Louis L'Amour - Last of the Breed

They waited, stamping their feet against the cold, shivering and watching. “If we are seen,” Borowsky said, “they will wonder why we are standing here in the cold.”

“It is a risk we take,” Botev said, “Yakov would do it for us.”

“He got me out of Kirensk,” Borowsky said. “He risked his neck to do it.”

“And me from one of the Sol’vychegodsk camps,” Botev said.

The chopper was coming in low. It would land on the airfield not far from the hangars.

Joe Mack’s hand was on the AK-47. He heard the Volga start, and from the corner of the hangar they saw two men emerge from the building with a prisoner between them. His hands were shackled behind him.

“There will be two men in the building. Maybe they will be watching.”

“No matter.” Joe Mack saw the helicopter landing gently on the field and heard the car’s motor start. The hatch of the copter opened and a man got down and stood aside. It was a bigger ship than those he had seen before and would carry at least a squad. Inwardly he was praying there was no such force aboard. If there were, nobody would get out of this alive.

“Let’s go,” he said, and they started to walk, not in a group but scattered out, drifting onto the field with the casual manner of curious country folk.

The Volga swung alongside the chopper, and the driver remained at the wheel. From the Volga, three men got down, and they saw Yakov turn his head slightly, eyes downcast, and glance toward them. Suddenly he fell to his knees. “No! No!” he cried out. “I am afraid to fly! I—!”

Angrily, the KGB men tried to jerk him erect, their attention completely on their prisoner. Even the driver had turned his head to see what was happening. Borowsky stepped alongside the Volga and opened the door on the driver’s side. The driver, surprised, turned to look into a pistol. “Get out, very carefully,” Borowsky said quietly. “I do not want to kill you.”

Botev had rounded the Volga, coming up behind the two men who struggled with Yakov. Yakov was a powerful man, and he had managed, with a lunge, to knock one man off his feet. The other struggled, swearing, to pull Yakov to a standing position. Botev moved in behind him as Joe Mack went to the chopper. He spoke to the pilot.

“Will you step out, please? I am very nervous, and a burst of fire at this distance would empty your guts.”

Carefully, the copter pilot began to get out. He was a brave man, but he wished to live, and the AK-47 was very close, and the man who held it was like no one he had ever seen, with the striking gray eyes in a dark hawklike face, his hair in two braids. The pilot moved very carefully. “Be careful with that,” he said. “I have two children.”

“You are fortunate. Children need a father, so stay alive, comrade, and make no mistakes. I want your chopper.”

“You can fly it?”

“I can fly anything.” He nudged the pilot with the gun barrel to move him further. “And this seems very like one of our own.”

Botev had the two KGB men on their feet against the side of the Volga. From the buildings they were screened. Nevertheless, one of the KGB men had come outside and was looking toward them. “Have you got the key for the handcuffs?” he asked Botev. “If so, disarm them and put them in the copter.”

Borowsky was astonished. “You will take them with us?”

“Why not? There is room, and if left behind there’s no telling what tales they might tell.”

Working swiftly, the four men, the pilot, the driver of the Volga, and the two KGB men were bundled into the helicopter. Yakov, his hands freed, took the guns taken from two of them and climbed in with them. The helicopter was soon airborne.

Joe Mack glanced at his watch. The whole operation had taken just six minutes.

A half hour later he landed on a rugged plateau of the Chersky Mountains. “Yakov? Let them out here. Loosen their bonds so they can free themselves after we are gone. No reason to let them freeze to death.”

“To the devil with them,” Yakov said. “Let the bastards freeze!”

“The pilot did you no harm,” Joe Mack said. “Besides, he’s a family man. Let them free themselves and find their way back. However,” he added, “I’ve had some experience with these mountains. I would suggest the first things you do is build a fire and a windbreak. Then get settled for the night. It is too late to get anywhere today.”

He circled once as they took off. The men were on their feet, struggling to free themselves. He turned the helicopter and headed off to the west; then, when some distance away, he circled back to the east.

“Where?” he asked Yakov.

“To the mountains east of Semychan,” Yakov suggested. “I’ve a place there.” He took up a map board. “Here, I can show you.” He glanced up. “How are we on fuel?”

“No more than an hour’s flying time. Perhaps less. I will take you as far as possible.”

He kept the helicopter low, barely clearing the treetops, following canyons and low ground wherever possible. By now there would be pursuit, and when sighted they would be shot down without hesitation. But until they picked up the four men left behind, the pursuers would not know who was involved. And the KGB men would not know him, unless the description fitted one they already had. The braids might be a giveaway. Certainly it was unlikely that anybody else would be wearing such a hairstyle. Yet what could he do? There were no barbers in the taiga, and it had been nearly a year since he had had a haircut.

The air was clear, visibility excellent. He had left the Indigirka behind and was flying toward the Kolyma. When he landed the plane, it was in a small clearing among the trees. “We should chance it no further,” he said. “They will be searching for us now. Let’s camouflage the chopper. It will take them that much longer to find us.”

There were, as in all such craft flying in the area, emergency rations. “We will give you half,” Yakov said. “We have friends not far off where we can get more. Luck to you, comrade.”

“And to you.”

Yakov smiled widely. “You know, of course, that if we met in a war I should shoot you. I do not like our government very much, but I am a Russian.”

“Of course,” Joe Mack replied. “And I am an American. Let us hope it does not come to that. After all,” he added, “we want nothing you have. Nothing but free travel and communication. There are millions of Americans who would like to see Lake Baikal and the Kamchatka Peninsula. If Russia would put the KGB to working on farms and doing something productive, tear down the Berlin Wall, and build more good hotels, we Americans would be all over your country spending money, making friends, seeing the beauties of Russia, and making ridiculous all that both countries are spending on munitions.

“If America had had any aggressive intentions against Russia, we could have moved when only America had the atomic bomb. We did not and would not, so don’t worry about it, Yakov.”

Yakov chuckled. “I like that bit about putting the KGB to work on farms. I doubt if they could raise enough to feed themselves.” He lifted a hand. “Good-bye, then!”

He walked away, followed by Botev and Borowsky. Joe Mack waited a while, watching them go, glancing again at the now-camouflaged helicopter. It would be found, but not soon.

He added the additional rations to his pack, arranged his goatskin coat, and started off to the north.

Nothing moved but the wind. The coarse snow stirred along the frozen ground. Spring was coming, but the earth did not yet know it, holding itself back, waiting for some of the frost to go out of the sleeping earth.

Spring was coming and after it, the brief summer. It would be good to be warm again. He had almost forgotten how it would feel.