The Dark Clouds Shining by David Downing

Author:David Downing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2018-01-24T20:07:25+00:00

Arbatov’s Chasm

Through that day and the next, the train made steady progress across a land growing slowly whiter, barer, less hospitable. On the third morning, they all woke to find the grass was gone; to the south the Aral Sea was reflecting the sun like a vast silver plate left out in the sand.

McColl had considered leaving the train at Orenburg, slipping into the town in the early hours and losing himself in the general confusion. He hadn’t thought Komarov would delay the train to search for a lost interpreter and was as confident as he could be of eventually finding his way out of Russia. He knew where Brady and Co. were going, and was almost certain of what they intended to do when they got there—all that remained was getting the word back to Cumming.

So why had he stayed on the train? He had convinced himself that the nearer they got to Persia, the better his chances of reaching friendly soil. And he had started to wonder whether Cumming had the wherewithal to find and stop a group of renegades that was probably under the protection of both Five and Delhi’s DCI. Or indeed, whether he’d want to as much as McColl did. Gandhi and his fellow stretcher-bearer hadn’t carried Cumming down from Spion Kop, and it hadn’t been Cumming’s foster child that Brady had murdered in Kalanchevskaya Square.

And then of course there was her. The woman he thought he’d seen the last of.

She might still love her husband, as she certainly did her work. But there was no point in kidding himself—he loved her as much as ever.

In the days that followed their departure from Orenburg, Caitlin couldn’t shake the feeling that someone out there was testing her resolve. Sergei’s departure, the carrion pile at Ruzayevka Junction, the roar of hunger at Sorochinsk . . . each accompanied by a cold voice intoning: “See, this is another price to pay. Are you willing to pay this one? If so, we’ll move right on to the next.”

The latest blow had been the news she’d received in Orenburg. Anna Nemtseva, the Zhenotdel worker from Orel for whom she and Kollontai had been seeking justice, had risked going back for a family emergency and been found two days later floating in the Oka River. The local Cheka had explained her death as accident or suicide and put down the gaping head wound to her striking a bridge as she jumped or fell.

Caitlin remembered Anna’s arrival at the Zhenotdel’s door that spring. Even after what the young woman had already been through, she’d been so full of hope for the future.

Had it been misplaced? Had Caitlin’s own? As she’d also discovered that day, the Orenburg Zhenotdel’s three delegates were at the end of their collective tether. Having been vilified, mocked, and obstructed at every turn by their male so-called comrades, the women concerned seemed perilously close to quitting in disgust. In the hour they’d spent together, Caitlin had done her best to provide fresh heart, but couldn’t pretend she’d convinced either them or herself.

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