“The terrible injury that my uncle suffered on the SS Cliffwood? How could an invalid who could barely hold a cup in his hand strangle a man twenty years his junior and hurl his body over a balustrade?”
Jack cursed himself before punching the nearest wall. How could he have been so stupid not to have realized it before? What Elizabeth was saying was so obvious that even a child would have considered it. He cursed himself again. Without question, Smirnov had given false evidence at Sergei’s behest in order to implicate Hewitt in a crime so vile that it would dissolve any trace of his innocence in the eyes of the jurors. He didn’t know how to respond to Elizabeth, but at that moment, the revelation was irrelevant, as were McMillan’s accounting records and the name Vladimir Mamayev. No secret report was going to stop those who had lied and hatched this plot, nor would it prevent them from coming after Jack and Elizabeth. When he tried to explain it to the young woman, she turned on him.
“What secret reports are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Your uncle’s condemned. We have to escape.”
“Escape? Is that all you can think of?”
“And what would you have us do? Turn up in Stalin’s bedroom and demand a fair trial? Don’t kid yourself. Come on!” He took her wrist to make her go with him.
“Let go of me!”
“What the hell is wrong with you, Elizabeth? If we don’t escape now—”
“All you know how to do is run away. Just like you ran away from New York so you wouldn’t go down for the shooting.”
“What?” Jack turned pale. He couldn’t believe what Elizabeth had said.
“Did you really think nobody would find out? Nobody would know you were a fugitive?”
“But, how . . . ?” Jack imagined that Walter must have somehow revealed the details of his landlord’s death to her.
“It’s all in here,” she said. She took an old copy of the New York Times from inside her dressing gown and waved it at him. “In the local news section, dated the day before the SS Cliffwood set sail.”
Jack was silent, feeling the blood pulse in his temples at a feverish rate. “It . . . it was an accident,” he finally managed to sputter.
“Oh yeah? Well, here it says a guy named Kowalski reported you for shooting him and running away with his money.”
“What did you say? He reported me?” Jack didn’t understand. How the hell could a dead man have reported him? “Give it here!”
He snatched the paper from her and read the article closely. When he’d finished, he slumped into an armchair. It was impossible. The last paragraph of the piece explained that Kowalski had suffered only a minor injury.
The thunder of a burst of gunfire tore him from his daze. He was no murderer! If he’d known that Kowalski was alive, he could have stayed in the United States and proved his innocence; proved that he hadn’t stolen from his landlord, much less fired at him on purpose. And if he hadn’t killed him, why had Walter lied to him? Why had he told him that Kowalski was dead?
Jack let out a scream that resounded around the entire house. If he’d had Walter in front of him, he would have beaten him to death. He cursed him. That rat whom he’d considered a friend, who had offered to escape with him to the Soviet Union to save him from the electric chair; that heartless bastard had deceived him and made him believe that he was a murderer just so Jack would accompany him on his brainless adventure, to use him for his knowledge of the Russian language, without caring that he was ruining his life.
He had never hated anyone so coldly, so profoundly. He’d never felt so betrayed. He stuffed the article into his coat and roared with fury again, while Elizabeth stared in astonishment at Jack’s transformation into a beast thirsty for revenge.
Some bangs on the door made him come around. He jumped up and ran to a window to see who was knocking. It was a stranger begging for help. Jack had no time to react. A car braked sharply next to him; then someone got out and shot the man in the head. Jack closed the window and turned to Elizabeth, who was screaming. “We have to go!”
“No! I’m not going without my uncle,” she said, filled with terror.
Jack could see that he’d have to remove her by force, but told himself that it would be sensible to wait until she had calmed down. “All right. I’ll go fetch the car, drop by the store to take what’s left, and come back for you. You wait here. We’ll see what we can do for your uncle,” he said to reassure her. “Here. Take this key. When I go, lock the door, hide upstairs, and don’t open up for anyone. Understood? Understood?”
She nodded, her eyes filled with tears. Jack hugged her. He promised her that everything would be OK, told her again to hide, and left in the direction of Ivan Zarko’s abandoned repair shop.
Despite the frost, the Ford Model A rumbled into life. Jack waited for Yuri to open the repair shop door, then slowly rolled the vehicle onto the paved street.
“We’ll meet at my house later. I’ll pay you the rest there,” Jack said to him.
Jack accelerated away. He drove through the night at full speed with the headlamps off, following the dim glow of the moon. The gunfire and screams continued. As he approached the American village, he saw fires blazing. He considered turning back, but he needed supplies, or he and Elizabeth would starve to death. He skirted around the village and headed toward the rear entrance of the store. He parked and went in. Outside, the gunshots reminded him that one false move could be his end. Still, he was driven by a cold-blooded desire. Even if it was the last thing he did in the Soviet Union before escaping, he was determined to find Walter and take his revenge.
He turned on the flashlight he’d brought from the car. The beam illuminated the bare walls. Someone had been there before him. There was nothing left on the shelves. He was about to leave when suddenly he noticed a crouched form in front of him. “Who is it?” he yelled. His heart skipped a beat.
There was no response. He aimed the flashlight at the point where he thought he heard some muttering. He was about to retreat, when a pair of powerful arms suddenly grabbed him from behind and began to asphyxiate him. Jack struggled. He tried to free himself, but whoever was holding him had the strength of a bear. He could barely breathe. He gripped the flashlight like a mace and hit back with all his might, but he missed his target. He was beginning to feel his life force leaving him. In a final attempt, with a two-handed blow, he made contact with his assailant’s head. The man, stunned, released Jack and fell to the ground. Then Jack leapt on him, intending to ram the flashlight into his head. He sat astride the man’s chest, about to strike him, when he recognized the man beneath him.
“Joe?” Incredulous, he stopped the deadly blow midswing.