* * *
THE MEN SITTING behind him were silent. He knew what they were thinking. If Japan had a base far back in the great forest of Asiatic Russia, they could strike some terrible blows at Russia’s rear while the Soviet was fighting a desperate battle with the invading Germans. It might well be the turning point of the war, and the three men—American, Russian, and British—had a like desire to see Germany defeated.
“You know Ussuria?” Turk asked Arseniev.
The Russian shrugged. “Who does, except in places? There are still wild lands along the ocean, and in the north. I am from the Ukraine, then Moscow, Leningrad, and Odessa. I have been all over Russia proper, but Siberia?” He shrugged once more.
Turk banked slightly, skirting the edge of a cloud. He was watching for the coastline. “I lived there a year when I was kid.”
Powell looked at him in astonishment. “Aren’t you a Yank?”
Madden grinned. “Sure, I was born in Nevada. But when I was two my father went to the consul’s office in Cairo. Then to Zanzibar, then to Tiflis in Georgia. My mother died in Zanzibar, and when I was eleven the revolution broke out. About the same time the old man died of pneumonia.
“Me, I lived around the towns of southern Russia, sleeping in haystacks and wagons, eating when I could. I lived a few months in the Urals, and then went to Siberia. I took up with an old hunter there, and lived and hunted with him for a year. He got killed, so I went south to Samarkand, and into India.
“I got back to the States when I was sixteen. Stayed two years, then went to sea. I’ve been back twice since.”
Arseniev rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know a place? Where planes could land?”
Turk nodded. “I was thinking of it. Koreans used to hunt gold up in there. It might be some Japs came with them. It’s a small lake almost due north of Lake Hanka and back up in the Shihote Alin Mountains.”
“Want to try it?” Arseniev suggested. “We could refuel at Khabarovsk.”
“Hell,” Powell interrupted, “why get him into it? He’s a commercial flier. You can’t get paid enough for that kind of work, and taking a ship like this where it may get into unsupported action isn’t sensible!”
“I agree,” Turk said, grinning over his shoulder, “so we’ll go. We’ll land at Khabarovsk, refuel there, and you’d better tell them at Vladivostok what happened. Then we’ll hop up there and look around.”
In his mind, Turk went back over those Ussurian hills and forests, trying to locate the lake. He remembered those years well enough, and how he and the old Russian had hunted ginseng, trapped mink, and lived on the berries and game of the forest. They had gone west from the forks of the Nahtohu River, and come on the lonely little lake, scarcely a half-mile broad, and three-quarters of a mile long.
Leaving their plane at the field, the three men divided. Turk drifted down the streets, then found a quiet bar, and seated himself. He was eating a bowl of kasha and some cheese and black bread when three men sauntered in. They sat down near him, ordering vodka.
One was a huge man with a black beard, slanted Mongolian eyes and an ugly scar along his cheekbone. His nose had been broken, and when the man reached for his glass, Turk saw the man’s hands were huge, and covered with black hair. The other two were more average looking, one short and fat, the other just a rather husky young man with a surly expression. The bearded man kept glaring at Madden.
He ignored it, and went on with his eating. Knowing his clothing set him off as a foreigner, Turk thought it was merely the usual curiosity. The big man talked loudly, and the three looked at Turk, laughing. Then the big man said something louder, still in Russian. Above the noise in the room Turk was unable to distinguish the words.
It was obvious they did not believe he understood Russian, and it began to be equally obvious that the big man was seeking to provoke a quarrel. The crowd in the bar did not like the big man, he could see, but he himself was a foreigner. Finally, above the rumble of voices, he heard the big man use the words “dumb” and “coward.”
Turk looked up suddenly, and something in his glance stopped the voices. He spoke to the man serving drinks. “Vodka,” he said, motioning to the gathering, “for those. For these—nothing.”
There was momentary silence, and in the silence, Turk jerked a thumb at the big man, and said, contemptuously, “Gnus!” using the Russian word for abomination applied in the taiga to the swarms of mosquitoes, flies and midges that make life a curse.
The crowd roared with laughter. “Gnus! Gnus! Ha, that’s a good one!”
His face swollen with anger, the big man got to his feet. Instantly, the crowd was still. From the expressions on their faces, Turk could see that most of them were frightened. Continuing to eat, he let his eyes slide over toward the men’s table. There was an eager light in the eyes of the other two men, and Madden was sure this was what they had been working up to all evening.
The big man, whom he had heard called Batou, came toward him, and Turk continued to eat. When he was close by, the big man reached out suddenly. Turk’s head slipped to one side to avoid the clutching hand, and then he kicked the big Russian viciously on the shin.
With a bellow of pain, Batou bent over, grabbing at his shin. Then Turk grabbed him by the beard with one hand, and jerking him forward, leaped to his feet and smashed a heavy right fist into Batou’s midsection. The big fellow gasped and Turk shoved him so hard against the wall that he rebounded and collapsed to the floor.
There were audible gasps in the room, and then Madden quietly sat down and started to finish his cheese and kasha. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the two men at the table and Batou with apparent unconcern.
He finished his meal as the Russian got up. Stealthily, he observed the other man’s rise. Batou’s face was vicious as he strode across the room. “So!” he roared, “you t’ink it iss so easy to—”
Turk came up from the table, his left fist swinging.
The blow missed Batou’s chin, slid along his face, and ripped his ear. With a cry of rage, Batou swung with both hands, but Turk went under them, and slammed both fists into the big man’s stomach. Then he straightened up and grabbing Batou by the beard jerked his head forward into a driving left, and kicked his feet from under him.
Accustomed to winning fights by sheer size and strength, Batou was lost, helpless. He staggered to his feet, and in that instant, the other two men closed in. Adroitly, Turk sidestepped and kicked a chair in the taller man’s path, then he struck the other man with a wicked pivot blow and caught him entirely unprepared and knocked him staggering into the wall. Turk closed in on the big fellow, jabbed a left to his mouth, then three more hard ones in rapid-fire order, hooked a hard right to the fellow’s cheek and smashed his lips to pulp with a left hook.
He wheeled at a yell, and the younger man was on his feet, a knife poised to throw. Wide open and off balance, too far away to reach the man, Turk Madden was helpless. He didn’t have a chance and he knew it. The man’s hand moved back to throw, then there was a swish and a dull thud. Turk stared unbelieving.
The haft of a knife was protruding from the man’s throat!
Turk spun about and Arseniev was standing in the door, another knife ready to throw. He smiled, lifting one eyebrow at Turk. “Turnabout is fair play, no? You save me, I save you. What is the trouble?”
Turk turned, just in time to see Batou and the other man slipping out the back door. He shrugged, letting them go. Briefly, he explained.
“I have heard some rumors,” Arseniev said gravely, “that there is treachery here. This Batou. He is a bad man, a renegade. He murdered and robbed during the revolution. Then he went away to Korea. Now he is back here, and for no good. I believe this fight was deliberate.”
They returned to the plane, and as they approached, Turk noticed three soldiers were on guard around the ship. Arseniev spoke to them briefly, the men saluted, and marched away. Powell was waiting inside the ship.
Turk slipped into the pilot’s seat, and took the plane out on the field. There he turned into the wind, and in a few seconds they were aloft. Madden banked steeply, and flew west. Arseniev and Powell were surprised at the direction taken.