CHAPTER 18

The barking of Vaska's dog told them that someone was at the door.

The dog was not allowed in the house no matter how cold it got. This was some sort of rural Russian tradition. It also meant that nobody got near the front door without the dog making a ruckus.

Cole tightened his grip on the Browning 1911 in his hand and Samson shifted his bulk to cover the door with his shotgun. The dog's bark turned to a happy whine as whoever was out there made friends.

Vaska approached the door armed with nothing more than his tobacco pipe. Seconds later, he was beckoning in the woman who stood there. She appeared to be alone, so Cole and the others relaxed enough to take their fingers off their triggers.

Vaska's wife had set up this meeting with the woman who worked in the Gulag infirmary. Cole still didn't know the wife's name, so in his head he just referred to her as Mrs. Vaska. Maybe Vaska had introduced her at some point, but Cole had either missed it or couldn't remember the Russian name.

Inna Mikhaylovna was a lot more memorable.

She entered the small house, keeping her head down and wrapped in a head scarf, like an old babushka. She had come under cover of darkness to avoid as many prying eyes as possible. Cole didn't know how much good that would do — if the Russian village was anything like Gashey's Creek, people talked, and not much got by them. He just hoped there weren't too many villagers spying for the Gulag.

The woman took off the scarf and sat at the kitchen table. She had dishwater blond hair and lacked the roundness of face that he had come to expect in the local Russians. Her eyes took in the faces around the table. Her gaze settled on Cole, who sat at the head of the table next to Vaska. So this was the girl who was in love with Whitlock? Lucky bastard, Cole thought.

Mrs. Vaska served tea solemnly, as if they were all distant relations gathering to discuss something serious, like the sale of property — or maybe the details of an arranged marriage. She did not serve food. Food always seemed to be in short supply. There sure as hell weren't any cakes or cookies to pass around. You couldn’t share what you didn’t have. Cole felt right at home.

"Are you in charge?" she asked Cole.

Honaker practically leaped out of his chair as he announced, "That would be me." He asked what was now obvious, a tone of surprise in his voice: "You speak English?"

"Yes. Just the four of you?" she asked, looking around the table again doubtfully. Her English didn't have much of an accent — she could almost have passed for an American. Who'd have thought, out here in the north of Russia?

"We're enough, honey. Believe me," Honaker said, sounding boastful.

"Sometimes a small group attracts less attention," Cole explained. "We are glad for your help, miss."

"Inna," she said, pronouncing it EE-nah.

"Cole," he said. He rattled off the names of the other men, but she looked too nervous to remember all the names. He doubted that she was any kind of spy — and if she had been, the Russians would have been right behind her and rounded them all up by now.

Honaker was about two steps behind Cole's thinking process. "Why should we believe you are really trying to help us?" he demanded.

"I am not helping you," she said, some snap in her voice that Cole liked. "I am helping Harry."

By “Harry” she meant Harrison Whitlock IV, grandson of a United States Senator and the golden boy of a New England family that was richer than Jesus.

"Then we're in luck," Cole said. "We need to break him the hell out of that Gulag, so we could use your help."

Her eyes went back to Cole. Honaker had said he was in charge, but her eyes stayed on Cole. "I have a plan," she said.

"Miss Inna, I do love a woman with a plan," Cole said before Honaker could open his mouth, which earned him a scowl. “Let’s hear it."

Quickly, she explained the layout of the Gulag compound and its basic security. Cole began to understand that it was really more like an old-fashioned frontier stockade than a proper prison. The Gulag compound had just one watch tower. There were searchlights, but to save electricity they were rarely turned on. There was at least one machine gun up in the watch tower, as far as she could tell, although they never had been fired at anyone trying to escape. Prisoners did escape from time to time, but they never got far. Where would they go, anyhow, in the middle of the taiga, in the dead of night? In effect, the taiga itself served as the prison walls.

"Then there is Barkov," she said. She shuddered. "He is a hunter and he tracks down anyone who escapes. He is a cruel man."

"Is he the commandant, or whatever you call it, of this Gulag?"

"No, but he is like the overseer. He chases down anyone who escapes."

"Sounds like a hunting dog."

"He is more like a bear," she said. "He was a sniper in Stalingrad and then in the offensive into Germany. He should be a hero of Russia, but they sent him here for the things that he did in Germany."

"What kind of things?" Vaccaro asked, sounding nervous.

Inna shrugged, leaving that to their imagination. They could imagine a lot. This Barkov had probably done all that, and worse, to get himself sent to this place.

“He’s nothing we can’t handle,” Honaker said.

Cole wasn’t so sure. This girl didn’t look as if she scared easily, but it was clear that Barkov concerned her. “I reckon we need to get a head start to give us a chance against Barkov," Cole said. "How do we get Whitlock out?"

