“No, I just dropped in for a cup of tea. I shall be leaving soon. To tell you the truth I was getting a bit tired of talking to myself.” He glanced over at Suvarov. “What has been happening?”
Suvarov hesitated, and Rukovsky said, “Tell him if you wish. We will have him soon, anyway. By the way, Major, how did you get here?”
“You mean tonight? Why, I just walked in. Your men were so busy talking among themselves — ”
He shook his head. “You need Siberians, Colonel. These young men are mostly town boys. I was tempted to gather all their weapons just for the joke of it.”
He turned to Suvarov. “You were saying?”
“I do not know what there is that you would like to know. The search for you has been quite general. Comrade Shepilov has gathered a bunch of trappers to come down on you from the north. He is a KGB officer. There have been a few arrests.
“The bodies of the helicopter pilot and his companions have been found. Also the KGB man who was found dead in his car.”
Joe Mack finished his tea and came suddenly to his feet. “I would take my men and go home, Colonel, if I were you. They are not suited to the mountains, and they will suffer. You will lose men and equipment, much more than I am worth to you or to the Soviet Union.”
The AK-47 was ready in his hands. He took a step back toward the outer darkness. “Along the way,” he said, “I have encountered a few civilians. None of them helped me in any way, but I’d not want them hurt because of me. That was the reason for my question.”
“I know of nothing of the sort except for that village where it was said you lived for a time among some rascals who had taken to the woods.”
“And that village?”
“They were gone when searchers returned. All gone, where we do not know.”
At the very edge of the light, Joe Mack dropped to one knee and took up a package of emergency rations. “You will forgive me, of course? The supply system in the mountains is inadequate, to say the least.”
One moment he was there, and then he was gone, like a ghost in the night.
Rukovsky came to his feet with a bound, and drawing the pistol he had in his scabbard he fired in the direction the American had gone. Fired, and swore.
“Lieutenant! Find those men and cut them loose! I want an all-out search. Now!”
Now, Suvarov thought, when it is too late. Why had he not drawn that pistol when the American was in sight?
For that matter, why hadn’t he drawn his?
Thirty-Seven
Rukovsky was furious. The rations taken had been his own, a packet made up especially for him, at his direction. “Lieutenant! Cut those men loose! I want a search started immediately!”
“Of course, sir, but I am afraid they will not be able to see much while it is still dark. In another hour — ”
“Now!” Rukovsky said. “Before he can get too far away.”
He was perfectly aware that in the darkness they would find nothing. A man who could slip into camp, tie up his guards, drink tea with him, and then escape would not be found by the bunch of city boys he commanded, but it would look good on his report that a search had begun on the instant.
Secretly, he was amused by the man’s daring. Once his anger at losing his rations had cooled somewhat, he chuckled to himself. Red Indian or not, the man had a flair. He glanced at Suvarov. “An interesting man, Lieutenant. Very interesting. I wish we could have talked longer.”
“Men from the lower camp are bringing up some food, sir. And some tea as well as vodka. ”
“Good! And it is growing light. ” He turned to look along the slope. He could see his men, in a long skirmish line, advancing up the slope and into the scattered trees. It was, he told himself again, a good exercise for them. Let them get a taste of some really rough country.
From high on the slope, Alekhin watched them with contempt. They were not going to find anything or anybody. From the beginning, he had known he would be the one to find the American. Let the others blunder about. They would never catch him. They did not even know the kind of man with whom they dealt. Still, they were near, and he would go down and have tea with them. It would save his doing it for himself. Besides, he knew where the American was and how to get him.
Using the trappers had been a good idea, but not one that would work. He knew them too well. A few might try; others would take what they were paid and do very little. Most of them admired the American and thought of him as one of their own. If they came upon him they might capture or shoot him, but not many of them would try very hard.
Nobody tried very hard to do anything these days. The trappers sold most of their furs on the black market and some of them even into China. Alekhin had done it himself. He knew what was going on better than most of the KGB, although some among them were good, and a few were very good.
By the time he reached the fire, Rukovsky and Suvarov were eating. He moved up and stood on the edge of the camp for several minutes before Rukovsky saw him. The sight of him standing there so near angered Rukovsky, who had had quite enough of people slipping into his camp without warning.
“You!” he demanded. “Who are you?” The sun was in Rukovsky’s eyes and he could see nothing.
“I am Alekhin.”
“What?” The man was a legend in Siberia. “Come in! Come in! Will you join us?”
He was a big man, Rukovsky noted, who moved like a cat. Alekhin moved up to the fire and sat down cross-legged.
“You look for the American?”
“I know where he is.”
“What? Then why don’t we take him? If you know — ”
“I know. Taking him is not easy. You go with all those people and he is gone, poof. I will take him. Me.”
“Where is he?”
Alekhin jerked his head to the rear. “Up there. You go for him, your men will die. They are fools. They do not know how to search for this man.”
Rukovsky was inclined to agree, but not to admit it. “He was here this morning, early.”
Alekhin’s heavy-lidded eyes stared at him. Rukovsky had an idea he had surprised Alekhin.
“He was here; had tea with us. Tied up three of my men. Then he took my packet of rations and was gone.”
Alekhin sipped his tea. Inside he was angry, coldly, bitterly angry. The American dared to do this when he was around? He would pay for that.
“I will get him,” he repeated. “I will get him soon now.”
He looked across the fire at Rukovsky. “If you follow him, men will die. Take your soldiers and go home. It will be better. ”
Colonel Rukovsky’s back stiffened. “Your advice is not needed.” His tone was cold. “If you expect to take the American, I would suggest you get on with it.”
Deliberately, he turned to Suvarov and began to speak of other things. Inwardly, he was seething. Who was this buffoon that he should tell him what to do?
Alekhin ignored them. He took his time, finishing his small meal and the tea. Then he arose and without a backward glance, walked away. He did not care what they did. If men died, it was of no importance to him. By the time he had reached the forest’s edge he had forgotten them. He had not warned Rukovsky because of any humanitarian principles, simply because so many men would tramp out all the tracks, destroy what indications the American might have left.
He had been here this morning? Some sign would be left, then. He cast back and forth. He already knew the length of the American’s stride, knew some of his methods of travel. Soon he would know all. Deliberately he had waited, wanting the man to tire himself, wanting him to become overconfident and hence careless, wanting the others to drop the chase.
The American was somewhere near the head of the Indigirka or the Kolyma, and he believed the former. The canyons were excellent places in which to hide, but the man would have to eat, and if he killed for food he would leave a part of the carcass behind. That would attract the carrion eaters.
It was a wild land of broken rock, gray cascades of talus, and a few stunted trees. Alekhin paused to look down a great gash in the mountainside, a gash choked with fir trees. It was a steep descent and a harder climb back up if he found nothing or if it ended, as so many such did, in a vast drop to the canyon floor. Vainly he searched for some evidence of a man’s passing. He found nothing but the droppings of a mountain goat and a few patches of snow.