CHAPTER 31

They weren’t yellow. Not wolves. But the eyes were diseased, glowing in the darkness, a dark shade of blue that was shot through with red. McCall remained absolutely still. He could wait, but the creature could wait longer. After three minutes McCall moved again. There was no sound of the animal following, but the glowing eyes were gone. McCall knew there were more of them. He’d had intel about packs of wild dogs roaming throughout the forests of Siberia, particularly on Sakhalin Island. But there were packs of wild dogs all through Russia. On the streets of Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Statistically you were more likely to get bitten by a dog on a Moscow street than mugged.

Not all of the packs of wild dogs were rabid, but he’d seen the disease in that one mongrel’s eyes. If one was rabid, they all were.

He heard a cry from behind him.

McCall ran back into the clearing.

Twenty wild dogs had surrounded the old ruins.

Serena’s figure was pressed back into the stones. She had no way of escaping. She clutched a large stone in one hand. She was frightened, but it was not the terror of looking up at the monster in the interrogation room she had believed was Arbon, the Devil. There was a wild look now in her eyes. She would smash the rock against the head of the first dog that attacked her.

And she’d be dead within a few seconds.

She still wore the heavy overcoat with the Kedr submachine gun in one of the pockets. But she couldn’t use it and neither could McCall. The gunfire would summon the Russian troops to them, and right now McCall believed they were some distance away and going in the wrong direction.

But he could use the coat.

He picked some rocks out of the snow and hurled them. He hit three of the dogs, who yelped, turning. Two more turned and snarled. The pack started to lose interest in Serena and creep toward him. He knew they wouldn’t make a real move.

Not yet.

Not until the alpha dog made its move.

McCall wasn’t sure which of them it was. He didn’t think the alpha was in the clearing. It had sent the pack on ahead. McCall moved slowly, but showing no fear, toward the ruins. He didn’t want to shout. He gestured to Serena. Throw it to me! At first she misunderstood and hefted the large rock in her hands.

He shook his head and mouthed: Throw me the coat.

Now she got it.

She slowly took off the overcoat and shivered violently. He circled closer to the ruins, keeping the dog pack in his line of vision the entire time. He reached out a hand and she threw him the overcoat. He caught it.

What had to be the alpha dog ran out of the trees like a blur.

No slinking into the scene, no caution, no assessing the situation.

The alpha dog had already done all the processing it needed.

It attacked.

McCall grabbed the Kedr submachine gun out of one of the big pockets in one hand and wrapped the overcoat around his right arm. The alpha dog hit him with the force of a linebacker on a football field. McCall fell hard and his head hit a rock hidden in the snow. He blacked out for a second and felt the hot, fetid breath of the wild dog on his face. He opened his eyes to see the creature’s jaws open, the teeth, yellow and dripping with saliva, going for his throat.

McCall twisted. The dog was not heavy. It was scrawny and hungry. But it was not to be shaken off. It snarled and snapped at McCall’s face until McCall was able to throw up his overcoat-wrapped arm. He shoved it into the alpha dog’s mouth and its jaws clamped over it. They were so sharp they bit almost through the doubled-up material right to his arm. McCall clubbed at the dog with the barrel of the sub, smashing it against the side of the rabid animal’s head. It had little effect, although blood spurted from the creature’s ear.

McCall could feel the other dogs feeding off the energy and ferocity of the attack. He saw movement in his peripheral vision. He turned the Kedr around, instinctively to fire, but it was Serena who had moved. She leaped out of the hut, smashing the rock against the alpha dog’s head. Behind her, McCall sensed the movement of the others, stirring, edging closer, but they wouldn’t attack until they saw what happened to their leader.

Serena’s blow distracted the alpha dog long enough for McCall to shift on the cold ground. He dropped the Kedr into the snow, reached into his trouser pocket, and came out with a large penknife. He tried to snap up the blade, but couldn’t do it. The alpha was thrashing wildly and McCall’s head was turning almost as wildly back and forth.

Serena grabbed the knife out of McCall’s hand, snapped up the blade, and stabbed it down into the alpha dog’s head, just above the ear. It howled and the pressure on McCall’s wrapped-up arm diminished. She should have gone for the creature’s eye, and maybe she knew that, but its head was away from her.

It gave McCall the second he needed.

He twisted half off the ground and pulled his arm away from the dog’s jaws.

