Now! He rolled to his knees, fighting the agony the movement caused, and brought his handcuffed wrists down over his buttocks. Rolling on his back he drew his knees up to his chest and put his feet through the circle of arms and cuffs, so they were now in front of him. Somebody had lifted the pin! Perhaps the door would open. He forced himself to listen, and he heard nothing but subdued voices and, from somewhere outside, laughter.
He caught hold of one of the posts that supported the stable roof and pulled himself up. Then he leaned there, his brain swimming. He staggered and fell against the next post. He held himself there, forcing himself to listen. His face felt stiff and strange. He lifted his hands and touched it carefully. His face was caked with blood, and his hair. When he moved, pain shot through him. He thought he also had a broken rib.
He fought to clear his fogged brain. He must think. He must act. Somebody was outside. Somebody would be on guard. They believed they had beaten him into helplessness. Maybe they had. He could only try. He took a careful, trembling step to the door. Gently, he touched it with his fingers. A crack of light showed.
Ever so carefully, he widened the crack. There was a pyramidal tent opposite with a light inside and several men sitting. He could see their shadows against the light. He saw a Volga with two men sitting in it, their backs to him, talking. One man’s hand hung outside, holding a bottle. Beyond, close together, stood three trucks.
His head was heavy with pain, and he had trouble bringing his eyes into focus. Inside him, something was pushing, driving, something that said, Now! Now! And something else that warned him there was no other time than now.
He took a step, staggered and almost fell, caught himself, and moved closer to the Volga. The door of the car was open, and the hand holding the bottle was outside. He could hear the man mumbling, and he heard a snore. The other man was asleep!
A step closer. Another step. His forearm slid across the man’s throat, and the other hand slipped into place. The KGB man reared up, struggled briefly, then subsided. Lifting him from the car, Joe Mack frisked him quickly, expertly. He took the man’s pistol and ammunition. Walking around the car, Joe jerked the drunken man from his seat behind the wheel and threw him to the ground. As the man started to rise, he kicked him.
For a moment then, Joe Mack stood still. His head was spinning and his eyes still would not focus properly. He steadied himself, and then kneeling, he searched the man he had kicked, recovering another pistol and ammunition.
At the car, he felt for the keys. They were in the ignition. He was in a fog, almost as if he were drunk himself, but some inner drive was pushing him. On the back seat of the car was a gun, different from but similar to an AK-47. He picked it up and turned toward the tent. At that moment the flap was thrown back and a man emerged. His brain buzzing, Joe Mack turned the gun toward the tent and let go with a long, continuous burst. Then, turning, he sprayed the trucks with gunfire. He shot into the nearest gas tank and saw flames leap up and the wind catch them.
Getting into the Volga, he turned the car into the road and drove away. Behind him he heard a dull boom as a gas tank exploded.
A dim road took off toward the north and he accepted it. His eyes, almost swollen shut from the beating, offered only slits from which to see. With his fingers he tried to push the swollen openings wider, without much luck. His head throbbing, his body in agony with every move, he drove north. Then, like a drunken man, he began to sing “The Frozen Logger.”
The road was winding and bumpy, a mere trail most of the time, but he drove steadily, and after driving for a time he switched off the lights. The moon was up, and he could see enough to drive.
His thoughts fought for acknowledgment, but his brain was foggy. Where was he? In Siberia. He was in a Volga, on a road going — ? He did not know where. Worry intruded itself. There was something he had to do, something which he must acknowledge. It was —
He had to leave this car. It was such an easy way to travel, but it held him to a road and they would be looking along roads. They would be looking soon.
They had not taken his watch. They had searched him for a gun. The rest was left for Alekhin.
And Alekhin was probably dead.
No, he did not know Alekhin was dead. He had fired a burst or two into the tent. The light had gone out, and he had heard some scrambling, and the tent had caught fire. Several of them might have escaped.
How long had he been driving? He did not know. Too long, probably. They would have helicopters looking for him again. Miles unrolled beneath him. He was not going fast; one could not over this road.
There was a river ahead. He could see moonlight on the ice. Stopping the car, he got out and went through it carefully. Emergency rations for two, two bottles of unopened vodka, and some further ammunition. He loaded his pockets, turned the car toward the river, and drove it under some overhanging willows. There he left it and turned eastward into the mountains.
He had to have rest. His legs, body, and head were badly bruised and beaten. Every step was sheer agony, but he pushed on. Snow was almost entirely absent, but the earth was frozen and rough. There were few trees. He was going to have trouble finding cover. He plodded on, stupid with pain and whatever had happened to his brain. A concussion, he told himself. He hoped that was all it was.
He should have taken a coat from one of the KGB men. It was cold, and all he had was a fur robe taken from the Volga. He drew it tight around him and hobbled on. Twice he fell, and each time it was a struggle to rise.
He was no longer thinking well. He was aware enough to realize that. He kept thinking of Talya, expecting to see her. But how could he see her here?
He no longer had a map. What river was that where he had left the Volga? It was a large river. It could have been the Omolon.
He fell, catching himself with his hands and lacerating the palms on the rough, frozen earth. He got up. He could go no farther. He looked at the cuffs. He had to get rid of them.
He stared around, blinking slowly. He did not know where he was. He knew what to do about the cuffs. He had a shim, a bit of wire.
East, he had to go east. He must go east. That was the way his ancestors had gone, the ancient ones who had followed the game to America in the years before there was a Bering Strait.
Bering Strait? What was that? Something to be needed, to be sought for. He stumbled on, then went down into a creek bed and found a place where a bank offered shelter from the wind.
He would build a fire. He needed a fire. He did not want to freeze. But a fire would attract attention. No, not if there was no smoke.
Dry wood. He needed dry wood. Fumbling, he got the wood together. He found some dry moss, gathered some dry brown grass and bundled it together. He built a cone of thin sticks over it and struck a match. Huddling close to the fire, he got out the thin strip of metal and went to work on the cuffs. They were old-fashioned cuffs, but his hands were bruised and clumsy. When he had them off, he put vodka on the cuts. He wiped it dry with a handkerchief and the fur of his robe. He capped the bottle and huddled under the bank and tried to sleep.
Forty-Six
Three weeks later Joe Mack huddled in a cave above one of the minor tributaries of the Oklan River. The terrible beating he had taken had not sapped his courage, but something had. He was not even sure of what it was, except that he was very ill.
Day after day he had slogged along through storm and sun, working his way, mostly by night when there was any night, toward the east. He had camped in the cold, slept on boughs over icy ground. His feet were in terrible shape, and desperately he needed moccasins.