Siberian Red

discovered. It took him only a second to realise he had no choice except to run.
    ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked Melekov. ‘If what you say is true, do you realise what your life would be worth if they found out I’d heard it from you?’
    ‘You could have killed me, that day in the kitchen. Maybe you should have, but you didn’t. I pay my debts, Pekkala, and this one is paid. Now move quickly. I know a place where you can hide.’ The cook beckoned for Pekkala to follow, spun around and found himself face to face with Tarnowski, who had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
    Before Melekov had a chance to react, Tarnowski laid him out with a fist to the side of the head. Melekov sprawled unconscious on the floor.
    ‘Don’t kill him,’ said Pekkala.
    ‘I don’t have time to kill him,’ replied Tarnowski. ‘We are getting out of here.’
    Suddenly, a wall of darkness seemed to rise from the entrance to the camp. A tremor passed through Pekkala‚ the ground shook under his feet. Then a flash as bright as molten copper burst through the narrow gap between the gates, which tore loose from their iron hinges, scattering the links of chain which had held them shut.
    ‘Head straight through the entrance,’ ordered Tarnowski. ‘Don’t stop for anything. I’ll meet you on the other side.’
    Without a word, Pekkala set off running across the compound. In between clouds of smoke, he glimpsed the Ostyaks milling about just outside the gates. They had brought sledges, four that Pekkala could see, each one harnessed to a single caribou.
    Guards spilled out of the watchtowers. None of them made any attempt to open fire on the Ostyaks. Instead, they scrambled down their ladders and bolted for the safety of the guardhouse.
    On the other side of the compound, Pekkala caught sight of Lavrenov. Kneeling in front of him was one of the guards, whom Pekkala recognised as Platov, the man they called Gramotin’s puppet. On his way to the guardhouse, Platov had slipped on the ice, dropping his rifle in the process.
    Before Platov could get back on his feet, Lavrenov had snatched up the gun, with its long, cruciform bayonet, and now aimed it squarely at the guard. ‘Which god are you praying to now?’ screamed Lavrenov, as Platov raised his hands to shield his face. ‘Haven’t you abolished all of them?’
    Pekkala lost sight of the two men as he ran past the bronze statue. At that moment, he spotted a guard up on the walkway between the towers. This one had not fled like the others. Instead he took aim at Pekkala. As the man raised the gun to his shoulder, Pekkala realised it was Gramotin.
    He heard the gun go off, brittle and echoing across the compound, and then came a dull clang as the bullet struck the statue of the woman.
    Then another shot rang out, this one from the other side of the compound.
    Gramotin’s legs slipped out from under him. He tumbled from the walkway into the ditch below.
    As Pekkala sprinted through the gates, an Ostyak grabbed him by the arm. The stocky man, his wide face powdered with smoke, steered Pekkala towards one of the sledges. As Pekkala crouched down on the narrow wooden platform, he stared through the jagged teeth of splintered wood, all that remained of the gates, at men running about in the compound. Half-dressed, disoriented prisoners poured from the barracks. The Commandant’s quarters looked deserted, although Pekkala knew Klenovkin must be in there somewhere.
    The Ostyaks drifted in and out of the thick smoke. The fur on their coats stood up like that of angry cats. They were busily setting fire to the stockade fence, whose tar-painted logs quickly began to burn.
    Now Lavrenov emerged from camp. Immediately he took his place on one of the sledges. Crouching there, he stared back at the camp, amazed to be outside the prison walls at last.
    Bullets snapped over their heads. Through the windows of the guardhouse, camp guards fired blind into the haze. Pekkala heard the clunk of rounds striking the gate posts and the spitting whine of bullets as they ricocheted off stones in the road.
    Sedov lurched through the smoke. He stumbled and righted himself, then stared in confusion at a tear which had appeared in his jacket, the white fluff of raw cotton spattered with his blood. A stray bullet from the guardhouse had caught him in the back, the round passing through the top of his shoulder.
    Lavrenov and Pekkala helped him to a sledge.
    At last, Kolchak and Tarnowski