Serena pulled off her prison pajama top and dropped it over the alpha dog’s head, which was no mean feat, as it was still thrashing violently. McCall unwrapped the big overcoat a couple of twists and threw it over the alpha’s head. Now it was thrashing completely blind.

McCall threw the diseased creature off, rolled over onto him, and grabbed the knife from Serena’s shaking hand. He held it, ready to use it, his other arm around the dog’s throat now. He pulled back against the dog’s throat with all of his strength. He didn’t want to kill the animal. The rest of the pack would do that for him if the alpha dog failed in its attack and was lying injured. McCall kept up the pressure, rearing up, like he was fighting a big fish bucking on a fishing line. Slowly the convulsions of the dog diminished. McCall jerked on the wild dog’s throat with one final, vicious twist and the creature slumped forward, unmoving.

McCall stood up fast. He threw off the overcoat, then grabbed the prison shirt off the dog’s face and tossed it to Serena, who stood half-naked and shivering in the cold. She put it back on. McCall closed the bloody blade on the knife, grabbed the fallen Kedr from the ground, and took Serena’s arm.

The alpha dog lay motionless, its face bloody.

The other wild dogs were still, watching, but whimpering now, a low keening sound that was like something from Hell.

McCall unfurled the overcoat and put it around Serena’s shoulders. They backed up, away from the pack of wild dogs, their eyes never leaving them. They walked behind the ruined building.

And then they ran.

There was no sound of the wild dog pack coming after them.

There were snarls and the awful sound of jaws snapping as they tore the alpha dog apart. One of them would become the new alpha.

McCall had no desire to stick around for the ceremony.

He and Serena plunged into the thickest part of the woods. Branches of the trees tore and clawed at them again. Their hands and faces were both cut and bruised, but they kept on running. Then, ahead of them, the trees were not so tightly packed together. They came out of them, not into a clearing, but into a space the size of a prison cell. McCall signaled for them to stop. Serena tried to regulate her breathing. They found a huge fallen log and sat on it. She pulled the overcoat tighter around her. She looked down at the ground. Her voice came out in fitful bursts between breaths.

“If you had really been Arbon, the Devil, I would have told you everything. About The Company, Control, agents’ names, safe houses. Everything.”

“Except I wasn’t. And you didn’t.”

She continued to stare down at the ground. She shook her head. Her voice was a little stronger.

“I’d have told him.”

“Me, too.”

She looked up at him. “No.”

“Everyone has a breaking point. In fear, in love, in grief. Better not to know what it is until you have to.”

She looked out into the dark forest. The moon was going in and out of clouds, throwing pale splintered light through the trees and then extinguishing it.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked.

“Keep going.”

“That’s not a plan.”

“Best I can do on the spur of the moment.”

She took in a deep breath and let it out again.

“So wonderful to breathe the night air. To walk … to run … even if it is away from men with guns and rabid dogs. I didn’t remember what all this space around me could feel like.”

McCall nodded. He didn’t appear to be listening.

“Is this a good moment to thank you for saving my life?”

“It’s what I’m paid to do.”

“I can still thank you. We’re not strangers anymore,” she said softly.

She kissed him gently on the cheek.

He stood up.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed. “What can you hear? The dogs?”

“No, it’s in front of us.”

A sound had been creeping into the heavy silence of the night. A low, slightly shrill thrumming noise. At first he couldn’t place it. Serena tried to get to her feet, but staggered. He steadied her and pulled her up beside him. She listened hard.

“What is that noise?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Are those voices I can hear?”

“Yes.”

“You said there wasn’t a town or a village within thirty miles.”

“There’s not.”

“So what is that?”

“It’s a train,” McCall said, finally recognizing the sound. “Not moving, idling, stopped on the tracks.”

There was no train stop in the area, he knew that, but the tracks did run through the forest. McCall looked at her. Okay to move on? She had regulated her breathing. She still shivered violently, even in the big overcoat. It was open at the front. McCall could see her breasts thrusting against her thin pajama top, the nipples hard in the cold. He buttoned up the coat. She smiled at him. Took his hand and held it tightly.

They ran through the trees. They started to peter out quickly. Through them, McCall could see the train on the tracks, gleaming in the moonlight.

It had stopped.

