My Lada hadn’t been damaged beyond smashed sidelights. I got in and cranked the engine and reversed, sweeping the beams of the headlights across the surviving patrolman. He was sitting up now, staring at me, clutching his shattered arm. Tears sparkled on his cheeks, glistening in the halogen glare. He’d lit a fuse that threatened to blow up the border in my face. Russia’s western sector was one of the most highly militarized on earth. His radio call could pull the combined weight of two entire divisions down on me – five thousand troops or more of which were within rapid striking distance of that area alone. Even if the local commanders didn’t know who I was, all that would matter to them was that they were hunting a cop-killer.

As I drove, I dropped the magazine out of the Makarov. Empty. But there was a round in the breech. I juggled the steering wheel and the pistol and put on the replacement clip. Nine bullets in total. Then I felt inside my jacket to make sure the Angel of Death hadn’t taken flight. It hadn’t. Talia’s cell phone and the photograph of Rachel’s calculations were secure, pressed tight to my chest next to the snapshot of my mother.

I checked my watch. Twenty-one thirty. I had ninety minutes to get to the RV before the Russians likely sealed it off for good.

35

I drove north until I reached Krupp. There the road struck out west, through forest. Frozen birch trees inched past the window – silver statues glowing by the verges. Snowflakes the size of moths careered into the windscreen, as if pulled towards the car by the traction of the headlights. I checked the rear-view mirror obsessively, looking for any sign of unwelcome company – but there wasn’t another car on the road.

I was losing time.

I cursed the cops, the delays, the weather. Then I crossed what felt like a small stone bridge. I hit the brakes and slid to a halt and jumped out, running back to check. I shone the police flashlight at the side of the road. It was buried in snow, but I’d driven over the tiny, frozen Piusa River. I got back in and turned left down the next farm track.

I drove cautiously, but the way had been cleared. This was horse country. Most likely tractors were keeping the roads open for supplies to the farms and stables whose lights dotted the clearings between the trees. After a few hundred metres the lane looped back on itself. I crept forward in second gear, searching beyond the white veil clinging to the windscreen for the switchback on to the forest path I hoped would take me to the border. Ten metres, twenty, thirty … I stopped.

Nothing.