Inna explained her plan. The barracks were not locked at night because the prisoners or zeks needed to come and go — some worked early shifts in the kitchens, for example. So the problem wasn't getting Whitlock out of the barracks, but out of the Gulag itself. The main gate was out of the question. That gate was mostly for show when important officials came and went, or very large machinery or supplies were brought in. Used more frequently were a couple of smaller gates in the perimeter fence. The gate closest to Whitlock's barracks led to the village, serving as a kind of shortcut for moving between the two.

Vaska nodded when Inna described the gate; he explained that he had used this gate often when bringing in fresh meat to sell.

"One of the regular guards at the gate knows me because I have struck up a conversation with him many times," Inna said. "He knows that I come and go at odd hours — sometimes I come over to the village to check on someone who is ill."

"This guard isn't going let you walk out of there with Whitlock," Honaker said.

"Of course not," Inna said impatiently. "I am going to make sure the guard is missing for a few minutes. I will tie my scarf to the gate as a sign for you and for Harry, and he can escape."

"Where is this guard going to be?"

Inna shrugged. "Busy."

She didn't have to explain how she would be keeping the guard busy.

"What about you?" Cole asked. "It sounds like this Barkov will figure out right quick who helped Whitlock escape, once he realizes his American prisoner is gone."

"As you say, he will figure it out," she agreed. "But I won't be there. I will be coming with you."

“No, you won’t," Honaker said. He shook his head emphatically. “The deal is that we're taking Whitlock with us, and nobody else."

Inna and Honaker started to argue about that.

Cole thought it over. The girl wasn't going to have a chance once Barkov or the camp commandant figured out who had helped Whitlock escape. They didn't have any option but to bring her along.

"She's right," Cole said. "She's got no choice. As long as she can keep up, she can come along."

Honaker was annoyed. "Listen, Cole—"

But it was Vaska who made the decision. "She comes with us. Barkov must not know who in the village helped her. If she is left behind, he will make her tell."

They spent a few more minutes hashing out the details. Then Inna announced that she had to get back to the infirmary before she was missed.

When she had gone, Honaker said: "I don't trust her. Who's to say she won't sell us out?"

Cole wasn't buying what Honaker was selling. He went with his gut. He wasn't sure that he understood love, but he did know loyalty, and he sensed it in this young woman. "We got no choice but to trust her. Besides, if Mrs. Vaska vouches for her, I reckon that's good enough for me."

They glanced at Mrs. Vaska, who stood serenely beside her husband's chair, holding a teapot.

“Inna?” Cole asked, raising his hands in the universal gesture for what do you think?

The old Russian woman nodded curtly, like she was pecking at something with her chin. “Da.

That settled it.

• • •

Inna thought she had everything planned out, but she was still missing one key piece of the plan — letting Harry know.

So the day after her meeting with the Americans, she packed some medical supplies and made her way toward the barracks where Harry and Ramsey lived. The work crews were back for the day, and it wouldn't be the first time that she had visited the barracks at the end of the day. Most of the guards were never too curious, but she always explained that the Americans were patients. That made sense to the guards — Americans were special.

Walking across the Gulag compound, she thought about how the meeting with the rescuers had gone. They seemed competent enough, although she worried about the tension between the one named Honaker and Cole. Honaker claimed to be in charge, but Cole seemed to be the one who knew what he was doing.

The truth was, though, that Cole made her uneasy. It wasn't that she didn't trust him. But Cole had strange eyes like ice that looked right through you, and a quiet, deliberate manner. Inna had just lived through a devastating war, and she knew Cole's type. There were plenty of soldiers, but maybe one in a thousand was something more. A killer. This Cole was one of them. So was Barkov. Such men frightened her.

The one person who set her mind at ease was Vaska. He had a reputation in the village as a capable hunter and trapper, and quite trustworthy. Did she trust him with her life — and with Harry's?

Lost in thought, Inna didn't see Barkov in front of the barracks until it was nearly too late.

His bulk was unmistakeable, hulking like a bear near the entrance to the barracks.

She had not seen him there these last few days. What did he want? With a sinking feeling, she realized that he wanted her.

She recalled an expression that her American father used to say. Bad news. Barkov was bad news.

Ducking her head, Inna changed course, hoping that she hadn't been seen.

Barkov had already run into her before, going to the Americans' barracks. Why hadn't he just gone to the infirmary? Because the Gulag compound was his territory, she thought. The infirmary was run by doctors and nurses who didn't have much patience with him.

Her heart pounding, she ducked into the laundry house. Looking out, it was clear that Barkov hadn't seen her — he was lighting a cigarette and not looking in her direction at all.

