The Outfit by David Tallerman

Author:David Tallerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

TWELVE

PATSIA WAS FIRST to see the convoy.

She’d been hearing it for several seconds by then, over the hubbub of the square and the surrounding streets, as a growing rattle that penetrated to her bones. Or had that been only her excitement? It was as though every cell in her body was tingling. What could be more thrilling than this, than being a bank robber and a revolutionary, and being young, and being here on this perfectly warm day with a gun stowed inside her purse?

There were two carriages. One contained the staff of the bank, as they’d been told to expect: the men in drab suits were an accountant and a cashier. They had four guards with them, and looked cramped and miserable, as anyone might in their circumstances. Patsia felt dimly sorry for them; but then, if they didn’t want to robbed, they’d chosen the wrong profession. Anyway, she was more concerned by the second carriage, which was a phaeton and filled to brimming with soldiers, not to mention equipped with a mounted gun. As if guards and soldiers weren’t enough, there was also an entourage of stiffly riding Cossacks, two in front, two behind, and one to each side. Put them together and you practically had an army.

Well, Patsia comforted herself, silencing the tremor of fear that danced up her spine, so do we.

Even as she finished the thought, she was startled by a conflicting set of hooves. Equally startled were the guards, soldiers, and Cossacks, all of whom became immediately tenser. But unlike Patsia, who was forced to take a hasty step back from the edge of the street, they relaxed when they saw that the disturbance was being caused by a cavalry officer, riding at full pelt and paying them no notice.

That distraction was as good as Patsia was likely to get. Breaking into a run, cursing at the ungainly outfit she’d been obliged to wear, she wondered if the cavalryman was who she supposed he was. She hadn’t seen his face, not sufficiently to note whether one eye was hidden by a patch. But if it had been Kamo, what was he doing, riding helter-skelter in the wrong direction? It couldn’t be cowardice, Patsia had never met a man more oblivious to its temptations in all of her admittedly brief life. So had the job been called off? Yet Tiflis was positively swarming with youthful cavalry officers, and she’d no means to be sure it was him.

She drove the question from her mind. Even if Kamo had abandoned them, what happened next didn’t depend on his presence. In fact, currently it depended on her. She summoned an extra burst of speed, sacrificing any semblance of dignity and hoping that the indecorum of a woman tearing down the street wouldn’t alert the convoy that something was amiss.

Her sides were heaving by the time she turned the corner and came within sight of the Pushkin Gardens. She had no breath with which to shout, nor did she believe that shouting, with the leading Cossacks on her heels, would be advisable.

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