It took them another few strides to reach the edge of the trees and see what had happened. It was a horrific accident. There was an old gray VAZ-2107 that had been flipped thirty yards and landed on its side, upside-down. The front of it was crushed. It must have stalled on the tracks, or the teenagers inside had raced the train. McCall could reenact the tragic scenario in his mind. The train driver slamming on the brakes, sparks flying from the rails—too late. The train had ground to a halt some sixty yards on. There were two bodies lying beside the wrecked vehicle with a blanket thrown over them. Glass was strewn everywhere with a few pieces of twisted metal. Amazingly one headlamp on the wrecked vehicle was still on, throwing a square of bright radiance onto the ground. There was a crowd of spectators around the tragic scene, passengers from the train. A couple of train personnel and the conductor were conferring to one side. Faces were pressed against the windows of the carriages.

McCall hated to do it, but Serena needed shoes.

“Stay here,” he said.

He ran across the edge of the forest until he was parallel with the wrecked VAZ and the bodies. Then he walked forward, as if drawn by the tragedy like the others. The people already there looked at him, a little guiltily, as if they had been caught doing something very wrong.

The blast of the train whistle made all of them jump. Almost as one, they turned back toward the train. The conductor was shouting in Russian, waving an arm, telling them to come back.

Four rail personnel were pushing through the crowd, two of them carrying stretchers.

Quickly McCall knelt beside the blanket and removed the shoes from the dead teenage girl’s feet. They were Jive silver yellow cab sneakers. He straightened and lost himself in part of the crowd, all of them with their backs to him. The train guards knelt down and lifted the bodies of the two teenagers onto the stretchers. They carried them back toward the train through the dispersing crowd.

McCall ran along the edge of the forest. Serena was still in its shadow. He reached her and dropped the yellow cab sneakers onto the ground. She thrust her bare, bleeding feet into them. They were a tight fit, but better than nothing. McCall took her hand and they ran out of the protection of the trees.

People were climbing back onto the train, moving through the bright windows in the various carriages. Nothing they could do about this sudden tragedy. McCall noted one businessman, in a window, looking down irritated at his watch. The death of two innocents was making him late for whatever awaited him in Moscow.

McCall and Serena reached the steel steps between two of the carriages. He pushed her up ahead of him and climbed up. They entered the carriage to their right. It was not full. Some people were still standing at the windows looking out into the bloody night.

They made their way to one of the rows of seats on the side of the carriage not looking out on the tragedy. Serena took the seat by the window. McCall slid into the seat beside her. Across from them sat a heavyset woman in her fifties, folds of flesh making little pigs of her eyes and erasing her chin and neck. She wore an old black coat and a flowered dress beneath it and flat shoes. She reacted to their sudden presence. They had not been sitting there before.

“It’s crowded in the next carriage,” McCall said, in Russian. “Not so many people in here. We’re not disturbing you, are we?”

The old woman just shook her head. Whether she believed him or not, she didn’t want to talk to a stranger. She certainly didn’t think they had just boarded the train here in the forest on this desolate section of track.

McCall waited to see if any of the onlookers turned back and found their seats occupied. They didn’t. The conductor came through, telling them all to take their seats, the train was pulling out. In fact, it had already started to move. He glanced at McCall and Serena and stopped. If he asked them right now for their tickets, and discovered they had none, he would put two-and-two together and realize they’d only just boarded the train.

The Kedr sub was in the pocket of the overcoat, which Serena had pulled over her body like a blanket.

The ticket conductor looked down at her scratched face, then looked at McCall.

“Terrible thing,” the conductor said in Russian.

“Da,” McCall said.

“The driver did not see them in time. He was not going fast through this stretch of forest. He braked, but it was too late. You could hear those brakes yeah? Screaming in the night. There was nothing he could do.”

“It is a tragedy,” McCall said in Russian, and then shrugged. Like these things happen, so what? He looked down at the watch on his wrist—Gredenko’s watch. “What time will we get into Moscow now?”

“Just over three hours.”

McCall nodded curtly, then indicated Serena beside him, wrapped in the overcoat, shoes on her feet.

“My friend wants to sleep,” he said in Russian.

The conductor shook his head at such disregard for human tragedy and the loss of innocent life and moved on. The train picked up speed. McCall caught one last fleeting glimpse of the wrecked VAZ through the far window before it was replaced by forest glowing in the moonlight.

He didn’t know how many stops there were before the train pulled into Moscow. He knew that he and Serena would get off at the next one.

Because there might be another conductor, and he might not be so easily fooled, if he was fooled at all. Word of their escape, and the manhunt going on for them in the forest, would be reaching new ears by now.

McCall closed his eyes.

The ping was like a gunshot in the silence.