At four in the afternoon Antoninu Florian’s stolen ZorKi Zavod limousine nosed down the hill and out of the raion through the Purfas Gate. Lom held the Blok 15 in his lap, hidden under the flap of his coat. Safety catch off. Florian showed a warrant card. The VKBD corporal leaned over to look into the back of the car. Lom faced front, eyes down, and tried to look bored.
‘Stand aside, soldier,’ said Florian. ‘No questions. Nothing to see.’
The corporal waved them through.
Florian drove the ZorKi with practised smoothness through residential streets and garden squares. Railings and snow. Money houses, finial-ridged with gables and balconies and porches and garaging for cars, set back behind lawns and laurel hedges. The kind of places where bankers and high Vlast officials made their homes. It was a part of the city Lom hadn’t seen before. Apart from a few horse-drawn droshkis and private karetas they had the roads to themselves. A gendarme in a kiosk on a street corner saluted them as they passed. Saluted the pennant. Florian nodded in acknowledgement, expressionless.
‘I have to find Maroussia,’ said Lom.
‘I know,’ said Florian. ‘You said.’
‘You know what happened to her? You know where she is?’
‘Chazia sent an upyr last night,’ said Florian. ‘Its name was Bez. Bez Nichevoi. Bez found Maroussia and took her to the Lodka.’
‘I should have been with her.’
‘It’s fortunate you were not.’
‘I could have stopped it,’ said Lom. ‘I could have protected her.’
‘No. You would be dead.’
Lom shrugged. ‘Possibly.’
‘You said its name was Bez.’
‘Yes.’
‘You said was.’
‘It was a bad thing. It carried many deaths. I burned it.’
The car rolled past tall stuccoed houses. Cherry trees in gardens, leafless now. The snow had been swept from the pavements and piled along the kerb. Twisting on the polished leather bench, Lom could see behind them on the skyline a column of distant smoke drifting up and disappearing into low misty cloud.
‘This isn’t the way to the Lodka,’ he said.
‘No.’
Lom leaned forward. Jabbed the muzzle of the Blok 15 into Florian’s neck.
‘Then turn the fucking car around.’
Florian sighed and pulled in, ploughing the ZorKi’s passenger-side fender deep into a heaped-up ridge of snow on the side of the road.
‘Don’t look back,’ said Lom. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them. On the wheel.’
Florian did as he was told.
‘Where are we going?’ said Lom. ‘Where are you taking me? We have to get to the Lodka. That’s where Maroussia is.’
‘No,’ said Florian quietly. ‘Maroussia was in the Lodka, but now she is not. The Vlast is abandoning Mirgorod to the Archipelago. The government is relocating eastwards to Kholvatogorsk, but Chazia is going further, to Novaya Zima with the Pollandore, and she is taking Maroussia with her. Their train will have left by now. The journey will not be straightforward: it will take them many days, perhaps a week, perhaps more. We also, as you may have observed, are travelling east and we will be quicker. Much quicker. We will reach Novaya Zima before Chazia’s train and we will have time to prepare before they arrive. So unless you have a better plan, please be so good as to stop waving your dick around in the back of my car.’
‘How do you know all this?’ said Lom.
‘I was in the Lodka last night.’
‘You were in the Lodka?’
‘She is alive,’ said Florian. ‘Beyond that, I cannot say, but she is alive, depend on it. Chazia will preserve her. The upyr took her. It did not kill her.’
‘Then we have to find that train.’
Florian shook his head.
‘The train they are travelling on is also carrying an extraordinary cargo. It will go by a special route prepared in advance under conditions of extreme secrecy. We have no chance of catching up with it before it reaches its destination. But even if we could… It is a military train. An armoured train. Soldiers. A mudjhik. A well guarded mobile prison. No. My plan is better. Come with me.’
‘Come with you?’ said Lom. ‘Who the fuck are you? Why would I trust a single thing you’ve said?’
Florian twisted in his seat and pushed Lom’s gun aside.
‘There is no time for this,’ he said, locking eyes with Lom. His irises were green, flecked with amber. ‘Come with me to Novaya Zima, Vissarion. Together we will do what needs to be done. Or get out of the car now, if you think you can do better alone.’
Lom stared into Florian’s face. He wished he could read something more in those deep, wise, dangerous eyes, but he could not. He had to make a choice, but it was no choice, not really. He sank back into the wide leather bench and slipped the Blok 15 into the pocket of his coat.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. Drive.’