Sam Eastland - Red Icon

At that moment, he began to feel dizzy. A darkness seemed to crowd in from the corners of his mind and he realised he was struggling to breathe. He looked down and saw that the material of his trousers was wet where he had been kneeling in the street. Then he knew that some of the liquid must have soaked through the heavy corduroy. Fumbling with the second atropine container, he removed the syringe and began struggling with the buttons of his coat and then his waistcoat. By then, he could not breathe at all and his vision was so blurred that he began to suffer vertigo. He staggered back against the wall of a house, and tried to jam the needle into his chest, only to realise that the cap was still on. He pulled it off, exposing the needle at last and rammed it in between his ribs, feeling it scrape against bone. Then, with the last of his strength, he pushed the plunger, watching the liquid vanish into his heart. With the needle still between his ribs, he slid down against the wall and blacked out.

He had no idea how long he was unconscious. It may only have been a couple of seconds. The first thing he saw when his eyes opened was Elizaveta.

She was lying on her side, with her arm hooked under her head as a pillow. She looked exhausted, but he could see that she was breathing normally.

Pekkala turned away and spat. As he did this, he caught sight of the syringe, which was still jutting from between his ribs. He grasped the tube and pulled it out. It slipped from his fingers and fell with a clatter on the road.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the old stag-handled knife which he always carried with him. Opening the blade, Pekkala heard the reassuring click of its locking mechanism and he then proceeded to cut away the cloth around his knees where the soman had soaked in.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Elizaveta. She was sitting up now and watching him with a baffled look on her face.

‘Ruining a perfectly good pair of trousers,’ answered Pekkala, as he carved through the thick brown corduroy.

In that moment, they were startled by the sound of a shot, quickly followed by two more, and then silence.

*

Stefan Kohl had reached the church. He entered through the open door beside the north transept and quickly made his way to the altar. On the table lay a bundle, wrapped in the same oilcloth he had used when he placed it in his father’s coffin for safekeeping.

His first thought was simply to take it and run, but now he paused. He had to be sure. They might have tried to trick him, after all. Carefully, he unwrapped the bundle and the bright blues and greens of the icon seemed to jump out of the darkness of that tattered piece of cloth. There could be no mistaking the painting he had carried with him twice across the length of Russia. This frail and brittle panel had become the substance of his life. With The Shepherd in his hands again, Stefan felt as if some vital part of him had been restored. Once more, he was the keeper of his faith. Clutching the icon to his chest, he stepped out into the churchyard. A long journey lay ahead of him, he knew, and where it would take him, he had no idea. All he knew was that it must be far away from here.

He did not see Kirov until it was already too late.

The major stepped out from behind one of the stone buttresses of the church, appearing so suddenly in front of Stefan that the two men actually collided.

Kirov did not hesitate.

The bullet passed through the icon, smashed through Stefan’s chest and left a hole the size of a man’s fist as it exited through his back.

Kohl stepped back abruptly, a startled look on his face.

Kirov fired two more rounds before Stefan’s legs gave out from under him.

Stefan lay on his back. Through dimming sight he looked up at the sky. He could smell smoke; sweet like church incense and through the sputter of his failing senses he perceived that the Shepherd had come to life and stood before him now, casting a shadow on his face and filling him with warmth as what he believed could only be his soul was lifted from the ruins of his body. Stefan thought about the night he had stood in the rain, speaking to the man he had pulled from the ditch on the road to Krasnoyar, and how his mind had been so plagued with doubt about choosing the course his life would take. How he wished he could go back to that moment in time and reassure his younger self that everything the pilgrim had told him was the truth. There is no doubt, he thought. ‘No doubt at all,’ he whispered.

‘What?’ Kirov looked down pitilessly upon the man he had just shot. ‘What are you saying?’

Kohl breathed out in a long, rattling sigh.

Then Kirov knew that there would be no answer to his question. Coughing, he stepped back from the tatters of smoke rising from the dead man’s chest. The muzzle flash of the Tokarev had ignited highly flammable paint, setting fire to the ancient wooden panel and causing Stefan’s blood to crackle and blacken as it boiled.

Kirov holstered his gun and went back to find Elizaveta. He caught up with her and Pekkala as they were walking down the street. They both moved slowly and unsteadily, as if old age had suddenly crept up on them.

Kirov ran up to his wife and embraced her.

Pekkala, his pale knees poking from the ragged holes in his trousers, waited patiently, until at last they stood back from each other. ‘Did you find him?’ he asked Kirov.

Kirov nodded.

‘Where is he now?’ demanded the Inspector.

‘Lying in the churchyard,’ Kirov replied.

‘And the icon?’

Reluctantly, Kirov explained what had happened. ‘It was only a painting, after all,’ he added with a kind of hopeless optimism.

For a moment, Pekkala said nothing. Then finally he spoke. ‘You may be right about that, Major,’ he said, much to Kirov’s surprise.

From the distance came the rumble and clank of approaching Soviet tanks.

‘Perhaps the offensive has begun,’ remarked Elizaveta.

‘If we start walking now,’ said Pekkala, ‘we’ll run into them before they reach the town. We can warn them about the soman and they will take the necessary steps to decontaminate the area.’

‘And after that?’ asked Kirov. ‘Those planes destroyed our vehicle. How are we supposed to make it back to Moscow?’

For the first time since Kohl had kidnapped her off the street, Elizaveta smiled. ‘Come with me, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘An old friend of yours is waiting.’

One hour later, with Kirov behind the wheel of the Emka, they encountered a Red Army reconnaissance squad making its way cautiously towards Ahlborn. After flagging down the lead armoured car of the squad, Pekkala informed the commander about the briefcase. Then they carried on towards Moscow, passing dozens of tanks and trucks, all of them loaded with soldiers, making their way steadily westwards.

By then, Elizaveta had told the men the story of her capture, and what had become of Sergeant Zolkin.

‘But he was alive when you saw him last,’ said Pekkala.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but . . .’

Pekkala cut her off. ‘Then there is still room for hope,’ he said.

‘I should never have left you in Moscow,’ Kirov told Elizaveta.

‘And I should never have allowed you to leave.’

‘Allowed me?’ One eyebrow raised, he glanced at his wife in the rear-view mirror. ‘Is that so, Corporal?’

‘It is, Major Kirov,’ she replied.

‘This time I think she outranks you,’ agreed Pekkala.

Moscow

At the Sklivassovsky Hospital, they found Zolkin alive, although with twenty stitches in his neck. As soon as they entered the room, he climbed out of bed and embraced each one in turn. Although he was under orders not to speak, and could manage no more than a whisper, he immediately inquired about the Emka, which he had last seen driving off with Stefan Kohl behind the wheel.