Jak dumped the stolen wag among the trees. He helped Rick out and supported him as they crossed and recrossed the narrow river twice. They eventually reached the big house a little after four in the morning. The boy was close to exhaustion, barely managing the bag of tools and the dying freezie.
Doc Tanner saw them coming. He'd been dozing on the second-floor landing, and had been awakened by the excited barking of Zorro.
Krysty moved quickly to open the sturdy main doors, running out across the sodden turf to where Jak was struggling with Rick. Doc strode along at his best pace and between them they managed to get the sick man into the house. On the threshold Rick elbowed them aside, standing unsupported for a moment. He reached inside his mud-stained coat and unfurled the torn flag.
"Good to be back in the land of the free and..." He slipped to the parquet floor, deeply unconscious.
Ryan and J.B. stopped. Just as they thought they'd succeeded in slipping past the work patrol, one of the sec men turned around and spotted them. He leveled his rifle and called out.
"Don't draw!" Ryan ordered. "Better prisoners than chilled in the dirt. Fake deaf."
He smiled at the Russkie, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. The man shouted again and gestured with the muzzle of the elderly 7.62 mm Tokarev.
Both Americans managed a nervous smile for the sec man, trying to convey their willingness to do whatever it was he wanted, without actually having to do it.
The Russian stepped closer and lifted the butt of the rifle in a menacing gesture, pointing to a pile of picks, and forks and spades that lay in the trampled mud.
Ryan nodded, walked forward and picked up one of the shovels, followed by J.B. Just for a moment their apparent resistance had turned the heads of several of the other guards. Now, seeing their obedience, they went back to watching the members of the subbotnikwork group, laboring to restore the roadway.
Ryan risked provoking more anger from the stocky guard by glancing behind him, over to the ville side of the embankment where the group of wags had stopped. He wondered if this was the pursuit from Moscow. If it was, then it looked like their freedom was going to be measured in racing heartbeats.
He and the Armorer had both pulled up their hoods as they tried to pass the work gang, concealing their faces from the sec man who'd first stopped them and ordered them to start laboring.
At J.B.'s elbow, as they made their way to the bottom of the slippery path, Ryan talked quickly and urgently.
"I think Zimyanin could be close. These shit-dippers didn't spot us. Pocket your glasses and do whatever I do."
It was a long and desperate shot.
Ryan paused for a moment, then reached up and slipped the leather patch from his left eye, wincing at the unfamiliar feeling of cold air and rain on the puckered, empty socket. At his side, J.B. palmed his glasses and dropped them into one of his pockets.
The mud beneath their boots was slick and greasy, making the descent difficult. Several of the local Russians pressed into the work detail stopped for a moment to watch the two newcomers making their delicate way down to join them. Ryan had noticed that the mud at the edge of the river was particularly deep and noisome.
Behind him he heard the screech of brakes as one of the pursuing wags came skidding to a halt at the earth-fall. Doors clicked open and slammed shut again. There was a loud, confident voice, sounding as though it was used to command.
"How long has this road been blocked, Comrade Corporal?"
"Just over an hour, Comrade Major-Commissar. We have a work unit pressed into repairing it."
Zimyanin tugged at the dripping ends of his mustache. This was a holdup he couldn't possibly have anticipated, but it could prove a massive hindrance to his plans to capture the Americans.
"You know about the stolen armawag?"
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. It has not passed along the road since we have been here. The blockage would have stopped it. Since then nothing has gone past us. Indeed, I said to my friend here, who also happens to be the sister of my wife's second cousin and..."
"Your mouth, Corporal. Close it."
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar."
Zimyanin's attention had been caught by a couple of local peasants, who he assumed were the latest "volunteers" for the subbotnik. They were trying to get down to the bottom of the earthslide, toward the surging and swollen river. The way they kept staggering, it looked as though at any moment they might go tumbling into the sticky mud.
Bracing himself, and holding his breath, Ryan deliberately allowed himself to lose his footing. He waved his arms, dropped the shovel and uttered a great bellow of shock and terror. He contrived to snatch at J.B.'s arm, bringing him down with him.
The water was bitterly cold and he rolled into it, immediately becoming soaked to the skin once more. There was a great splash as the Armorer also slid into the freezing water. He heard the delighted roar of laughter from the other workers, and most of the sec men.
Half turned from the group on the road and avoiding the glaring arc lights, Ryan struggled to pull himself out, succeeding only in toppling facedown into the clinging, stinking ooze.
The waves of laughter were overwhelming, almost deafening.
Gregori Zimyanin didn't laugh as he watched the two clumsy men staggering about, both eventually falling face first into the mud, though he permitted himself a momentary thin smile.
As they emerged, the roars of amusement from the other workers and the sec guards were redoubled. They were like the clowns who occasionally appeared with their crude street theater around the streets of the ville — until Internal Security had them removed for labor training and education.
