Katya is almost asleep already. “With a better head than theirs. And a stronger spirit. Sleep now, girl.”
“By morning they’ll be here. We’ll receive them properly.” Katya blacks out almost at once.
The last thing she sees is the blind old man tossing bundles of herbs into the fire. The smoke grows thick and sweet and strange. She dreams.
Not of tanks and planes. Of wolves.
She stands in a white field while wolves come toward her. But they have human faces.
Major Ryabov. Rat. Ivashin.
“You’re a killer, Katya,” they say together. “There’s no place for you among decent people. Come with us.”
She raises her rifle, but it turns into a snake and bites her hand. Katya jerks awake. Morning.
The dugout is pale with daylight. The old man sits nearby sharpening a large knife on a stone. “Up,” he says. “They crossed the creek. One hour, maybe less.”
Katya gets to her feet. Her head is clear. Her muscles ache, but they work. Hot food and sleep have done what they could.
“I need to go. I’ll draw them away from you, old man. Otherwise they’ll kill you too.”
The old man smiles with his toothless mouth. “They can’t kill me. I’ve already died three times. You live. Look there.”
He pulls aside a hide on the far wall. Behind it is a hidden passage. A narrow tunnel leading into the mountain.
“Old mine shaft. My grandfather’s people dug copper here. It comes out on the far side of the ridge, near the railroad.”
“But the mountain takes cowards. Don’t let it smell fear.” “Thank you,” Katya says.
She starts to embrace him, but he pulls back. “Leave me the thunder-stick. Your rifle.”
“What for? They’re armed.” She stares at him.
The blind old man wants to stop an armed pursuit team alone? That’s suicide. “No. I’m not leaving you unarmed.”
“You’re not listening,” he says kindly. “I don’t need it to shoot. I need it to fool them. Go.”
Katya crawls into the tunnel. It is narrow, damp, and smells of earth and old stone. Behind her, the old man remains in the dugout.
He lays Katya’s rifle on the table facing the door. Then he ties a cord from the trigger to the door latch. An old partisan trick.
Twenty minutes later Katya crawls out on the far side of the ridge. The wind there is even worse. Then she hears it.
A heavy blast. Human shouting.
They reached the dugout. His trap worked—or he did something else entirely. Black smoke rises from the chimney. The dugout is burning.
Katya drops to one knee in the snow. Hot tears freeze on her cheeks. Another life spent buying her time.
Lute, though she lived. Rat’s women. Now this blind old man. “How many?” she shouts into the wind. “How many people have to pay so I can keep breathing?”
The wind gives no answer. But now she has no rifle. Only Ivashin’s pistol and seven rounds. And the map.
And anger. Cold, clean anger. Ahead is a high pass. Beyond it, the railroad.
But between Katya and freedom still stands Ivashin. She heard his voice before the blast. He’s alive. And furious.
This is no longer a pursuit. It’s a hunt. And the animal has finally been cornered.
The wind on the pass doesn’t just blow. It scrapes at flesh like sandpaper. Up here, a thousand feet above the tree line, there is no cover.
Only rock, ice, and a low gray sky. Katya crawls.
Standing upright would get her blown into the ravine. She claws her way along the slope, frostbitten fingers gripping stone. She had to abandon the skis at the mine exit.
They were useless on rock. Now she’s on foot. In her coat pocket is the pistol. Seven rounds. Seven small pieces of lead against the world.
She curses herself for leaving the rifle with the old man. With a sniper rifle she’d own this pass. She could take down anyone who showed himself.
With a pistol, fifty yards is about all she can count on. In the mountains, that’s nothing. But she also knows the old man was right.
The rifle in his hands bought her time. If Ivashin survived, he lost precious minutes storming an empty dugout. That hour is the only reason she still has a chance.
Below her, the valley opens up. The forest looks like a black sea. Cutting through it is a thin line of railroad track.
A road of life and death. Coal goes south on it. Prisoners go north. Katya sees smoke in the distance.
A dark column. A locomotive. Moving slowly uphill.
That train is her chance. If she can get to the tracks before it passes, she lives. If not, the next one may not come for a day.
And a day in this cold is too much. Katya starts down the slope. She slides through scree, tears her knees open, and keeps going.
Pain is just background now. So is the wind. She descends for an hour. Then another. The tracks are less than a mile away.
The train whistle sounds. Long and lonely, echoing off the mountain. Then Katya stops dead.
Instinct. The old sniper’s sixth sense. Something is wrong near the base of the slope where the trail reaches the rail bed. The snow there is too smooth. Too clean.
And above it, behind a line of rocks, she catches a flash. Glass. Binoculars, maybe. Katya drops behind a boulder.
They’re here already. They didn’t follow her through the mine.
They went around the mountain on skis and set up where the tunnel comes out. Ivashin knows his own map. He simply waited at the exit.
Classic security work. Don’t chase the rabbit. Wait at the hole. Katya peeks carefully.
Three men. One with a heavy machine gun near the rail bed. Two with submachine guns on the flanks higher up.
Their fire covers everything. No way through. Ivashin himself is nowhere in sight.
Probably directing from cover. Maybe in a rail car. It’s a checkmate position. The train will be here in twenty minutes.
The machine gun blocks the only path. Katya has a pistol. Distance: three hundred yards.
So this is how it ends? She grips the pistol until her knuckles whiten. You survive war, prison, the woods, and die a hundred yards from freedom.
She studies the ground. Left: a sheer rock wall. Right: open slope, perfect killing ground for the machine gunner.
Ahead: rocks and waiting men. The only option is to make them nervous enough to make a mistake. But she has no margin for error.
Then the weather changes. Fog rolls down from the pass. Thick, white, freezing fog—the front edge of another storm.
It pours over the slope fast, swallowing rock, trees, men. Visibility drops to ten yards. That is her opening.
In fog, a heavy machine gun is nearly useless. In fog, hearing matters more than sight. Katya exhales slowly.
She gets up and starts down. Not running. Soft-footed. Quiet. Cat-quiet. She steps into the white.
The world disappears. There is only gray. She counts her steps. One hundred. Two hundred.
Somewhere ahead are the men. Then—crunch of snow. To her right.
Someone moving carefully. Katya freezes. She becomes all ears.
“Petrov, where are you?” someone whispers. “Here. Can’t see a thing, Lieutenant.”
“Maybe she didn’t come down yet. Ivashin said hold here and watch.” Katya understands: they’re nervous. They’re afraid of her.
The legend of the sniper is working for her. She takes one step. Then another. A shape appears in the fog at five yards.
A man in white camouflage with a submachine gun. His back is to her. He’s peering uphill. Katya slowly raises the pistol.
Shoot?
