The White Russian

58

F inally, the train slowed.

Ruzsky pushed himself onto his knees. The snow had stopped and the moon cut through thinning clouds to leave slivers of light dancing upon an indifferent landscape.

They were coming down a slight incline, and ahead, Ruzsky could see a road that ran through the middle of the wood and up to the edge of the track. It had been recently cleared. A large military truck was parked across the line.

The train jolted as the brakes were applied, almost sending Ruzsky tumbling over the lip of the carriage. It came slowly to a halt less than ten yards from the obstacle. Ruzsky kept low, but the only sound was the wheezing of the engine.

Up ahead, he saw two Okhrana men walking toward the truck. He heard a shouted command, but there was no response. The men looked about them.

The engine appeared to grow quieter, the forest around it still.

One of the men moved up to the rear of the truck, a revolver in his hand. He wore a black fedora and it spun high into the air as his body slumped to the ground, the powder lifting around him as the snow cushioned his fall.

For a second, there was no reaction, even from his companion. And then the second man turned, his own hat falling in his haste.

He got no more than a yard as the air was filled with the crack and whistle of rifle shots. Dark figures emerged from the woods, charging toward the carriages. There were shouts, doors banging, more shouts, screams, and then the dull pop of shots muffled by the wood.

Vasilyev was sacrificing his own men in the interests of staging an authentic robbery.

And then all was quiet once more.

Ruzsky heard the roar of a truck being started, and he watched as from down the lane a line of headlights begin to swing through the wood.

The convoy wound its way down to the crossing.

Ahead of them, on the far side of the track, the road ran straight up a hill. Halfway up it, in the moonlight, Ruzsky could make out Borodin and Maria. She did not wear a hat; her long hair was swept back from her face, as if she wanted to be recognized. Despite her height and slender grace, she seemed a frail figure alongside him.

There was a hiss of steam, then an eerie silence.

Ruzsky listened to the clank and whimper of the engine.

There was a shout. “I have him!”

All of the men in the clearing moved at once. Figures swarmed from the shadows. There was a shot, then another.

Borodin turned in the direction of the confrontation, but Maria continued to stare straight ahead.

Ruzsky heard a distant cry.

He waited, his heart pounding.

Had they been waiting for him?

He saw Dmitri being led over the brow of the hill.

Ruzsky pushed himself up, fumbling for his revolver, and as he did so, he felt the cold metal of a gun barrel on the back of his neck. “Good evening, Chief Investigator,” Prokopiev said. “Time to join us.”

Ruzsky looked up. He put his revolver down. “Don’t hurt him.”

“We’ll see.”

“Don’t hurt him.”

He saw the tension in Prokopiev’s face. “Get down.”

Ruzsky swung around and jumped into the drift beside the crossing. He walked forward, Maria’s gaze fixed upon his.

Dmitri turned around, his face white. He was ringed by men in long overcoats, their rifles and revolvers pointed unerringly at him. There was fear in his eyes, such as Ruzsky had only ever seen in those of condemned prisoners before they were led to execution. He took his brother’s hand, his grip icy cold. “It’s all right,” he said.

Dmitri fell into his arms and Ruzsky held him tight. For a moment, they were thousands of miles away, far from the harsh-faced men who surrounded them, clutching each other on the top floor of the house at Petrovo. “It’s all right,” he whispered.

He looked up to see Michael Borodin striding toward them. He saw no shred of humanity in his eyes.

Borodin pulled them apart. He kicked Ruzsky and forced him to his knees. “Mr. Khabarin,” he said.

Ruzsky stared at Maria.

“Your Russia is dead, Prince Ruzsky,” Borodin said. He cocked his revolver. “And your kind will soon be finished. You understand that, don’t you?”

Ruzsky listened to the last gasps of the steam engine. Maria’s eyes bored into his. Her expression was one of infinite sadness, as if she was reaching out to him but could never touch him again.

Ruzsky felt the cold metal of Borodin’s revolver at the back of his skull, but did not flinch. He mumbled a prayer. He thought of his father’s smile in the hallway of the house on Millionnaya Street and Michael pounding through the snow and into his arms.

The world around him was distorted and out of focus.

All he could hear was his own breathing.

He kept his eyes upon Maria.

Dmitri began to move, a blur on the periphery of Ruzsky’s vision. He got only a yard toward Borodin before the revolutionary fired a single shot through his forehead. His body crumpled and fell.

The clearing was still. Maria had taken a pace toward them, but had now frozen where she stood.

Ruzsky crossed himself.

He waited. He closed his eyes.

“There was no need for him to die,” Borodin whispered, his mouth close to Ruzsky’s ear. “She wanted you both to live. That was the trade.”

Ruzsky looked up at Maria.

Her sadness was not for him, but for herself. She had come to say goodbye.

He heard the snort of a horse and the bells on a sleigh.

“Start walking, get in and go away,” Borodin said. “Turn around and you’ll regret it.”

Ruzsky did not move.

“She has paid for your freedom. Better take it before I change my mind.”

Ruzsky stared, transfixed, at Michael’s tiny figure beyond the crossing. Ingrid sat next to him, two Okhrana agents either side of them, their guns pointed toward him. He looked down at the body of his brother sprawled in the snow.

“Don’t you want to know what she thinks you are worth?”

Ruzsky kept his eyes upon his son.

“She has offered what only a woman can give.”

Ruzsky still did not move.

“She sent your brother to kill me, but when she understood that she could not stop you trying to save him, she traded her own freedom in order to keep you alive. It is quite heroic.”

Ruzsky could not think.

“I would start walking, Prince Ruzsky.” Borodin leaned closer, his breath warm against Ruzsky’s ear. “Or perhaps you think she can escape?

“We had a telegram from the local police in Yalta. They found out that a very clever chief investigator went to see a girl in a sanatorium. So I think I will have them both.”

Ruzsky’s head pounded. His mind screamed at him to turn around.

“Start walking, Mr. Khabarin, and don’t look at her again or none of you will leave this clearing.”

Ruzsky looked at the guards towering over his son. He began to walk, concentrating on the sound of his boots in the snow.

The Okhrana men watched him approach.

He walked through the quiet of the Russian forest.

He could feel her eyes upon his back. Ahead, he saw that Michael was crying, and his son’s tears triggered his own.

“It’s all right, my boy,” he said.

As he crossed the tracks, Ruzsky whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He climbed into the sled and took his son into his arms. The driver cracked his whip and the sled jerked forward.

As it climbed the hill, Ruzsky could resist no longer. He turned and saw her standing alone on the clearing, watching him.

She did not move. Her eyes were fixed upon him until they disappeared from view.