Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin Read online

  We trudged forward, making better progress. We were beginning to think that we had got away after all, that nobody was interested in us any more. Of course it is just when you begin to think like that, when you relax your guard, that the worst happens. If I had been in the same situation now, I would have gone anywhere except towards the new highway. When you are in danger, you must always opt for what is least expected. Predictability kills.

  We reached the first evidence of the construction; abandoned spools of wire, cement slabs, great piles of plastic tubing. Ahead of us, a brown ribbon of dug-up earth stretched out into the gloom. The town of Kirsk and the railway to Moscow lay at the other end.

  “How far is it?” Leo asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “About twenty miles, I think. Are you OK?”

  Leo nodded but the misery in his face told another story.

  “We can do it,” I said. “Five or six hours. And it can’t rain for ever.”

  It felt as if it was going to do just that. We could actually see the raindrops now, fat and relentless, slanting down in front of us and splattering on the ground. It was like a curtain hanging between the trees and we could barely make out the road on the other side. There were more pipes scattered on both sides and after a short while we came to a deep ditch which must have been cut as part of the water project. Was it really possible for an entire community to near the end of the twentieth century without running water? I had carried enough buckets down to the well to know the answer to that.

  We walked for another ten minutes, neither of us speaking, our feet splashing in the puddles, and then we saw them. They were ahead of us, a long line of soldiers, spread out across the forest, making steady progress towards us … like detectives looking for clues after a murder. They were spaced so that nobody would be able to pass through the line without being seen. They had no faces. They were dressed in pale silver anti-chemical and biological uniforms with hoods and gas masks, and they carried semi-automatic machine guns. They had dogs with them, scrawny Alsatians, straining at the end of metal leashes. It was as if they had walked out of my worst nightmare. They didn’t look human at all.

  It should have been obvious from the start that whoever had sent the helicopters would follow them up with an infantry backup. First, destroy the village, then put a noose around the place to make sure there are no survivors who can spread the virus. The line of militia men, if that’s what they were, would have formed a huge circle around Estrov. They would close in from all sides. And they would have been told to shoot any stragglers – Leo and me – on sight. Nobody could be allowed to tell what had happened. And, above all, the anthrax virus that we might be carrying must not break free.

  They would have seen us at once but for the rain. And the dogs too would have smelt us if everything hadn’t been so wet. In the darkness of the forest, the pale colour of their protective gear stood out, but for a few precious seconds we were invisible. I reached out and grabbed Leo’s arm. We turned and ran the way we had come.

  It was the worst thing to do. Since that time, long ago now, I have been taught survival techniques for exactly such situations. You do not break your pace. You do not panic. It is the very rhythm of your movement that will alert your enemy. We should have melted to one side, found cover and then retreated as quickly but as steadily as we could. Instead, the sound of our shoes stamping on the wet ground signalled that we were there. One of the dogs began to bark ferociously, followed immediately by the rest of them. Somebody shouted. An instant later there was the deafening clamour of machine-gun fire, weapons spraying bullets that sliced through the trees and the leaves, sending pieces of debris showering over our heads. We had been seen. The line began to move forward more urgently. We were perhaps thirty or forty metres ahead of them but we were already close to exhaustion, drenched, unarmed. We were children. We had no chance at all.

  More machine-gun fire. I saw mud splattering up inches from my feet. Leo was slightly ahead of me. His legs were shorter than mine and he had been more tired than me but I was determined to keep him in front of me, not to leave him behind. If one went down, we both went down. The dogs were making a hideous sound. They had seen their prey. They wanted to be released.

  And we stayed on the half-built highway! That was a killing ground if ever there was one, wide and exposed … an easy matter for a sniper to pick us off. I suppose we thought we could run faster with a flat surface beneath our feet. But every step I took, I was waiting for the bullet that would come smashing between my shoulders. I could hear the dogs, the guns, the blast of the whistles. I didn’t look back but I could actually feel the men closing in behind me.