The taller of the two had thick curly hair, but it was matted to his skull with the mud, his face totally vanished behind a slimy mask. Only the whiteness of his teeth as he grinned sheepishly at his own discomfiture broke the dark image. And his companion, the shorter man with cropped hair, was no better.
"Comrade Corporal," Zimyanin said quietly, finding to his mounting irritation that he needed to repeat himself, this time with a snap of anger in his voice. "Comrade Corporal!"
The man saluted, merriment vanishing from his face like butter off a hot knife. "Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar?"
"The joke is over, Corporal. Get them back to work immediately. This road must be opened again so that we can pursue the American terrorists and saboteurs. Immediately!"
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. Immediately, Comrade Major-Commissar. Whatever you say, Comrade Major-Commissar."
The note of panic was clearly audible to Ryan and J.B., who stood only a few yards away from the sec men and Zimyanin.
"Sounds like a brown pants job there," whispered the mud-caked J.B.
"Sure does. Guess we best start doing us some digging."
"Yeah."
The main object of the exercise was to avoid any attention. Don't dig too slowly and don't dig too fast. Don't do anything else to attract Zimyanin's eyes.
Ryan worked away, putting his back into the labor, shoveling up loads of the thick, wet earth. He threw it up the bank where other men moved it higher, filling the gap in the road — a gap that had already been narrowed nearly enough for the leading wag to squeeze on by. He noticed that the first vehicle was a passenger wag that looked like the front half of an old Mercedes with creative welding adding some unrecognizable parts onto the rear.
He paused for a moment to wipe sweat off his face, careful not to disturb too much the coating of mud that hid his empty eye socket.
The back nearside door of the wag opened and a bizarre figure came scuttling out, shambling along the trail to stand near the pacing Zimyanin.
The mutie was very short and had a filthy length of cloth wound around his lower face. Ryan was sure he recognized the man from Alaska.
He glanced at J.B. and saw that the Armorer had also noticed the small man, nodding at Ryan's unspoken query.
Zimyanin had eyes as sharp as a hunting falcon's. He spotted the exchange of glances between the two mud-caked men and wondered what it was that they'd seen. It also crossed his mind that they seemed unusually well muscled and healthy specimens of the local peasants. And they dug in a measured, professional way. It was odd to see them so nimble on their feet when they'd been falling over each other a few minutes ago. It was almost as if they'd...
Aliev came slinking in from the drizzling rain and plucked at his sleeve, making him lose his train of thought.
"What? Soon. I knowthe rain will make it difficult to follow them." He edged a few steps away from the tracker. It was appalling enough having to share the warm, damp wag with him.
Dawn wasn't too far off and already the weather had hamstrung his plans. They would have been right on the trail of the Americans, but the stolen wag had broken through the barricade and was gone. One thing still plucked at his mind. The statements of the patrol had all insisted that the wag had kept moving, not stopping while still in sight. Which meant that the gunman, or men, might have remained behind, planning to follow on foot and join the wag later.
"Another few minutes at the most, Comrade Major-Commissar," the young noncom said, thinking what a relief it would be to see the taillights of the sec wag vanishing over the horizon.
"Done, Comrade Major-Commissar. It's wide enough for your wag if you drive ahead with care. Good luck in the chase." He snapped a smart salute to Zimyanin.
"Thank you, Comrade Corporal. The Party thanks you and your men for their efforts. Give those diggers a five-ruble food voucher each."
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar." Another crisp salute. "And good riddance, you pox-faced murderous-eyed bastard," he muttered.
Aliev hopped into the back of the wag and Zimyanin climbed into the driver's seat, shouting orders to the redheaded officer in charge of the other military wags in the convoy. The exhaust spouted plumes of blue-grey smoke as the engine revved up.
"Going," J.B. whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
Ryan watched the vehicle, hearing the gears crashing. It jumped and jerked its way along the repaired embankment for nearly a hundred yards before it stopped in a squeal of brakes.
"Sit still, may your eyes rot! Don't keep touching me like!.. What?"
Zimyanin stamped so hard on the brakes that the old autowag slewed viciously sideways and nearly slipped into the muddy river.
The tracker was out of the vehicle before it had skidded to a halt. He paused at the top of the embankment, level with Ryan and J.B., and pointed down at them with a clawed finger.
Zimyanin joined the tracker and drew his Makarov pistol, holding it negligently in his right hand. He called down to the Americans in his best English. "I should have been able to guess the truth. Too nimble to be so clumsy. That is the word? 'Clumsy'? Yes. Come and join me, gentlemen, or I shall perforce pepper you with lead."
Ryan threw down the shovel. "No need. You got us cold. Pleasure to meet you again, Zimyanin. Real pleasure."