cloud background. Purkiss estimated the height at this point at forty metres. The angle of the slope was about as favourable as any he’d seen so far.
He returned to the others. ‘Gunnar,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to climb.’
He helped the engineer out of the sled. Haglund lurched as his injured leg supported his weight. Purkiss put an arm across his back.