  Still, we had the advantage of distance. The line of soldiers would move more slowly than us. They wouldn’t want to break rank and risk the chance of our doubling back and slipping through. I had perhaps one minute to work out some sort of scheme before they caught up with us. Climb a tree? No, it would take too long, and anyway, the dogs would sniff us out. Continue back down the hill? Pointless. There were probably more soldiers coming up the other side. I was still running, my heart pounding in my chest, the breath harsh in my throat. And then I saw it … the ditch we had passed with the plastic tubes scattered about.

  “This way, Leo!” I shouted.

  At the same time, I threw myself off the road, skidding down the deep bank and landing in a stream of water that rose over my ankles.

  “Yasha, what are you…?” Leo began but he was sensible enough not to hesitate, turning back and following me down, almost landing on top of me. And so there we were, below the level of the road, and I was already making my way back, heading towards the line of soldiers, looking for what I prayed must be there.

  Hundreds of metres of the water pipe had already been laid. The opening was in front of us: a perfect black circle, like the entrance to some futuristic cave. It was small. If I hadn’t been so thin and Leo hadn’t been so slight, neither of us would have fitted into it and it was unlikely that many of the soldiers would have been able to follow – certainly not in their gas masks and protective gear. They would have been mad to try. Would they really have been prepared to bury themselves alive, plunging into utter darkness with tons of damp earth above their heads?

  That was what we did. On our hands and knees, we threw ourselves forward, our shoulders scraping against the curve of the pipe. At least it was dry inside the tunnel. But it was also pitch-black. When I looked back to see if Leo was behind me, I caught a glimmer of soft light a few metres away. But when I looked ahead … there was nothing! I brought my hand up and touched my nose but I couldn’t see my fingers. For a moment, I found it difficult to breathe. I had to fight off the claustrophobia, the sense of being suffocated, of being squeezed to death. I wondered if it would be a good idea to go any further. We could have stayed where we were and used the tunnel as a hiding place until everyone had gone – but that wasn’t good enough for me. I could imagine a burst of machine-gun fire killing me or, worse still, paralysing me and leaving me to die slowly in the darkness. I could feel the Alsatians, sent after us, snapping and snarling their way down the tunnel and then tearing ferociously at our legs and thighs. I had to let the tunnel carry me away and it didn’t matter where it took me. So I kept going with Leo behind me, the two of us burrowing ever further beneath the wood.

  To the soldiers it must have seemed as if we had disappeared by magic. They would have passed the ditch but it’s quite likely that they didn’t see the pipeline – or, if they did, refused to believe that we could actually fit into it. Once again, the rain covered our tracks. The dogs failed to pick up our scent. Any footprints were washed away. And the soldiers were completely unaware that, as they moved forward, we were right underneath them, crawling like insects through the mud. When I looked back again, the entrance was no longer there. It was as if a shutter had come down, sealing us in. I could hear Leo very close to me, his breath sobbing. But any sound in the tunnel was strange and muted. I felt the weigh
t above me, pressing down.

  We had swapped one hell for another.

  We could only go forward. There wasn’t enough room to turn round. I suppose we could have shuffled backwards until we reached the tunnel entrance, but what was the point of that? The soldiers would be looking for us and once we emerged the dogs would be onto us instantly. On the other hand, the further we went forward, the worse our situation became. Suppose the tunnel simply ended? Suppose we ran out of air? Every inch that we continued was another inch into the grave and it took all my willpower to force myself on. I think Leo only followed because he didn’t want to be left on his own. I was getting warmer. Once more, I was sweating inside my clothes. I could feel the sweat mixed with rainwater under my armpits and in the palms of my hands. My knees were already hurting. Occasionally, I passed rivets, where one section of the pipe had been fastened into the next, and I felt them tugging at my anorak, scratching across my back. And I was blind. It really was as if someone had switched off my eyes. The blackness was very physical. It was like a surgical operation.

