Siberian Red

arm.
    With trembling fingers, Gramotin slid back the bolt of his rifle and double-checked that he had a round in the breech.
    Now the two men appeared to be arguing.
    The next thing Gramotin saw was that Pekkala had drawn a knife. Suddenly, Pekkala struck Lavrenov, who fell in a heap in the snow. As Pekkala prepared to finish off the wounded Lavrenov, Gramotin felt a sudden rush of pity for the man, to have come this far, only to be killed by the very person who had convinced him to escape in the first place.
    Without a moment’s hesitation, Gramotin lined up the sight, right in the centre of Pekkala’s back, and pulled the trigger. The gunstock bucked into his shoulder. After so much time spent with no other sound but his own breathing, he was deafened by the noise of the gunshot. It echoed back and forth between the forest and the cliff, as if guns were firing from all directions. For a moment, Gramotin lost sight of the men, but when he raised his head above the sights, he saw that Pekkala was down and a splash of blood darkened the snow beside the fallen man.
    Lavrenov, meanwhile, had scrambled away into the trees, but Gramotin did not care. His mind was in an uproar. His whole body trembled and a cackling, nervous laugh escaped his lips. He had done it. He had killed Pekkala.
    This laughter ceased abruptly as it occurred to Gramotin that he needed the Inspector’s body as proof of what he had done. Without it, doubt would be cast upon his story. Determined to kill as many of the Comitati as he could‚ and force the rest to leave Pekkala’s corpse behind, Gramotin began to fire round after round into the smoke. When the rifle’s magazine was empty, he rolled over on to his back and removed a handful of bullets from his bandolier.
    As he hurriedly reloaded the rifle, Gramotin heard a noise which, at first, he mistook for thunder although, in the middle of winter, that would have been unlikely. Perhaps it is an avalanche, he thought. The mysterious sound grew, filling the sky, vibrating the ground beneath his shoulder blades until, suddenly, Gramotin realised what it was. Immediately‚ old nightmares reared up in his mind and a choking sensation clamped down on his throat. Squinting into the distance, he spotted a train approaching from the east.
    It took a moment before Gramotin was able to comprehend that, in fact, the arrival of this train was the best thing that could possibly happen to him. It meant that help was on the way. All trains on the Trans-Siberian carried a contingent of armed guards. The men would assist him in rounding up the last of the Comitati. For certain, they would be amazed to find him there, a solitary warrior, having pursued these escaped convicts across the taiga before cornering them in the forest. They, not he, would be the ones to tell the story of his heroic journey. He no longer needed to concern himself with any Dalstroy board of inquiry. They would not be punishing him. Instead, they would shower him with honours. There would be a promotion. That much was certain. Master Sergeant Gramotin. They might even make him an officer. There would also be a medal. But which one? Hero of the Soviet Union, perhaps. All he had to do was go down there and tell that train to stop.
    *
     
    When the noise of the first gunshot echoed through the trees, Pekkala had dived for cover into the frozen reeds.
    Tarnowski was waiting for him on the other side, a rifle in his hand. ‘The Colonel?’
    Through the brittle screen of rushes, both men looked out on to the pond. Kolchak’s open eyes stared blindly back at them. A round had hit him in the shoulder, leaving a gaping tear just under the right armpit as the bullet left his body.
    Pekkala glimpsed a muzzle flash from the cliff, just as another round slammed into the ice on the pond, filling the air with a strange popping sound, like the cork coming out of a champagne bottle.
    Pekkala and Tarnowski crawled back among the trees, where they found Lavrenov hiding in the hole from which they had dug out the crater. ‘Where’s the Colonel?’ he asked.
    ‘They got him with the first shot,’ replied Pekkala.
    Bullets hacked through the branches above them, showering the men with pine needles.
    ‘There must be a dozen of them out there,’ whimpered Lavrenov, ‘to judge from all that fire.’
    ‘But who are they?’ asked Pekkala.
    ‘Whoever they are,’ Tarnowski answered, ‘they’re using army rifles.’
    Pekkala realised that their