Glen Allen - The shadow war

"Is anyone hit?" asked Wolfe.

"Bastards don't need to hit us," said Nikolai from the floor. "Just burn house down."

"Or burn book," said Anton. He was sitting on the floor next to the fireplace, Leverotov's journal clutched to his chest.

"How many?" said Wolfe to Nikolai.

"One, maybe two," answered Nikolai. "But they probably have night scopes."

"Who the hell is out there?" asked Benjamin.

"I would guess some old friends of Anton's from 12 Directorate," Wolfe said. "They've got as much a stake in keeping this secret as the Foundation. Maybe more." He was looking around the cabin. Then he spotted Boris's gun rack. "If only there was a way out of here other than the front door."

"There is," said Nikolai. "In bathroom, hole in floor, little tunnel. For when militia come."

"All right," Wolfe said. "Benjamin, you and Natalya and Anton, stay put. And stay low."

He crawled across the floor to the gun rack. Reaching up, he grabbed one of the rifles by the stock, pulled it down from the rack. Even as he did so, another bullet struck the gun rack, splintering the stock of the remaining rifle. Wolfe slid the rifle across the floor to Nikolai. He pulled his automatic pistol out of his parka, began crawling toward the bathroom.

"Come on, Nikolai. If they think we're still inside, perhaps we can sneak around them."

Nikolai crawled from the table, and both men moved slowly across the floor and into the bathroom. There was the sound of a section of the flooring being removed, and through the open doorway Benjamin could see the two men drop down through the floor to the ground beneath.

With both fires out, the only light now came from the flickering fireplace. Benjamin wasn't sure what to do. He crawled awkwardly across the floor to Natalya, trying to keep his shoulder from bumping into things in the dim light.

"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching her.

"Yes," she said. "Are you?"

"I'm okay," said Benjamin, cradling his shoulder.

"Me, too," said Anton from the fireplace, "if anyone asking."

"I should be out there," Benjamin said. "They don't know how many there are."

"With that arm in a sling, what could you do, except make a fine target?"

"I don't know," Benjamin said. "Something. Anything. But I feel like a coward, hiding here."

"Benjamin," Natalya said. She put her hand to the side of his face. She looked into his eyes. "What you did at shakhta thirty-four was not the act of a coward." She put her arm around his neck, pressed her head against his chest.

Benjamin smiled, but immediately winced in pain. "I was almost useless. If Samuel hadn't shown up-"

Suddenly there was the sharp crack of a shot somewhere outside the cabin, followed in quick succession by two more.

"If only the other rifle hadn't been hit," Natalya said, "at least we could defend ourselves."

It was then Benjamin remembered the Makarov pistol in his parka. He looked around the cabin.

"Natalya," he said, "where did you put my parka?"

"That's it," she said. "On that chair."

"Natalya, can you reach it?" he asked.

She began crawling toward the chair, keeping close to the floor. There was another crack of a rifle from outside, then the higher-pitched snap of another gun in response, and the cry of someone in pain.

"My father!" whispered Natalya.

"Just stay down," Benjamin said. "Your father's pistol is in the parka pocket. Throw it to me."

Natalya was at the chair. She reached up, felt in the right-hand pocket of the parka. "There is only a glove," she said; then, "No, wait, I think…"

Suddenly the front door to the cabin was thrown open. Against the dark backdrop of the night sky, littered with the white dots of snowflakes, there was the silhouette of someone tall, someone in a white snow parka and pants. In the dim light they could see he was dark skinned, with a black beard.

The figure began to raise its arm. And then Benjamin noticed that there was some sort of helmet on the man's head. In the flicker of the firelight, he saw the reflection from lenses set in the helmet, with a faint green glow behind them.

Now the figure moved its arm to the side-toward where Natalya lay, under the table, her hand inside the parka pocket.

A sudden shaft of bright light was cast into the room. Benjamin turned his head, saw Boris standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the light flooding out into the room.

"Kagogo Diavola?" Boris said.

The figure in the doorway raised an arm in front of his face, blocking out the sudden glare of light that must have blinded his night vision; at the same moment he fired a quick shot in Boris's direction. Boris jerked back as the bullet struck his thigh.

And then the figure was swinging his arm back toward Natalya.

Suddenly there was an eruption from the pocket of the parka over the chair-and the figure at the door staggered back as if hit by a fist in the chest. His gun discharged a bullet into the ceiling.

But he didn't go down. As he was lowering his arm, aiming again, Natalya fired a second time.

The figure lifted its arm weakly-but the pistol dropped from his hand. And then he fell backward, out into the snow, and lay still.

"Anton!" Benjamin shouted. "Anton, put out the fire!"

Anton moved from the fireplace, jerked a coat down from a rack on the wall, patted it over the fire in the bedroom. Boris lay on his side, groaning. Natalya crawled over to Benjamin.

"Are you all right?" she said, clutching him. She still had the smoking Makarov in her hand.

He nodded. "Yes, I'm all right." He gently took the gun from her with his good hand, then put his arms around her.

"I am now tired of people shooting at us," said Anton, smothering the last of the flames.

"I think it's over," Benjamin said.

Suddenly there was a thunderous sound overhead, and a blinding white light that made the trees stand out in bold relief.

As the roar grew louder, the light moved back and forth on the ground, then angled off beyond the front of the house, to the meadow across the dirt road from Boris's cabin.

Benjamin started to get up, and Natalya helped him to rise. Together they walked to the doorway, looked out onto the landscape turned into blazing white by the light from overhead. Benjamin realized it was a searchlight, and the deafening whomp-whomp-whomp was the sound of a helicopter-a huge one. As they watched, its dark bulk settled slowly onto the meadow. It was painted in olive drab and black camouflage.

A door in the helicopter's side slid open, and men began to tumble out, dressed in white snow-camouflage uniforms. Soon there were a dozen of them in front of the helicopter, each of them armed with an assault rifle.

Then someone else jumped from the helicopter. But rather than white, he was wearing a green officer's tunic and hat.

"Thank God, it is Vasily," Natalya said.

Lieutenant Colonel Kalinin shouted orders and pointed, and the men began fanning out into the woods-then stopped as two figures emerged from the trees. One was also dressed in a white parka and pants, but the other was in a dark parka and was grasping his upper arm.

"Nikolai!" shouted Natalya. Benjamin held her back.

The soldiers raised their weapons, pointed them toward the two men-then Kalinin shouted something, and the men lowered their guns. Kalinin approached Wolfe and Nikolai, spoke with them for a moment. Then he sent two of his men into the woods, and the rest of the group approached the cabin.

"If he's here to rescue us, he's a little late," said Benjamin, looking at Natalya and smiling. "You've already done that."

Natalya helped Benjamin back into the cabin and into a chair at the table, where Anton was sorting through the burned pages of the journal and Analiz 55.

"Saved most of it," Anton said. "But don't know yet which most."