  “Yasha…?” Leo’s whispered voice came out of nowhere.

  “It’s all right, Leo,” I said. My own voice didn’t sound like me at all. “Not much further.”

  But we continued for what felt like an eternity. We were moving like robots with no sense of direction, no choice of where to go. We were simply functioning – one hand forward, then the next, knees following behind, utterly alone. There was nothing to hear apart from ourselves. Suppose the tunnel went all the way to Kirsk? Would we have the strength to travel as far as twenty miles underground? Of course not. Between us, we had half a litre of water. We hadn’t eaten for hours. I had to stop myself imagining what might happen. If I wasn’t careful, I would scare myself to death.

  Hand and knee, hand and knee. Every part of me was hurting. I wanted to stand up, and the fact that I couldn’t almost made me cry out with frustration. My shoulders hit the curve of the pipe again and again. My eyes were closed. What was the point of using them when I couldn’t see? And then, quite suddenly, I was outside. I felt the breeze brush over my shoulders and the rain, lighter now, patter onto my head and the back of my neck. I opened my eyes. The workmen had constructed some sort of inspection hatch and they had left this part of the pipe open. I was crouching in a V-shaped ditch with pieces of wire and rusting metal bolts all around. I pulled back my sleeve and looked at my watch. Amazingly, it was five o’clock. I thought only an hour had passed but the whole day had gone.

  Leo clambered out into the half-light and sat there, blinking. For a moment, neither of us dared speak but there were no sounds around us and it seemed fairly certain we were on our own.

  “We’re OK,” I said. “We went under them. They don’t know we’re here.”

  “What next?” Leo asked.

  “We can keep going … follow the road to Kirsk.”

  “They’ll be looking for us there.”

  “I know. We can worry about that when we get there.”

  And just for one moment, I thought we were going to make it. We had escaped from the helicopters. We had outwitted the soldiers. I had a hundred rubles in my pocket. I would get us to Moscow and we would tell the whole world what had happened and we would be heroes. Right then, I really did think that, despite what we had been through and all that we had lost, we might actually be all right.

  But then Leo spoke.

  “Yasha,” he said. “I don’t feel well.”

  НОЧЬ

  NIGHT

  We couldn’t stay where we were. I was afraid that the soldiers would see the entrance to the pipeline and realize how we had managed to slip past them – in which case they would double back and find us. We had to put more distance between us and them while we still had the strength. But at the same time I saw that Leo couldn’t go much further. He had a headache and he was finding it difficult to breathe. Was it too much to hope that he had simply caught a cold, that he was in shock? It didn’t have to be contamination by the chemicals from the factory. I tried to convince myself that, like me, he was exhausted and if he could just get a night’s rest he would be well again.

  Even so, I knew I had to find him somewhere warm to shelter. He needed food. Somehow I had to dry his clothes. As I looked around me, at the spindly trees that rose up into an ever darkening sky, I felt a sense of complete helplessness. How could I possibly manage on my own? I wanted my parents and I had to remind myself that they weren’t going to come, that I was never going to see them again. I was sick with grief – but something inside me told me that I couldn’t give in. Leo and I hadn’t escaped from Estrov simply to die out here, a few miles away, in the middle of a forest.

  We walked together for another hour, still following the road. They’d been able to afford asphalt for this section, which at least made it easier to find our way in the dark. I knew it was dangerous, that we had more chance of being spotted, but I didn’t dare lose myself among the trees.

  And in the end it was the right decision. We stumbled upon it quite by chance, a wooden hut which must have been built for the construction team and abandoned only recently. The door was padlocked but I managed to kick it in, and once we were inside I was surprised to find two bunks, a table, cupboards and even an iron stove. I checked the cupboards. There was no food or medicine but the almost empty shelves did offer me a few rewards. Using my torch, I found some old newspapers, saucepans, tin mugs and a fork. I was glad now that I had thought to take a box of matches from my kitchen and that my waterproof clothes had managed to keep them dry. There was no coal or firewood so I tore off some of the cupboard doors and smashed them up with my foot, and ten minutes later I had a good fire blazing. I wasn’t worried about the smoke being seen. It was too dark and I kept the door and the shutters closed to stop the light escaping.

