Moskva

52 The White Wolf

‘Are you all right?’

Alex stood half naked in falling snow, on the roof of a gymnasium, on an island in the middle of a river, in the middle of winter, swaying from hunger, and wincing at every step Tom made her take. He meant, beyond that…

Tom was impressed when she simply nodded.

‘Tell me if you’re not.’

Crouching low, he headed for the rear of the roof, keeping close to the edge of the parapet. When he sensed that Alex wasn’t following, he looked back.

‘Come on,’ he said.

She shook her head.

When he gestured her closer, she refused again.

So he went back to get her and she still wouldn’t move.

‘There’s a wolf watching us,’ she said.

He looked where she pointed but the earth was white, drifts of falling snow putting the dark huts in and out of focus. Nothing out there looked like a wolf to him. He saw Kyukov’s vehicle though, parked to one side.

‘We need to get to the Jeep,’ he said.

It represented their only real hope of escaping from Kyukov.

As Alex opened her mouth to say something, a yell came from below and she shrivelled inside herself, her shoulders hunching and her face closing down.

‘They know we’ve gone,’ she said.

There was the crash of something being thrown over, followed by the rapid shots of a pistol being emptied into a wall. Someone was taking Alex’s disappearance badly. Wrapping his arm round her shoulders, Tom steered Alex towards the rear of the roof, half holding her up.

‘There was a wolf,’ she insisted angrily.

‘Did they inject you with anything?’

‘Why?’

‘I wondered.’

‘It was white,’ she said.

‘I’m sure it was.’

Her face set in a scowl and she became, just for a second, the girl Tom remembered from the embassy party; only now she was dressed in his coat, with its collar up and her shoulders hunched, her feet bare and her legs barely covered by the makeshift skirt. She needed clothes. She needed shoes.

‘What size are your feet?’

Alex stumbled to a stop. She looked bemused.

‘Alex?’

‘Four,’ she said. ‘They’re four.’

His were no use then, not that Tom had expected them to be.

‘I’ll find you shoes soon,’ he promised.

She looked up, puzzled. ‘Where?’

At the rear of the gym was a workshop. That was good. So was the fact that it had a flat roof. She’d be less likely to slip from a flat roof. Beyond that was a walled garden, with ruined greenhouses and rows of snow-covered trees. The garden looked as if it belonged to another building entirely, the demolished monastery perhaps.

Lowering himself from the parapet, Tom dropped as lightly as he could on to the workshop roof, breathing out when it held. He caught Alex round the hips, felt her slip through his grip and land on her knees.

She was crying. ‘I’m cold,’ she said.

‘I’ll find you some proper clothes too.’

She nodded uncertainly.

‘Keep to the middle,’ Tom suggested.

They’d crossed the workshop roof and were staring down at the garden when the gym door banged open behind them, the noise sharp on the wind.

‘If we go down there,’ Alex whispered, ‘they’ll find us.’

‘We have to get to the Jeep.’

Dropping to the ground, Tom held up his hands to catch her.

‘I can do it,’ she said crossly.

He let her try, furious with himself when she fell.

‘I’m okay. I’m okay.’

Fresh tears gave the lie to her words, and her thin shoulders shook so fiercely that Tom grabbed her, holding her tight for a moment. Her feet were purple and her fingers blue. The ridiculous skirt he’d fashioned provided no warmth. He wasn’t surprised that she looked terrified.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘We should move.’

Tom smiled. She was right, they should.

Unbroken snow stretched between them and the garden, with only the scuffs they’d made on landing to show that they’d been here. But the first steps they took would betray them. Falling snow or not, the general and Kyukov would have no trouble following their trail.

‘They must have been hungry.’

‘What?’ Tom said.

He followed her gaze to the walled garden, with its heavy wrought-iron gate rusted open. Broken glass topped the walls where snow had slipped away. Alex was right. If you needed glass to keep orphans out of a vegetable garden, they must have been hungry.

Mind you, in the 1930s the whole country had been hungry.

‘See the arch?’ Tom said. ‘You go first.’

‘Why me?’

‘Going first is lucky.’

‘You mean I have less chance of being shot?’

Tom sighed. ‘Something like that.’

‘What happened to your shoulder?’

Tom glanced down. He’d forgotten the scar was even there. Although to remember it was to realize it was hurting again. ‘Someone shot me with a crossbow.’

‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Vladimir Vedenin.’

Alex’s face tightened.

‘He’s dead,’ Tom told her.

‘You promise? Really promise.’

‘He’s dead and buried. I went to his funeral.’

‘Good,’ Alex said. And in her fierceness Tom could see the spark that still burned inside her, the one he hoped would help carry her through this. ‘Did you come to find me?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Tom said, ‘I came to find you.’

‘I don’t even know your name.’

‘Fox,’ Tom said. ‘Major Tom Fox.’

He held out his hand, feeling foolish.

Alex shook it, her fingers purple with cold, her grip childishly weak and her whole body trembling. All the same, she looked him in the eyes. ‘Alexandra Masterton,’ she said. ‘Well, Alexandra Powell, really. It’s complicated. You’re the man who was horrid to me at the party, aren’t you?

‘Do you think you can run to that arch?’

She shook her head.

‘Please,’ Tom said, ‘try.’

She limped off, clearing the gap without shots or shouts.

Tom followed, halting just inside the arch and looking back. Falling snow would fill the tracks they’d made, just not fast enough to hide them. It would, however, help keep them both hidden.

‘I need to…’ Alex said.

He kept guard as she headed for a ruined greenhouse; its sloped roof an uneven board of white squares and black gaps where glass had fallen in. When she reappeared, she was smoothing her makeshift skirt back into place.

‘He watched,’ she said, scowling because Tom had noticed.

‘He?’ Tom asked.

‘The weird one.’

Kyukov? ‘Did he…?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Just watched.’

And the general shaved your head and body, Tom thought.

Between them, they starved you, stripped you, hung you upside down so your piss ran down your belly and across your face… He was glad she was angry.

In time, he hoped she’d be furious.

Tom watched Alex steady herself against a plum tree stripped of leaves, laden with ice and apparently lifeless. He’d like to give her time to stop, time to recover. But time was the one thing they didn’t have.

‘See that door in the wall?’ he said.

‘I get to go first again?’

‘You’ve got it.’

Keeping to the side where the snow was thinnest, the wind having banked most of it against the garden’s other wall, Alex limped for the doorway, moving so unsteadily that Tom had to fight the urge to go after her to help.

He’d be the target though.

No point in drawing down fire.

She made it and he closed the gap between them in seconds, moving Alex and himself further into the arch to hide them from sight. Kyukov’s Jeep stood a hundred paces away, alone on open ground and visible from all directions.

‘I’ll hotwire it,’ Tom said.

Crouching low, he looped round to its far side, doing his best to stay hidden. His heart sank when he saw footprints. He wanted to drive Alex out of there and keep going. They were 500 miles from Moscow and without papers. The closer he could get to the capital, the greater his chance of getting a message to the commissar. But it wasn’t going to happen. The bonnet of the Jeep was slightly open. He knew without checking that its rotor arm was gone. He checked anyway.