Craig Russell - The Carnival Master

‘Where are you going?’ Buslenko called across to Stoyan, who had started, crouching low, to climb up the river bank.

‘I’m going to take a look around, boss. I’ll be careful. Then I’m going to take a leak.’

Buslenko nodded and turned back to Belotserkovsky. ‘It can’t have been one of us. I’ve been working it out. The four of us here had no opportunity. Captain Sarapenko was outside for less than ten minutes. It would have taken her that long to reach Vorobyeva. You, Stoyan and me… we were all inside.’

‘We don’t know for sure when Vorobyeva was done,’ said Belotserkovsky. An owl hooted in the woods and suddenly flew over their heads, its wings clapping the air. They both swung their weapons to bear on the owl. After a moment they relaxed.

‘We’re getting jumpy,’ said Buslenko. ‘And yes, I do have a rough idea when Vorobyeva was killed. His body was still warm. In these temperatures that means he died just about the time he was supposed to head back to be relieved. And he wasn’t killed by ghosts, so it’s best to keep our wits about us.’

At the top of the river bank, Stoyan kept low and scanned the length of the river. He could see the lights of Korostyshev in the distance. It would take them less than an hour to get there, but the sky was lightening and it would be the trickiest part of the journey. His eyes traced back up the front edge of the forest. The first three ranks of trunks were visible, then blackness. It would stay night in the forest for hours yet. He decided to recommend to Buslenko that they should quit the river bank and use the trees as cover. It would be slower going but safer. He gestured down the bank to Buslenko, pointed two fingers of one hand to his own eyes, then indicated his near surroundings with a sweep of his hand. Buslenko nodded, signalling that it was okay for Stoyan to recce the immediate area.

Stoyan crossed the narrow expanse of open ground between the river bank and the forest. He pressed his back to the bark of a tree, took out a small monocular night-vision scope and surveyed as far into the forest as he could. He could see nothing. Literally. Even the night-vision scope couldn’t penetrate the blackness of the forest’s interior.

‘Stoyan!’ He spun around and aimed the scope in the direction from which he had heard his name called in a loud whisper. ‘Stoyan! Over here!’

Stoyan didn’t reply. He tried to locate the voice near enough that a burst from his assault rifle might hit whoever was there.

‘Stoyan! It’s Tenishchev!’

Stoyan moved closer, keeping low to present as small a target as possible, and keeping his Vepr aimed at the source of the voice.

‘Here,’ said the voice. Tenishchev appeared above some bushes at the edge of the forest. He looked ragged and dirty and had no weapon. The dark stain on the side on his face looked like blood. ‘Come here… but keep low. Serduchka is somewhere around here. He’s been shadowing you. Serduchka is a traitor. He killed Vorobyeva and he tried to kill me.’

Stoyan ran across to the bushes and they both dropped behind them. Tenishchev looked afraid. His parka was torn and when Stoyan touched it, it felt wet. Stoyan looked at his fingertips – they were slick with blood.

‘Are you okay?’ Stoyan asked. Tenishchev nodded, but Stoyan put his rifle down and eased back the parka where it was soaked in blood.

‘You say Serduchka killed Vorobyeva?’

Tenishchev nodded again. Stoyan was worried: there was a lot of blood but he couldn’t find the wound that was causing it.

‘Serduchka is one of Vitrenko’s men?’

‘Yes…’ said Tenishchev. ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Do you know what’s even harder to believe…?’

Stoyan stared wildly into Tenishchev’s eyes. He found that he couldn’t breathe. He looked down and saw where Tenishchev had rammed his hunting knife up and under Stoyan’s sternum.

‘… So am I,’ said Tenishchev into Stoyan’s already dead eyes.

Buslenko and Belotserkovsky had been lying flat, scanning the forest fringe for fifteen minutes. The sky was now dangerously light.

‘We’re going to have to move on…’ said Buslenko.

‘We can’t just leave Stoyan behind,’ protested Belotserkovsky.

‘Stoyan’s dead,’ said Olga Sarapenko with sudden authority. She was below them, down by the river, watching the opposite bank. ‘And so will we be if we don’t get out of the wilds. There’s a reason why Vitrenko’s targeted us here… either he is simply making sport of us as if we were a herd of wild boar, or he’s decided that we represent too much of a threat to him if we get to Germany.’

‘We’ll never make it to Germany,’ said Belotserkovsky dully.

‘He’s not going to get us here,’ said Olga defiantly. ‘I’m going to watch that son of a bitch die.’

Buslenko smiled. He turned to Belotserkovsky. ‘You ready to roll?’

Belotserkovsky nodded. Something drew his attention upwards to the brightening sky.

‘Take cover!’ he screamed.

Maria had planned to sleep until mid-morning. She had put the ‘do not disturb’ notice on the doorknob of her room and had thrown herself onto the bed and fallen asleep almost immediately. When she awoke she was annoyed to find herself still fully dressed – her unbrushed teeth and mouth felt coated. She lay for a moment not knowing, not remembering what it was that was causing the nauseating ache in her chest. Then it came back to her: the crushing remembrance of firing into the car. She had probably killed someone. Maria had committed the crime that she was supposed to prevent, to solve. She could probably quite legitimately claim in a court that she’d been acting in self-defence. But the gun was illegal. And so was the intent: Maria had fired into the cabin of the car and had wanted to kill the Ukrainian. She no longer had the right to call herself a police officer. She was a vigilante, nothing more.

She went to the window and pulled back its curtains. There was no light from the apartment opposite and the curtains there were drawn across the glazed doors that opened out onto the roof terrace. The sky was a dull glimmer above Cologne’s rooftops. It was barely dawn but Maria knew she wouldn’t sleep again. She looked blankly at the growing light in the sky and it looked blankly back at her. Time to move on.

She stripped and showered and packed her bags. She went down to reception and checked out. The hotel was good enough for her purposes, but she had used her own name and credit card, added to which the hotel staff had looked somewhat surprised at her sudden change of appearance. Maria’s plan was to check into another hotel in the same area. She would pay cash and stay a couple of nights. After that, she could move into the flat of her friend who was working in Japan.

She carried her bags out of the hotel and into a bright winter morning, without the slightest idea of how she was going to get back onto Vitrenko’s tail.

There had been no cover to take. They had all seen the dark, round object arc through the sky towards them and had thrown themselves in different directions, scrabbling on the frost-hardened ground and waiting for the blast to finish them off.

It didn’t come.

Buslenko saw the object dark against the snow and crawled towards it. It was a head. He grabbed the hair and turned the face towards him. Stoyan. Belotserkovsky was next to Buslenko now and looked down at his friend’s dark, handsome Tatar face.

‘Bastards! I’ll kill the fuckers!’ Belotserkovsky turned towards the river bank but Buslenko seized his sleeve and pulled him down.

‘Don’t be a fucking amateur,’ he said. ‘You know what this is about. Don’t lose your cool now. We’re moving out. And we’ll take our chances along the river. I need us to move fast.’