“Give me the reports!” he roared, and he cocked the revolver. “Do you think this is a joke? I’ll kill her, and then I’ll kill you.”
Jack believed he would carry out his threat. He lowered the flashlight. Walter was grimacing grotesquely, like someone possessed. “All right! Here. I have them here!” He took the reports from the cupboard and showed them to him.
“Leave them there, on the floor, and step back.”
Jack did as Walter asked.
“This isn’t the way to build a better world, Walter.”
“No? And how would you know? Get back! And you, pick them up,” he ordered Elizabeth.
She obeyed and handed them to him. Jack caught a glimpse of her terrified face in the beam of his flashlight. “You have them. Now let her go!”
“Relax, Jack. Let’s see what we have here.” Walter examined the papers as well as he could to check they were what he was looking for. Then he headed toward the fireplace, dragging Elizabeth with him.
“I’m telling you to let her go!” yelled Jack.
“Oh . . . I’ll get around to that.” He threw the reports onto the embers. The papers took on an orangey glow, before going up in flames. They were consumed in an instant. When there was little left but ash, Walter withdrew.
“You’ve got what you want. Now let her go.”
“Not so fast, Jack. There are two more things to take care of.” He pointed the revolver at Jack.
“Wait!” Jack dipped his hand in his overcoat and pulled out a roll of green bills. “Look! There’s a thousand dollars. You and Sue can buy whatever you want. Take it, it’s yours.”
Walter hesitated. “I don’t need your capitalist money,” he sputtered.
“Nobody will ever know, Walter. You and Sue deserve it after so many years of suffering. Come on. If you don’t take it, someone else will.” The flashlight trembled in his hand. Jack was running out of options.
“All right. Leave the money on the floor. No tricks.”
“Sure. But first let her go.” Jack slowly moved toward the fireplace.
“I said leave it on the floor!” Walter bellowed.
“And I said let her go.” Jack took a couple more steps until he was right beside the embers, which he revived with some pieces of wood.
A gunshot rang out in the room. Jack felt the bullet shatter the tiling at his feet, the fragments hitting his pants. The smell caught in his throat. He had to cough before he could speak again. “Let her go, or the money goes up in flames. Even if you shoot me, I swear I’ll burn it.” He waved the bills over the embers.
“Filthy capitalist! All right. I’ll let her go.” He aimed his gun directly at Jack’s head. “I’ll let her go!” he repeated as Elizabeth walked slowly toward Jack. “No! Not to him. To the side, where I can see you. Now give me the money.”
“OK, Walter. It’s yours. Here.” Jack hurled it at him.
Just as he tossed the roll of bills, he turned off the flashlight and threw himself forward. Walter fired twice.
“Sons of bitches! I’m going to finish you!” He fired again. Several flashes lit up the room.
Suddenly, there was silence.
Jack lay waiting in the darkness, his body protecting Elizabeth and his heart thumping. He didn’t know what had happened, but Elizabeth was motionless. He was about to get up, when the flashlight illuminated him. He thought he was about to die.
“Are you all right?”
Jack was unable to identify the voice that emerged from behind the blinding beam of light. He slowly got to his feet and helped Elizabeth up. Then the beam changed direction and lit Walter’s lifeless body. When he approached the newcomer, Jack saw that it was Yuri.
“We arranged to meet here, remember? That bastard was about to make you burn my money,” muttered Ivan Zarko’s nephew. “I found Joe Brown outside. We were waiting for you, but you were taking too long, so I decided to come and see what was keeping you. Come on. We have to get out of here before the Chekisty show up.”
On the way to the car, Jack asked about the outbreak of violence in the Avtozavod.
“It was just a matter of time. The famine’s decimating the Soviet people. They’re desperate, and Stalin’s presence here incited them. Several groups of armed dissidents have dug themselves in at the Avtozavod and burned some of the buildings; the army will be here soon.”
They reached the car and climbed in. Joe Brown revved the Ford into life, and they drove at full speed in the direction of the cabin where Miquel and the Daniels family had taken refuge. Seeing that they were going away from the city, Elizabeth protested. “We can’t leave!”
“Staying in the city would be suicide,” Yuri promised her. An explosion in the distance supported his argument.
They drove on.
Before long, they turned off down the hidden track that led to the cabin. They stopped the car nearby. The entire place was silent. They cautiously got out and gave the door three quick knocks and two slower ones. The door opened, and they quickly went in. Once inside in the dark, Jack told his companions everything that had happened.
“Sergei Loban! It’s that tyrant’s fault that we’re in this situation,” Elizabeth said, cursing him.
“Sergei? I doubt he has anything to do with tonight,” Yuri declared.
“How could you defend him? The man’s a monster.”
Yuri raised an eyebrow, as if surprised by the young woman’s opinion.
“Elizabeth’s right. Sergei’s behind all of this,” said Jack.
Yuri scratched his chin and spat. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Sergei might be a harsh man, but we know him to be fair. Anyone will say the same thing. If not for him, the OGPU would run rife in Gorky.”
“And that’s why he’s overseeing this indiscriminate killing, is it?”
“I’m telling you, he has nothing to do with it.”
“And how can you be so sure?”
“I see you haven’t heard,” Yuri said, giving a long sigh. “Sergei Loban was arrested early this afternoon and accused of high treason. They’ve removed him from his post and sent him to the ispravdom. Viktor Smirnov is responsible for the massacre. He’s in charge of the OGPU now.”
39
Jack decided to return to Gorky the moment he understood that Natasha Lobanova’s life was in grave danger. Perhaps the photograph in which she appeared with Smirnov had clouded his judgment, but something inside him made him believe in her. Yuri tried to make him see that what he was about to do was madness, but Jack wouldn’t budge. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care what happened to him.
“All right. I’ll come with you, then.”
Outside the cabin, Yuri stopped Jack.
“I didn’t want to ask you before, but what do you plan to do with all these people? You only asked for three passports, plus the one for the Russian girl.”