Siberian Red

‘What do you mean? You told me to bring you to the place where the railroad forked down towards the camp. Here is the fork. Now where is the gold?’
    Tarnowski scratched at his face like a man who had stepped into cobwebs. ‘When we came around a bend in the tracks . . .’
    ‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Kolchak. ‘If those Ostyaks learn where you’ve hidden the gold, they’ll leave us behind and steal everything for themselves.’
    From then on, the two men held a muttered conversation. ‘We spotted a small cliff right beside a pond,’ Tarnowski continued. ‘We buried the crates on the other side of that pond. I thought we would be able to see it from here, but it’s been a long time, Colonel. The mind plays tricks . . .’
    ‘You realise, Lieutenant Tarnowski, that we are almost certainly being followed, by men whose incentive for killing us is that they will lose their own lives if they fail. It will take time to dig up the gold, especially since the ground is frozen. After that, it’s a race for the border. I don’t need to tell you that if they catch up with us again, no one’s going to spare your life this time.’
    ‘It can’t be far Colonel,’ Tarnowski reassured him. ‘If we send a sledge in each direction, one of them is sure find it. The rest of us can wait here.’
    The Ostyaks watched and waited, knowing they were not trusted. The caribou, sensing hostility in the air, shifted nervously in their harnesses.
    ‘All right,’ said Kolchak. ‘Tell the Ostyaks what we’re going to do. I’ll go on one sledge and you take the other. If you’re the one who spots the cliff, make sure you travel past it before you order the Ostyak to turn around. Otherwise, you’ll give away the location without even saying a word.’
    Climbing on board a sledge, Kolchak set off to the west along the tracks. Tarnowski turned eastwards.
    The snow was still falling as they headed out.
    The sledges faded into the white, as if cataracts clouded the eyes of those who watched them go.
    *
     
    In the compound of the Borodok camp, the body of Platov still knelt in a puddle of blood.
    To Gramotin, staring down at him, the dead man looked like a Muslim kneeling on a red prayer rug.
    Gramotin’s face showed a mixture of anger and disgust. He could not make up his mind whether to be angry at the man who had murdered Platov, or disgusted at Platov for dying. He rested his hand on Platov’s shoulder, as if to offer consolation.
    Unbalanced by the weight of Gramotin’s touch, the corpse keeled over on its side.
    Gramotin picked up the rifle, sliding the bayonet out of Platov’s neck. He cleaned the blade by wiping it on the dead man’s coat, then shouldered the weapon and made his way to the Commandant’s office.
    Gramotin knocked on the door, slamming his fist against the flimsy wooden panels. There was no reply. Gramotin tried the handle but it was locked. Already out of patience, he raised one boot and kicked in the door.
    The first thing Gramotin saw when he walked in was a splatter of blood on the wall. The room smelled of gun smoke. Then he caught sight of Klenovkin’s body, lying stretched out on the floor behind his desk. The pistol was still in his hand. It was obvious that Klenovkin had shot himself.
    Gramotin thought he’d found the reason why‚ lying on Klenovkin’s desk.
    It was the empty file belonging to prisoner 4745.
    ‘Pekkala,’ muttered Gramotin. He turned his head and spat on to the floor.
    He was aware that the convict had escaped, having witnessed it with his own eyes. When the attack began, Gramotin had been up in one of the guard towers. Stepping out on to the walkway, he spotted Pekkala running towards the gates. He raised his rifle and fired at the running man. The first shot missed, which did not surprise Gramotin, since he was a poor shot even on his best days, but the second time he had Pekkala square in his sights. Before he had time to shoot, a bullet had come out of nowhere and struck the butt of his rifle, knocking him off his feet. Gramotin slipped off the walkway and fell into the ditch below. Landing in a dirty heap of snow, he had not suffered any injury, but by the time he had crawled out of the ditch, Pekkala and the Comitati were gone.
    Since the Comitati had never before attempted to escape, Gramotin immediately reached the conclusion that Pekkala must have engineered the breakout. To cover his tracks, the convict had even gone so far as to break into