Another worrisome thought gripped her. Did Barkov know about the escape plan? It seemed impossible, but there were spies everywhere. People would trade their souls for an extra piece of bread or a bottle of vodka. Maybe someone in the village had seen her go to Vaska's house.

Inna slipped out the back of the laundry and returned to the infirmary. By the time she got there, she already had a plan in mind.

Inna took a piece of paper and composed a poem in English. Well, it would be passable as a poem to someone who didn't know English, but perhaps not to an English teacher. She smiled, in spite of everything, at the thought of writing Harry a poem.

It took her several tries, scratching out words here and there, and when she finished she took a fresh sheet of paper and made a good copy.

She found one of the old zeks who worked around the infirmary because he was too frail for railroad construction. She gave him a heel of bread to deliver the poem to the American. She started to tell him which barracks, and which American, but the old man waved her off.

"The handsome American. Everyone in camp knows him." The weathered old zek winked, as if to say, Ah, love.

• • •

Whitlock laid down on the bunk and couldn't even think about getting up again. He was that exhausted. He couldn't imagine how Ramsey must feel. Ramsey had a will of iron, even if his body was down to skin and bones. His chest rattled every time he coughed — which was almost constantly.

Not that Whitlock was doing much better. Fortunately, he had stayed healthy, but he had lost weight steadily since last spring, first in the German camp, and especially now in the Gulag, where the labor was constant and the intake of calories did little to replace the ones expended in building the railroad. He didn't have a scale, but he guessed that he had lost twenty pounds in the last few months, and Whitlock hadn't exactly been heavy to start with. At night when in lay in his bunk he could count his ribs, and his shoulder blades grated painfully against the slats of the bunk.

"Maybe your girl is coming by tonight,” Ramsey said.

He knew Ramsey enjoyed Inna's company as much as he did, and that was all right — he was willing to share. Ramsey needed every bit of encouragement he could get.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a zek from another barracks angling toward his bunk. The man held a piece of paper in his hand.

Inna, he thought. Who else would send him a note?

He took the few final steps toward Whitlock, a smile on his face as if this were the postman back home rather than a prisoner delivering a message in a prison camp.

A guard materialized to block his path.

The zek's smile vanished. The guard snatched the note from him.

These guards were a rough and brutal lot. It wasn't clear that the guard could read, let alone read English, but every guard excelled at petty cruelty. He studied the note intently.

"Poeziya," the guard said with a sneer.

Then he crumpled the note and tossed it toward one of the stoves that struggled to warm the barracks.

Whitlock felt his heart stop and anger bubbled up in is throat. The son of a bitch was trying to burn Inna's note. His note, goddamnit. He started to get off the bunk, the exhaustion in his muscles forgotten. What he'd like to do is take his fist and—

Ramsey caught his eye. “Don’t even think about it,” he muttered.

Fortunately, the guard had turned and wandered off before the note hit the floor. He wasn't all that intent on destruction. Neither was the stove, even though the damn thing glowed cherry red. The note struck the grate that served to keep sparks from burning down the barracks and bounced off, singed but legible.

Whitlock waited until the guard was gone. Then he was off the bunk, snatching the note out of the cinders and dirt on the rough wood floor boards.

The note contained a poem that was one stanza in length.


First Words of Icarus

Escape the great northern sky

Gate beyond the stars

Three wisdoms keep their watch

Midnight in the garden of evil

Tomorrow can't come soon enough

Scarf of the muse if the path is clear

"She sent me a poem," Whitlock said, a little in awe. A woman had never sent him a poem before. In this place, seeing a few words of English on a scrap of paper was the equivalent of getting the New York Times delivered. "It's lovely, even if it doesn't make any sense."

He handed it off to Ramsey.

The other man read it and announced, "Harry, your girl may be a looker, but I hate to say that she's a lousy poet."

"It's the thought that counts."

Ramsey handed back the piece of paper and said in barely a whisper: "It's not a poem, you blessed idiot. It's a message in code."

Whitlock studied it again. "How do you figure?"

"Icarus was a pilot of sorts who escaped the island of Crete," Ramsey explained in hushed tones. In a Gulag barracks, you never knew who was pretending not to know English, but being paid to listen to the American prisoners. "I didn't go to Harvard like some people here, but I know that much. Well, he escaped for a little while. He did crash into the sea.”

“How is it in code?”

“The first word of each line.”

Once he saw that, it seemed so obvious that he wondered how he had overlooked it in the first place. Whitlock strung the first words together: Escape gate three midnight tomorrow.

Gate three was the one closest to the barracks. He didn't need Ramsey's help to figure out the line about the scarf. The muse in the poem was Inna. Inna's scarf. It was to be the signal.

"Pack your bags, Ramsey. This is our last night in the Gulag Hotel."

Then he crumpled up the paper and fed it into the fire, making certain that this time, only ashes remained.

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