  I helped Leo out of his wet clothes and laid them on the floor to dry. He stretched himself out on the nearest bunk and I covered him with newspaper and a rug from the floor. It might not have been too clean but at least it would help to keep him warm. I had the food that I had brought from my home and I took it out. Leo and I had drunk all our water but that wasn’t a problem. I carried a saucepan outside and filled it from the gutter that ran round the side of the building. After the rain, it was full to overflowing and boiling the water in the flames would get rid of any germs. I added the tea and the sugar, and balanced the pan on the stove. I broke the chocolate bars into pieces and examined the tins. There were three of them and they all contained herring but, fool that I was, I had forgotten to bring a tin opener.

  While Leo drifted in and out of sleep, I spent the next half-hour desperately trying to open the tins. In a way, it did me good to have to focus on a problem that was so small and so stupid. Forget the fact that you are alone, in hiding, that there are soldiers who want to kill you, that your best friend is ill, that everything has been taken from you. Open the tin! In the end, I managed it with the fork that I had found, hammering at it with a heavy stone and piercing the lid so many times that eventually I was able to peel it away. The herring was grey and oily. I’m not sure that anyone eats it any more, but it had always been a special treat when I was growing up. My mother would serve it with slabs of dry black bread or sometimes potatoes. When I smelt the fish, I thought of her and I felt all the pain welling up once more, even though I was doing everything I could to block out what had happened.

  I tried to feed some to Leo but, after all my efforts, he was too tired to eat and it was all I could manage to force him to sip some tea. I was suddenly very hungry myself and gobbled down one of the tins, leaving the other two for him. I was still hopeful that he would be feeling better in the morning. It seemed to me that now that he was resting, he was breathing a little easier. Maybe all the rain would have washed away the anthrax spores. His clothes were still drying in front of the fire. Sitting there, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the covers, I tried to persuade myself that everything would be all right.
/>   It was the beginning of the longest night of my life. I took off my outer clothes and lay down on the second bunk but I couldn’t sleep. I was frightened that the fire would go out. I was frightened that the soldiers would find the hut and burst in. Actually, I was so filled with fears of one sort or another that I didn’t need to define them. For hours I listened to the crackle of the flames and the rasp of Leo’s breath in his throat. From time to time, I drifted into a state where I was floating, although still fully conscious. Several times, I got up and fed more of the furniture into the stove, doing my best to break the wood without making too much noise. Once, I went outside to urinate. It was no longer raining but a few drops of water were still falling from the trees. I could hear them but I couldn’t see them. The sky was totally black. As I stood there, I heard the howl of a wolf. I had been holding the torch but at that moment I almost dropped it into the undergrowth. So the wolves weren’t just a bit of village gossip! This one could have been far away, but it seemed to be right next to me, the sound starting impossibly low then rising higher and higher as if the creature had somehow flown into the air. I buttoned myself up and ran back inside, determined that nothing would get me out again until it was light.

  My own clothes were still damp. I took them off and knelt in front of the fire. If anything got me through that night it was that stove. It kept me warm and without its glow I wouldn’t have been able to see, which would have made all my imaginings even worse. I took out the roll of ten-ruble notes that had been in the tin and at the same time I found the little black bag my mother had given me. I opened it. Inside, there was a pair of earrings, a necklace and a ring. I had never seen them before and wondered where she had got them from. Were they valuable? I made an oath to myself that whatever happened, I would never sell them. They were the only remains of my past life. They were all I had left. I wrapped them up again and climbed onto the other bunk. Almost naked and lying uncomfortably on the hard mattress, I dozed off again. When I next opened my eyes, the fire was almost out and when I pulled back the shutters, the very first streaks of pink were visible outside.