Siberian Red

colour of fresh blood. The space had lately served as a storage room for handcarts which had broken down. Inside, a few of the wrecked contraptions stood against the wall. Scattered on the ground were the shattered tusks of stalactites and stalagmites which had been broken to make room for them. Against the far side of this strange temple, perched upon a tongue of stone as pale as alabaster, a battered miner’s lamp illuminated the chamber.
    Now another possibility occurred to Pekkala. Perhaps the prisoners had not dug their way out, after all. Maybe they didn’t need to. Is it possible, he wondered, that in their years of toiling in the bowels of the earth, the Comitati had discovered some naturally occurring cave network which provided them with an exit into the forest, somewhere outside the walls of Borodok? Pekkala remembered stories he had heard about the caves of Altamira in northern Spain where, in 1879, a girl walking her dog had stumbled upon the entrance to a system of connecting caverns that stretched deep beneath the ground. In the largest of these caves, she’d found paintings of animals – bison and ibex – which, like those who painted them, had vanished from that countryside millennia before.
    Lavrenov gestured into the cave. ‘After you, Inspector.’
    Ducking his head, Pekkala stepped into the room. The lamplight shuddered. The air smelled rank. Shadows writhed like snakes across the floor.
    Turning back, he saw that Lavrenov was not behind him.
    His heart slammed into his throat.
    In that moment, he heard a voice whisper his name.
    ‘Who’s there?’ asked Pekkala.
    A hand reached out and brushed against his leg.
    Pekkala shouted with alarm. Stepping back, he noticed a figure sitting in an alcove formed inside the stone.
    The presence of this huddled shape reminded him of tales he had heard about ancient and mummified corpses, discovered in caves such as this, creatures whose careless wanderings had brought them here to die before their species ever dared to rule the earth.
    Pekkala’s eyes darted among the scaffolding of pillars. He was certain now that he’d been led into an ambush. In his terror, he glimpsed his own desiccated body, sleeping through millennia.
    ‘Tarnowski?’ he called. ‘Sedov, is that you?’
    The figure emerged from its hiding place in the wall, as if the rock itself had come to life. Even through the matted beard and filthy clothes, Pekkala recognised a man he had long since consigned to oblivion.
    It was Colonel Kolchak himself.
    Kolchak spread his arms and smiled, revealing strong white teeth.
    ‘You!’ Pekkala finally managed to say and suddenly all the years since the night outside his cottage, when he had last set eyes on Kolchak, crumpled together like the folds of an accordion, so that it seemed as if no time had passed between that moment and this.
    ‘I told you we would meet again some day,’ said Kolchak. ‘Many times, during my long exile in Shanghai, I imagined this reunion. I had hoped it would be in more luxurious surroundings, but this will have to do, at least for now.’
    ‘But how did you get here?’ asked Pekkala, still completely overwhelmed. ‘Is there a tunnel to the forest?’
    The Colonel laughed. ‘There is nothing beyond this cave but solid rock. If there had been a way in or out of here other than the main entrance to the mine, I would have made use of it by now. I have been down here for almost a month, eating stale bread from your kitchen and drinking your pine-needle soup.’
    ‘A month?’
    ‘That was not my intention,’ admitted Kolchak. ‘I had arranged to spend only a few days inside the camp while we made final preparations for the escape. It almost never happened. Then one of my own men betrayed me. At least, he tried to. There was a price to pay for that.’ To emphasise his words, Kolchak drew a long, stag-handled knife from under his jacket. Its massive Bowie blade glimmered in the lantern light.
    ‘You killed Ryabov?’ gasped Pekkala. ‘Your own Captain?’
    ‘I had no choice.’
    ‘But why would he have betrayed you?’
    ‘What does it matter now? He is dead.’
    ‘It matters a great deal,’ insisted Pekkala, ‘to me and to your men.’
    ‘He went over to the enemy. That is all you need to know. My friend,’ a tone of warning had entered Kolchak’s voice, ‘just be glad you’re coming with us.’
     From the tone of those words, Pekkala realised it was the only answer he was going to get.